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Is anyone following the Gannon/Guckert story?

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Ethel
Post subject: Is anyone following the Gannon/Guckert story?
Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:00 pm
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It is amazing!

A brief recap for people who can't stand to follow American politics: for some months now, a "reporter" called "Jeff Gannon" has been regularly called on to ask questions at White House press briefings by press secretary Scott McClellan, often when McClellan was being pressed hard by other (actual) reporters. Gannon's questions were invariably highly partisan "soft balls" along the lines of "And doesn't that, combined with the now-proven al Qaeda link between Iraq -- between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization -- unequivocally make the case for going to war in Iraq?"

(Link: http://mediamatters.org/items/200502020014)

Then, at Bush's Jan 26 news conference, Bush himself called on Gannon - who asked him a "question" that featured made-up quotes from Democrats, and finished by asking how Bush could work with people (Democrats) so "divorced from reality"?

That got people's attention. For one thing, it wasn't a question - it was an invitation to partisan vituperation. For another - who was this Jeff Gannon guy? No one in the press corps had any idea.

Gannon described himself as being the "Washington Bureau Chief" of "Talon News Service". A very little digging turned up the fact that "Talon News Service" was in fact simply a website owned by Republican operative Bobby Eberle, and that Gannon's "news" stories were frequently nothing more than cut and paste jobs on White House press releases. So how did this guy get a highly coveted White House press pass?

And then it turned out that his name wasn't Jeff Gannon at all. He was really James Guckert. And James Guckert was the owner of some decidedly... interesting... domain names with names like 'militarystuds.com'. At first Gannon/Guckert said that he had merely registered the domain names for a customer. But it now turns out that Guckert was in fact a male prostitute offering his services for $200/hour or $1200/weekend.

(Link: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02 ... -jeff.html - caveat lector)

So... a fake reporter using a fake name, who is in fact a male prostitute, was granted daily White House passes, and was frequently called on for questions by the White House press secretary. Hmmmm. How could such a thing happen? Gannon had in fact been denied Capitol Hill press credentials when the committee in charge of issuing them could not confirm Talon was a legitimate, independent news organization.

Curiouser and curiouser. And all this by the party that favors a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage!

My favorite comment on this whole story comes from http://thepoorman.net/gl/article.php?st ... 4161107130:
Quote:
CORRECTION: Hacktacular White House reporter Jeff Gannon is not, in fact, a man-pimp, as we had previously reported. He is actually a self-pimping e-he-whore. (Link not safe for work, or dinner.) The Editors apologize to Mr. Gannon for the error.

Everyone is still missing the point of the story. The story is not, as nitwits like Howie Kurtz maintain, that people are being mean to someone just because he's conservative. The story is not that Gannon is a hypocrite for promoting an anti-gay agenda. The story is not even that the White House gave such access to a reporter for a dummy news service operating under an assumed name, and may have used him to expose Valerie Plame. This is not the story.

The story is that God exists.

Think about it: what are the chances that a media whore like Gannon would turn out to be an actual whore? It's impossible. It boggles the mind how infinitely unlikely this is. It's like if you found someone pirating CDs, and it turns out he actually had a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder and sailed around the Caribbean saying "arrrrrr!" and plundering booty. You wouldn't believe it. But there it is: impossible, but true. Impossible truths are miracles, and only God can work miracles. Ergo, God exists. Q.E.D.

The rest of the story is that God's metaphors are about as subtle as a David Byrne art concept or, equivalently, getting clocked on the head with a cinderblock. Yeah, "whore". It's a "big suit", David. We get it already. I think brainless plankton on Neptune get the symbolism here. Jesus.
You couldn't make this stuff up.

Last edited by Ethel on Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Farawen
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:12 pm
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:Q :Q :Q :Q :Q


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Leoba
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:38 pm
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That's the first I've heard of this. :LMAO:

As Farawen says: :Q:Q:Q:Q:Q

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Iavas_Saar
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:56 pm
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I'd seen stories on CNN about his false name and asking easy questions, but the prostitute bit is new to me. My goodness! :Q Has this new information been talked about on the TV news channels?

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:56 pm
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In my own words:

:Q :Q :Q :Q :Q :Q

But I think Farawen has said it better.

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Axordil
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:11 pm
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Imagines Gannon leaning against a streetlight near the docks: "Hey sailor, want a leaked memo?" :damnfunny

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:56 pm
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shudders with disgust

This is like 'family values' man Newt Gingrich serving his wife divorce papers while she lay in the hospital recuperating from cancer surgery.

Why is it so hard for Americans to wake up to the true character of these people?

Jn

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Berhael
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 4:00 pm
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That's... whoa.

I don't think any of this has been reported in British media, at least not in the BBC or Channel4, which are the TV news I watch. I'm too busy to read any papers... :roll: But I'll keep an eye out for this story! :Q


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Leoba
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 4:13 pm
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I ran a BBC search after I read Ethel's post -it doesn't show up at all.

