More info on the lovely man I debated on CNN

A few of the blogs have their take on the lovely gentleman I debated on Reliable Sources this morning on CNN. He's the uber-conservative who suddenly was so concerned about gay rights, at least as it concerns gay Republican hookers.

This from Tbogg, and then Minnesota Politcs blog.

My favorite part is that the uber-conservative blogger is convinced George Bush's White House would have no problem letting a male hooker in as a GOP reporter. Uh huh. Oh how I hope some asks Scott that little question at the White House briefing. Read the rest of this post...

Keith Olbermann on Gannon

He's getting revved up::

So, the artist formerly known as Jeff Gannon is considering suing everybody.

Well, this will separate the Gannons from the Guckerts.

Gannon told Newsweek that he is contemplating ?suing liberal interest groups, bloggers, and others,? for what he termed ?political assassination.? Don'?t see that in the statutes anywhere.

He is presumably pondering some sort of libel action, or perhaps he harbors some vague hope of proving invasion of privacy. This would, of course, require that what?s been said about him isn?t true (though he hasn?t denied it), and was maliciously published or broadcast by people who knew it wasn?t true or made no effort to confirm or refute it. Of course, he had told Editor & Publisher last week that he would no longer talk to the media, then followed that up five days later by a complaint to the same magazine that nobody was trying to contact him (and in the same interview denied he was giving an interview with CNN, an interview which he taped about an hour later).

There certainly do seem to be enough personality elements floating around in there to constitute two separate fellows. Neither of them seems to know a lot about the media, or about communications law.

There's more at the link. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Holiday tomorrow, kind of (not for me). Read the rest of this post...

Eberle's ties to Karl Rove. Grover Norquist and G. Gordon Liddy

Ok, this is interesting. From GOPUSA.com's Merry Christmas page, Bobby Eberle writes:



He thanks Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and G. Gordon Liddy personally for providing him with their assistance, guidance, and friendship? Read the rest of this post...

CNN is covering the story again, 6:30ish EST tonight (maybe ten minutes earlier, maybe ten minutes later)

Just thought you'd be interested. I'll be the guest. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Chat away. Read the rest of this post...

We get male....

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 22:43:45 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill
Subject: Re gannon Aka gukert
To: AMERICAblog

How dare Gannon not be a liberal. If he were you'd be singing his praises. Fucks like you are why I became a republican. Oh by the way, go fuck yourself.

My reply:

It's nice that you welcome gay prostitutes into the Republican party. Perhaps some day you'll welcome gays who aren't hookers too.

Read the rest of this post...

Boston Globe's Wasserman Cartoon on Gannon

Growing up, one of my earliest political memories is a book that my grandparents had containing all of the Boston Globe's political cartoons surrounding the Watergate scandal. I have great respect for political cartoonists. Once they sum up an issue visually, it becomes something incredibly powerful and tells so much of the story in a simple black and white frame. People start to "get it."

Dan Wasserman from The Boston Globe picked up on the Gannon story today, it's hilarious. Check it out. Read the rest of this post...

Creepy photo of the day

Sauron has found us.



Note to Grover Norquist and John Fund: I was a Republican up until I hit the age of 27 or so. Then I came to terms with being gay, saw how much the GOP hated gay people like me, and decided to leave the party. I have lots of other good, smart, hard-working Republican friends - well, former-Republican friends now - who are in the same boat. When is the GOP going to stop creating enemies like me? Read the rest of this post...

Great article from the Observer (UK)

It's so nice when foreigners cut through the bs of our own politics even better than our own media:

Right-wing media ratcheted up the long-standing conservative complaint that the media is dominated by liberal publications. Though many journalism experts deny that is the case, the image has settled in the American consciousness, forcing newspapers, magazines and television stations to go out of their way to prove they are not liberal. 'We have a conservative media and also a mainstream media, which is also now fairly conservative because it has been forced to deny being liberal,' said Lule.

The Gannon case is a prime illustration. If, during the Clinton administration, a fake reporter from a Democrat front organisation, using a false name, had been exposed as attending White House press conferences it would have been a national scandal. If he had then been shown to be a gay prostitute, the scandal could have threatened a Democrat presidency. With 'Gannon' and Bush there has been no such outcry. The mainstream media has approached the story warily, while right-wing organisations such as Fox News have largely ignored it.

