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 the rest of this post...

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 the rest of this post...

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 the rest of this post...

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 the rest of this post...

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...

Read the rest of this post...

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 the rest of this post...

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.

Read the rest of this post...

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 the rest of this post...

Wall Street Journal Vying With LA Times For Worst Guckert Coverage

Thanks to tizzie for pointing us to this Wall Street Journal article today about James Guckert. It continues the LA Times angle that this is a case of old media versus new media and who gets to decide what constitutes a real journalist. Again, not ONE quote from a source who argues that Guckert was indeed a fake journalist and that this is a serious issue about national security and the manipulation of the media by the White House.

"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 to the Wall Street Journal. "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."

The story is filled with offbeat reporters who also attend the White House press conferences, though it doesn't make clear whether they all get repeated day passes or have hard passes which demand a security check -- the very security check James Guckert would have failed.

This isn't about his anti-gay, far right politics. If Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd applied for a day pass to the White House press room, they both would deserve to get one.

But, again, this is not old media versus new media or about the difficulty of figuring out what constitutes a real journalist.

James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon received a day pass to the White House press room before he'd ever written a single article for any news media outlet of any sort in the entire world. He wasn't even affiliated with any media outlet -- real of imaginary -- when he received a day pass as a reporter to the White House. I think if you're going to draw the line somewhere, that seems a pretty good place to start.

Yes, a few weeks later, GOPUSA.COM set up the fake news website Talonnews.com and yes, eventually their "volunteer" reporter James Guckert started getting paid half wages because even fake journalists have to get paid something in order to get press passes. But slowly building up a front over the years doesn't change the fact that James Guckert was allowed into the White House press room when NO ONE under any conceivable standard could consider him a journalist. Read the rest of this post...

British workers getting decent hourly wage

The UK is raising the minimum wage for Birtish adult workers from 4.85 pounds to 5.05 pounds in October and 5.35 pounds in 2006. That's $10.22 an hour. (People aged 18-21 will make $8.11 an hour.) Tony Blair calls that a "powerful symbol of how [the UK[] is changing for the good." I call that a decent amount for an honest day's work. It's almost DOUBLE the $5.15 an hour workers get in the US. Read the rest of this post...

Anglican Church: Schism Over Gays More and More Likely

The Anglican Church -- still reeling from the decision to treat women as equal in the eyes of God -- is now breaking apart over the issue of gays. In an unprecedented move, the leaders of the Anglican communion have asked the US and Canadian churches to "temporarily" withdraw members from a key international governing body.

In other words, in order to avoid splitting the Church, they're splitting the Church. Finally, the rightist leaders who can't bear to have women leading service or working at the highest levels of the church are getting their revenge on those wishy-washy leftists who believe all people are equal in the eyes of God. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Have at it Read the rest of this post...

A better question: What is journalism?

The LA Times story about Gannon says a lot about the state of the mainstream media (MSM).

Somehow, Ms. Neuman has managed to make the Gannon story about them...and it is, but not the way she thinks.

She said, the MSM is being forced to ask: What is a journalist? Here's a better question for the MSM: what is journalism?

Neuman's piece is a classic example of present day journalism. It's an example of how far the MSM has gone to avoid covering the real issues in Gannongate. When describing the research done on Gannon by bloggers, she uses terms "left wing bloggers" "gay activists" and "bloglust." Her words imply a lack of credibility.

When she writes of Jeff, there are no similar "descriptors" applied to him, GOPUSA or Talon News.

Reporters are trying so hard to be fair, and not piss off the right wing, that they are becoming part of the Right Wing Noise Machine. It's actually frightening. Maybe Ms. Neuman talked to some of bloggers from the "left wing." She didn't talk to John Aravosis, who is apparently consigned to the role of "gay activist" as if Americablog is nothing more.

This is the first major story the LA Times wrote about Gannon and they couldn't interview any of the players who broke the story?

I've said it before, this story played out right under the noses of the media. Jeff/Jim was among them. He essentially mocked them....and continues to do so. Maybe that's why they can't cover the story. It involves self-examination and self-criticism. And, it might involve pissing off the White House. Then, they might not get their Presidential nicknames. That would really suck.

The story seems to be about more whores than we realized. Read the rest of this post...

LA Times wins the award for WORST reporting of the mainstream media

Yes, the Los Angeles Times ran a story today in which 6, count 'em, 6 sources were cited defending Gannon, and ZERO sources were quoted from the other side. And apparently, it's now "gay activists" who exposed Gannon (Markos is gay?!), rather than the top progressive blogs.

I have not seen this shoddy a piece of journalism in years. No one, no one, cites 6 sources on one side of a controversial story and ZERO sources on the other side. Did this reporter even call me? No. Did she contact the Kos people? I don't know, but if she did, she'd know that they're not "gay activists."

Truly one of the worst, shoddiest pieces of journalism I have ever seen. The mainstream media has decided they do NOT want to report this story. Absolutely pitiful.

WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK
An Identity Crisis Unfolds in a Not-So-Elite Press Corps
Defining a journalist has always been an inexact science, even before the Gannon affair.
By Johanna Neuman
Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2005

WASHINGTON — Its members work inside one of the most secure facilities in the nation, the White House, and they get to question America's most senior leaders, including the president.

Yet the White House press corps is not the thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite Americans might presume. Along with stars of the country's major media organizations, it has long included eccentrics, fringe players and characters of uncertain lineage.

And now, a semi-impostor has forced the White House and the mainstream reporters covering it to address a basic question:

What is a journalist?

