Dude. Hilarious.

It's potentially -- and I stress potentially -- a little more significant than that, Ace. Bill had a thoughtful post about it over at INDC that delves into some of the particulars. Very much worth reading.

Ace,

the best I can figure the "outrage" (aside from puffery), is that the guy basically ate into "objective" journalists' question time and helped spread Bush's message (or "propaganda"). Seems legitimately unfair, but hardly earth shattering. After all, it wasn't CBS. (Who TF ever heard of "Talon News")

Really, Allah, what do you think is the traction here? Plame/Wilson? How he got into the press briefings with a nom de plume?

Where's the beef? (besides on his gaypr0n websites)

Ace, you DO know about the gay thing, right? What with the ginormous and the hard and the glavin(!) ?

I just don't see how a fourth or fifth tier "journalist," even as a plant, causes much "scandal" except to the very, very desperate.

What's with the left and accusing people of being gay, anyway? McCarthy, J.Edgar Hoover, this guy... It seems reflexive for liberals to sneer that ideological enemies are gay. What's up with that?

Dude, are you kidding? What a feather in their cap to say they took this guy down? Who's next, O'Reilly? Maybe even (horrors) Savage?

hobgoblin,

I have heard of "the gay thing." As I know nothing about it either way, I'm just avoiding repeating the possible slander.

I'm glad you cleared that up. I saw this story elsewhere and I thought I had been missing something important. It's nice to know I'm not out of the loop for not having known who the hell this guy was.

What are you talking about? Dude, IT'S JEFF FUCKING GANNON!!!!

I've met Jeff several times and had a few conversations with him over the past year, and he is one of the nicest and most sincere people that I've ever met in D.C. He has always struck as the kind of person who genuinely enjoys meeting and talking with people, as opposed to the majority of people up here who shmooze for the sake of shmoozing.

To be honest, I don't know many of the details of this "story," nor do I care, but it really is a shame to see such a nice person get slimed like this.

I just have to say, this is all eye-rollingly stupid. Oh, good heavens, someone registered gay porn websites AND had access to press credentials (that he had to request daily, unlike regular "on the beat" reporters in the usual White House press pool) under his actual name, as opposed to the one he published under.

Tell me again - why should anyone care about this?

The Gannon "story" will probably get more attantion from the MSM than Eason Jordan.

dude, a link to Page 3 woulda been appreciated....

LOL!!

Yeah! If a guy wants to keep his real identity secret and run gay porn sites while he askes pointed and hard hitting questions of the president, then he ought to be able to do it! What is it with those Dumb-o-crats demanding that Scotty include only legitimate journalists in those press conferences, anyway?

Eason Jordan and the Clintoon News Network should be brought up on chages of sedition. What right do they have to print and say anything they want to, anyway?

(Does anyone have a link to direct quotes from Eason on this issue. I know I am being a trouble maker, but is there any real proof that he said what our patriots are saying he said? If this is being just nitpicky, then I will understand. We shouldn't let details like "evidence" and "proof" get in the way of bringing down the anti-American bastards.)

Bad analogies all around.

Jeff Guckert used a fake name to pose as a fake journalist for a fake news service, and yet was granted press credentials to appear yards away from the President, even after 9-11.

The background-check system was circumvented to promote a partisan propaganda effort.

And we still don't know how many "journalists" were on the WH payroll, in violation of federal law, to promote a partisan propaganda effort.

How much of our tax money do you want to spend, and how many security and journalism rules do you want broken, just to be propagandized?

Check out the link below to see what you're missing.

Actually, the Talon is a legitamate news service and he got his press credentials under his own name. Let me repeat. He used his own name. Not his nom de plume (or however the hell it's spelled). So what's the scandal - that a conservative reporter got a few questions in?

Yes, Helen Thomas, venerated Washington reporter who traveled with Nixon to China, is uncannily like Jeff Gannon, elfin PR apparatus who recently switched jobs from designing gay escort websites. I love your sense of perspective.

