Is it too much to ask AP to at least get the story right?

AP:

Then, at a news conference last month, he asked Bush how he could work on Social Security and other domestic initiatives with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."

That attracted scrutiny from liberal bloggers, who linked Guckert with online domain addresses suggestive of gay pornography. Guckert resigned from Talon News earlier this month.

Gay pornography? Yes, the blogs have no credibility while august news sources like the Associated Press simply make shit up. For the record, we found his 7 prostitution online profiles, and his entire prostitution Web site, selling himself to other men for $200/hr or $1200/weekend.

It's bad enough AP hasn't even reported this story in any serious manner over the past month, but it's not like they don't have the resources to at least not lie about it. Read More......

Say goodnight, Ken

Read More......

Your Best Prediction - What Scandal Could the Bush Administration NOT Get Away With?

A reader suggestion. I like it. Have at it. Read More......

Jon Stewart's Daily Show to spoof Gannon/Guckert on Thursday

Excellent.

The reporter was fake, using a fake name, spoofing alleged fake White House reporter "Jeff Gannon." But the news conference was real serious.

A "correspondent" from the fake news show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was outside City Hall yesterday to get some answers from City Council Speaker Gifford Miller.

Wearing a badly groomed hair piece, a fake mustache and an ugly 1970s tie, Rob Corddry waited patiently until after the real reporters had posed their questions to ask one about about Social Security.

Standing awkwardly with his legs far apart as though he were getting ready to sprint, nodding in agreement to every word spoken by Miller about the West Side Stadium, Corddry finally raised his hand.

"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker," he shouted, as if in a White House news conference, identifying himself as "Dino Ironbody"

His question: "How do you feel about the president's awesome plan to privatize Social Security?"

(Thanks to CrooksAndLiars.com for spotting this.) Read More......

Evening open thread

Chat Read More......

Torture: It's The American Way

I've wanted to talk about our country's embrace of torture as A-OK for weeks now. Should I post when the New York Times runs a story on A-11 (deep inside the paper) that casually mentions more cases of torture and then even more casually states that the US has routinely shipped off prisoners to third countries like Saudi Arabia that we know will torture them? How about the fact that virtually the last paragraph even more casually mentions that the President repeatedly insists we never do this, which is known as extraordinary rendition? In other words, the New York Times says the President is lying to the American people but finds this so unremarkable it's barely mentioned in a small story buried in the paper.

Should I bring up torture when the New Yorker runs an exhaustive feature about yet another INNOCENT MAN who was grabbed, bundled off to a third country, brutally tortured and then dumped back into society with no one in government thinking this was unusual or unfortunate?

Bob Herbert of the New York Times finally couldn't wait any longer for outrage to build and asks today if the US has a conscience.

A Kafkaesque country where private citizens are grabbed off the streets and dumped in a hole never to be heard from again. A government that refuses to admit those people have even been detained or confirmed their names. Secret locations where people KNOWN TO BE INNOCENT are beaten, raped, sodomized, tortured, punched in the head and even killed. A leader who believes he is above the rule of law and must answer to no one for his actions. Sycophantic minions who do Orwell proud by insisting they would never torture someone, but simply redefine torture as anything that doesn't lead to organ failure or death. Electric cables attached to your genitals and giving you shocks? Not torture. Punching you in the stomach every day for a year? Not torture. Stripping you naked an d keeping you in a tiny box away from all human contact for six months at a time? Not torture.

This used to describe evil countries like Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, China, Iraq, Cambodia under Pol Pot and others. Now it also describes the United States of America. And every day we accept that torture is part of the post 9-11 world, every day we don't write to our elected officials and demand it change (just like we used to write letters for Amnesty International and send them off to OTHER countries), every day we fail to speak out for the innocent people who have been found guilty without a trial or a lawyer or even being told the charges against them, every day that this continues is another day our hands are bloodied and everything we stand for is sullied.

Here's betting this posting doesn't garner more than a handful of comments. Why? This is old news. Read More......

Funny

From the SF Chronicle. Read More......

