Republicans, bloggers and gays, oh my!(Ann Coulter)

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.

Oughta' tell you something about how your rank, Maureen.

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.

You're absolutely right. And if the WH had investigated his past and rejected his request for a pass on the grounds of his sexual practices, you would have heard howls of protests from the gay community.

Ivan, I think you've got it a little wrong. It's not entirely or even mostly about not liking minorities that don't share their political ideology, although ?I will admit that's part of it. It's about rubbing republican and conservatives, espectially the religous right's nose in the fact that someone who is "one of their own" and is something they are at best deeply uncomfortable with and at worst....well you get the drift.

People have been fighting this as an attack on conservatives by organized liberals using homosexuality as the trump card. In fact, this man was a prostitute, a whore. It may or may not be illegal to conduct gay activities. But Gannon/Guckert advertised himself for sale....prostitution. Something like $200.00/hour or $1,200.00 per weekend. That is against the law virtually across the US.

The republican party and conservatives do need to look at how to be inclusive of those with sexual orientations that are outside the standard scope of "republican/conservative standards". But I did think we stood for the rule of law, and clearly there are many on this forum who want to overlook that because he is perceived a conservative.

I just resigned myself to a lifetime being the only one who picks up the toilet seat...

Your ladies are lucky. Only my husband and me here and we have 2 bathrooms so I have to put the lid down in both bathrooms. Until a man sits down and dips his nether regions in cold water, he will never know how irritating it is. But my husband always has an answer to my request to please put the lid down. He says well you never lift it after you get through. LOL

Race: A few days ago you lamented that republicans and conservatives were not standing for the rule of law.

I'm not sure why the Gannon/Guckert thing has become framed in homosexuality, but in fact this guy was a prostitute. He charged for his sexual services. That is against the law in most states and municipalities. While it appeared he didn't stand on the street saying "come here big boy", he did essentially do that on the internet. Again, he was soliciting for sex for a fee on the web. In my book that's prostitution. And again, against the law in probably 98% of the US.

So what about the rule of law.

Also kinda makes you wonder if he was willing to prostitute his sexuality, what else was he willing to prostitute?

For that reason alone, I find it sickening and stupid that she wastes her time defending a schmuck like Gannon.

You've been very wise throughout this thread. I've read it all. But Ann's article is not so much a defense of this guy, it's about the left's treatment of the story.

Much like Doug Wead's secretive taping of Bush, that story is not so much about Wead and Bush's exposed personality, but it is about the distinctly different treatment by the left media of Doug Wead and someone like Linda Tripp, who had a legitimate reason to be taping and was vilified by the left. ABCNews even put a question on their site back in 1998 asking who deserved the Ig-Nobel Prize........ Saddam, Osama, Milosevic, or Linda Tripp. Wead now is being praised by the left for giving us a glimpse of the President back in the earlier days.

***

Both stories are about the bias of the left media and not the personalities. You're very intelligent, but your thoughts on Ann are colored somewhat by the fact that you are a female.

And I agree with you, Phyllis Schlafly is one of the greatest people in this country, but Ann still has around 30 or so years to reach her stature and calm down some. I'm quite willing to wait.

There's just a little "green" in your eyes when you consider Ann, imo.

;-)

The problem with Ann's story is that it infers that the whole issue is a gay issue when in fact it is much larger than that. By her focusing on the gay aspect of the story, it turns attention away from what may be something bigger. This all may be a tempest in a teapot, but I believe we should be looking to find why the teapot is boiling, not the fact that is boiling.

Certainly, the left is going after the "oh my, he's gay" angle and rubbing conservatives noses in something that they at best want to not deal with and at worst.....well you get my drift.

And yes there does seem to be hypocracy on the Linda Tripp/Doug Wead aspect. But the hyprocracy is on both sides. Liberals thought it was evil for Tripp to tape Lewinsky but fine for Wead to tape Bush. But now conservatives who thought it ok to for Tripp to tape Lewinsky but evil for Wead to tape Bush. The rationalizations of both sides has been amazing.

It strikes me as passing strange we're the party who'll take Karla Fay Tucker's life in a heartbeat -- there being no room for metanoia and sincere conversion among drugged out murderers, I guess -- but rush to the defense of a calculating queen

In response to this quote from your post #92...you're a friggin' idiot.

Phyllis was born in 1924. The wonderful woman is older than I thought. So, Ann Coulter has even more time to reach Phyllis Schlafly's stature. Your comparison of the two seems relatively meaningless, but mostly everything else you wrote was great.

By the way, it was funny to note how some earlier posters were amazed that a "troll" could last so long (1998) here at FR. LOL! Your posts were very intelligent and certainly not "troll" material.

Early and incorrect "troll" calls, imo, are one of the most unfortunate features here at FR. But the early successful and correct ones are a lot of fun.

:-)

LOL! Who would have EVER thought she could get ALL her obsessions in ONE sentence!

Perhaps someone could let our favorite drag queen in on a secret: Just like legal abortion, "don't ask, don't tell" is a GOP policy. The hypocrisy of the Big Girls of the GOP stands out like the size-queen ostrich feather in Trent Lott's ten-gallon.

Wow. We should save that one for posterity. It's actually two sentences, but still...
She managed to include gays, Ann Coulter, abortion, the GOP, all the beautiful (and popular) GOP women, Trent Lott, and cowboys. That just about wraps it up, doesn't it? Except for Texas, but the way I figure it, Texas is included vicariously with the "ten-gallon" hat.

If she ever gets it all in one neat little sentence, ping me, will ya? I wouldn't want to miss it. :-)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this column is less about "defending" that creep "Gannon" than it is about exposing the scumbags as the hypocrites they are for trying to bloat and prolong a nothing story out of all proportion in order to try to embarrass the White House.

ping to post # 208

Liberals thought it was evil for Tripp to tape Lewinsky but fine for Wead to tape Bush. But now conservatives who thought it ok to for Tripp to tape Lewinsky but evil for Wead to tape Bush

A big difference:

Tripp says she began to worry that she would remain in the sights of the White House and might possibly risk losing her job at the Pentagon if she told her Willey story under oath to Paula Jones' lawyers. With the hope of creating some insurance for herself, she then began taping her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.

And before this Monica had asked Linda to lie. A big difference in motivations for taping.

The attacks on Gannon started over his question and were initially about the homosexual angle. The escort aspect was brought up LATER (days after the initial attack happened).

Face it. What he did re the pics and escort business was wrong, but that is not why the left targeted him.

The rationalization for the right is based on ethics, as usual, the left on opportunism.

It was pretty talented, I admit. But I'm still trying to understand "the size-queen ostrich feather in Trent Lott's ten-gallon.

You never saw the picture of Trent wearing the cowboy hat with the goofy feathers? It was when he and Hastert met with GW Bush during the 2000 transition period.

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