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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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 Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:00 pm Post subject: Gannon/Guckert-gate |
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For those who continue to claim a "left-wing/liberal media bias"in the US, the coverage of the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story might be instructive.
Every story this week (after the first 24 hours) about the welcome into the White House Press Room of the duplicitous "reporter" has skirted the obvious: that the President and the Press Secretary benefited substantially from the presence of a "ringer" who could be called upon for a softball question when the legitimate reporters' lines of inquiry became a little too "hot."
Even the Lehrer Newshour's Jim Lehrer and Terrence Smith, and the Truthout website, to say nothing of the mainstream news media, covered only the periphal (ie, impertinent) questions in the story: did the incident represent a breach of security? Was the "gay escort service" element of any significance? Should "day pass" journalists be subject to the same screening as permanent members of the White House Press Corps?
Not a word, not a hint that this person represented a valuable asset to the exceptionally mediaphobic current occupant(s) of the White House, and the obvious resulting implication, that Guckert was there with the full consent, if not by the invitation, of the White House.
"Liberal media bias," indeed!
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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So what is Gannon's crime?
He asked President Bush at a press conference a question that dared criticize Democrats for being "divorced from reality." Now ... I agree that the question was improperly phrased. The phrase "divorced from reality" is a judgment and did not belong in the question. I dare say however that if that question had been posed by a recognized and accepted leftist the error would have gone unnoticed. Since most members of the White House press corps are liberal Democrats and the question was asked by a conservative Republican, something had to be done. There had to be some kind of story behind Gannon's question...surely he was planted there by Karl Rove! So the leftist blogs went to work "exposing" Gannon, whose real name turned out to be Guckert. As if that alone means anything because we all know Jeff Gannon is the first and only person in the history of journalism to not use his real name. Right.
And so now the latest is that Mr. Guckert had a previous life as a gay prostitute. This was before he got into journalism. But wait? Didn't we read something several years ago about some gay prostitute using Barney Frank's home as a base of operations? Why yes! I think there was such a story! And just why didn't that story grow legs like the Gannon bit? Well, you don't think it had anything to do with the fact that Frank is a liberal Democrat, do you?
How obvious can the media be? |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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I am sure that G/G is a real girlieman's girlieman - but he is there to help deceive the people of the USofA.
and one thing that makes people real irritated is to find out when elaborate efforts have been made to deceive them.
they start asking awkward questions, and those questions could go way back, way back to 9.11.2001.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | they start asking awkward questions |
Yes the awkward questions have begun, and I have attempted to answer them here and there:
How did a reporter with an assumed name gain access to the White House?
Who knows...perhaps the same way all of the other reporters with assumed names gained access? You know, as in through the front door?
What was a partisan, political journalist doing asking questions in the White House press corps? I don't know...maybe the same thing the other partisan, political journalists in the press were doing...asking questions?
What was someone who moonlighted as a gay hooker doing in the White House press room?
Wait a minute...I thought the left were supposed to be the tolerant ones. Sexual orientation shouldn't matter! It certainly didn't matter when we found out that a gay prostitute was using Congressman Barney Frank's home as a base of operations. And oh, by the way, shall we tear apart the private lives of the others in the room for comparison  |
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SDR
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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Was the President (or anyone else) endangered by this person's presence in the White House Press Room?
Did the fact that this person was using an alias make him unfit to do his job?
Should anyone with a background as a paid escort (gay, straight or eunuch) be prohibited from interviewing ther President?
No, No, and No. Those are all extraneous issues which, as I said, were used by the (supposedly liberal) press to avoid the central question: was this person invited by the White House to be available for the purpose of making the President "look good," at will and on command, in what is presumed to be an opportunity for the President to be asked to explain his positions and opinions? In other words, a "PR" moment would be available to the President when he felt he needed one, in the middle of one of his all-too-infrequent press conferences, in which his sarcasm and dismissiveness toward the press are already amply evident.
Instead of investigating the pros and cons of this patently cynical misuse of the Press Room --which might be difficult to prove but could be pursued -- the news media have chosen to interest themselves in the more sensational or prurient aspects of the case. I repeat that, if the media were as left-biased as is claimed by some, they would have lost no time in pressing the Press Secretary, if not the President, for an explanation, and assurances of future good faith.
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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Blair's PR person Campbell used to write under the name of the Riviera Gigolo, and even wrote some - potential abuse - articles apparently.
(But don't some of the Christian Fundamentalists or Evangelicals, or whatever, have rather strong views on such subjects in the US ?)
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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SDR
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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I subscribe to the view that American cultural self-image remains remarkably puritanical, despite the evident ubiquity of sexual imagery in entertainment and advertising. We seem simultaneously to repress sexuality and to obsess about it (probably an inevitable irony, psychologically). Certainly we are one of the most unforgiving, among the world's educated and sophisticated societies, of others' private sexual behavior.
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SDR
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| As for Mr Guckert, his journalist's credentials ARE a little thin -- which is secondary to the primary question, WHY WAS HE THERE. . .? |
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SDR
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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Some might find a connection (philosphical if not tangible) between the above story and the one covered here:
www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022505A.shtml
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:01 am Post subject: |
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certainly America has a puritanical image in some of its views - but all countries have their own acceptances and hyposcrises. However while somebody should not be persecuted for their behaviour (where it remains within the law), are we seriously pretending that if someone applied for a job and it was discovered that they moonlighted as a prostitute, it would not affect our view of them ?
when in addition that person is not qualified in the way that they appear to allege and is actually harming the possibility of those seeking to do a proper and open job that we should accept the openly mendacious argument that we have to be nice to G/G because he is or has been a male prostitute ?
if anyone pretends that this does not matter, it should be remembered that he was there to steer criticism away from the current administration. Have they been straight with the US people ? America's administration - America's decision, but surely it must be starting to appear strange that such an immense range of countries (many of whom have been long and good allies and admirers of the US) have been moving away from you.
perhaps in this instance the puritanical reserve of Americans concerning acceptable behaviour has actually proved to be right. Maybe many do not know the details of what is wrong - but they sense that everything is not as it should be.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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