Propagandagate takes an interesting turn...

[Ddrak]

Actually, I would argue that the very existence of Talon News (a fully owned and controlled subsiduary of GOPUSA) and their syndication as if they are a 3rd party source back onto GOPUSA's home page is very much a hiding of associations. If they were up front about it then Talon would simply not exist because there's no reason for it.

When I look at Talon's web site I see nothing indicating they are owned by GOPUSA. I see GOPUSA linked as a place where Talon can be read, but nothing about ownership. It's only when you start looking at the owners names of the two sites that you realize that despite their linking as apparently independant parties that they are really one in the same.

Gannon claims a friendship with Karl Rove (which is likely a homoerotic fantasy), GOPUSA makes huge donations to the GOP in Texas, which makes it simply non-feasible that there aren't ties to the whitehouse. Do you really believe that the leaders of the GOP wouldn't know their biggest contributers?


Akhbar,

Ah - interesting case.

Dd

[Akhbarali]

You know, after reading about how easy it was to get a daily press pass, I wrote up a funny little post about how we at Brellrants.net should make our own news service and send you over to get a daily pass to the Whitehouse as our correspondent. But that post experienced one of those invalid session errors.

If we wanted to match the bizarre factor of this story we'd have to send Rsak as our correspondent.

Akhbar

[Relbeek Einre]

Chants, we haven't even established that A) Rush actually said what he claimed or that B) Gannon got it from him.

And it's also moot. Gannon just spewed it unsourced, and it echoed, along with his line of malrkey about Hillary Clinton claiming the economy was on the verge of collapse.

And as for grandstanding... here's this quote by Guckert:

"Since there have been so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"

And your barbs against Helen Thomas, the First Lady of the Press, just shows you're buying into the Bush spin machine's hype... Here's the three quotes a hit piece on Helen Thomas brought out... compare to Guckert above.

Thomas to Fleischer: Will you state for the record, for the historical record, why [Bush] wants to bomb Iraqi people?
—March 5, 2003

Thomas to Fleischer: [W]hy is [Bush] going to bomb them? I mean, how do you bomb people back to democracy? This is a question of conquest. They didn't ask to be "liberated" by the United States. This is our self-imposed political solution for them.
—Feb. 26, 2003

Thomas: At an earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the president deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world?
Fleischer: Well, Helen—
Thomas: And I have a follow-up.
Fleischer: —I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist attack in Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds. And the president, as he said in a statement yesterday, deplores in the strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people, innocents in Israel.
Thomas: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?
—Jan. 6, 2003

Unlike Guckert who lied ("speeches alongside Jane Fonda"), Helen may have asked barbed questions of the President, but she did not throw untruths into it. The closest she came was asking why he wanted to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis. And you can milquetoast it by saying "He doesn't want to, but it's necessary in war", but it's still the truth.

And it's hardly more barbed than what she's asked of Presidents for forty years...

Thomas: Mr. President, two days ago you launched a war, and war is inherently a two-way street. Why should you be surprised or outraged when there is an act of retaliation?
Bush I: Against a country that's innocent and is not involved in it? That's what I'm saying.
Thomas: Well ...
Bush I: Israel is not a participant. Israel is not a combatant, and this man has elected to a—to launch a terrorist attack against the population centers in Israel with no military—no military design whatsoever. And that's why. And it is an outrage and the whole world knows it and the whole world is—most of the countries of the world are speaking out against it. There can be no—no consideration of this in anything other than condemnation.

It's just THIS Bush who seems to be unable to handle her. But then his contempt for the press is unquestionable, so it's hardly surprising he snubs Thomas in particular.

But please. Comparing Helen Thomas (now, of course, in decline) to Guckert is like comparing brie to Velveeta.

Thomas' point in multiple speeches, of course, is undeniable: The press conference (of which Bush has held disgracefuly few) is the only institutional means in this country for the President to be directly questioned. Sharp questioning needs be part of that.

To extend her point, I note that employing (in either definition of the word) shemps to softball the President and his press secretary erodes at this vital avenue of accountability, and that's one more in a long series of threats to this democracy.

[Chants Evensong]

Relbeek stated:

Chants, we haven't even established that A) Rush actually said what he claimed or that B) Gannon got it from him.

A) I have provided sufficient proof that Rush said what he claimed. I provided a link where he admits he said it and it remains unimpeached. You now have the burden of providing evidence that he did not say what he claimed.

That's how it works in an argument. People make assertions and provide facts supporting them. If someone does not like the assertion another is making, they try to disporve the facts supporting it. In the present instance, I asserted that Rush said what he claims, (i.e., that he originated the soup line quote). I then provided a llink where he admits that he said it. If you disagree with my assertion, then impeach Rush's claim. You don't get to argue the contrary with out any evidence that my facts are wrong.

