← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Jack Cassidy
Thread ID: 16849 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-02-20
2005-02-20 06:51 | User Profile
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[font=Arial]Rove-Gannon Connection?[/font][font=Arial]
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[font=Arial]Karl Rove took a victory lap at an SRO lunch at the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting at the Ronald Reagan building in [/font]
Tired and timid are two adjectives never applied to Rove. The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 came through the ranks of college Republicans with the late Lee Atwater, and their admitted and alleged dirty tricks are the legends many young political operatives dream of pulling off. So when Jeff Gannon, White House "reporter" for Talon "News," was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career.
But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the "boy genius." Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon.
GOPUSA and Talon are both owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican and business associate of conservative direct-mail guru Bruce Eberle who says that Bobby is from the "[/font]
Some of the real reporters in the White House pressroom were apparently annoyed at Gannon's presence and his softball, partisan questions, but considered him only a minor irritant. One told me he thought of Gannon as a balance for the opinionated liberal questions of Hearst's Helen Thomas. But what Gannon was up to was not just writing opinion columns or using a different technique to get information. He was a player in Republican campaigns and his work in the South Dakota Senate race illustrates the role he played. It is also a classic example of how political operatives are using the brave new world of the Internet and the blogosphere. Gannon and Talon News appear to be mini-Drudge reports; a "news" source which partisans use to put out negative information, get the attention of the bloggers, talk radio and then the MSM in a way that mere press releases are unable to achieve.
One of Gannon's first projects was an attempt to discredit the South Dakota Argus Leader, [/font]
Daschle opponent John Thune's campaign manager was Dick Wadham, an old political crony of Karl Rove's; the kind of pal Rove could ask to hire his first cousin, John Wood, a few years back. Wadham put the bloggers on the campaign payroll and the symbiotic relationship between the campaign, the bloggers and "reporter" Gannonââ¬Â continued. On September 29, Gannon broke the story that Daschle had claimed a special tax exemption for a house in [/font]
Daschle aides told Roll Call, "This guy (Gannon) became the dumping ground for opposition research." The connections are so strong that there is an FEC challenge which could be a test case on the limits of the use of the Internet in federal campaigns.
Gannon also had Thune on his radio show "Jeff Gannon's [/font]
This week Democrats, who have serious case of Rove envy, went a little nuts and started sending around information and graphic pictures of Gannon and his porn Web sites. But it is the more routine part of Gannon's life that deserves serious scrutiny. Planting or even just sanctioning a political operative in the WH press room is a dangerous precedent and Karl Rove's hope to become a respected policymaker will be hampered if the dirty tricks from his political past are more apparent than his desire to spread liberty around the globe.
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font=Arial [/font][font=Arial]Dotty Lynch is the Senior Political Editor for CBS News.[/font][font=Arial]
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2005-02-20 06:56 | User Profile
Superb research!
An expose on Rove's subsidy of RimJob's "Free" Republic should soon be forthcoming... :thumbsup:
2005-02-21 19:01 | User Profile
THE GANNON/GUCKERT SAGA
For some reason, spurred on by leftist blogs, the mainstream media is trying to keep this story going as long as possible. The reason, of course, being that it's bad for Bush. Remember the template.
By now, you've heard the tale: Jeff Gannon worked for the Talon News Service, which is run by a Republican operative who also runs GOPUSA. He reported for Talon from the White House, where he was granted a daily press pass (not a permanent pass, which requires a background check.) 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.
[B]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?[/B]
How obvious can the media be?
[Emphasis mine]
See, Two wrongs can make a right when it is done for the Republican Party! This must work along the lines of multiplying negative intergers and ending up with a positive number. Another idiot stated that this was a net plus because it got the sleaze out from the Oval Office and into the press room instead.
I bet that not only is Rove behind this, but Bush is too.
One has to hand it to these Bush defenders excusing an administration every bit as slimy as the Clinton. If they were offered enough money they would defend Clinton with the best of the Clinton defenders.
2005-02-25 03:41 | User Profile
I say Rove is in no way "The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004." He came close to making the GOP lose with his PC nonsense.
Does Rove have a wife, does anyone know?
2005-02-25 12:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius] See, Two wrongs can make a right when it is done for the Republican Party! This must work along the lines of multiplying negative intergers and ending up with a positive number. Another idiot stated that this was a net plus because it got the sleaze out from the Oval Office and into the press room instead.[/QUOTE] Sert, Another example of this was the neocon response to all the violence and American casualties in Iraq -- they stated it was a good thing, because it meant we were fighting all the terrorists over there instead of over here. Eh, yeah, that's what we're doing.
2005-02-25 23:42 | User Profile
Faust;
As of 2001, married with one son.
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