 | Politics "wid" a taste of Philly, by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News |
| Politics "wid" a taste of Philly, by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News |
Thanks for visiting -- when you're done, please check out our new blog, called Attytood. It's got more on Gannon/Guckert, and all the same fair but dangerously unbalanced political commentary you came to expect from Campaign Extra! -- just with a new name and some new features.
Who is the conservative pseudo-journalist who calls himself "Jeff Gannon" and has a hard-to-get White House press pass, so he can toss softball questions at President Bush and rewrite press releases for a right-wing outlet called Talon News?
We wish we knew. We're on the trail, though. Here's a few more interesting things about Gannon, whose unlikely West Wing access is shedding new light on the unseemly White House propaganda machine.
One thing is that there's an excellent chance he's a native Pennsylvanian (wouldn't you just know it?). His "bio" on the Talon News site states "Jeff is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University System and holds a Bachelor of Science in Education." The vast majority of students who attend Penn State, either at State College or its many satellite campuses, tend to be in-state residents.
More interesting is that he and Karl Rove seem to share a mentor -- a largely under-the-radar wingnut named Morton Blackwell. It seems that "Jeff" also is a graduate of the the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism -- a conservative propagandist training school that was founded and is run by Blackwell and that operates on an $8 million annual budget which comes from God knows where.
Remember the lame stunt during the Republican National Convention in NYC where many delegates taunted war hero Kerry by wearing purple band-aids that said: “It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it”? It was Blackwell, a GOP delegate from Virginia, who handed the band-aids out to the conventioneers.
Less well known is that Blackwell -- who was the youngest Barry Goldwater delegate in 1964 -- is also a former national executive director of the College Republicans, who had trained the teen-age Karl Rove to be a “field organizer.” According to a May 2003 New Yorker article, it was Blackwell who urged Rove to shun the growing reliance on pollsters and media consultants and go back to the grassroots. We all know how that turned out.
We'd never heard until tonight of the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism, which apparently trains hundreds of "Jeff Gannons" every year. They were hiding in plain sight.
There's one other thing that raises our curiosity about who or what is behind "Gannon." It seems that when he wasn't bashing Kerry, he paid a ton of attention to the Thune vs. Daschle Senate race in South Dakota. One blog that seemed to think "Gannon" was an authoritative journalist and linked to at least one of his reports was called "Daschle v. Thune."
If that name sounds familiar, it should. It later was reported that the author of the blog, Jon Lauck, was a former Thune campaign staffer and was paid $27,000 by Thune's 2004 campaign while he was producing the Web site.
So let us get this straight: The top Democrat in the Senate loses a race where the GOP sets up a phony blog that passes along news reports from a pseudo media organization, written by a reporter given White House credentials under a fake name.
Our head is spinning.
Will the propaganda fiasco become George W. Bush's Watergate? Stay tuned.
Test.
Posted by: will at January 30, 2005 11:46 AMSusan G over at dKos has led a group digging into the Gannon/Talon background. Read more here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/30/9415/11717
Posted by: wanderindiana at January 30, 2005 03:51 PMIf we can get people to pay attention long enough, Payola-gate could put a serious ding in the GOPs plans for 2006. However the story faded from the national outlets almost as soon as it hit. The Williams story drowned under the glycerine glow of the new bachelorette.
The good news? I think that when this story breaks big it will be thanks to the efforts of old-fashioned newspaper journalists along with a cadre of blogger. It may turn people away from their TVs and back to reading papers and looking for news that doesn't involve Michael Jackson or Donald Trump.
Well, here's hoping anyway.
Posted by: IndieRant at January 31, 2005 08:50 PM"Will the propaganda fiasco become George W. Bush's Watergate? Stay tuned."
God, I hope so.
Posted by: Billy The Blogging Poet at January 31, 2005 09:31 PMGannon's bio has been removed from the Talon website. Wonder why?
Posted by: far from the bronx at February 1, 2005 01:41 PMOne thing also to consider is that graduating from the "Pennsylvania State University System" means little. He could have gone to Slippery Rock, Mansfield, CUP, IUP, Shippensburg, Millersville, West Chester, or any of the other universities in the system, not necessarily Penn State, and not necessarily the main campus. His bio is fudged, like his credibility. My guess is that he went to one of the teaching schools, like Ship, Millersville, or Bloomsburg, and not PSU, and is hiding behind the fact that the whole state university system can be referred to in a confusing way to make readers think he went to Penn State.
Posted by: Tripper at February 2, 2005 10:52 AMTempest in a teapot.
Posted by: Wyck Holland at February 9, 2005 01:44 PMThe daschlevthune blog linked to Gannon almost every day.
Posted by: Nick at February 9, 2005 03:12 PMMuch worse has been done by the Bushists, why would this be the thing that brings them down? If this does pose a danger, it will most likely hasten an attack on Iran.
Posted by: Dominic Bradish at February 9, 2005 04:11 PMThe fact that "Gannon" quit/disappeared/retreated after an opening salvo of preliminary queries shows how weak he is. Note also the persecution-complex in his post. I love Republicans! Even as they are rampant they whine about being oppressed.
Posted by: Mr Trail Safety at February 9, 2005 08:52 PMIt's time for blog-world and non-numbheads to prostitute their values and join the GOP in 10-cent Orwellian manipulation. Unfortunately, the right language choices, used within a reliable reverb chamber (blog-world), works.
For starters I suggest using "George Bush's War" for "The War on Terror."
I also suggest using "Class Warfare" for the "Ownership Society."
It's a sad state of affairs. I wish Americans were more discriminating; they're not.
Posted by: Joe Cason at February 10, 2005 12:26 AMJ.D. Guckert is his name.