B) As for you second point, I have argued that Gannon got the quote from Rush. The facts to support that assertion are that is it the same odd phrase "Soup Lines" attributed to the same person "Harry Ried" in the same context "Sems downplaying the economey". If you have evidence that Gannon independently came up with the same odd phrase for the same person and used it in the same context as Rush, have at it.

Relbeek continued:

And it's also moot.

You and others have made an assertion: Gannon was planted and was a shill of the White House. As evidence, you provided facts showing he was granted a day pass with few credentials and that he asked convenient softball questions.

I countered those arguments with these facts:

1) Day passes are very easy to get -- too easy in fact. I linked to E&P where several other journalists commenting on this very subject acknowledged that almost no one is denied a day pass.

2) Asking softball questions does not make him a shill or a plant. It shows he has an political agenda, but as you have already conceded, many reporters ask questions with a political agenda.

Then in another attempt to show that there was some nexus between Gannon and Bush, you claimed that Gannon was the source of disinformation that made it into the mainstream media.

That is exactly why the Plame connection in this case was so important. It provided persuasive evidence that the White House was feeding Gannon disinformation. For days and days, the left side of the blogosphere claimed he was the sole recipient of a classified memo concerning Plame. When it was proven that this was false, the Plame ange started falling apart so badly that even Kosdaily started to away from it.

Then Klast came up with the idea that Gannon was the source of the Harry Reid comment and the Jane Fonda comment to show the vitally needed nexus between the white house and Gannon.

I asserted that this information was already in the mainstream media before Gannon raised these issues and that there is no evidence at all that Gannon rev\ceived this information from the white house.

In short, without any persuasive evidence that there is a nexus between Gannon and the White House, there is no real scandal here.

That is not to say that Gannon is an innocent victim. He did abuse his pass. He showed exceptionally poor journalism skills. None of his reports were original and most seemed cribbed from news releases and other news sources.

He also seemed like quite a nobody. But if you think he deserved the treatment he got for making speaches in the briefing room, I can respect that.

As for Helen Thomas' question to George Bush senior, we need to put that in context. Her question was meant to minimize Saddam's missle attack on Israel during the first Gulf War. Isael was not a party to that war, but Saddam tried to drag them in by attacking them unilatereally so that he could make the "mother of all wars." I find Helen Thomas' using her pass to minimize Saddam's conduct to be just as despicable as anything Gannon did. Some would say worse.

[Partha]

Wouldn't repeated requests for day passes over a two year period in and of itself be a red flag?

[vaulos]

Actually, I would imagine that it is fairly common.

[Partha]

No, I wouldn't think so. To get a 'hard' pass, you have to have a Congress pass, and pass the background check - I'm reasonably certain that most people there on any given day are 'hard' pass folks. As far as there's public knowledge, only TWO people have had continuous streams of 'day' passes for any length of time, both being conservatives who ask goofy and/or softball questions. The other one also did not get them continuously, either - he had, I'm given to understand, a four month period where he did not recieve a pass.

And another two questions that need to be answered in Gannon's part - say he DID crib the WSJ article for his interview with Wilson.

1) How did he know it was an INS memo and not CIA? The WSJ article doesn't appear to mention that.

2) Evidently, the first red flag that showed up on this guy was the fact that he was cut n' pasting press releases for most of his 'stories'. How many actual interviews did he ever do that were published or did he even attempt to do?

[Partha]

One more question. (And thanks to Chants for the facinating link to DailyKos for this one)

To get in the press corps, you have to represent a valid news organization, right?

And Talon News was created April 29, right?

So how's Gannon asking questions in the WH pool on March 5?

[SicTimMitchell]

I laugh every time I read this "question". Maybe it didn't sound as laughable live as it does in print.

Oh, it did. I think that question in a nationally televised press conference is what alerted everyone to the story. It certainly caught my attention. Once a bunch of folks sitting at home go, "Who the fuck was THAT guy?" you have a story that will get the public's interest.

Chants,

No, I'm not asking how he got credentialed. That's another point. Watch a press conference sometime. Maybe five reporters get called on each time (they often ask multiple questions and followups).

If you're a political junkie, some faces get pretty familiar. Some have been around forever. (Sam Donaldson used to get called on during virtually every press conference, and played hardball with Dems and Repubs alike.)

Again, I'd never seen anything like that at a presidential press conference. I bet the correspondents from Fox were also all, "WTF?!?"

[Ddrak]

I still think Chants is using the classic debate trick of glossing over the sticky incidents and pulling out strawmen to shoot down. While he certainly has a point about the White House press room, as evidenced by the following WP articles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Jan21.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... tml?sub=AR

I feel his glossing over the magnitude of Gannon's lines of questioning with "many reporters ask questions with a political agenda." is practically laughable. Perhaps Chants can provide information where reporters have (apparently) parroted extremist talk show hosts in their questions previously, or perhaps those that have stated an entire political party has "lost touch with reality"?

