| Author | Message | ||
     Strawberry Alarm Clock Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 4500 Registered: 10-2001 |
don't blame me, blame my wife. She said it! | ||
| musicme Citizen Username: Musicme Post Number: 967 Registered: 5-2001  |
But you are the fool that repeated it here. | ||
| Strawberry Alarm Clock Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 4501 Registered: 10-2001 |
boring | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5474 Registered: 1-2003  |
cjc, neither you nor I could prove that if this had happened with a Democratic president, no one would have complained. I say plenty would have, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is whether this was a bad thing to do. It was, no matter what side of the aisle you are on and no matter what party the president belongs to. The hypothetical situations don't bear on what really happened or how bad it was. In other words, your argument is weak. Why don't you instead speak about whether or not you think this behavior should be allowed. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3123 Registered: 8-2003 |
I'm not sure letting hacks of either side into a press briefing is good or bad per se. If they guy was a journalist as defined by the rules applied to a WH press briefing -- and those rules are changing as is the media with online publications -- then fine. If he wasn't, then no, I guess. Gannon/Gurkert is outrageous to some, Mother Jones and The Nation is to others (not saying they were let in to the briefing, but if they were -- I'm not really caring a bunch here). Who's to say what constitutes a 'phony' journalist today? The New York Times? CBS? NBC? Pulitzer? All aren't perfect or 'journalists' all the time. Let them write and ask what they'll write and ask, and I'll determine of it's trustworthy and truthful in my own research just as I have always done with media, and textbooks, and magazines, and 'teachers', etc. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5479 Registered: 1-2003 |
I don't think a person's (or an organization's) political leanings is a good measure of whether one is a journalist. Therefore, I don't think a comparison between Gannon and Mother Jones is an apples to apples comparison. The writers at Mother Jones have plenty of broad experience in various journalistic pursuits. What is that of Gannon? | ||
| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 854 Registered: 7-2004 |
It's more than a question of what is being written after the press conference, cjc. The point of Gannon's presence in the briefing room wasn't what he'd WRITE...it was he would ASK. He was invited in under phony pretenses by Bush because he took the pressure off the president. His questions weren't softball questions, they were kickball questions. Why do you think he was chosen, by name, all the time? This president doesn't want to answer real questions. He wants to keep his agenda as shady as possible. Otherwise, smart Americans might find out he is up to NO GOOD. Fortunately for the president, he has a (mostly) willing accomplice in an electorate short on intelligence and attention span. The problem was the press, and using hired tools to promote propaganda like Gannon, Armstrong William, Maggie Gallagher, etc is his way of circumventing the media. God only knows what criminal and immoral acts he's committed that we don't know about yet. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1074 Registered: 8-2003  |
it's not Gannon/Guckert's "slant" at all. that's a misdirection that the wingnuts are trying to employ. If Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh showed up as a White House reporter who would say a word? Or the American Spectator or National Review? They're all journalists who are sympathetic to Bush, and no one would argue they don't belong. But to bring in a phony reporter under an assumed name, to toss softballs to McClellan and Bush is essentially an attempt at rigging the press briefing so it goes the way the White House wants it to. It went awry because Gannon is too stupid or crazy to ask questions in a way that doesn't arouse too much suspicion. I can't believe any of you would have given Bill Clinton a pass if, at the height of Monicagate, the White House had some guy in the reporting pool under an assumed name, who would steer the questioning into friendly territory whenever things got too uncomfortable for Mike McCurry or Clinton. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1075 Registered: 8-2003 |
Scott Rosenberg of Salon ties it all together much better than I can. Here's why this story is important, despite the wing nuts desire to pass this story off as "ho hum":
| ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3126 Registered: 8-2003 |
And what license do you need to be a journalist? What is the litmus test? As I understand it the threshhold was being with a publication that published weekly. As in on paper. That changed to electronic media (TV and radio) and now again to the internet. I could get a job at WABC TV News in New York, they could be shorthanded and send me anywhere -- on my first day -- to be at a press conference and I could file a report. Ditto my working for a known-to-be-sympathetic organization (CNN for Clinton -- talk about hacks -- or Fox for Bush). Mother Jones has plenty of journalistic pursuits? I'm just so sure they do. ANd all of their pursuits are totally objective and -- gosh -- could you imagine an administration wanting to allow them into a presser and call upon them becausen they knew they'd be sympathetic? So toss out everyone from CNN when Clinton was president because Rick Kaplan slept in the Lincoln Bedroom when he ran the place. Helen Thomas is now a columnist and not a journalist, but it's really, really hard to tell the difference in what she writes since the change. I don't really care. There are too many others in the press room that are openly hostile to this Administration and who write for large concerns who will get their story out. And with all the outlets there are, it remains up to the consumer (thankfully!) to sort things out. Libs get all pinched because a low-rent hack who used a show-biz journalism name got in and tossed a softball. SO WHAT. I discount CNN and Leonard DiCaprio, and you discount Fox and Jeff Gannon and let's both read other people for our news. Scott Rosenberg -- now there's a guy who belongs at press briefings. Since when is Limbaugh or Hannity a journalist? When do they originate stories and do reporting? When have they passed themselves off as such? Is Franken a journalist too then? You say no one would say a word when someone who had the guts to identify himself with a bias started asking questions at a press conference? WHAT PLANET ARE YOU ON???? What was your take on that qualified journalist Eason Jordan's resignation, fringe wackos that you are? You know, the guy with CNN who didn't report Saddam carnage because he wanted to keep the bureau office in Baghdad open and recently said that the US military was intentionally killing journalists. The only reason the guy is gone is because a NON-JOURNALIST kept the story alive because big-time journalists wouldn't touch it. WHY WOULDN'T THE BIG TIME JOURNALISTS TOUCH IT? Jordan counted on the fact that the media wouldn't ask him tough questions about his comments because they wouldn't ask him ANY questions about it. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5498 Registered: 1-2003 |
