David Corn in "The Nation" claiming that Gannon "received a quasi-bum rap"

[marcologico]

Gannon-Guckert-Gate
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2005
(CBS) This column from The Nation was written by David Corn.

The emails keep pouring in with this plea: Investigate Gannongate! These messages are obviously part of a campaign among liberal Internet activists who believe the controversy concerning Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) has not received sufficient media attention. Gannon/Guckert was a conservative reporter for a marginal news outfit who obtained a daily pass to the White House press office and who also apparently was seeking customers as a gay, military-oriented prostitute.

(snip)

But throughout this scandal, I have wondered if the Gannon affair may be smaller than it seems. I expressed several concerns in an earlier column. Still, in response to the emails, I decided to heed the call and look further. What I found leads me to ask--gasp!--if Gannon/Guckert, on a few but not all fronts, has received a quasi-bum rap.

Let me stipulate that how Gannon/Guckert came to be permitted into the White House press room is a worthy topic of inquiry. But his pursuers ought to be careful on this point. Talon News was a fly-by-night (or phony) news operation with a political agenda. But White House daily briefings should be open to as diverse a group as possible. There is a need for professional accreditation; space is limited. Yet there is nothing inherently wrong with allowing journalists with identifiable biases to pose questions to the White House press secretary and even the president. And if such a reporter asks a dumb question--as did Gannon/Guckert (which triggered this scandal)--the best response is scorn and further debate. Bloggers should think hard when they complain about standards for passes for White House press briefings.

Last year, political bloggers--many of whom have their own biases and sometimes function as activists--sought credentials to the Democratic and Republican conventions. That was a good thing. Why shouldn't Josh Marshall, Glenn Reynolds, John Aravosis, or Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos) be allowed to question Scott McClellan or George W. Bush? Do we want only the MSMers to have this privilege?

rest of article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/25/opinion/main676554.shtml

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Those last two sentences...

With that, Corn gets to the meat 'n taters of the issue. I may not agree with him on other points, but he is right about that.

Media is changing and Big Media has itself to blame. They have hired the untalented hack stenographers, while the real major league talent works the outlands. This is a perverse corruption of the media system and the media is too institutionally pig-stupid to recognize the effects of their behavior.

We are visual animals and at the same time, we do want intellectual stimulation. Good writing gives us both of these things. Sad fact is that, by and large, we do not find that good writing in Big Media. Hence, the blogs.

I will know things are getting better when Will Pitt gets a job in the bigs. Full stop.

[still_one]

4. The last two sentences will never happen

Why shouldn't Josh Marshall, Glenn Reynolds, John Aravosis, or Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos) be allowed to question Scott McClellan or George W. Bush? Do we want only the MSMers to have this privilege?

The white house would never allow them in

The main problem is Gannon, its his connection with highly secured information that he should not have had access to

[w13rd0]

5. Thank you...

...you made the point I was going to make. We'll wait till the end of days before we see this White House allowing any of those listed to ask a question of Simple Scottie or Dubya.

What's up Corn's craw?

[marcologico]

6. I agree that blogger should get into the conventions and the WH, but

I think it's a dodge. Corn seems hell-bent on hushing up Gannongate and this is just his latest rationalization.

Here's an earlier Nation column defending poor little Ganny-boy ("I've met Gannon a few times. For some reason, he was eager to say hello to me when I last visited the White House press room and was handing out invitations to the party for my book") from "blog-hysteria":

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2196

[thebigidea]

2. you know its bad when he's got to swear he's not friends with Gannon

Anybody that took checks from FOX news deserves a bit of extra salt.

[Julius Civitatus]

19. Well, Gannon says he is a "good friend" of David Corn

Check out what JimmyJeff said in his new website:

"Somebody on the Left has some sense. My good friend David Corn of The Nation risks the scorn of his base with Problems with Gannongate"

Corn can tap-dance all he wants.

[ktowntennesseedem]

3. Let's see, a quasi-bum rap for a quasi-reporter,

working for a quasi-news organization, covering a quasi-president...

nah, calling Chimp quasi-anything is too much of a stretch.