"....is there any real proof that he said what our patriots are saying he said?"

I guess you need more credible witnesses than Barney Frank and Chris Dodd? You should research a bit before you post.
ps, I like how you use 'patriots' as a sarcastic slur.

Wonder how in the world Kerry lost?

You don't know why you should care?
You are a turd posing as a person.

The White House lets in people with fake names? Fake credentials? And uses them to spread their message?

I find it hard to believe their security is so lax. The denials are even worse.

You should care because its just like something right out of the USSR. But of course mindless nuts like you would be cheering there too.

Liberals are playing the Conservtives game of finding a target and tearing it down to make the enemy look bad. Its like the old drug commercial from the '80's "I learned it from watching you!"

Also, I do not think this is an issue only because the Lib bloggers made it so. I think its an issue because, well its actually an issue. There is a trend developing with the Admin using propaganda campaigns to promote their issues, while tearing down others.

Lastly, I give you a qoute that I posted in the comments on the other Gannon post:

The situation "begs further investigation," says James Pinkerton, a media critic for Fox News who has worked for two Republican White Houses. "In the six years I worked for Reagan and Bush I, I remember the White House being strict about who got in. It's inconceivable to me that the White House, especially after 9/11, gives credentials to people without doing a background check."

Let's turn this around for a sec. Say every time Clinton got into hot water with reporters, he would call on one guy who would give him softball...hell, T-ball...questions so he could launch on his political opponents. Now, suddenly a righty blog finds out that the reporter circumvented the WH press corps credential process, used a fake name to do it every day for years, worked for a left-wing publication with ironclad ties to a heavy Dem donor, say, Soros, that simply repeats the Clinton WH spin, and yes, was probably gay and was in the process of launching a gay escort service. Additionally, this guy seems to be the only one to enjoy this privilege.

Now I want every righty on this page to solemnly swear that if this was a Demo WH, that they would still treat it as a piffling affair not worth the bandwidth, airtime, or column space it would take to deal with it.

This is what happens when politics turn to "package deals". You know folks; it is okay to say "Hey, regardless of the side I'm on, this sort of crap (Rather, Eason, Guckert/Gannon) is bad for the country". And hell, Democrats take notes too. Next time they take the WH (and to those who are about to write in a stinging quip about how the Democrats will never take back the WH: Ha-ha! Good one! Sure didn't see that coming!), this sort of garbage becomes fair game. There's nothing wrong with righties having press corps access. Fox, WSJ, the Moonie Times, etc all are in the pool. The difference is that they are all very upfront about where they were coming from. As I understand Rather-gate, that was a big part of the conservative issue: Rather's unspoken bias, hidden under a thin veneer of objectivity, was what drove the story, not truth, right?

Yes, of course conservatives invented the "game of finding a target and tearing it down to make the enemy look bad."

Just ask Robert Bork or Clarence Thomas.

Oh please. Neither Thomas nor Bork were worthy of a seat on highest court in the nation. It didn't take a vitriolic left to point that out, but it sure did help.....at least it kept Bork out of the court.

In Breaking news - Sandy Berger left a secure reading room with classified documents stuffed in his pants!

In more breaking news – there are reports he had documents stuffed down his socks too!

In yet more breaking news - there are suggestions he may have been trying to hide something from the 9/11 commission!

Let me tell you right here and right now, this GINORMOUS Sandy Berger Scandal is BREAKING HARD!!!!!!!

If you're all so concerned with Eason Jordan and taking him down (geeee what a scandal), is it clear to you now how partisan you all are? I notice NONE of the right/conservative/repub bloggers/commentors discussing Lame ass Ann Coulter's remarks parroting what Eason Jordan apparently said. It's ok for your skewed journalists to say it, but ohhhhh no, not a liberal!!! Not in MY country. GRRRR. ARRRRRRRR!!!! KILL THE LIBS. weeeeeeee....

It's nice to see you're all on the right mailing list to get the new talking points though. Interesting how all of the right blogoshpere started trying to downplay the Gannon story pretty much on the same day. Not obvious or anything.

