We at The Thinking Woman are disturbed by the unfolding reports about a person named James Guckert was frequently admitted to White House press briefings with daily press passes under the alias of Jeff Gannon, representing a "news agency" that wasn't founded until a month after he started attending briefings. Keith Olbermann has an insightful commentary: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
There are several disturbing things about this:
1. A person with close ties to the Republican Party was allowed in to ask highly biased questions, some of which were derived from statements made by Rush Limbaugh on his radio program that were not independently verified before "Jeff Gannon" stated them as fact.
2. That a person with an assumed name could get himself admitted to the White House, close to the president and his staff. Since we assume that anyone entering the closely-guarded White House is checked out pretty thoroughly before being allowed to enter in any capacity, how could there be such a security lapse? And repeatedly? No one found out he was not who he said he was?
3. That we as citizens are expected to consider this trivial news.
4. That it is possible that Karl Rove was the person who cleared Jeff Gannon, instead of the usual channels.
We rely on the free press to give us as much information as we can get in order to make informed decisions. The free press is at the heart of our nation's uniqueness. So this particular story is especially disturbing given the recent news about columnists being paid by departments of the federal government, which are directly under the authority of the executive branch, to write favorable columns about programs supported by the president.
Why does this particular administration feel it is so important to try to control the information we as citizens receive? If possible, it seems this administration is even more secretive than the Nixon White House.
Certainly there are matters of national security that cannot be freely spoken about to the press. But the function of the press is to find the truth, not to act as a mouthpiece for the government.
As you make up your own mind about this story, think about how much you really want information filtered for you. We think that Americans can take information and make up their own minds.
1 comment:
You appear to have fallen victim to some rumors that are floating around.
"Gannon" used an alias, but he did not use an alias when applying for a pass. It is merely a "pen name", and there are several writers in the WH press corp who use pen names.
Asking highly partisan questions is not new, nor is it grounds to disqualify someone from attending press briefings. Helen Thomas, for example, asked President Clinton nothing but what you would call "softball" questions and asked at Bush briefings such non-partisan beauties as "Why does President Bush want to bomb innocent Iraqis?" and "Is he trying for dictator?"
Contrary to what up-and-coming conspiracy theorist Keith Olbermann may be saying, there is absolutely zero evidence that Karl Rove "personally cleared" him. Karl Rove, as you may or may not know, is a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists. Virtually everything that happens that may help President Bush in the slightest is eventually attributed (without evidence) to Karl Rove. This is nothing new, but it is incorrect nonetheless.
Gannon did not ask Bush exclusively "softball" questions. His questions often originated in the "right wing" of things, but were often critical of President Bush who has done a lot of things to alienate the right wing... just because he's right wing does not mean that he can't ask good questions, just as the 90+% of journalists who, by their own admission, are Democrats are not somehow incapable of asking good questions.
The problem people are having with him are not problems at all. In fact, the only reason that they are feigning outrage is that he just happens to be conservative. Many people think that a conservative in the WH press corps is long overdue, as it has been dominated by liberals for decades.
It's overblown. Indeed, the complaint du jour among the critics is nothing more than the fact that he once posed nude, a fact that they have been more than happy to exploit while ruining his career.
If you are going to be the "thinking woman", I suggest that you resist outsourcing your thinking to Olbermann, Kos, and the Democratic Underground.
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