Hey Red State Guys (and Jeff Gannon), Bush Admin. is coming for your porn

In keeping with the Bush Administration obsession with sex, the new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, has made porn a top priority for the Justice Department according to the Associated Press:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday he would move aggressively to prosecute obscenity cases, and he laid out a broader agenda much like that of his predecessor, John Ashcroft.

In his first lengthy address since becoming attorney general in early February, Gonzales said people who distribute obscene materials do not enjoy constitutional guarantees of free speech.

"I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively," he said to a Washington meeting of the California-based Hoover Institution.
The Justice Department is appealing the dismissal of an obscenity case in Pittsburgh in which a federal judge said prosecutors went too far in trying to block the sale of pornographic movies over the Internet and through the mail. The case initially was prosecuted under Ashcroft.

Hmmmm....blocking the sale of porn over the internet. That shouldn't set off any alarm bells in homes across America. All those butch red state guys were thinking that moral issue in the election was whether gays could marry. Wrong. It was really about Bush and company taking their porn away. Be careful fellas, Big Brother Alberto is watching what you watch.

Now, of course, we would love to know what the sanctimonious, anti-smut Mr. Gonzalez thinks of the antics of Mr. Gannon/Guckert. Read More......

Bush making AIDS groups pledge to oppose prostitution

Ok, this takes some balls in the middle of GannonGuckertGate. But MESSAGE TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA, Jeff Gannon being a hooker and working in the West Wing, while the White House STILL hasn't condemned him or even spoken out about him, is NOT an even more interesting story in light of the fact that the Bush administration is now publicly taking on hookers. No, no hypocrisy there, nothing to see, move right along.

Or is this the White House's response to Gannon to placate the religious right? I.e., take a swipe at foreign hookers?

From the Kaiser Foundation:

Bush Administration To Require U.S. AIDS Groups Take Pledge Opposing Commercial Sex Work To Gain Funding
[Feb 28, 2005]

The Bush administration is requiring that U.S. HIV/AIDS organizations seeking funding to provide services in other countries make a pledge opposing commercial sex work, and some Republican lawmakers and administration officials are pushing for a similar policy for needle-exchange programs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Under the new policy, even groups whose HIV/AIDS work in other countries has "nothing to do" with commercial sex workers will have to make a written pledge opposing commercial sex work or risk losing federal funding, according to the Journal. In addition, the Bush administration might refuse to fund HIV/AIDS groups that do not accept Bush's "social agenda" on issues such as sexual abstinence and drug use, according to the Journal. The new policy stems from two 2003 laws, one involving HIV/AIDS funding and another regarding sex trafficking (Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 2/28). One measure was included as an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), in the legislation (HR 1298) that authorized the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the five-year, $15 billion program that directs funding for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to 15 focus countries. The measure prohibits funds from going to any group or organization that does not have a policy "explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking" (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/3/03). The U.S. Department of Justice initially told the administration that the requirement should be applied to overseas groups only because of constitutional free speech concerns in applying it to U.S. organizations, according to the Journal. However, DOJ in 2004 "reversed itself" and said that the administration could apply the rule to U.S. groups, according to the Journal.

Read More......

Anti-gay anti-AARP ad scandal getting coverage

I'm happy to say the media is starting to cover the fact that USA Next appears to have stolen the photo of the gay couple for their anti-AARP ad (I reported on this in a post below). Wonkette covered it, and Congress Daily has a mention of it as well. Read More......

White House Correspondents' Association wimps out on GannonGuckertGate

The following statement was just released by the White House Correspondents' Association regarding GannonGuckertGate. The statement was passed to me from a White House correspondent who isn't a hooker, I think:

Since 1914, the White House Correspondents' Association has operated independently of the White House and the White House credentialing process. We intend for the White House Correspondents' Association to remain independent of that process.

Consistent with the First Amendment, the White House Correspondents' Association stands for inclusiveness in the credentialing process so that the White House remains accessible to all journalists. We hope that individual episodes do not obscure the broader principles of a fair and evenhanded credentialing process that serves the goal of free and full exchange of information.