It's a question the press corps and White House officials have tended to duck in the past — each for their own reasons. For reporters, policing the ranks smacks of undermining the 1st Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press. For White House officials, it has always seemed like an invitation to endless argument about who should be in and who should not — especially when newsletters, bloggers, cable news channels, satellite radio stations and Internet sites all claim a share of the turf that once belonged to a relative handful of news organizations.

Last month, however, the subject broke into the open after a reporter for the website Talon News asked President Bush how he could work on Social Security and other domestic initiatives with Democrats "who seem to have distanced themselves from reality."

The openly scornful and seemingly partisan description of congressional Democrats startled some veterans of the White House press room. And they wondered how Bush came to call on the relatively obscure reporter — not just this time, but on previous occasions as well.

That was only the beginning.

Left-wing bloggers soon revealed that the reporter, whom colleagues knew as Jeff Gannon, was really named James Dale Guckert. They also disclosed that Talon News was owned by an avowedly partisan website called GOPUSA. The website in turn was the creation of a conservative Texas political activist named Bobby Eberle.

That stirred a furor over how a seeming Republican agent got clearance to attend White House briefings as a journalist. Soon Gannon resigned.

Then gay activists, indulging in what one media critic called "bloglust," [source 1] posted on the Internet homoerotic photos of Gannon advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay escort.

"I've made mistakes in my past," Gannon told [source 2] the Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz. "Does my past mean I can't have a future? Does it disqualify me from being a journalist?"

Apparently not.

Gannon did not have a permanent White House press pass that requires an FBI background check. Those who carry it have clear access to the White House and frequently travel with the president. And the Standing Committee of Correspondents on Capitol Hill, which accredits more than 2,000 journalists who write for daily news organizations, refused to give him a congressional press pass.

But Gannon was admitted to the White House on a regular basis over the last two years. Applying as Guckert, he was given a series of one-day passes.

Marlin Fitzwater, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said in an interview that he created day passes in response to a federal court decision in the late 1970s requiring the White House to admit all journalists unless the Secret Service deemed them threats to the president or his immediate family.

The lawsuit involved Robert Sherrill of the Nation, who was denied a press pass on the Secret Service's recommendation because, it turned out, he had punched out the press secretary to the governor of Florida.

The White House press corps has since attracted an array of unusual personalities. There was Naomi Nover of the Nover News Service. No one ever saw her work published, but Nover — whose coif of white hair somewhat resembled George Washington's wig — got past a security cordon during a Reagan trip to China after a reporter showed guards a U.S. dollar bill as evidence of how important she was.

Lester Kinsolving, conservative radio commentator, wore a clerical collar to White House briefings in the Reagan years. His loud voice and off-beat, argumentative questions often provoked laughter. President Clinton, to lighten up the proceedings, often called on Sarah McLendon, who worked for a string of small newspapers in Texas and called herself a citizen journalist unafraid to blast government bureaucrats.

"If you look at the question Gannon asked, it obviously reflected his conservative views," Fitzwater said.

"But it's no different from the ones Helen Thomas [formerly of United Press International, now of Hearst] asked of Reagan, or Dan Rather [of CBS] asked in his more famous comments about Richard Nixon. [source 3]

"This guy [Gannon] got caught and he's a little weirder than most — but he's no weirder than Evelyn Y. Davis," said Fitzwater, referring to the shareholder advocate who covers the White House for her corporate newsletter, "Highlights and Lowlights."

"I've always thought it was dangerous for the White House to get into the business of defining who is and is not a member of the press corps," said Clinton White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. "That is better done by the news media." [source4]

Reporters, too, seem reluctant to join the fray. The White House Correspondents Assn. met last week with White House spokesman Scott McClellan, but no action has been taken.

"We wanted to err on the side of inclusion," said Steve Scully of C-SPAN, who serves on the executive board. "Once you start dictating who is a journalist, you go down a slippery slope." [source 5]

Former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who gave Gannon a day pass even before Talon News was launched, told the trade magazine Editor & Publisher that at one point he hesitated to call on the reporter, then resumed after being assured he was not a GOP plant.

Still, the impression lingers for some that the Bush White House — with its reputation for stage-managing the news — orchestrated softball questions. [no sources cited for the opposing view] Others say the White House is simply a magnet for those eager to usurp its stage.

"I look at the Gannon story — I used to refer to him as Jeff GOP — as demonstrating the impact of televising the press briefing," said Martha Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University.

"The television lens has brought into the briefing room people who have a political viewpoint and find the briefing a way to express it." [source 6]

Read the rest of this post...

Government drug advisors tied to Vioxx & Bextra, voted in favor of keeping products on the market

Hold onto your hats, because you might be shocked with this news, but 9 of the 10 who were connected to the drug companies voted in favor of keeping those products on the market. Had they voted against, both products would have lost by substantial amounts. Hello, wake up call for our Democratic leaders. Of course, the famous triangulation/strangulation strategy, aka DINO strategy, may mean that the Dem's are heavily involved with Big Pharmaceutical as well.

The real cherry on the top here is that these voters claim to be independent and their past relationships had nothing to do with their vote. Uh huh, right. I would ask how stupid do they think the American people are, but after all, people still think that the FDA is something other than a rubber stamp for Big Pharmaceutical and that it's existence as an independent organization has been gone for years. Despite this reality some idiots also believe that somehow (haven't figured this one out yet) drug imports from places like Canada, Europe, Australia, etc is somehow dangerous. Go figure. Read the rest of this post...

Retired jock to run for Governor in PA

Thank you Lynn and I wish you the best of luck in the GOP primary, honestly. Your success in the primary will guarentee Democratic control of the PA statehouse. Read the rest of this post...