Dawig:
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However, I think it is sensible to assume that White House Press Corps reporters should have journalistic credentials or write for a real news source. Additionally, he was denied access to the Congressional Press Corps because Congress did not consider him a legitimate reporter. If he can't get access to the Congressional Press Corps, how can he get in to the White House Press Corps?
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So what you're saying is that Congress shall pass a law regulating who is classified as a reporter or not? I can think of 1 minor Constitutional obstacle...
A free press means exactly that. It must be FREE. Even if that means that what YOU view as a "non-reputable" news service exists, or if they send somebody that YOU don't think of as being a "reporter" to cover a story. I'm pretty sure that a presidential press conference is "news", wouldn't you say?
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Where did I say that Congress should pass a law to define what a member of the press is? Anywhere? No. Seriously - please reply and show me exactly where I included any statement about Congress passing a law about anything, let alone about officially defining what a reporter is? I said that GannonGuckert couldn't meet the standards the Congressional Press Corps holds for allowing press members in, and wondered why the White House Press Corps standards are apparantly lower. It is not unreasonable to expect some basic standards; after all, there is limited amount of room in the Press Corps. I never suggested GannonGuckert shouldn't be allowed to act as a reporter, or publish, or gain access to sources or anything else. Simply that he got into the White House Press Corps despite not meeting the standards that the Press Corps itself set, not me. Please stop suggesting that I support something that I clearly do not.
Regarding the immense difficulties inherent in attaining access to the White House Press Corps, I wrote:
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Let Maureen Dowd, New York Times editorialist, and someone I think we can all describe as a member of the press, explain:
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Ah, we're going with the "impartial" New York Times...yup, they have NO history of employing journalistic WHORES there, do they... >COUGH< Jayson Blair >COUGH<
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See, here's the thing. If someone quotes, say, Trent Lott on the issue of steel tariffs, I don't reply, "Ah, we're going with the Senator who supporter Thurman's racist 1948 presidential platform." Instead, I'll reply to his specific points. Because, regardless of Lott's position on Thurman's platform, he may have insightful things to say about steel tariffs.
In this case, I quoted someone who's veracity as a journalist and editorialist has never been questioned. The New York Times is far from perfect, and I'm on the front lines of people who believe that Judith Miller, the Times reporter, should be fired. Still, the NYT has the greatest distribution in the country and remains the most respected news source in America. Dowd is an exceptionally well-regarded editorialist. Engaging in ad hominem attacks on the Times while avoiding Dowd's points simply lowers the standards of debate on these boards.
Furthermore, and let me clear here: she is an editorialist. I quoted an editorial. So when you ridicule the NYT as "impartial," I suggest that whatever qualms you may have about its news division, you should not summarily dismiss biased editorial pieces. Because they are supposed to express the opinion of the author, not report news in an unbiased manner. As far as I'm concerned, Dowd raised excellent questions and further raises doubts as to GannonGuckert's ability to gain access to the White House Press Corps without help from the White House. If you have particular information regarding her exploits regarding attempts to gain access to the White House Press Corps, or specific reason to believe she may not be telling the truth, please do share them. If not, please try to not dismiss Dowd offhand.
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Somehow, wondering how a gay male prostitute got into the White House Press Corps makes me homophobic.
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Absolutely. It also exposes your anti-prostitute bias. BTW, you DO realize that you're accusing him of committing a criminal act (prostitution), right? When and where was he convicted of this crime? Ever hear of "innocent until proven guilty"? And it certainly SEEMS like your apparently unsubstantiated accusation is not only not made with an absence of malice, it seems downright deliberately malicious. But if that issue came up, it would be for a jury to decide...
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First of all, please don't call me homophobic. You don't know anything about me, and yet you would dare insult me in this manner? Hundreds of thousands of liberals and several Congressmen and Congresswomen, including several Senators, have demanded an investigation into GannonGuckert's White House Press Corps access. Does that make us all homophobic? I'm sure you were just trying to make a point, but I'd appreciate an apology.
Secondly, calling him a "gay male prostitute" is descriptive. I don't particularly care that the type of prostitute he is is "gay" and "male," but those adjectives are simply descriptive. It does NOT insinuate that it is wrong to be a gay male.
Thirdly, damn straight I have an anti-prostitute bias. I believe that prostitution is dehumanizing and degrading. You can feel free to hold a differing opinion, but this is mine.
Fourthly, you are right - I should have added that GannonGuckert is allegedly a prostitute. I will still refer to the websites that he ran and operated, posted his picture on, and ran, at the very least, an escort service from. I assume that he was prostituting himself, based on the evidence and language used on his website. However, I will add that he is accused of or allegedly a prostitute, not convicted of such, from now on.
