Features

ziggytrix · #26

edit: WTF, I swear I posted this in a different thread

sspadowsky · #27

Good documentation of the backpedaling, spin, and outright lies by all parties involved in this scandal.
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Axis of Logic

United States
The Lies of Gannongate
By Editor
Feb 21, 2005, 09:43

Thus far, the only truth being told in the Gannongate scandal is that being offered up by the progressive internet media.

Current White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, can't seem to get their stories straight on precisely when, or how, or why, the White House became suspicious of the "non-journalist journalist" Jeff Gannon--and when, or how, or why Gannon got a coveted White House press pass.

First McClellan told the press Gannon was admitted to the White House as a "Talon News" reporter, and there was never any doubt as to his legitimacy in that role.

Then we were told that, in fact, he was admitted as a correspondent for a patently-partisan non-journalistic enterprise, GOPAUSA.com.

Next Ari Fleischer disclosed that the White had become suspicious of Gannon early on--and checked out his employer, Talon News, to determine whether it was a legitimate news operation. That "checking out" involved nothing more than a phone call between Fleischer and Republican activist Bobby Eberle, to hear Fleischer tell it.

Not so, said McClellan.

In fact, the check involved a thorough review of Gannon's employer--which, says McClellan, was not Talon News at the time, but GOPUSA.com.

McClellan said he didn't know Gannon; now we find out that Gannon sent McClellan a card when the White House Press Secretary got married--and was given a coveted invite to the White House's exclusive Christmas Party, an event which, according to several White House correspondents, signifies that the White House believes a journalist is in good standing with the Washington establishment. More recent revelations suggest that the "degrees of separation" between Jeff Gannon ("James Guckert") and Karl Rove ("Minister of Evil") is precisely "one": Morton C. Blackwell, Rove's mentor and Gannon's teacher at the conservative quack-factory The Leadership Institute.

We were told by McClellan, on Bush's behalf, that Bush called on Gannon/Guckert randomly at a rare presidential press conference on January 26th, 2005.

Nobody--not in the establishment press, not in the internet media--believes this. White House press conferences are without question, as a matter of course, scripted right down to who gets to ask the President a question (as well as, you know, who gets to be in the room--within ten feet of a sitting President--in the first place).

[On the video of the press conference, you can see the President briefly grimace with nervousness when he asks "journalist" Gannon/Guckert a question].

We were likewise told by McClellan, on Bush's behalf, that the President has never met and doesn't know Bobby Eberle, the founder of GOPUSA.com, the creator of "Talon News," and--nominally, at least--Gannon/Guckert's "editor." That denial raised some eyebrows, as well; Bush and Eberle have both been members of the Board of Directors of the Texas Lyceum Association (including, we believe, at the same time) and Eberle was a member of the Texas Delegation to the 2000 presidential convention, where Bush was, you know, "put over the top" for his nomination by, you know, the Texas Delegation.

Does anyone believe Eberle never even got a photo op with Bush for his years and years of service to the Texas Republican Party, the Party from which Bush himself was originally spawned?

Indeed, Eberle's involvement with the Texas Republican Party could best be described as "heavy" to "obsessive," as could be said of his wife, as could be said of his closest business associate, Bill Fairbrother, with whom he started GOPUSA.com. [Since the Gannongate scandal was uncovered, his wife's and Bill's biographies have since been suspiciously wiped from the GOPUSA.com website; but hey, what's a little political whitewash among friends and spouses?].

Of course, you wouldn't know about Eberle's deep investment in the Republican Party of Texas if you listened to, say, the Republican Party of Texas--which has denied knowing him.

Which, of course, is also a lie.

Speaking of denials, how often do you see a conservative advocacy outlet like "Accuracy in Media" (good Lord, the irony!) defending prostitution?

And how! -- it's gay prostitution, too!

According to AIM, Guckert's only "crime" was asking softball, partisan questions to a sitting President.

On the other hand, in the U.S. (even red states!) being a $200-an-hour whore is, in fact, sort of illegal.

Now comes Jeff Gannon (James Guckert), already a liar by virtue of the fact that we had to print not one, but two names for him in this sentence, lifting his brief, self-imposed exile from making a fool of himself on national television by returning to CNN for another gorge-inducing interview.

In which interview, he:

1. inexplicably explained changing his first and last name by saying that they were harder to "pronounce, remember, and spell" than his pseudonym, leading CNN's Anderson Cooper to wonder, along with the rest of America, how "James" is harder to pronounce or spell than "Jeff";
2. "categorically" denied that the White House knew anything of his sexual past (which position he retreated from within less than twelve hours, telling The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz the next day that "as far as [he] knew" the White House wasn't aware he was a gay prostitute (memo to...wait, how do you spell that name?...oh, that's right, "James": look up the difference between "categorical" and "conditional," friend, it's a handy thing for a journalist to know);
3. claimed, incredibly, that despite wanting very much to become a journalist--"I asked to attend the White House briefing because...I wanted to report on the activities there"--he could not remember the date of his first published article as a journalist (a fact Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank has publicly said he finds absolutely incredible, in the literal sense of that word: "straining or breaking credulity"; there's now some reason [see also here] to believe Guckert had been in the White House for three years before his forced "retirement," not the two he and the White House have been claiming);
4. refused to answer whether he had recently posted nude pictures of himself on the internet, while attempting to imply (as we already know is untrue, Jeff/James) that he hadn't done so for years;
5. couldn't or wouldn't explain how he got a White House press pass despite not being a reporter ("You'll have to ask the White House that");
6. lied baldly in saying that he got his incredibly high-profile job as a White House correspondent for GOPUSA.com because "[GOPUSA.com was] aware of...the writing I did," when, in fact, Gannon/Guckert had not done any journalistic reporting to that point, for anyone;
7. changed tack on whether he had received a confidential C.I.A. memorandum (he had implied that to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he had, but categorically denied it a week later to CNN's Anderson Cooper--Jesus, doesn't he know these guys talk with one another?);
8. tacitly acknowledged that GOPUSA.com and Talon News (which are one and the same) are now refusing to talk about the whole affair, thus leaving certain questions about the whole affair continually unanswered (because he wouldn't answer them either, that is, as "I don't represent them any longer");
9. conceded that much of his White House "reporting" consisted of "relying on transcripts from the [White House] briefings [and]...on press releases," which bizarre, paint-by-numbers manner of "reportage" he considered an important attempt to "communicate to my readers exactly what the White House believes on any certain issue...an unvarnished, unfiltered version of what they believe";
10. asserted, hilariously, that "what's been done to me is far in excess of what has ever been done to any other journalist that I can remember," failing only to mention that, putting aside mere "journalists" for a moment, a recent President of the United States received much, much worse for much, much less (as prostitution, unlike adultery, is illegal); and
11. conceded that he lied when he said, one week ago, that his only involvement in a series of gay/pornographic/prostitution/pimping sites was as a website "designer"--(yes, designer!)--rather than the featured (and decidedly nude, and decidedly ready to trade sex for cash) main attraction.

But then again, Guckert--known in gay prostitution circles as "The Bulldog"--has always billed himself as "discrete" [sic].

And McClellan, Fleischer, and the Republican Party of Texas--prostitutes, undoubtedly, of a different sort altogether--are likewise "discrete," aren't they?

To the tune of so many lies, misdirections, and evasions we're forced to return, once more, to the fully-sourced investigative articles of The Nashua Advocate and the many other advocacy-based and news-oriented outlets which have covered this story so well and so thoroughly, such as Editor & Publisher and America Blog.

Without them, Americans might actually be fooled into thinking Gannon's "critique" of his critics was good enough, and not, as Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Leonard Pitts recently wrote, a situation in which "I'm still waiting for a good explanation of what Jeff Gannon was doing in the White House--and for you to be upset about it."

Well, we are upset, Leonard.

Because a hundred accurate words ought to outweigh, in the mainstream media, a thousand words of deception.

So if you want the truth about Gannongate, rather than the spin and the damage control Mr. Guckert's been offering up in front of every video camera which will have him (after several years spent, apparently, offering himself to every photographic camera which would have him), you can read the last week of coverage in The Advocate: here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here.

See?

This story ain't dead by a damn sight.

It's just beginning.

http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/2...annongate.html

KevinTheOmnivore · #28

Just to be fair and add a little balance.....

http://online.wsj.com/public/article...html?mod=blogs

White House Press Room as Political Stage

By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

February 25, 2005; Page B1

WASHINGTON -- The question at the regular White House press briefing on Feb. 1 came straight out of left field: "Does the president believe in Commandment No. 6 -- 'Thou shalt not kill' -- as it applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq?"

White House spokesman Scott McClellan didn't miss a beat. "Go ahead, next question," he said to the roomful of reporters.

Mr. McClellan's rebuff notwithstanding, the questioner, former Ralph Nader campaign volunteer Russell Mokhiber, got his first entry of the month for a Web diary he writes called "Scottie & Me (formerly Ari & I)." The diary, made up entirely of exchanges between Mr. Mokhiber and the president's chief spokesman, is a standing feature for the Common Dreams News Center, an organization of self-described progressives.

Both the question and the questioner exemplify a steady evolution that has occurred in the White House briefing room in recent years. Once the clubby preserve of big-name newspapers and networks, it has lately become a political stage where a growing assortment of reporters, activists and bloggers function not only as journalists but as participants in a unique form of reality TV.

The power of the presidency has always attracted offbeat characters to the White House briefing room. But the trend accelerated in the late 1990s, when cable outlets like C-SPAN began broadcasting the White House briefing in its entirety. That has drawn more fringe journalists seeking a forum to voice their points of view. The trend has been further fueled in recent years by the rise of alternative media, Internet news sites and Web logs that have given just about everyone who wants it a platform for punditry.

The result is that "the entire nature of the briefing has changed," says former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart. "It's become a show."