[ktowntennesseedem]

7. Interesting highlighted text:

"...there is nothing inherently wrong with allowing journalists with identifiable biases to pose questions to the White House press secretary and even the president..." I guess not, since they allow Faux news in on a daily basis.

"...if such a reporter asks a dumb question--as did Gannon/Guckert (which triggered this scandal)--the best response is scorn and further debate..." And we are responding with tremendous scorn and debate, in fact we are outraged that their has been too little debate.

"...Bloggers should think hard when they complain about standards for passes for White House press briefings..." We didn't need to think long or hard to complain about the double standards that exist for the White House press briefings, and we will continue to complain until something is done about it.

What a moron!!!

[kaitykaity]

8. I'm starting to think Corn has gotten some kind of payola.

Fake news service, fake credentials, no FBI screening,
sitting 10 feet from the Preznit, and this is not a
problem?

And this guy is supposed to be on our side??

[rqstnnlitnmnt]

9. david, there is that one little part...

...about guckert NOT BEING A REAL REPORTER.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT?!

Man and I subscribe to the Nation too, this really pisses me off.

[wishlist]

10. There are so many unanswered questions about 'Gannon'

Corn says "I have wondered if the Gannon affair may be smaller than it seems". If it is indeed so small why haven't Jim/Jeff and the WH cleared up all of the unanswered questions such as how he came to be elevated to the status of WH reporter having a significant role in the dissemination of RW propaganda (as shown in the Thune campaign) which indicates a high level of coordination by the Repubs. Seems suspicious to me that Jim/Jeff and the WH and the RWingers want everyone to believe that there isn't anything to the whole matter and no reason for any further exploration or inquiries.

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. A"bum-rap" did ya say?? Well.... we KNOW that!

[bpilgrim]

12. it's the FAKE NEWS (propaganda) and LIES coming from this WH & M$MW

hello...

fake turkeys, actors posing as reporters and 'reporters' getting paid to shill the wh MSG. is a SCAM of LIES perpetrated on the American people and sustained and given cover by M$MWs, such as yourself, that is a HUGE scandal on par with the FAKE NEWS dished out in RUSSIA!

cuts too close to home, eh?

come down from that ivory tower and get a different perspective, sheesh.

peace

[CindyDale]

13. Journalists should have a bias toward truth

not toward politics of any kind. I mean the whole truth, not just little bytes designed to polarize us.

Otherwise, they are op-ed or propagandists, but not reporters.

[harrison]

14. I don't know much about Corn, but if I am not mistaken he did

a very favorable biography of a controversial CIA figure some years ago. I don't remember who it was. However, supposedly Corn left out some pretty damning stuff in the biography. Of course, this has led to certain speculation about Mr. Corn.

Now, given this: I wonder if Gannon was CIA or something and maybe Corn is covering for him. Mere speculation about two public figures.

[EVDebs]

21. Blond Ghost ... about Ted "Third Option" Shackley

""Journalist David Corn wrote a book about Shackley called "Blond Ghost" which was described by a number of reviewers as "balanced" which is reviewspeak for " a worthless collection of lies and half-truths." During the writing Corn became enamored with Shackley and a sort of man/boy love thing seems to drive the text. "From what I hear Corn was not the first lad to fall for Ted's considerable charms," said Ted's long time friend and fellow mahem maker, Thomas Clines.""

from http://www.theassassinatedpress.com/adiodi7.htm

Ouch !

[starroute]

15. There's been lots of questions recently about Corn

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/021205Hasty/021205hasty.html

Deconstructing David
By Michael Hasty
February 12, 2005

One of the most important functions of propaganda in a nominal "democracy" like that of 21st-century America is to narrow the range of "acceptable" political debate. That's why I welcome the recent controversy over the question of whether David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, is a "mole in the progressive movement."

<snip>

The controversy was kicked off by an article published at Michael Ruppert's From the Wilderness website on January 25, headlined "David Corn: A Mole in the Progressive Movement?." It was written by Andres Kargar, with an introduction by frequent Online Journal contributor Wayne Madsen, who noted that "Corn has frequently served as the Neocon Lite version of someone who dismisses those who have investigated the crimes of the US government."

