I’ve yet to post on the Jeff Gannon affair. I’ll just say, for now, that this has the potential to be the Watergate of 2005, with bloggers serving as digerati Woodwards and Bernsteins, and the mainstream media kicking and dragging their feet at every turn.
Here are some links to follow:
First, the readers of Daily Kos started the investigation and dug up the salacious details from documents available in the public domain. Start with the press release if you’re unfamiliar with the case.
Here is the caustic (but lovable) James Wolcott on the story.
Here is a message from a journalism message board, commenting on the affair (courtesy of Kos):
As if he were re-enacting the last line of that quote in a high-school play, CNN anchor Aaron Brown put on his best derisive sneer and tried to dismiss the entire matter by repeating Gannon’s self-defense: it’s not unseemly that the White House used a media shill; it’s not unseemly that the shill worked for a phony news organization; it’s not unseemly that White House gave the shill access to highly classified documents in the Valerie Plame case; it’s not unseemly that the shill, given preferential access in the press pool, conveniently tossed softballs at Dubya during press conferences; and it’s not unseemly that the same shill, in a bizarre twist, ran gay escort websites on the side. No, there is nothing wrong with any of that.
The problem is all of these [sneer] liberal bloggers [/sneer] looking at publicly available information on this guy’s business interests. Now THAT’S unseemly.
As Digby, Atrios, and countless others have pointed out, the video of John Aravosis sticking it to Aaron Brown is a must see.
The condescension. The willful ignorance. The blatant lies. It’s enough to make you vomit.
D’oh! There goes my vow…
2 Comments on "GannonGate"
Zach:
I’ve been following this story since it started and watched its development. Have any laws, that you know of, been broken thus far? While the whole thing stinks of unethical behaviour, and a general contempt of the voting public on the part of the administration, I’ve come to think that unless Bush’s cronies rob a bank with automatic weapons while they’re high on illegal substances (thus breaking a few rather obvious laws), none of their actions will ever have any penalties…
Matt:
Have any laws, that you know of, been broken thus far?
Sadly, No!. But there are some possibilities:
1. The Valerie Plame memo: according to Kos, Gannon/Guckert was subpoenaed to testify in the federal grand jury investigation. Lots of possibilities for illegal action there, ranging from perjury to revealing a CIA agent’s identity (I know that it was Novak who did that, but you have to wonder what G/G’s role was; as a blatant Republican mole, I find it hard to believe that he knew about the memo but didn’t publish it because of his journalistic ethics).
2. I suppose that one could look into the legality of the escort service…and I think there are some rules against state-sponsored propoganda…but it’s not like this administration hasn’t broken those rules before.
Your point is right on: it’s depressing to see how quickly and easily Aaron Brown tried to reframe the issue as no more than standard partisan politics:
“There is a kind of ’so what?’ quality here–here’s this guy–everyone knows what he is. The only people who read the website, honestly, are people who believe what he believes to begin with. [puzzled look] So, why the fuss? [/puzzled look]”
Aargh!
And it’s very lame of Salon’s Eric Boehlert to say, in response to Brown’s contention that the bloggers “went after this guy’s personal life,” “Right, and I think that’s something the bloggers were obviously behind, and at Salon, that’s not what we’ve focused on…”
Another issue has to do with the mainstream media itself, and its unwillingness (or inability) to investigate matters like this.
That’s why I loved this exchange between Brown and Aravosis:
Brown: “What the White House says is, they don’t really ask about your political affiliation on these daily passes…if you show an id and you pass a secret service check, then you get to sit there, and if your number’s drawn, you get to ask a question.”
Aravosis: “And that is the biggest bunch of hogwash I’ve ever heard.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have cable myself, so I can’t follow further TV coverage of this–somehow I doubt that we’ll see Brian Williams in a flak jacket, reporting from the escort service headquarters–but if anyone out there wants to keep us abreast of the way this is being covered, please do so.
BTW, here is the final paragraph of the NY Times article on Medicare videos that I linked to above:
“The Bush administration hired Ketchum Inc. to disseminate information about the Medicare law, and Ketchum hired another company, Home Front Communications, to create the videos. The materials were distributed to television stations by satellite, mail and a syndicated news service, CNN Newsource, the ruling said.”
CNN again, huh? Here is one more paragraph:
“Medicare officials are unlikely to face any penalties. David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, who is head of the General Accounting Office, said, ‘We do not have reason to believe that this violation was knowing and willful, and we are not in the enforcement business.’”
Who is?
Comments