Yes, the White House Correspondents' Association doesn't want to weigh in on the battle of who is and isn't a journalist. Apparently, the First Amendment prohibits journalists from defining what exactly it is they do for a living. Man, if it's unconstitutional to have any requirements for journalism, then I want to be op ed editor of the Washington Post, or I'm gonna sue.

As one White House correspondent told me today:

"The more the White House Correspondents' Association weighs in on this, the more it makes some of us think the association is best left to throwing a dinner and should stay way from any issues of importance. The White House Correspondents' Association over the last couple of years has been a lapdog outfit answering to this administration."

Read More......

Lebanese, pro-Syrian government resigns after protests

I tip my hat to the united front that the people of Lebanon put forward to protest against the government. After years of fighting amongst themselves the protestors were from all religious groups, united in their demand from an independent government. What is interesting here is that murdered former PM Hariri was appreciated both in Washington and in Paris and both governments had been strong supporters of a Syrian pullout and Lebanese independence. Read More......

More Tom Delay scandals

No, he's not a male hooker. Well, we think. Read More......

USA Next accused of stealing photo of gay couple for anti-AARP ad campaign

Thanks to the DailyKos folks for discovering this story. I got in touch with the couple in the photo on Friday and put them in touch with a lawyer (a rather big lawyer at that). I'm now working as their publicist - not that I wouldn't have covered this anyway. Please help spread the word on this, it's outrageous.

Below is the press release we just sent out. And attached here is the letter the couple's lawyer just sent to USA Next.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 28, 2005

Contact: John Aravosis
john@wiredstrategies.com
Spokesman for Richard M. Raymen and Steven P. Hansen

“USA NEXT” MISAPPROPRIATED COUPLES’
IMAGE FOR ANTI-GAY AD CAMPAIGN
Couple: Image Stolen for Campaign Against AARP

WASHINGTON, DC - Conservative front organization USA Next was accused today of illegally using a gay couple’s wedding photo in an anti-gay ad campaign supporting President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.

The couple in the photo, Richard M. Raymen and Steven P. Hansen of Portland, Oregon, have come forward through an attorney to demand that USA Next stop using their image, and that the organization publicly apologize for using their image in a homophobic and libelous way. The demand, contained in a letter sent today to USA Next Chairman and CEO Charles Jarvis, references the couples’ right to seek damages for the misappropriation of their image.

In one version of the USA Next advertisement disseminated widely on the Internet last week, and aired repeatedly by television news programs nationwide, the couple’s image, superimposed with a green checkmark, is side-by-side a picture of a US soldier with a red “X” across it. Below the photos is the phrase “The REAL AARP Agenda.”

A copy of the ad can be viewed online here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/21/164929/948

"In 2004, our clients allowed their picture to be taken at their public celebration, as couples getting married do every day,” Christopher Wolf, a partner in the Washington, DC office of the New York-based law firm Proskauer Rose LLP and counsel for Raymen and Hansen. . “They did not volunteer to be models for a 2005 right-wing hate campaign, and never would have consented to having their images plastered in an ad of any kind, much less the one USA Next chose to run. USA Next has violated the law and must take responsibility for the consequences. Tort law is quite clear that USA Next acted illegally.”

“The USA Next ad communicates the false message that gay marriages generally, and our clients specifically, are the antithesis of supporting American troops during wartime,” said Wolf. “Gay marriage, and our clients’ ceremony, have nothing to do with support of the troops. Our clients are patriotic Americans who strongly support our service members.”

USA Next’s ad campaign has generated heated debate about the organization.. Ramen and Hansen have been the subject of hate-filled messages and ridicule as a result of the ad campaign, and have suffered a significant invasion of privacy.

“We never signed up to be Harry and Louise for a hate-mongering group,” Raymen said, referring to the fictional couple used in television commercials to scuttle then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal. “USA Next is illegally using our photo to portray us as a threat to American values. How would any citizen like having their image stolen and broadcast for the purpose of tarring our troops and suggesting that you’re un-American?”