The article lists a number of examples in which Corn has sought to discredit progressives where, in his opinion, they have strayed too far from "conventional wisdom." The examples include the late Gary Webb's investigation of the CIA/Contra cocaine connection; Greg Palast's questioning of the Florida and Ohio presidential votes; and notably, Mike Ruppert's accusations of US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks—concerning which Corn has been particularly vicious. (When I first saw the article reprinted at FTW, I figured it was just payback.)

Interestingly, Kargas' article never concludes that Corn is in fact a "mole"—which would be difficult to prove in any case. His conclusion is that the problem is a general "conformism" among certain progressive journalists (including Corn), which, because of their influence, leads their readers "down the path of conformism, passivity or complacency," and acceptance of "the Empire" as a legitimate democracy.

[norml]

16. Here's a link to another thread on this Corn editorial.

Gannon-Guckert-Gate http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=108984#109152

[springhill]

17. Even before all these articles about Corn......

being a mole, I became very suspicious of his motives. He was being interviewed by Randi Rhodes on her show concerning the last election and the possibility of it being stolen. He was so dismissive of the concerns, that at the time, I was thing there was something not right. It was like he couldn't even entertain the possibility of something like that happening. I mean everything she brought up, he shot down. At the time, I was thinking that he was there to try and quell the story rather than question it.

[Julius Civitatus]

18. I agree. Corn may be a mole

I heard his interview in the Randi Rhodes show, and was amazed at how dismissive he sounded about any allegations of fraud and tampering. What's more, he wouldn't compromise on anything or even admit to anything fishy about the Ohio/Florida recounts. That raised a huge red flag for me. I always thought of Corn as a moderate progressive, but lately he's been too much of an apologist for the right, on par with outright neocon Peter Beinart of TNR.

This article on Gannon is an atrocity, and he doesn't even mention the most serious troubles with Gannon/Guckert. Furthermore, he keeps referring to this fraud propagandist as a "fellow journalist" who's getting a "bum rap" from mean lefty bloggers. The gall!

Fuck David Corn!

[EVDebs]

20. Operation Mockingbird, exposed during the Church hearings in '70s

but with GHWB running interference.

When Katrina Vanden Huevel's dad (Bill) was in the CIA you'd have to work even harder to get a story like this out. Nowadays, well, you can just wait until the Mighty Wurlitzer drowns out those who question the 'controllers'...like Corn.

[SpaceBuddy008]

22. David Corn=Media 'minder' agent of "the Man" doesn't give a damn for Truth

David, to thy own self, be true

these establishment apologist appartchiks, are info-poisoning and blinding, responsible for a deepening of the abyss & darkening possibilities for gettin' REAL. when will the wise-UP hopefully while there is still somewhat of a healthy mental landscape and physical environment worth defending, I do not want to be a pariah nation.

America needs to GET DOWN off it's ethnocentric
HighHorse, ReNounce it's unnessecary claims of number
1 status, mind it's own business, Come Home, and
REBUILD and Tend needs here at HOME

BlueBloods Bleed Greed without Heed
TrueBloods FEED Needs Adhere to CREEDS

Trusting IN the UNofficial Web of SMILES
*****


John Nichols is the only Nation writer to bother to read.

These careerist, so-called dissent champions are merely, 'brands'

they need to be sent to re-education camps

and then get out of their Ivory towers and in the real world and do some physical labor, hard labor.

This honest writer from the New-Media tears that regrettable, for Davids sake, APART, point by point.

These HeadSpace FOR RENT Propagandists, info-nannies must not be visiting the hottest, trusted websites and reading enough, mental blocks, peer blocks THEY JUST DON'T GET IT.

The future of Fair open government and the entire ecosystem is at stake and they are distorting, delaying & disrupting, dissing the WebLogs?

THIS IS WHY THEY SHOULD JUMP ON BOARD AND ASSIST US

The Genie?....Is....Us!


ALERT: THIS DOCUMENT IS A CLEAR CLARION CALL TO STAND FOR EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS...-L ! FE....,

Nature's ' Rival ' Threatends ALL Survival.



