On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:15:37 GMT, "Jim," wrote:
John H wrote:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:45:24 -0500, "JimH" wrote:
If things are so terrible here why not find a place that suits your liberal
whining needs? That way you won't have a nervous breakdown waiting for the
sky to fall on you.
I can't believe Jimcomma thinks anyone gives a rat's ass about it!
John H
On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes
I'm posting this stuff as a public service. Stuff you'll never see on
faux news. It's an effort to make this group "fair and balanced" ;-)
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From Fox:
White House Reporter Using Fake Name Quits
Friday, February 11, 2005
WASHINGTON — A conservative writer who attracted attention by asking President
Bush (search) a loaded question at a news conference last month has resigned
amid questions about his identity and background.
James D. Guckert (search), who wrote under the name Jeff Gannon (search), said
on his Web site that he was leaving "because of the attention being paid to me."
He had been Washington bureau chief for Talon News (search), a conservative
online news outlet associated with another Web site, GOPUSA.
Guckert frequently attended White House press briefings over the last two years
and asked pointedly conservative questions. Called on by Bush at a Jan. 26 news
conference, Guckert said Senate Democratic leaders were painting a bleak picture
of the economy and he asked Bush how the president would work "with people who
seem to have divorced themselves from reality."
The question prompted scrutiny, particularly from liberal bloggers. Guckert was
linked with online domain addresses suggestive of gay pornography. Guckert, a
former resident of Wilmington, Del., told The (Wilmington) News Journal
newspaper that he had registered the domain names for a client while he was
working to set up a Web-hosting business.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Guckert did not have a regular
White House press pass but was cleared on a day-by-day basis to attend briefings
and used his real name.
"He, like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that
published regularly and so he was cleared two years ago to receive daily passes
just like many others are," McClellan said. "In this day and age, when you have
a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide, to try to pick and choose
who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism. Where do you
draw the line? There are a number of people who cross that line in the briefing
room."
He said he had been unaware of Guckert's affiliation with any sexually
suggestive domain addresses.
Also from Fox:
Feb. 10, 2005
MUST READS:
Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, writing for the Wall Street Journal, offers
this spectacular analysis of the situation in Iraq. His thesis: The United
States needs to stay the course. Don’t leave before democracy has taken root —
and absolutely ensure the country doesn’t go the way of neighboring Iran, which
has inspired the slogan, “one man, one vote, one time.” After the mullahs won an
election in the early ’80s, democracy vanished and theocracy took hold.
Peggy Noonan, also in the Wall Street Journal, touches on the hardy Christian
perennial: the redemptive powers of pain and suffering. There is a reason the
topic has remained a hot topic for millennia: It touches on some of the deepest
mysteries of life. Why do good people suffer so? And what does their suffering
prove? Peggy doesn’t dive into the details, but she does touch upon the issue,
and that alone constitutes a public service.
One more from the Journal, which is on a roll. Brett Stephens attended the
infamous World Economic Forum seminar in which CNN honcho Eason Jordan asserted
breezily that U.S. forces had targeted and killed a dozen journalists in Iraq.
Stephens provides the most balanced treatment I’ve seen to date, taking a
stiletto to talkers who have been pushing the issue (my first reaction was to
mewl, “Why didn’t he single out me??”). In talking to him off-air, he questioned
Jordan’s fitness to run a news division, citing other potential whoppers,
including a terror charge leveled against American troops and the claim that a
soldier oppressed a troublesome reporter by sending the scribe to the back of a
line. Now comes word that Sen. Christopher Dodd has asked organizers of the
forum to release the tapes of the session. In the name of fairness and balance,
it’s worth noting that the two most admirable players in this drama have been
Democrats — Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, both of whom seem to have treated the
original allegations with considerable skepticism, and have been among the most
vocal in trying to get the truth before the public. They’re right: This
controversy will fester until the public hears the tapes, and the longer Jordan
holds out, the worse his fate will be.
An embarrassment on the Right: A freelance “journalist” who called himself Jeff
Gannon apparently was a fraud. “Gannon” ruffled the feathers of Has Been Media
heavies by asking administration-friendly questions at White House press
conferences and pushing administration-friendly stories for Talon News, an
operation affiliated with the GOPUSA website. Now comes the rub. The guy’s real
name is James Dale Guckert, and left-wing bloggers have outed him as a featured
item on several gay websites registered to his nom de plume. (I can’t vouch for
the characterization; the sites require registration, and I wasn’t interested in
registering.) The G-man told Jennifer Brooks of the Delaware News Journal, that
he registered the gay domain names for someone else, as part of an effort to
establish an Internet Web-hosting business. Dan Froomkin has a pretty brutal
summary of the matter.
Some conservatives are calling the G-man a victim of a left-wing witch-hunt.
Wrong: He got outed by some enterprising bloggers, who had their fun with the
married man’s hidden sideline, but who also raised an issue of considerable
consequence. Even setting aside the come-hither websites, the guy got into the
White House using an assumed name. This raises two possibilities: Gannon/Guckert
got a fake I.D. past the Secret Service, in which case the Secret Service (and
the president) ought to be furious, or the White House Press Office knew he was
working under an assumed name, in which case the press corps (and the president)
ought to be blowing a gasket. Here’s Howie Kurtz’s take on the tale. I’ll have
more on the story tomorrow…
BEHIND THE SCENES:
Ed Gillespie, the engaging former chairman of the Republican Party, phoned in
today. Ed, an old pal, is a happy man. He gets to coach his son’s basketball
team again, gets to show up at neighborhood barbecues, even gets to take his
boat out on the Potomac from time to time (great story: on his first trip in the
vessel, he forgot to check the gas — and ran out in the middle of the river in
the dead dark of night). He thinks Howard Dean will be a formidable Democratic
Chairman, neither as bad as Republicans fear nor good as Democrats hope, and
refuses to speculate about the possibility of war in Iran or North Korea. He
does think Condi Rice stands a good chance of becoming the next Republican
presidential nominee. He also dodged the question of what he will get his wife
for Valentine’s Day. It turns out her birthday is Feb. 11, which means he’ll
have three days to come up with something better than the customary, Forrest
Gump-like box of chocolates.
Also along today, Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund. Jordan heads to
court next week to argue against a University of North Carolina directive that
would require religious organizations on campus to sign “non-discrimination”
agreements with regard to membership. No other campus outfits must submit to
such things because campus clubs are by their nature somewhat exclusive. The
hidden insinuation is that religious groups, especially Christian ones, are
guilty of intolerance and bigotry. Lorence points out that the opposite is true:
The intolerant bigots are the ones who are trying to push the religious clubs
back into the catacombs.
Brett Stephens, mentioned in the must-reading section, also called in, sharing
his recollections of Eason Jordan’s self-immolation in Davos.
Stay tuned for more!
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Kinda shoots your thesis in the butt, no?
John H
On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes
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