That's the fundamental problem here. We have Gannon being specifically employed by someone known to have close connections with Bush through the Texas GOP and then we're supposed to believe that his meteoric rise into White House Correspondant and someone continually used as a foil after tough questions was by complete chance? I think not.

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

If you disagree with my assertion, then impeach Rush's claim.

OK: I present the results of my efforts to find the episode where Rush made the original soup line remark:

Drawing a blank. In fact nobody's quoted Rush that I can find, except his blusterous chest puffing. And Rush, I think you'll agree, is not a credible.

And again, it hardly matters. He was paid by GOPUSA, he was lobbing softballs to the President and his press secretary.. c'mon man.

[Rsak]

Oh damn got caught in that one, but that rabid partisanship and hatred of Bush have to trump the undeniable facts once again... lets try to deflect a few more times and see if my lies are believed this time!

[Chants Evensong]

Actually, the best post on this page is Partha's:

One more question. (And thanks to Chants for the facinating link to DailyKos for this one)

To get in the press corps, you have to represent a valid news organization, right?

And Talon News was created April 29, right?

So how's Gannon asking questions in the WH pool on March 5?

That is a damn good question. Let me dig around a bit. He may have been writing for Mensnewsdaily at that time....maybe.

Good find, Partha.

[Relbeek Einre]

He also, apparently never had a background check - what special privilege he enjoyed to waive that is yet to be identified.

[Klast Brell]

You are going to dig farthe back. Here he is in the whitehouse on Feb 28.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02 ... -room.html
The article links to the full video of the press conference from C-Span.

And Chants my point was never that JG making original statements My point was that he was widely quoted by virtue of being at those press conferences.

[Chants Evensong]

Ddrak stated:

Gannon claims a friendship with Karl Rove (which is likely a homoerotic fantasy), GOPUSA makes huge donations to the GOP in Texas, which makes it simply non-feasible that there aren't ties to the whitehouse. Do you really believe that the leaders of the GOP wouldn't know their biggest contributers?

It does not appear that you know about GOPUSA. GOPUSA is a private company. It is not formally affiliated with or part of any Republican Party. It is, however, a right-wing, conservative media group staffed by Republicans. They are like National Review for the blue collar guys. They are not a fund raising organization.

TEXAS

TOP CONTRIBUTORS, 2003-2004

SBC Communications $2,009,033
Baron & Budd $1,312,805
Waters & Kraus $811,474
TXU Corp $607,015
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp $600,167
Valero Energy $595,225
American College of Emergency Physicians $528,544
Clear Channel Communications $522,129
United Services Automobile Assn Group $483,475
Anadarko Petroleum $479,500
El Paso Corp $470,751
Centex Corp $457,702
Vinson & Elkins $435,567
Reaud, Morgan & Quinn $424,500
Stanley, Mandell & Iola $352,666
Ranger Governance Ltd $350,508
Pilgrim's Pride $341,576
Williams Bailey Law Firm $337,725
University of Texas $333,777
Nix, Patterson & Roach $326,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/states/contr ... &Year=2004

No GOPUSA listed.

Dd opined:

I still think Chants is using the classic debate trick of glossing over the sticky incidents and pulling out strawmen to shoot down.

I am a notoriously poor at debating. All I have done is to take the strongest arguments that Gannon was a WH shill and poked holes in them.


Dd continues:

I feel his glossing over the magnitude of Gannon's lines of questioning with "many reporters ask questions with a political agenda." is practically laughable. Perhaps Chants can provide information where reporters have (apparently) parroted extremist talk show hosts in their questions previously, or perhaps those that have stated an entire political party has "lost touch with reality"?

On the previous I posted a link to an E&P article raising, among other things, the issue of whether "many reporters ask questions with a political agenda." It mentioned Russel Mokhiber, considered my some white house journalists to be the mirror image of Gannon, except from the left. If you google a bit, you will find that he edits Consumer Advococy newsletter and got his press pass through that position. His questions, however, have nothing to do with consumers. He is also closely aligned with Ralph Nader and campaigned for him while he was a White House reporter.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp ... 1000798573

Several reporters pointed to Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, who has been attending press events through a daily press pass for several years. Some say he is as partisan as Gannon in his questions, but often with a left-leaning approach. One reporter called him "the ideological flip-side of Gannon."

Speeches from Mokhiber:

http://www.commondreams.org/scottie/120604.htm

Mokhiber: Scott, on the Middle East - many evangelical Christians in the United States are supporting right-wing Jews in Israel who want to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They (Evangelical Christians) believe this is a prerequisite for Christ's return to earth.

They believe that when Christ returns to earth - they call this the rapture - he will take back with him the true believers. And the rest - the non believers - Jews, Muslims - will be left behind to face a violent death here on earth.