On behalf of Raymen and Hansen, Wolf wrote USA Next today demanding that the organization immediately stop using photos of the couple and that it publicly apologize for the ongoing harm it is causing.

“As our clients contemplate their full legal remedies, we are writing to demand that you immediately cease and desist using any photograph of our clients and that you publicly apologize to them for the use you already have made, and the harm you have already caused,” Wolf wrote to USA Next.

Wolf said his clients seriously are considering filing suit against USA Next but, regardless, use of the photo must stop.

Read More......

GREAT Philly Inquirer front page story on Gannon

My God, we may actually have broken through the void - after only one month of this story being out there. This is really a damn good story.

But the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert saga is far from over. It remains unclear how a graduate of a conservative training program, someone with no previous journalism experience, someone whose writings were often lifted directly from White House press releases, still managed to gain access to the White House press room, where he spent two years lobbing gentle questions at the press secretary and the President.

And some political analysts who monitor President Bush's relations with the media insist that Gannon (who, referring to Democrats, recently asked Bush, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?") should not be viewed as an isolated case. Rather, they contend that Gannon is symptomatic of a broader White House strategy to undermine the traditional media by disseminating the Bush message in creative new ways.

Read More......

Morning open thread

Gonna be a fun day I think. Read More......

What he said

Tom Tomorrow weighs in on GannonGuckertGate

Read More......

That will be the day

The latest defense of gay hookers from really conservative Republican activists. My favorite line:

Gannon may have the last laugh in an affair that has turned nasty. He could even return to White House briefings.

Yeah, maybe when Jeff Stryker becomes president. Until then, I wouldn't hold your breath. Read More......

Chris Rock slammed Bush at the Oscars

Excellent.

According to the DU crowd, it went something like this:

Bush is a genius. I mean think about it. He was basically reapplying for his job last year at the same time a movie was being played all across the country showing what a crappy job he did. He got into office and we had a surplus. Now, we're like 70 trillion dollars in debt. Now let's say you worked at the GAP. You're closing out at the end of the day, and your register comes up 70 trillion dollars short. You're gonna get in trouble over that. Not Bush. No, he figured out a way to keep his job.

He then went into a similar bit about you working at the GAP and starting a war with Banana Republic because they're selling toxic tank tops, but then after a thousand employees are killed, you figure out Banana Republic doesn't even sell tank tops.

Read More......

It's Oscar night?

Uh oh. I just called Michael in NYC. He's threatened to take away my gay card. Apparently the Oscars are on. Oops. I mean, I'm used to not knowing when the Superbowl is coming, but the Oscars? What are they doing on in February? Oh, have them on now. Did I miss much? Who's hosting? Read More......

Sunday night open thread

Even more snow being predicted now. Read More......

Excellent dissection of GannonGuckert's latest revisionism

A very good analysis that also does a good job of reprising the facts in this case for anyone who may be new to all of this. Read More......

Prince Charles whining on again, wants everyone to feel sorry for him

Now what exactly did this inbred clown ever do in his life besides be born into royalty? The British royals don't mind sponging off of the British people who allow them to keep their silly little titles and not have to work (heavens no, that is not what aristocracy does) and now the guy wants us to feel sorry for him ? Sorry but he lives a very public life, never once stepping down or out of his position and he wants to talk about compassion. Just allowing him and his family to maintain their position is compassion enough. Diana may have been a media whore herself but at least she attempted (at times) to get out of the media spotlight and do something for the good of the world. Good grief. Read More......

Afternoon open thread

They're saying 4 to 8 inches of snow for DC on Monday. Be fun if we actually get it. Read More......

What is happening with Syria?

With few exceptions, mainly the Syrian government, everyone is pretty sure that Syria was behind the murder of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri and now fingers are being pointed in the direction of Damascus for yesterdays suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Something tells me that if both of these attacks are related to Syria then they are feeling pretty confident in their newly formed alliance with Iran.

The neocons are looking for a fight with Syria but with our hands full in Iraq, the thought of taking on an Iran supported Syria is not an attractive thought. Who knows how strong those bonds are and iff Iran would actually intervene militarily but Syria is acting as though the relationship is pretty solid. Feeling safer yet? Read More......

