Thursday, February 17, 2005

Fake president

I know I don't usually post about national political stuff, but this is nuts: http://nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html
You do need to log in to see it. The gist of it is unmasking a fake reporter that has appeared at many white house press conferences to specifically lob softball questions to the president. He used an assumed name, he is not really a reporter, and he is paid by a shadowy GOP group. The white house tries to claim they didn't know this, but this is a lie because they would have to do a security check on him. He's sitting like five feet from the president! The ny times article points out that this is the 6th confirmed instance of fake news dissemination by this administration. Orwellian is the only word for it.

The city council did pass that ordinance to keep the Wal-Mart out. I wonder it Wal-Mart will fight or give up?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooooh! The public is gonna be OUTRAGED about this! Ha ha - just kidding. No they're not.

miller

Anonymous said...

Gannon's online nude photos are probably getting more attention than his involvement in Valerie Plame's cover being blown.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27730-2005Feb15.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416370,00.html

Anonymous said...

did you notice that the published date was February 20, 2005? weird.

Okay. I'm easily distracted.

leon said...

from this article
So in the end, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?

This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?

Anonymous said...

There's something about this Wal Mart/City Council thing that rubs me the wrong way. I'm not a big Wal Mart lover, in fact I would say we have more of a love/hate relationship. I love the low prices yet I hate how they treat their employees and destroy small businesses. But, putting one downtown just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. It would be in a mall filled with other big businesses who also don't give a care about their employees or the community. It just seems par for the course for our city leaders and their desire to keep families and poor people out of downtown/mid-town. "We only want something upscale to go in there." I hope Wal Mart does fight this one.

Heather