Faith, I had never heard of the guy until this "story" started. Heck, I'd never heard of "Talon News Service", either. It's hard to "downplay" something that trivial.

(No offense to Mr. Guckert. He's not trivial; the "controversy" is.)

As for "all on the same day" -- I think it just NOW appeared on blogrolls that people read. Not everyone can stomach the filth at Kos, etc. long enough to figure out what has the howler monkeys wanking.

Yeah Faith,

Just like Kos was ALL OVER the Rather story.

Don't pretend conservatives have to give equal time to your idiocy. Ace's= partisan site

Don't like the politics? Go to DU or Kos.

Gannon was a liar from day one.. he lied about who he was and what he did. Yet the vetting service of our particularly paranoid administration did not notice this? Bad job lads.

And anyone who argues "well if the other side did it" or "this is just like when the other side did so and so" is proving themselves to have very shaky morals..

So if someone I disagree with breaks the law (lying, say, to the Federal Government about who they really are) it is ok if I do?

Bad logic and morals..

"R"

Suuuuure. This is JUST like in personal life when someone lies.

That's why, when someone lies to someone you know of, don't particularly like, and you've never met in personal life (as is the case with Kos and the current administration), you get all indignant and devle into their personal business dealings and make public everything you know about them on a public website.

The point? "Morals" has zero to do with this thing. This is just the Left jumping on whatever toe-hold they can get after crushing electoral (Nov elections) and moral (Iraq elections) defeats.

So if someone I disagree with breaks the law (lying, say, to the Federal Government about who they really are) it is ok if I do?

No it's irrelevant if "you" do. No one cares about what "you" do. Show me where the Bush administration did anything besides sloppy background checks (for which the exposing of Gannon's sex life would be wholly irrelevant). Show me where the administration paid money to Gannon or Talon. Show me SOMETHING damnit, and I might just give a damn about htis whole thing.

The "win" is not the fact that Jeff Gannon has been discredited. The "win" is that this event has provided further evidence to support left's claim that the White House has bought off journalists to perpetuate their message.

Wasn't Jeff Gannon a QB for the Vikings, or some such? Does the left think they are taking out a right wing internet reporter and a NFL QB?

Wait, that was Rich Gannon.

"This is just the Left jumping on whatever toe-hold they can get"

Suuure and that doesn't apply at all to the right's approach to Eason Jordan. How can you not see the parallels?

Let's look at those parallels:

Eason Jordan: works at the top of a large "professional" news outlet and spouts off vile anti-American rhetoric for years to ingratiate himself with radicals in Europe.

Jeff Gannon: works for a small Internet-based news service and asks questions that aren't tilted to the Left.

I tell ya, they're dead ringers.

The real difference between our viewpoints is that we don't see the Right as a Nazi, Fascist, demonic, evil, wicked, base, depraved, corrupt, destructive, hateful, nefarious, shadowy pile of elephant dung; and you don't see a problem with the idea that Americans are the most hypocritical and false people to ever disgrace the face of the planet. As long as we both stubbornly persist in these beliefs, we'll continue to disagree about the relative importance of Eason Jordan and Jeff what's-his-name.

Ofcoarse Gannon's guestions aren't tilted to the left, that doesn't mean they're not tilted. That would be one parallel in your eyes maybe. They tilt opposite but they both still tilt. If you can call what Jordan apparently said a tilt to the left. I think it's just a stupid statement.

More specifically, the point I was trying to make is the right jumps "on whatever toe-hold they can get" with Jordan as much as the left does on Gannon. Although that doesn't even apply anymore. Eason Jordan is a much smaller story than Gannon. The fact that you won't see that points to a lack of objectivity. The right is skewing as much as you(?)/this article claim the left was.

What's wrong with the left making an issue out of Gannon being gay? Hey us folks on the left are not homophobic, we leave that to the inbred bible thumping idiot right! We on the left just think it's funny for one of the rightous to be caught with his pants down!! HAHAHAHA!!!