You all know I don’t much like the current administration. But the current assault on Jeff Gannon for being a former escort, and have no doubt, that’s what it is, is so stupid. Prostitution was clearly forbidden in judeochristian whatevers. Gay male temple prostitution received special attention. I, for one, would like to see that particular prejudice put down. More than I want to see one of a multitude of Bush sycophants publicly embarrassed.
Just as porn star is just a job, so is escort. Both have sex for money (subtle legal distinctions aside). I don’t think this ought to disqualify one from the public trust or a future career.
If his journalistic integrity is less than stellar, attack that. No, it won’t sell so well, it won’t produce an enormous volume of tittilating browsing. But at least it’ll push in a better direction. Not that I’ll be heeded.
Um
The issue is not that he’s gay, or an escort.
The issue is that the Bush Administration, which is predominantly anti-gay, has been seething for years about the extreme scrutiny that all white house press corp members must be subjected to to be allowed into those press conferences. Dozens of people from very credible established wire services have been denied press corps clearance, yet we have a guy with a fake name, who used to be a whore on like half a dozen sites that would have come up with even the simplist of background checks, representing a fly by night wire service, shaking hands with the president and asking him questions.
WHAT THE FUCK.
Either all that white house rhetoric about press corps requirement is total horseshit, or even worse, something even more shady is going on that let him into that room so he could publish pro-republican biased stories.
An explanation is needed, and the mainstream media is barely giving this story acknowledgement, yet alone attention.
I’m … flabbergasted by it.
Re: Um
Also, even if the white house does address this issue, they’ll have to explain themselves to the fundamentalists who make up the core of it’s supports.. if Bush = Awesome, and Gay = Horrible, how did they manage to miss his m4m ads?
Why was he leaked the Valerie CIA opperative memo and not some other press rep of questionable background?
Not that we’ll get any answers.
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It .. wouldn’t be that difficult.
You know how I’ve handled identity and reality issues over the years .. well, perhaps not how, but that I have handled them, especially vis a vis the former hooker thing.
Part of the problem is that background checks rely pretty heavily on face to face interviews, criminal infraction/misdemeanor/felony issues that you’ve been booked/convicted for and of all things your credit rating. That’s about it. If you have decent credit, no outstanding traffic infractions and the 1d4 people they interview say that you’re an okay guy, well, you’re done. Rubber stamp, move on. There is almost no science to the background check process, especially something as informal and irrelevant as press credentials.
At various points in my life I’ve had a security clearance such that I could repoint satellites to view the license plate numbers on cars in your driveway. It wasn’t my role, but I could have done it (I’d have gotten in trouble for doing so, however). I’ve also been a habitual meth user, had sex with a few hundred people for money, jerked off on webcam for thousands of hours, etc.
Mind you, I’ve never tried to do the ‘public life’ thing — that is, journalism, real public scrutiny, all of that .. but odds are in my favor that I could have pulled it off, especially if I had remained as careful as I was and the background check process remains as careless as it is.
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Well, if nothing else, the organization he was reporting for was substantially below the assumed required level of credibility to get a press pass. (The Talon News Service?!?!!) It is therefore not a stretch to assume that the organization’s conservative bias was key in Gannon’s receiving the pass.
Hell, Bush tossed Helen Thomas, a UPI employee, out of the WH Press Corps!
I do think it’s a bit of a stretch to propose that Gannon had slept with Scott McClellan, though some are actually suggesting that.
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http://63.240.197.69/video/gannon360.mov
This is great. I kept waiting for Anderson to say “You’re a disgrace to our people! Unfierce! Unfierce!”
That and it contains great info about the story. Jeff/James barely stumbling through the questions is great too.
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Heh. I <3 Anderson even more now. It's like two fags enter, one fag leave. Anderson left him broken into pieces and falling into the atmosphere, especially the part where he called out his real name multiple times, correctly pronouncing it and everything. I expected them to flash it on the screen, heh.
I can’t stand liberal bloggers anymore than I can stand conservative ones, so I have a modicum of pity for him, but that’s about it.
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Good Fag vs. Bad Fag… Fight!
*screen goes dark*
Duum-ba-doooo-oom….
Flawless Victory.
Integrity.
The main reason a lot of people are gleefully rubbing their hands together over this is because “Jeff Gannon” had frequently run anti-gay articles. They feel justified in outing him because of the hypocrisy.
Personally, I’m with you. I’d rather they focus on things like the fact that he was admitted to White House Press Briefings before “Talon News” ever existed… and thus was not even a journalist by the extremely loose standards they have. That seems much more relevant to the issue at hand.
also.. as it stands..
He has over $21,000 in unpaid income taxes.. thus.. he’s actually a tax evader–which makes him a criminal.. (unless it was unintentional.. yeah. un-huh…)
I’m just basically appalled by the double standard–people critical of Bush are denied passes–Maureen Dowd of the NYTimes was denied one and told that “the Secret Service check on her still wasn’t finished and would take a number of months”.. but Gannon gets in with obviously no one particularly checking very hard…
Just another distraction from the real issues …