FYI - There are a ton of Gannon stories in the lesser-known papers today across the country

It's really quite fascinating. Lots of opinion pieces in small papers I've never even heard of. This one made me laugh out loud:

As for the Republican poseur Jeff/James/Whatshisname - in general, one must choose whether to associate in life with political whores or the more traditional variety. But please, do not try to act all self-righteous and victimized if you get caught trying to cross over.

Yes, I've heard of the St. Petersburg Times, but lots of the others today are in very obscure papers. Read More......

The cartoons keep coming

From J Darcy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Read More......

Right-wing Web site says Ken Mehlman isn't gay

Now this is gonna get interesting. If they can say it so definitively (false allegations, they say), then why can't Ken just come clean publicly and embrace his alleged heterosexuality?

Also, as Atrios points out, they're incensed about NYY reporter Adam Nagourney's secret personal diary, and that no lefties are upset about it.

Well, no one said you had to be particularly bright to be a conservative journalist. Read More......

More Maureen Dowd on Gannon/Guckert

Ok, admittedly, I am a huge fan of Maureen Dowd. And, she has been on a roll with the Gannon/Guckert story.

In her column today about Bush and the media, she wrote:

The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "Fair and Balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Mr. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own C.I.A. agent.

Note to other journalists: this is an accurate description...."self-advertised male escort." You aren't really invading the privacy or outing someone who advertises on-line.

Also, today, she was on a panel on Meet the Press with Tom Friedman and William Safire. Answering a question about Bush and foreign policy, she worked in a comment about how the Gannongate...didn't mention him by name...just the idea that the Bush people liked having him in the press corps. Russert, Friedman and Safire all got a big yuck out of that one.

Maureen Dowd just gets it. Love her. Read More......

Santorum and his pals kicked around on Soc. Security

Republicans were met with serious opposition to the plan to destroy Social Security in their home states and districts last week. The leader of the plan in the Senate, Rick Santorum, really got kicked around in PA week during his town meetings on Social Security according to today's New York Times:

Mr. Santorum complained that he was dogged all week by opponents of the White House plan who dominated news coverage. Mr. Santorum, who is the third-ranking Republican in the Senate leadership and chairman of the subcommittee on Social Security, was heckled by college students - the very audience the Bush administration was counting on - and peppered with questions from retirees.

"Clearly the other side is better organized," Mr. Santorum said. "They got people to all these events. They had seniors lined up to ask questions, they had staff people running up passing them notes."

Imagine that, Rick Santorum. Your constituents are opposed to the plan to gut Social Security and they let you know. And you seem to be irritated about it. Tough shit.

And, shock of all shock to the Republicans: The other side IS organized. The Rs really hate that. They want to do things their way without hearing from those pesky voters.

I'm sure Santorum is scratching that pea brain of his, trying to figure out why he gets hard questions. He was at an event with Bush in Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago and everyone loved the President's plan. Kinda different when the real people, who don't have to sign loyalty oaths, get to express their opinions.

According tho the Times, " Mr. Santorum described himself as encouraged at the level of interest..." Let's all make sure that level of interest is sustained and used to defeat him in November 2006. Read More......

Bush strikes out with Putin, Iran signs nuclear fuel deal

What a display of international political skill George. Looks like you've been tossed around like a rag doll by good old Vlad. You sure are making the world a safer place. Read More......

The GOP steamroller moves ahead with medical malpractice

This is yet another issue where the Dem's have allowed the GOP to dominate the discussion. I am not in favor of attorneys filing unnecessary lawsuits but let's look a bit more closely at this issue before everyone starts complaining about out-of-control trial attorneys. I personally have had two doctors screw up on me and I know of a number of friends and family who have had problems which could potentially be called medical malpractice, including one person who went in for a routine operation and died (in his late 40's), but I do not know of any attorney who would take on those cases. Are there bad examples out there? Sure, no doubt. Do those make up a large majority of the overall cases? Doubtful.

