Posted on 02/23/2005 4:52:17 PM PST by perfect stranger
Posted: February 23, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 Universal Press Syndicate
In response to the public disgrace and ruin of New York Times editor Howell Raines, CBS anchor Dan Rather and CNN news director Eason Jordan, liberals are directing their fury at the blogs. Once derided as people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas, now obscure writers for unknown websites are coming under more intensive background checks than CIA agents.
The heretofore-unknown Jeff Gannon of the heretofore-unknown "Talon News" service was caught red-handed asking friendly questions at a White House press briefing. Now the media is hot on the trail of a gay escort service that Gannon may have run some years ago. Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a website where I can go to and find out how the Democrats want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?
Liberals keep rolling out a scrolling series of attacks on Gannon for their Two Minutes Hate, but all their other charges against him fall apart after three seconds of scrutiny. Gannon's only offense is that he may be gay.
First, liberals claimed Gannon was a White House plant who received a press pass so that he could ask softball questions – a perk reserved for New York Times reporters during the Clinton years. Their proof was that while "real" journalists (like Jayson Blair) were being denied press passes, Gannon had one, even though he writes for a website that no one has ever heard of – but still big enough to be a target of liberal hatred! (By the way, if writing for a news organization with no viewers is grounds for being denied a press pass, why do MSNBC reporters have them?)
On the op-ed page of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd openly lied about the press pass, saying: "I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the 'Barberini Faun' is credentialed?"
Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from "Talon News" got one, even if he is a better reporter.
But Dowd was talking about two different passes without telling her readers (a process now known in journalism schools as "Dowdification"). Gannon didn't have a permanent pass; he had only a daily pass. Almost anyone can get a daily pass – even famed Times fantasist Maureen Dowd could have gotten one of those. A daily pass and a permanent pass are altogether different animals. The entire linchpin of Dowd's column was a lie. (And I'm sure the Times' public editor will get right on Dowd's deception.)
Finally, liberals expressed shock and dismay that Gannon's real name is "James Guckert." On MSNBC's "Hardball," Chris Matthews introduced the Gannon scandal this way: "Coming up, how did a fake news reporter from a right-wing website get inside the White House press briefings and presidential news conferences?"
Reporter David Shuster then gave a report on "the phony alias Guckert used to play journalist" – as opposed to the real name Shuster uses to play journalist. (You can tell Schuster is a crackerjack journalist because he uses phrases like "phony alias.") With all the subtlety of a gay-bashing skinhead, Matthews spent the rest of the segment seeing how many times he could smear Gannon by mentioning "HotMilitaryStuds.com" and laughing.
Any day now, Matthews will devote entire shows to exposing Larry Zeigler, Gerald Riviera and Michael Weiner – aka Larry King, Geraldo Rivera and Matthews' former MSNBC colleague Michael Savage. As a newspaper reporter, Wolf Blitzer has written under the names Ze'ev Blitzer and Ze'ev Barak. The greatest essayist of modern times was Eric Blair, aka George Orwell. The worst essayist of modern times is "TRB" of The New Republic.
Air America radio host and "Nanny" impersonator "Randi Rhodes" goes by a fake name, and she won't even tell people what her real last name is. (She says for "privacy reasons." That name must be a real doozy.) As Insideradio.com describes Rhodes, she refuses "to withhold anything from her listeners" and says conservatives "are less likely to share such things." How about sharing your name, Randi? We promise not to laugh.
Democrats in Congress actually demanded that an independent prosecutor investigate how Gannon got into White House press conferences while writing under an invented name. How did Gary Hartpence, Billy Blythe and John Kohn (Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and John Kerry) run for president under invented names? Admittedly, these men were not reporters for the prestigious "Talon News" service; they were merely Democrats running for president.
Liberals keep telling us the media isn't liberal, but in order to retaliate for the decimation of major news organizations like the New York Times, CBS News and CNN, all they can do is produce the scalp of an obscure writer for an unknown conservative Web page. And unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, they can't even get Gannon for incompetence on the job. (Also unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, Gannon has appeared on television and given a series of creditable interviews in his own defense, proving our gays are more macho than their straights.)
Gannon didn't write about gays. No "hypocrisy" is being exposed. Liberals' hateful, frothing-at-the-mouth campaign against Gannon consists solely of their claim that he is gay.
LOL
Back in the Sixties???
Yea, the skinheads get the bum's rush it seems. This is a sick forum being as it supports Bush and the prostitutes and tricks in the WH.
Heck, let's sign up at some other sites and bash this place, what do you say?
Oh, and BTW I agree. Barney Frank and his "boys" doing business in his basement should be given a pass.
argh ... you're killin' me ...Your constructions of logic, while they possess a certain symmetrical aspect, fall apart when attempts are made to connect any conclusions you have come up with this evening to reality.
You should have a crystal lens placed in your navel, so that you may see to navigate, as it is presumed that your eyes are mounted on your head, and said appendage is thrust so far up your rectal orfice there is no other way to gain a view of the outside world.
There's an "I" missing in your anal fixation.
The old media lies, lies, lies, and they are after us also.
The old media lies, lies, lies, and they are after us also.
LOL! Annie sure has a way with words.
;-)
I agree. Sharper than the sharpest fine cheddar cheese. I love the way she slices and dices (Vegomatic) in print...... she's not as excellent on television, imo. And that's most likely because there is never enought time for Annie to sharpen her assorted blades on tv!
;-)
;-)
With that said, I do not believe AC is a being two-faced. I get her point that while Dems say that gays are okay and should be treated equally, they can't wait to out a gay if that person gets in there way.
You love the truth so much, name the closet queens.
This is really the same old story - the Left only like "minorities" if said minority shares their political opinion. I have no idea who Gannon is - it sounds like he's got something of a contradiction between public and private personae. It was not the job of the White House to get information on whether this contradiction existed in order to issue him with a simple daily pass to a press conference. Nor was it the job of the White House to tell him to ask a pointed question. Their job is to see if he was working for a news organisation of some description. The answer is, yes, he was. The other task is to see if he was a security risk, i.e. was he in any way linked to terrorism. The answer obviously is, no, he wasn't. Beyond this, the White House is not obliged to waste tax money on investigating the private life of every member of the Press Corps; considering the lives of some of them, that kind of checking would be a distinctly unenviable task.
In the absence of malfesance by the White House or by Gannon in the performance of his role, the Left only has the stick of Gannon's alleged homosexuality to beat him with. If Gannon had been a Democrat, of course, they would have closed ranks around him. But as he's conservative, he's fair game to them. Which proves that as much as the Left supposedly detests bigotry, they never hesitate to use it if they think they will gain by doing so.
Regards, Ivan
Having shared my hime for 20 years with 4 females , a wife two daughters, and mother-in-law, I long ago reliazed that I don't understand them. I just resigned myself to a lifetime being the only one who picks up the toilet seat...
On Ann, and I have noticed that the males (versus the females) are less forgiving of Hannity's shortcomings, women show an understandable jealousy of Ann more than often. And it doesn't help here that many of us post all the pictures of Ann and suggest that she's beautiful. She's not, she's attractive to many. She's too thin (skinny) and looks like Leslie Nielsen. ;-) But, she is a great writer, and she's a great friend of all things conservative.
Aha, ......... that sounds like it could be right. hmmmm! ;-)
read later
Well said.
"saber wit" -- Good to see you make that admission. ;-)
"so-called"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.