I will now present the case for him being a prostitute, though I leave it for readers to determine for themselves. Take these images, all from GannonGuckert's website, for what you will:
All those images were from
this website which also mentions that those websites included his "rates."
I report. You decide.
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1) How did this fake journalist get into the White House despite the fact that he had no credentials, was denied access to the Congressional Press Corps, used a fake name, owed outstanding taxes, and ran a website on which he prostituted himself?
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Prolly the same way the rest of the press whores got their day passes....they requested a daypass.
You DO know that they generally allow all kinds of people into the White House, right? Even non-reporters can take the tour...
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Please read Maureen Dowd's editorial on the difficulties of attaining a day pass. I conveniently quoted the relevant passages in my original post. Additionally, non-reporter's don't get to attend White House press conference, don't get to ask the Press Secretary or the President questions during them, and sure as hell don't get called by their first name by the President.
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2) Why did it appear that he was picked to ask stupid, inane and biased questions when the real press corps around him was getting "tough?"
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So a reporter asking inane questions is now a criminal act??? So when do those reporters go to prison who ask questions like "Your entire family just got eaten and killed by a Tornado. How do you feel?"
You don't think EVERY President knows who the tough and who the easy reporters in the room are? Is this somehow criminal?
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I don't know the law well enough to know if this is criminal. It is immoral, subversive, and propogandist if the White House planted a reporter in the White House Press Corps for the specific purpose of asking easy questions.
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3) How did he get the information about Valerie Plame's secret identity as a CIA agent and the fake report insinuating that she suggested her husband investigate concerns over yellowcake from Niger? Who gave it to him? Why? How is he involved?
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Ummm...maybe because he ACTUALLY IS A REPORTER??? I know you seem to have trouble getting past the whole "gay prostitutes cannot be reporters" thing, but TRY.
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Again with the ad hominem attacks. I don't believe I ever asserted that "gay prostitutes cannot be reporters." In fact, I applaud GannonGuckert if he tried to leave behind his life of prostitution to become a respected reporter. However, he wasn't actually a reporter. His news "reports" were published only on a website with no readership, and were in fact more or less
copied verbatim from White House press releases. Actually, people initially started digging around about him when it was discovered that his news pieces literally just copied straight from White House press releases.
Furthermore, you never answered my question. There is currently a grand jury investigation into how Judith Miller, Matt Cooper, and Robert Novack, three respected journalists with actual degrees who work for real news outlets like the Times, Time Magazine, and the Washington Post, all recieved this same information regarding Valerie Plame. So even if GannonGuckert was a real journalist, I'd still ask this question. However, the fact that this guy may have been a plant from within the White House and may have gotten this information from someone also within the White House suggests possible foul play on a grand scale.
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4) Was the White House involved in getting him into the White House Press Corps in order to have him ask easy questions? There doesn't seem to be a way in which he could not have a background check without orders from the top ordering that there not be one.
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Having recently been through a background check myself (not for the White House, but for a job in the State Judicial Branch), I know that it can take practically forever. Getting my fingerprint cards "run" took over a month. So why would a background check be required? Isn't running them through metal detectors enough? And how do you know that a cursory background check (akin to a NICS check) wasn't run?
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No, running people through metal detectors is not enough. Read the Dowd piece I quoted earlier; this will fill you in on all the things you apparantly missed. Dowd is a famous, respected editorialist for the most well-regarded newspaper in America, and had to wait months for a background check to be run. Why didn't GannonGuckert, who amongst other things flagrantly violated the law by allegedly engaging in prostitution and who had outstanding taxes owed? I'm saying that if a background check was run, it was incompetently done, because no reporter would have gotten in to the White House Press Corps with his background.
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5) Is GannonGuckert just another example of the White House trying to secretly influence the fourth estate through such means as creating propaganda that appears to be a news report, ordering the Social Security Administration to tell recipients that there won't be any money for them, and paying journalists such as Armstrong Williams money to advocate for policies on their behalf without disclosing the arrangement?
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Damn, I never thought of that...who would EVER have thought that the President of the United States ( >COUGH< "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" fingerjab fingerjab >COUGH COUGH< ) would ever try to influence the media???
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Clinton lied to the media. Bad Clinton. Bush has lied to the media repeatedly. in addition, he tried to subvert the very idea of a free press by creating pieces in favor of his programs that pretend to be news reports, pays journalists under the table to support his programs, etc. The former is bad, and Clinton got punished; what Bush did is try to make the media little more than the propoganda wing of his government. Additionally, Clinton lying to the media is entirely different that Bush trying to unduly influence the media.
I think that if you read the Dowd piece, daswig, and carefully read what I actually wrote, you would understand my arguments better.