The famous tried and true Republican method of locating an obscure abuse or even creating one and then making blanket statements about the entire industry is getting old. I did not buy into it when the GOP loved to talk about the poor, black, welfare mama who picked up her Social Security check in her Cadillac and I'm not buying into it now. A few tidbits from the article:

• Medical errors are estimated to be responsible for 45,000 to 98,000 deaths a year - more than those caused by breast cancer, AIDS or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
• Last year, the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce, and the American Medical Association, the physicians' advocacy group, spent a total of $33.8 million on lobbying, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks federal lobbying. The trial lawyers' association spent $2.9 million on federal lobbying, PoliticalMoneyLine reported.
• He [ Todd A. Smith, Partner, Power, Rogers & Smith] says he decides to take fewer than 3 in 100 cases that are brought to his firm. "We say to people right off that a bad outcome does not mean you have a medical negligence case," he said.

Read More......

Racists for Gannon

CrooksAndLiars.com informs us that Ann Coulter has just published a racist defense of Jeff Gannon.

This is what she wrote - which was then edited out by her syndicator who probably realized that racist attacks against Arabs probably aren't the most appropriate thing to publish if your name isn't David Duke. How does this woman even work in this country?



"Old Arab?" What the hell does that mean? Why does the GOP increasingly tie its party to vile, hateful, angry, bigoted people? Yet at the same time they think they're going to convince Latinos and blacks that they love people of color, really they do. Yeah, right. I can't wait to see the day that the mainstream of the GOP has to deal with an influx of Latinos and blacks in the party. That will be a day to remember.

You can see the entire article here. Read More......

Late night open thread

Gnite Read More......

Banning abortions of gay fetuses

Oh, how fun would that be?! Put the right-to-life crowd in a tizzy.

A Republican lawmaker in Maine has introduced a bill to prohibit abortions based on the sexual orientation of the unborn baby.

State Rep. Brian Duprey wants the Legislature to forbid a woman from ending a pregnancy because the fetus is homosexual.

He said the bill looks into the future in case scientists find what he described as a "homosexual gene."

Though the legislator isn't stupid either. He gets the gay community between the same rock and a hard place as the pro-lifers. Pro-choice gays just might like this legislation. What do you think? Read More......

What Digby says about Guckert

It's long. It's good. Read it.

(There is truly nothing you can say about this story that isn't doube entendre.) Read More......

Open thread

I think a nap is beckoning. Read More......

Chicago Trib editorial about Guckert and blogs

While the editorial gives short shrift to the larger implications of the Gucker scandal, it's still the Chicago Trib and helps the publicity on this issue. Also, it restates the facts pretty well, which helps feed the story. And it actually praises bloggers.

It's ironic that the editorials are starting to pile in when we couldn't even get the mainstream media to cover the NEWS aspect of this story. Then the editorials basically take our side, or at least praise us.

Mainstream media needs therapy.

In the former category are the Internet bloggers, cable television news shows and talk radio, all of whom traffic in clear, often loudly expressed opinion that frames everything they report. They're doing "opinion news--news that reflects one's own beliefs and preferences and tends to filter out dissenting views," as a recent report from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press put it.

Is that new? Nah. It's actually as old as the republic, when newspapers from front to back were clearly identified with a political philosophy and a Thomas Paine could rally Americans to embrace independence by distributing "Common Sense" far and wide....

The bloggers have scored some impressive scoops in recent months. They're a force. According to a Pew Research Center poll, "more people are turning away from traditional news outlets, with their decorous, just-the-facts aspirations to objectivity, toward noisier hybrid formats that aggressively fuse news with opinion or entertainment or both."

Read More......

Editorial in the Chicago Trib about Guckert, blogs

While the editorial gives short shrift to the larger implications of the Gucker scandal. Also, it restates the facts pretty well, which helps feed the story. And it actually praises bloggers.

It's ironic that the editorials are starting to pile in when we couldn't even get the mainstream media to cover the NEWS aspect of this story. Then the editorials basically take our side, or at least praise us.

Mainstream media needs therapy.