Posted by: Joe Smith at February 10, 2005 08:48 AMNow we hear that "Gannon" runs gay escort services on the web. Where did McLennan find him?
Posted by: Gaddy Yaari at February 10, 2005 01:45 PMWolf Blitzer had "Gannon" on to defend himself. He came out looking like a babe under attack..being stalked....followed by leftist(people must have signs saying "left"????)....Wolf gave him the kid glove treatment. I felt ill.
Posted by: Patrick J. Mulligan at February 10, 2005 06:13 PMThe right wing and the likes of Gannon "or what ever his name is"; and Karl Rove are selling us all down the river. They will lie about anything. Their entire time in office has been one lie after another. They have defacto control over the majority of media outlets. They have nearly achieved a compltete brainwash stranglehold on the American public. It may already be to late to stop them from creating a political,foriegn policy,and economic catastrophy for this country.
Posted by: Pete Mullen at February 10, 2005 06:56 PM"Will the propaganda fiasco become George W. Bush's Watergate? Stay tuned."
He he that's pretty funny.
Posted by: GG Liddy at February 10, 2005 09:09 PMScot Robinson the RNC woman kicker was from the Penn college system?
Posted by: Mr.Murder at February 11, 2005 04:00 AMIf Jeff were to attempt to "save face" by admiting his part in this fiasco and pointing fingers at the real culprits would he come out a hero?
Instead of being a sacrifical goat, jeff becomes the "John Dean" of "Mediagate"?
Posted by: David Gibson at February 11, 2005 01:29 PMJeff Gannon was at least as qualified as NYT's Jayson Blair. Maybe Jeff could get a job at NYT, however he may be over-qualified, as he has already practiced journalism.
Posted by: Michael Klena at February 12, 2005 10:06 AMThe masons sent "Gannon" to the briefing room that day for a good reason. They want "blogers" to be outlawed because it is the only aspect of th eMass Media that they canno get total control over.
Posted by: John Miller at February 13, 2005 05:51 PMHi, just popped in here through a random link. Cool site, keep this good work up :-)
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Posted by: casino ruleta en linea at February 14, 2005 08:42 AMWhen White House shill Jeff Gannon was “outed” and his collusion with Press Secretary Scott McClellan made clear as Windex, the only question remained is how will the Grand Old Propaganda (GOP) spin machine pull another fast one on the unsuspecting American public?
Unfortunately, if recent events are any indication, the GOP engine of disinformation won’t have to knock itself silly. With television, radio and the internet already saturated with “Fair and Balanced” Foxification news outlets, tax-payer supported payola pundits (Armstrong Williams et al), and press pimps of the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh and Drudge, all that is required is the reframing of a few GOP talking points farmed out to the aforementioned dubious media outlets and Mr. “Gannon” could very well turn up smelling like a rose.
Posted by: Alan Bennett at February 15, 2005 08:10 PMHe is a gay prostitute, in tight with Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and all the Bushies. A GAY PROSTITUTE! In tight with the Bush's! Why doesn't the evening news show a picture of his web site advertising himself for hire, on a split screen with GWB dorky looking face every night. Gay Prostitute/George Bush. George Bush/Gay Prostitute. Every night until every time you hear gay prostitute you think of GWB. Well, I already do, but the rest of the country should also. And after the commercial, they can run a split screen of Neil Bush and his Singapore prostitute. Prostitute/Bush Bush/Prostitute.
Posted by: Bones at February 16, 2005 05:32 PMIt makes sense to have a gay Prostitute having access to the White House.
Where else would get Bush and Scott McClellan get their kicks.
Bush had many gay experiences and just because he is sitting on the Throne in the Oval Office does not mean he stopped
If Clinton was still in office the Republicans would be calling for impeachment! Questions would be asked about the President's moral leadership, and about how this man got past the FBI and Secret Service to sit a few feet from the President, all the time using a false name! Once again this group of thugs and criminals have embarassed the Republican Party. Remember when the Republican Party was for smaller government, for keeping government out of your personal life, and for personal responsiblity. Now under the right-wing religious fanatics we have the largest government deficits in years, a government that is concerned with what goes on in everyones bedrooms (except Jeff Gannon's), a government that wants to limit free speech, and a government that must not believe in personal responsiblity since it seems unwilling to prosecute corporate theives like Halliburton. And remember when W talked about steroids in his state of the union speech in 2004. Isn't it funny that his friend and possible future candidate for President would be an Austrian bodybuilder that has admitted using steroids. What kind of mixed message is that to send to our youth? These new republicans seem to be willing to toss out the Bill of Rights, except for their right to bear arms. Let's give Iraq our constitution, we're not using it anymore! It is enough to make me a democrat!
Posted by: Jeremy at February 19, 2005 12:37 AMAs the Honorary Chairman for the Committee for A/08 it gives me great pleasure to announce that effective immediately Jeff Gannon will join the staff of our news and advocacy web site www.invadeaustria.com. Mr Gannon's responsibilities will entail insuring that the site maintains as few strict journalistic standards as possible when reporting on world events. Fabrication is a critical skill of modern news gathering and, until now we could only aspire to the level of duplicity engendered by the Bush Whitehouse. Jeff's appointment will allow us to move forward with a fully credible and disingenuous publication.
Posted by: Lt. Col. R.T. Alexander (Ret) at February 20, 2005 11:01 AMROFLMAO!! I love this! As a conservative (libertarian)long purged from the Republican "tent", this is hypocrisy at its best. Bushie and pals are getting their just desserts.
"Liars don't fear the truth as long as there's plenty more liars to cover up for them".
Posted by: Kirk Smith at February 20, 2005 08:01 PMSo, is Karl Rove ever going to come out, or will the REAL press have to out him?
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