ABSTRACT: The Two Most Powerful Psychological Forces In Human History Have Been WithOut Doubt Violence And Greed. However, the current global situation has amplified the consequences involved. More people were killed in the last hundred years than have existed from the dawn of humanity up to the last century. We have the dubious privilege of being the first species in natural history that has achieved the capacity to eradicate itself and destroy in the process all life on this planet. Yet the current global crisis is of a psychospiritual nature, and it cannot be resolved without a radical inner transformation of humanity on a large scale.



The current global situation has exteriorized many of the essential themes of the perinatal dynamics. If we continue to act out the problematic destructive and self-destructive tendencies originating in the depths of the unconscious, we will undoubtedly destroy ourselves and the life on this planet. However, if we succeed in internalizing this process on a large enough scale, it might result in an evolutionary progress that can take us as far beyond our present condition as we now are from primates. Thus, it is essential to spread the information about these possibilities for transformation and consciousness evolution and get enough people personally interested in pursuing them. We seem to be involved in a dramatic race for time that has no precedent in the entire history of humanity.

~ ~~However, if a sufficient number of people undergoes a process of deep inner transformation, we might reach a level of consciousness evolution that will bring us to the point of deserving the name given to our species, Homo sapiens—i.e., Wise Humans.

....In the last analysis, the individual psyche of each of us is commensurate with the totality of existence; The Deepest Nature Of Humanity Is Not Bestial, But Divine~

WE NEED TO GET RID OF LEFT AND RIGHT, I BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE EITHER IN THE LOOP OR OUT!

“If he received preferential treatment from the White House, my hunch is that he did so due to sloppiness on the part of the press office or because he was viewed as simpatico.”

I appreciate Mr. Corn’s hunches and would love to see him investigate them to confirm or debunk them. Journalism and truth.

“Gannon/Guckert, according to the record so far, was a bit player in the Wilson affair. The leak he received was an after-the-fact leak.”

I point you to the “so far” portion of this quote. Two days ago we thought that “so far” Gannon only hosted sites such as “militarystud.com” for a business associate. Now, we know he actually was selling his sexual services on them. Last week we thought his real name “so far” was Gannon. Now we know he was lying. That is the entire point of journalism.

“It is not beyond belief that partisans in the White House or on Capitol Hill saw Gannon/Guckert as a safe outlet. But it is also possible his involvement in the Wilson affairs was more a sideshow than anything else.”

Absolutely. It is also possible that someone in the White House leaked the memo to him. The same person who kept clearing him for access he never should have had. Heck, anything is possible. Through investigative journalism, we can hope to turn what was possible, into what really happened.

“The Gannon/Guckert affair--which has yielded serious questions the White House needs to address--has generated much chest-pounding within the world of liberal bloggers.”

This seems like such a self-serving statement designed to make the bloggers seem unprofessional. I do not recall seeing a lot of chest pounding. I did a piece on how the new media had flexed its collective muscles, but is that chest pounding? I don’t know. What I do know is the mainstream media sat with this male hooker for two years and watched him ask the most stupidest questions imaginable and it took some lowly bloggers to do what they could not, their job. Ok, now that was chest-pounding.

In all seriousness to the mainstream, I mentioned at the start of this article the horrible position they find themselves in.

“I don't begrudge the bloggers their victory lap--but it would not be good form to show too much glee. And Gannon/Guckert might be a smaller prize than assumed. (He's no Dan Rather--or Armstrong Williams.)”

Dead wrong. Jeff Gannon is bigger than Rather. Not in name but in importance. He is part of the same story as Williams, so I will not compare the two. He is the heart of what is wrong in media and what must be excised if we are to ever trust media again.

“Yet it could be that this story--regrettably--is mostly about a wannabe than the powers that be.

Mr. Corn continues to minimize the story by deflecting the attention from the true story. Jeff Gannon was a wannabe, no argument there. He is not the story though and that is where Mr. Corn misses the mark. The story is the powers that be. It is about a government that is in the business of using tax dollars to buy public opinion. It is about a government that fakes news stories. It is about an administration that has a network of propaganda at its disposal that it uses with impunity. It is about a White House that can deny Maureen Dowd access to the White House Press Corps, while allowing a male prostitute the same access.