In the former category are the Internet bloggers, cable television news shows and talk radio, all of whom traffic in clear, often loudly expressed opinion that frames everything they report. They're doing "opinion news--news that reflects one's own beliefs and preferences and tends to filter out dissenting views," as a recent report from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press put it.

Is that new? Nah. It's actually as old as the republic, when newspapers from front to back were clearly identified with a political philosophy and a Thomas Paine could rally Americans to embrace independence by distributing "Common Sense" far and wide....

The bloggers have scored some impressive scoops in recent months. They're a force. According to a Pew Research Center poll, "more people are turning away from traditional news outlets, with their decorous, just-the-facts aspirations to objectivity, toward noisier hybrid formats that aggressively fuse news with opinion or entertainment or both."

Read More......

WorldNetDaily REALLY doesn't like Jeff Gannon

Yet another story on him, and it ain't pretty :-)

The scandal, known as GannonGuckertGate, involves Jeff Gannon – by daylight a credentialed "reporter" covering the White House for both the Talon and GOPUSA.com websites, while allegedly moonlighting as a $200-an-hour male escort and purveyor of explicit websites like HotMilitaryStud.com and MilitaryEscorts.com.

It turns out Jeff Gannon was a pseudonym and alter ego for Jim Guckert, the name under which Gannon allegedly posed for pictures on those sites and advertised his services. He resigned his position with Talon and GOPUSA.com following the disclosures by bloggers.

Although HotMilitaryStud.com and MilitaryEscorts.com – websites suggestive of homosexual pornography – are no longer online, their domain names are now up for sale.

"This is the site you've been hearing about," says the ads for both sites which are listed in the "Adult/Porn" category.

The asking price for HotMilitaryStud.com is $15,000, while MilitaryEscorts.com is asking $7,500. Traffic figures claim more than 66,000 and 24,000 unique visitors to the pages, respectively. No previous offers had been made for either as of press time.

Read More......

St Petersburg Times editorial re Gannon and bloggers

It's quite good. Note Howie Kurtz's quote in the 2 paragraph:

The proliferation of Internet Web logs - so-called "blogs" - has unsettled mainstream news organizations that have become a prime target for bloggers. On the whole, it's probably a healthy development. The news media have a credibility problem and bloggers, for all their excesses, have shown they have a role to play in holding mainstream journalists accountable.

For the first time, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz recently wrote, "millions of people with access to a wide audience (at least among the wired) are looking over the shoulders of journalists, or practicing journalism themselves . . . Many bloggers are careful and thought-provoking, others partisan or mean-spirited. But they are here to stay, and by and large they provide a healthy check on those who once monopolized the news agenda."

....Mainstream journalists have nothing to fear from bloggers if they remain true to fundamental standards of accuracy and fairness. They must remain cautious before passing along information from blogs or reacting to their charges, while continuing to learn from a form of mass media that is evolving before our eyes. Blogging, if practiced responsibly, could boost old media's credibility by making it more accountable to the public.

Read More......

Saturday morning open thread

Good day. Read More......

What kind of a "journalist" says something like this publicly about their "reporting"?

"RAWSTORY reports that Senate Minority Leader Harry 'Soup Lines" Reid will join in the investigation of me. He should be thanking me since I helped get him his promotion." - James Guckert on his new Web site

I doubt even FOX News would be so crass as to say something like this publicly about their own reporting. There is a line between journalists and non-journalists. And yes, it's sometimes hard to define. But like the courts once said about pornography, you know it when you see it.

PS The even stranger part is that Guckert is joking about the fact that he used a totally fictious quote about soup kitchens to blast Senator Reid at a White House press conference. Guckert literally quoted something he heard on Rush Limbaugh's radio show (they don't call him "scoop" Guckert for nothin'). Rush was joking, Guckert didn't get the joke, and then repeated what Rush said as a real quote from the Senator.

Any real journalist would be mortified that they got up in front of the entire White House press corps, on national TV no less, and rattled off a totally fictious quote as true. Guckert, on the other hand, is apparently proud of the fact. Read More......