It's a journalist's job to question the government. Call it hostile if you like. How would you have it? Would you like to see the lines between journalists and Bush's PR people blurred? Come to think of it, did any past presidents pay people for PR, beyond election campaigns? | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 2045 Registered: 5-2001  |
Cjc, you are doing everything you possibly can to avoid what is apparent to virtually everyone. The president is surrounded by more security and secrecy than any who came before him. You think there wasn't some collusion, some conniving involved in getting this guy right in front of the President of the United States? THAT is the point, no matter how much else you try to throw at it. Your comparisons, your hypothetical situations, your semantics, your maligning of other individuals... none of that matters. The POINT is that the White House is displacing bona fide journalists with planted puppets -- just as they displace qualified people in positions throughout the government with puppets. Can't you admit that it is ethically wrong, that it is no way to run a government, that it completely stinks? If it was Clinton's administration, if it was FDR's administration, it would still completely stink! Please take my word that nobody will come to your home and abduct you if you don't defend the administration once in a while. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1076 Registered: 8-2003 |
Relax. Someone might say a word about those guys (Hannity, Rush, Franken) not being real journalists, but they have a right to try to get a pass and go to a White House briefing. What you seem to be ignoring here (and I'll refrain from CAPS and multiple exclamation points) isn't Gannon/Guckert's POV or bias, or politics, or even the softball questions - it's that the White House participated in his ruse. That's the issue - the White House's constant efforts to undermine or control news that the audience believes is independent (not unbiased, but at least independent of the White House). And if you aren't seeing that difference, I'm sure I'll never convince you otherwise. You can dismiss people who take issue with this practice as fringe wackos if you like - but they're just people who believe journalism and government should be separate entities. That's a pretty mainstream American idea. When government and news merge, it starts to bring up memories of Pravda, and I'll bet you weren't a supporter of their journalistic tactics. | ||
| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 856 Registered: 7-2004 |
It's Bush's way of undermining yet another one of this country's system of checks and balances, as American idea as any. Bush is looking to start spelling America with a "k" as are most of the neo-con nutjobs who condone this kind of behavior. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3127 Registered: 8-2003 |
I understand, Doc. The WH was interested in letting someone with a bias that was friendly to them into a pool of hacks that had a bias unfriendly to them. As for the 'ruse' of passing off a known friend as a journalist, Talon News is as credible as some of the other loons in that bunch. I'm a wingnut, you're a fringe wacko. I've lost the romantic idea of Separation of Press and State. I lost it a long time ago in the revolving door that is Washington. Stephanopolous, Moyers (talk about fringe), Kaplan, Schlessinger....I just can't get worked up about the WH trying to play the game as it's being played against them. And I'll worry about "real" journalists (when they show up) being displaced when the pool is whittled down to 5 people and they're all related to the Administration. Pardon me if I don't really believe those who say it's bad if any Administration does it when you don't seem to kick about it if it goes your way. Me -- I see them for what they are, and barring passage of regulations for the only line of work constitutionally protected by government, it won't change. We've eroded free political speech in this country, and the only ones left that can do it anytime they want is the press. Shall we amend the First Amendment to 'fix' this as nicely as we did Campaign Finance Reform? | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1077 Registered: 8-2003 |
you should have indicated right off that you're so cynical that this doesn't surprise you or bother you. then no one would bother trying to respond. | ||
| Madden 11 Citizen Username: Madden_11 Post Number: 623 Registered: 12-2003 |
you should have indicated right off that you're so cynical that this doesn't surprise you or bother you. then no one would bother trying to respond. And add to that indication that you promise to feel the same way if a Democratic president ever gets caught doing it. I won't hold my breath. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5507 Registered: 1-2003 |
And you call Moyers fringe.  Try reading his latest book. He's no left winger. Actually your cynicism is really sad. It kills idealism, which gives us something to strive for and something to stand for. In the absense of idealism, we slide into "anything goes" and "might makes right." | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 1465 Registered: 12-2001 |
"I'm everything people on the Left seem to despise. I'm a man who is white, politically conservative, a gun-owner, an SUV driver and I've voted for Republicans. " Check this bible class out: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 1466 Registered: 12-2001 |
Conservatives are so butch. Me-ow! |