I do not pick on David Corn; I was only taken aback by the decidedly administrative tone his article took. Dismissing this story only serves one person, and that is Bush. I found it difficult to understand how someone who did such a great expose on the lies of Bush could get so easily snookered on this one.

The Truth Shall Set You Free, Propaganda-Gate Marches On

By Anthony Wade

February 18, 2005

http://www.opednews.com/wade_021805_propagandagate.htm
*****

Dissent-Barrier Specialists under public's surveillance
by CriticalMass. Submitted on 2005-02-19 12:41:18

Jefree Porter says:
Anthony,
thnx for your vigilance and citizen surveillance on The American Pravda. You are one of my favorite contributors.

are these 'official' journalists hostage to careerism, there loyalty seems easily bought with a paycheck.

They are unwittingly destroying the product of the press- credibility!

HeadSpace-For RENT ! ,PropaGannonDists !

is David Corn a BRAND ?

here is a few more exposes:

Uncommon Sense
Deconstructing David
By Michael Hasty
Online Journal Columnist

February 12, 2005—One of the most important functions of propaganda in a nominal 'democracy' like that of 21st-century America is to narrow the range of 'acceptable' political debate. That's why I welcome the recent controversy over the question of whether David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, is a 'mole in the progressive movement.'

http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/articles/uncommonsensedeconstructingdavidbymichaelhasty.htm
*****
Scorn For Corn: A Left Gatekeeper
Alex Constantine 29 Apr 2004 00:35 GMT

The name is so mnemonic that once you hear it, you can never get it out of
your head: 'David Corn,' the Washington editor for The Nation, that
straggling house organ of the American left. Though I, a leftist, may
occasionally respect an article appearing in The Nation, it is all too often
a disappointment. The magazine is myopic, and one reason for this is the
continual recycling of celebrities of the left like David Corn, who make a
living by upsetting the apple cart, but not too much. He has an internal
limit switch. If he were to write honestly about the John Kennedy
assassination, for instance, he would most likely lose the respect of his
peers, and probably his job ã therefore, he doesn't write honestly about the
John Kennedy assassination.

Instead, he finds 'respectable' stories, scoops just below the headlines ...
and brushes up against smaller conspiracies routinely, but watches his
language, avoids inflammatory words like 'fascism,' and feigns prof
essionalism.

http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/04/802400.shtml
*****

we must encourage EveryDayAmerican Heroes

ordinary people undertaking extraordinary acts

Prosecute Monopoly Medias'
mind-snappin' Hypnotists

GovernMent has the Inalienable rights? to rig, run, ruin AND OWN Your Life???


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those currently in control are doing everything they can to stop this...E V E R Y T H I N G they do, has to do with stopping people from realizing and claiming their own power.


why can't their agenda = the peoples agenda

or get 'in-tune' with the higher cause, meaning of our existence

one of the first stories I posted, self-published
at indymedia

showed a young Iraqi girl with adorig eyes and half of an arm

caption= "we will disarm the Iraqi's"
...........Yes, we know
............and we are terrified
...........That's why We Will NOT
............ Let This Slaughter proceed in Our Name

This was right after the hugest protests worlwide in history F15

and the impetus came from watching sunday cable, when I used to have, none since, where these guests just dissapeared all the marchers in all the cities of People from all walks of L ! F E

and My title was F15 World says "PEACE" McCain, Rice, Hume say "Let the killing begin"

WE CAN'T TELL THEM WHAT TO DO?
WE CAN'T TELL THEM WHAT TO TALK ABOUT?

tHEY CAN TELL US WHAT IS OR IS NOT 'CORRECT' TO SAY

SPINNING IS SPINNING IS...SINNING! ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS 'WINNING' & POPULATION THINNING?, ALL THE WHILE GRINNING? on them, Scarlet Letters WE MUST BE PINNING



Time for the "fightin jesus" in all of us to throw the
'mind-snappers' the 'media-minders' the 'info-nannies' OUT of the Temple

HeadSpace-FOR RENT ! PropaGannonDists !