Friday Orchid Blogging

Lest I forget. (For those of you who are new here, this is an AMERICAblog tradition. We don't own cats (the traditional pet of choice for Friday blogging), so we do orchids.)

Paph (Mach One x Tranchant) 'Absolute Monster' x Western Thunder 'Shock Wave'





I just bought this plant last weekend, so can claim NO credit for the blooms. This is what you call a "bulldog" paphiopedilum, which until I just typed this I didn't get the pun! LOL (Gannon's hooker name is "bulldog.") My bulldog cost significantly less than $200/hour.

It's 6 inches wide, and supposed to be relatively easy to grow, medium dappled light, relatively moist (you don't let them dry out completely). I'm very excited. I've wanted one like this for a long while, I find them amazing. Other friends find this particular type of orchid hideous. What do you think?

PS I got it from Marriott Orchids, an AMAZING orchid grower that's rather expensive. You can check out their stuff here, but beware, it ain't cheap (fortunately, I got mine at a show here in town, it was cheaper than what you see on the Web). Read More......

Another open thread

So many fun stories in the works, Gannon and otherwise. In the meantime, enjoy the evening. It's sci-fi Friday! Read More......

Good NY Daily News story too, I missed this one earlier

Great story, with one small mistake. Gannon has never said, to my knowledge that he only read about the Valerie Plame memo in the newspapers. This is a mistake a growing number of reporters are making. Gannon has recently responded to questions about the memo by saying something to the effect of "you know, the Wall Street Journal wrote about it." Gannon has never said that he actually READ about this story in the Wall Street Journal, that the Wall Street Journal is the way he found out about the story, or, even if he did find out about the story via the Wall Street Journal, that someone else in the administration didn't slip him additional information about it.

I'm quite serious about this. Read his interviews closely. He's cagey as hell about this and only mentions the WSJ obliquely, without ever saying that it was his exclusive source for information about this affair. Read More......

SpongeBob's mistake was not being a hooker

Bill Berkowitz, as always, writes a great commentary on the hypocrisy of religious right groups who suddenly seem to have found a place in their hearts for a gay hooker in the White House. Perhaps some day they can find a place in their hearts for all the gays who aren't hookers too.

They were livid over SpongeBob Square Pants' participation in a video advocating tolerance, and fuming about Buster the Bunny's visit to a lesbian household. So where's the outrage from the Christian right over the Jeff Gannon Affair? Despite a chunk of time having passed since the Gannon Affair was first uncovered, Christian right organizations are still cloaked in silence. As of February 24, there wasn't any news about the Gannon Affair available on the Web sites of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, or the Traditional Values Coalition. As best as I could determine, no special alerts about the Gannon Affair have been issued; and no campaigns have been launched to get to the bottom of the matter.

Curious about this wall of silence, I phoned several Christian right groups on Tuesday, February 22, hoping to find someone who could comment on the Gannon Affair. This is what I found...

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USANext, those nasty pro-Bush-social-security-plan people

Seems they're only a junk mail and spam company, according to a report by ThereIsNoCrisis.com. Surprise! Read More......

Good GannonGuckert article from Bill Press on WorldNetDaily

What he said:

...the Bush White House forces the Secret Service to allow a former male prostitute into the White House so he can play reporter and lob softball questions to the president – and what do we get? Silence from the mainstream media. Silence from Republicans in Congress. Support for Guckert from many conservative commentators, who accuse liberal bloggers of anti-gay bias. And the scandal disappears from the radar screen.

If that's not a double-standard, I don't know what is. Why aren't the mainstream media making a big deal of this story? Why aren't they demanding a White House apology? Or a congressional investigation? Because they have no backbone, that's why. They're afraid of the Bush White House. And they've let Bush get away with everything, from lying about weapons of mass destruction to pampering a male prostitute.

Please, no more complaints about the liberal media. Today's White House reporters are in Bush's pocket.

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Open thread

I finally have a little time to sit back and try to put this story in the larger perspective, and then put that larger perspective in writing, so hopefully the MSM can finally get a grasp of why this matters. Read More......