That has created a vacuum in the US media. It is a space being filled by 'bloggers' from both left and right who write personal journals, or weblogs, on the internet. It is here that the real media battles are now being fought. The internet has become a sort of Fifth Estate as the Fourth Estate of the mainstream media has slid toward irrelevance. The groundwork was done mainly by the right. Internet gossip hound Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report is a key source for every American political journalist, struck the first blow with his breaking of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Read the rest of this post...

CNN covering Gannon now on Howie Kurtz's "Reliable Sources"

At least on the east coast, it's on next, 11:30am EST. I'm the guest, along with some kooky right-wing blogger. Read the rest of this post...

NEWSWEEK: Gannon is considering suing us all

For what? "Political assassination" isn't a cause of action, not to mention, folks did their jobs and discovered the truth about Gannon - a truth that he advertised quite proudly and willingly on the Internet (imagine a jury looking at the pissing photos Gannon willingly advertised on the Net).

If Gannon sues, that means he gets to testify under oath and be deposed under oath. And if he lies or twists his words, like he appears to have done in practically every interview to date, when being asked lots and lots of questions UNDER OATH about his ties to the escort business, asked who his clients are, about his ties to Eberle, about his ties to the White House, it's perjury and he could go to jail. Oh, and I can't wait until we call Senator Thune, Scott McLellan and Ari Fleischer come to the stand.

Not to mention, prostitution is illegal in Washington, DC. If Gannon wants to get the courts involved, he ought to think real hard before he goes there.

Jeff Gannon is considering suing liberal interest groups, bloggers and others for a "political assassination" that drove him from his job as a reporter for a conservative news outfit called Talon News, he told NEWSWEEK. Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, singled out Media Matters -- a "well-funded" liberal group headed by longtime "attack dog" David Brock. ("Everything we wrote about him came from the public record," Brock replied.)

It remains unclear how Gannon got routine White House press access for nearly two years; he acknowledged he first began getting clearance to White House press briefings in early 2003 as a representative of GOPUSA, a group headed by Texas GOP activist Bobby Eberle-months before Eberle even created Talon News. Gannon said he had no access to White House aides outside the press room, nor did he try to interview any. When President Bush called on him at a press conference last month-during which he asked a question with false info about Sen. Harry Reid-"nobody was more surprised than myself," said Gannon.

Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post ombudsman agrees that Gannon is a story

This is good. First, it's on the editorial page of the Sunday Washington Post. That will get attention. Second, it points out, and the ombudsman agrees, that there are even larger issues here than the blogger angle - namely, how he got access, and is this another case of media manipulation. This is good. Read the rest of this post...

The grassroots are talking to the DNC so let's see some spine

For all of you who were sickened by the pathetic display of the DNC in the election, perhaps we can expect Dean to listen and become more combative. The mushy-mouthed DNC of 2004 compromised and tried having it both ways and still lost so I don't even want to hear anything else about triangulation. (Can we also avoid having a bedtime story read as the Democratic response to the next State of The Union? Zzzzzzzzzzz.) The talk of the DNC becoming too far left is nonsense and a theory only propped up by the old establishment that have led of to one failed campaign after another for too many years. Even my most mainstreem friends were screaming about the Dem's trying the old roll-over-and-play-dead strategy. When someone kicks you, you fight back.

Bill is gone, Hillary won't cut it and we need a new plan. Dean has the helm and he's going to get us back in the game. Show us a little spine and some results and we're in the mix again. Read the rest of this post...

Video of Bill Maher on Gannon, it's great

Watch the video here and here (it's a quicktime video). Robin Williams, Joe Biden, Leslie Stahl. This is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Go to this blog then click on the link. Then check out this quote from Joe biden on the show:

"Why isn't every major network in the country investigating a security breach, forget anything else. How could the FBI, for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member. I've read more FBI reports than I ever wanted to know. How could that happen and no one had any idea who this guy was?... The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated." - Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)

Read the rest of this post...