However, The Guardian newspaper picked it up a few days ago, including the gay porn connection: here and with an article about bloggers here

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Berhael
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 4:18 pm
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The fact that the BBC didn't pick up on it would be great to point out to those Manweistas that used to loudly complain about the BBC's obvious anti-American and anti-Bush stance... :mrgreen:


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Ethel
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 5:12 pm
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The mainstream media has already reported on the gay porn connection to some degree - Guckert's ownership of the gay themed domain names. The prostitution angle just came to light, and it was bloggers who broke it open. John Aravosis, who writes Americasblog (link above) did the heavy lifting on this. He's a liberal blogger; he's also a gay activist. And if there's one thing gay activists can't stand, it's gay men who push a gay bashing agenda.

Aravosis's piece is pretty damning - I don't think anyone who reads it can have any real doubt.

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 5:32 pm
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Ethel wrote:
And if there's one thing gay activists can't stand, it's gay men who push a gay bashing agenda.
This seems to happen all too often. :scratch

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 5:38 pm
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I'll be very curious to see if, and how, this story spreads in the U.S. media.

I wish I didn't have to say "if."


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Eruname
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 5:42 pm
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Berhael wrote:
The fact that the BBC didn't pick up on it would be great to point out to those Manweistas that used to loudly complain about the BBC's obvious anti-American and anti-Bush stance... :mrgreen:
To be fair, this is the first I've heard about it. I wouldn't exactly say it's a huge story over here and that could be why it's not a huge story in Britain? Sorry, but I gotta agree with the Manweistas that the BBC is liberal...but I tend to believe that about most European press because even liberal Americans are more conservative than liberal Europeans...or seem to be!

Really I know nothing! :P


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Axordil
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 7:00 pm
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God Bless the Guardian :cheers

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Guruthostirn
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 8:25 pm
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I hadn't heard about it either...

Frankly, who cares about the gay stuff? Except that he's being more of a whore in the pressroom than in any movie...

If this is true, it's outragous that the administration is doing a thing like this...leading their briefings. Oh, wait, nevermind...it's just their normal operations...

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Lidless
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 9:42 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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I found out about planted questions when I got a Secret Service agent blind drunk in 1999 - research for the book.

The last two questions had been plants, the standard procedure with friendly journos. They are given prepared questions to ask by the White House Staff, in return for exclusives but is a technique that is used sparingly.

In terms of fake reporters, it reminds me of David Manning, the film critic.
Quote:
No matter how bad the movies of Columbia Pictures were, there was always one reviewer who was sure to heap lavish praise on them. That was David Manning of the Ridgefield Press. For instance, while others reviewers were skewering Hollow Man, Manning declared that it was, "One helluva scary ride! The summer's best special effects." The sophomoric comedy The Animal impressed him as "another winner," and he singled out Heath Ledger of A Knight's Tale as "this year's hottest new star." These comments all appeared prominently in print ads for these films.

David Manning's rave reviews might have gone forever unnoticed. After all, few people pay much attention to the hyperbolic comments that grace most movie ads. However, during the course of investigating the journalistic subworld of movie junkets, Newsweek Reporter John Horn uncovered the curious truth behind David Manning. The Ridgefield Press, a small weekly newspaper based in Connecticut, had never heard of the man. Nor was Manning known by any of the other reporters who frequented the junket circuit. In fact, Manning didn't exist at all. He was, Horn discovered, the fictional creation of a young marketing executive at Sony, the parent company of Columbia Pictures.

Apparently the executive, who has remained anonymous, created the Manning character around July 2000. He used the Ridgefield Press because he himself had grown up in Ridgefield. It's not clear whether others at Sony knew of the deception, or whether the executive acted alone.

John Horn exposed the reality behind David Manning in an article that appeared in early June 2001. He noted that the most curious aspect of the whole affair was why Sony would have felt the need to invent movie reviews in the first place. During movie junkets, the studios pamper critics with all-expense paid weekend getaways. In return for this star treatment, many critics are happy to print whatever the studios want them to about their movies.

Sony pulled the ads, but it staunchly insisted on its right to have printed them in the first place, claiming they were a form of free speech. When angry filmgoers brought Sony to court over the deception, Los Angeles Justice Reuben Ortega didn't buy Sony's 'free speech' defense, claiming that it was entirely frivolous. The case is still in the courts, but the Justice remarked that he hoped the filmgoers succeed in their case against Sony, noting that if they do then "no longer will people be seen lurching like mindless zombies toward the movie theatre, compelled by a puff piece. What a noble and overwhelming undertaking."

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Rodia
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 9:54 pm
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What Guru said...it's the reporter being a fake that makes me go :Q

Nasty.

Bit like home.

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Impenitent
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 1:24 am
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Hasn't made the news in Oz either.

And we watch CNN when we can and there's been no mention that I recall.

The Dorothy Dixers don't surprise me - that's the way of it in every political forum: setting up friendly questioners is expected.

But the convergence of cirumstances and the high-level connections certainly make this case stand out.

I have so little faith in the moral and ethical standing of those who govern us - and every new thing I learn erodes that faith further. :nono:

My daughter, aged 11, has recently expressed a desire to be the first female prime minister of Australia. My reflexive response (to my shame) was God no! Don't become one of them!

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Lidless
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 2:30 am
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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You mean Australian?

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