The show's plot took a dramatic twist after a man known as Jeff Gannon piped up with a question that harshly criticized Democrats during a nationally televised press conference by President Bush in January. Liberal bloggers went to work researching the man, a reporter for an obscure conservative news site, and quickly discovered that he was writing under a pseudonym and also had registered domain names for several Web sites with sexually suggestive names. The man, whose legal name is James D. Guckert, quickly resigned from his reporting position at Talon News, a site staffed mostly with volunteers and bankrolled by a Texas Republican named Bobby Eberle.

While Mr. Gannon has attracted a lot of attention, other lesser-known reporters have traveled a similar path to get inside the White House bubble. He never received a White House press pass because he lacks a congressional pass, which is one of the requirements for permanent clearance into the White House. Instead, like other reporters without permanent credentials, he gained access to the White House briefing room by getting a daily press-office clearance through security.

Before such clearance is granted, security officials do a fast check based on the petitioner's date of birth and Social Security number. White House officials and Mr. Gannon himself say he used his real name rather than his pseudonym to get his clearance.

Mr. Gannon believes he was singled out by liberal bloggers for investigation because he is a conservative. "Am I a partisan? Absolutely," he says. "I never said I was anything else."

Another reporter who frequents the briefing room, Bill Jones, has written for a news organization called Executive Intelligence Review that lists perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche as its founder and contributing editor on its Web site. Mr. Jones often asks tough questions about the administration's foreign policy and intelligence record, according to transcripts and other reporters. Mr. Jones didn't return calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Over the years, the White House press corps has included an array of characters -- Naomi Nover, for one, who inherited her husband's press pass after he died.

Barnet Nover had founded Nover News Service in 1971, after retiring from the Denver Post's Washington bureau, in an effort to keep his column on foreign policy going. After he died two years later, Ms. Nover attempted to keep the news service alive but did less and less reporting over time. Nonetheless, she went on virtually every overseas White House press trip until her death, in 1995. "Pretend journalist loved D.C.," said the headline on her obituary in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

The Clinton White House was kinder, issuing a statement praising Ms. Nover for her "years of dedication to her craft."

In the Clinton era, a voluble Baltimore radio talk-show host, Les Kinsolving, asked questions that annoyed the White House press office to the point that it briefly considered barring him, but decided against it out of concern for a backlash among right-wing media.

On his Web site, Mr. Kinsolving proudly displays quotations about him from eight White House press secretaries, most of them concerning how outrageous his questions can be.

But the atmosphere for fringe journalists of all stripes is getting decidedly less friendly, thanks in part to the rise of blogs. Last week, for example, Mr. Mokhiber, the Web diarist, took a shot from Accuracy in Media, a group that frequently attacks what it sees as the liberal bias of the press. AIM compared Mr. Mokhiber to Mr. Gannon.

"Left-Wing Activist Poses as Reporter at White House Press Briefings," said the site, which pointed out that Mr. Mokhiber had no journalism training and that he limited his questioning to offbeat subjects such as industrial hemp, the possibility of war-crimes charges against Mr. Bush and Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.

Mr. Mokhiber rejects the comparison with Mr. Gannon. But like him, Mr. Mokhiber doesn't deny bias, adding that that shouldn't be a disqualifier. "Who's to decide if you're getting a check from General Electric Corp., and working for NBC, that you don't have a political bias?" Mr. Mokhiber says.

For about the last four years, Mr. Mokhiber, a volunteer for Mr. Nader's 2004 presidential campaign and former board member of his charity, has been showing up at West Wing press briefings. Generally, he toils in relative obscurity, putting out his Web diary and publishing "Corporate Crime Reporter," a weekly newsletter that he says goes out to about 200 clients and provides him with a modest living.

The question about the Sixth Commandment is fairly representative of Mr. Mokhiber's Web feature -- in the past year, he has asked Mr. McClellan whether President Bush believes in deliberately misleading reporters during wartime, whether the president knows off the top of his head how many soldiers have died in Iraq, and whether the White House counsel has prepared for the possibility that President Bush will be hauled up on war crimes.

In the wake of the Gannon incident, Mr. McClellan has said that he is considering tightening the standards for admission to briefings. Mr. Lockhart, the former spokesman for Mr. Clinton as well as John Kerry, thinks the standards have grown too loose, allowing political operatives in.

But drawing that line won't be easy. And some think there's a risk that something valuable will be lost in the process. "The fact is that the history and tradition of the White House have been much more open and accepting" of nonmainstream journalists than other Washington institutions, such as the Congress, says Ari Fleischer, Mr. McClellan's predecessor. "I think it would be a real shame if that tradition ended. It might be good for the press secretary but not for diversity of opinion."

sspadowsky · #29

Good article, Kev. Thanks.

I don't deny for a second that the Press Room is a perfect place for opportunists to make a political statement, or make a name for themselves, etc. That's fine and dandy, and of course, I recognize that every human being is biased to one extent or another.

My gripe about this whole situation is that the administration was clearly complicit in Guckert gaining access to the White House. He was definitely a plant, definitely a pawn, and now he's certainly a patsy. He was part of the Bush admin's master plan of media control. He was intended to be a gadfly, and probably a leaker of info harmul to Bush opponents. He had access to shit that he should not have seen, and there can be no doubt that someone on the inside was part of it.