My question is, as a born again Christian, does the President support efforts to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount?

Scott McLellan: Russ, we can sit here and talk about religious issues. I will be glad to take your question, and if there is more, I will get back to you on that.

Mokhiber: Is he a born again Christian?

Scott McLellan: Thank you. (McLellan abruptly ends the press briefing and walks out.)

http://www.commondreams.org/scottie/020105.htm

Mokhiber: Scott, last night, in an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department came down in favor of displaying the Ten Commandments at courthouses and statehouses around the country. My question is - does the President believe in Commandment Number Six - thou shalt not kill - as it applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq?

Scott McLellan: Go ahead, next question

Mokhiber: Kofi Annan in September said that the Iraq war is an illegal war. If it is an illegal war, then the 100,000 who have died there – according to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health – are victims of war crimes. Now, the President is going to Canada later this year. And the largest circulation newspaper in Canada (the Toronto Star) printed a column yesterday titled “Should Canada Indict Bush?” – raising the question of a war crimes prosecution. They have a war crimes law in Canada. And I’m wondering –

Scott McLellan: Do you have a question or is it just a statement of opinion?

Mokhiber: No, this is the question. Has the White House counsel looked at the President’s legal exposure to a war crimes prosecution?

Scott McLellan: It is a ridiculous question that you bring up. You were out on the Nader campaign at the time that this issue came up. It was addressed at that time. And I’m not going to go through it again.

http://www.commondreams.org/scottie/111704.htm

Now for some fawning from reporters (mainstream no less) addressing Clinton:

http://www.rhetor.com/Remote/Origins%20 ... 201999.htm

McClendon: Sir, will you tell us why you think the people have been so mean to you? Is it a conspiracy? Is it a plan to treat you worse than they treated Abe Lincoln?

John Harris: Sir, George Stephanopoulos has written a book that contain — contains some tough and fairly personal criticism of you. Earlier, Dick Morris had written a somewhat similar book. How much pain do these judgments by former aides cause you? And do you consider it a betrayal for people to write books on the history of your administration while you're still in office?

Mara Liasson: Mr. President, your vice president has recently been ridiculed for claiming that he invented the Internet and spent his boyhood plowing steep hillsides in Tennessee. I'm wondering what you think of those claims and what advice you'd give him about how to brag on himself without getting in so much trouble.

Lexis Nexus search testing whether the MSM is ignoring Gannongate as opposed to Easongate:

"Eason Jordan" with dates restricted to the last month: 151 hits
"Jeff Gannon" with dates restricted to the last month: 107 hits
"James Guckert" and "Jeff Gannon" with dates restricted to the last month: 42 hits

[Partha]

So, in other words, there are three Eason Jordan articles in Lexis-Nexis to every two Jeff Gannon articles. I'd be interested to know exactly how many and what kind of media are covered by this, and I'd be also interested to know how many of those articles were written by either man, seeing as how 'Jeff Gannon' was still publishing up until his exposure.

[Chants Evensong]

It turns out that Gannon wrote for GOPUSA prior to Talon News was formed. (The KOS link above provides this information as does the GOPUSA website in its archives. But you have to become a member to access it, which I am not). So he was writing for something in February and March of 2003. Not quite the NYT, but on par with Russell Mokhiber and his consumer advocacy newsletter.

Partha asked:

I'd be interested to know exactly how many and what kind of media are covered by [this Lexis/Nexis search], and I'd be also interested to know how many of those articles were written by either man, seeing as how 'Jeff Gannon' was still publishing up until his exposure.

Dig away, Partha! The truth is out there! Waaaay out there.

[Ddrak]

Chants,

Obviously GOPUSA itself wasn't giving donations. Why not put your investigative skillz to work and actually look at the people who ran it though? It was a small enough group.

As for your strange digression onto reporters having political bias, I posted links that were way more lucid than yours about that very subject. The thing is though, you completely dodged my question: where did any of those reporters specifically say a party had "lost touch with reality" en masse? Mokhiber certainly isn't acting as a shill, just a regular old loony and none of the softball quotes you've dug up from Clinton even approach Gannon's consistant misquotes and mistruths.

Keep trying Chants. You'll vindicate Gannon soon, I'm sure.

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

I like the so-called "softball questions" Chants dug up. (I'd found them myself earlier, trying to find any White House correspondent approaching the ridiculousness of Guckert.) Two of them are obviously trying to goad Clinton into making hostile remarks - "conspiracy", a widely derided term inside the main media, for example, or trying to get Clinton to turn on either of two people who remain to this day very loyal of his legacy. The third furthered a falsehood about Gore - that he claimed to have invented the Internet.

These aren't softball questions, kids. And the silly thing is, Clinton HAS been lobbed some softballs, so I don't know why Chants picked these.