February 2005: Bimbo [Non-] Eruption

At work, someone has been very busy: plastering the women's room with heart decals and other Chinese slave labor-made $1 store schlock.

In the virtual world, The "Jeff Gannon" saga that begins emerging has to be told with heavy use of quote marks: "journalist;" "Talon News;" "ex-Marine"—everything in James Guckert's story is fake.

A few reliable journalists like Charlie Savage do some reporting, and place this in the context of regime practices like paying off columnists and sending fake news videos to broadcast outlets.

But for the most part, it's bloggers who do the digging.

On DailyKos, SusanG writes a series that begins by raising a little question: "Did the White House dribble the Plame leak through its own fake mouthpiece news source?"

On americablog, John Aravosis reports other instances where Guckert may have been fed information from the administration. Aravosis writes on February 18, " A news producer for a major network's local affiliate just told me that Gannon told the producer the US was going to attack Iraq four hours before President Bush announced it to the nation."

Now, it certainly was a cinch for anyone observant to see the war coming, so was this just a career-building ploy by Guckert? In a few weeks, Raw Story posts John Byrne's report on White House logs obtained by Reps. Louise Slaughter and John Conyers. The documents show Guckert applied for a press pass under his real name (but at press briefings was called on by the fake name). And the Secret Service logs show White House visits on numerous dates when no briefings were held. In the post-9/11 security measures environment, there were fourteen dates missing either entry or exit time. Byrne also notes

Guckert sometimes stayed for an extended period of time before and after press conferences, particularly early in his tenure. This was especially common during his first few months [from February 2003], when he might be in the White House for as long as six hours.
...
Occasionally, the former Talon News reporter visited the White House twice on the same day. This was also most common in the early months.

"Bimbo eruption" was a press cliché during the Clinton years; there's nothing for the media to see in this White House. Mark Crispin Miller describes here how the supposed eagerness of the media to pounce on a sensational story is biased toward reporting stories that hurt Democrats, while refusing to see Republican transgressions that are much worse.

The last word—

From: Clever Sister
To: Pink
Date: 2/14/2005 2:16 PM
Subject: gannon

sorry this is a fun scandal
even though it won't hurt bush or rove etc.
NOT FOR WORK VIEWING!
john aravosis has lots of naked pics of gannon.

And this could sum up two shameful terms in office—

From: Clever Sister
To: Pink
Date: 2/15/2006 4:47 PM
Subject: my how things have changed

Back in the mid 1990s, the Republican controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former
president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to
identify potential Democratic donors.

—But now there's nothing to investigate in Bush admn! — cs

Of course, that's the whole point of their "shock" tactics: no matter how bad a story is, there will always be the things they getting away with while attention is focused elsewhere.

And so, a couple of final items for the month:

John D-for-Death-squad Negroponte nominated as Director of National Intelligence.

And Bush's Social Security road show stops in Omaha, where among pre-arranged "town hall" participants is the single mother of a "mentally challenged" child/holder of three jobs. The vetters made no mistake as far as selecting a member of the Bush base—they just chose from the pathetic members of the small b "base."

After some hesitation, the crowd applauded Bush's response that having to work three jobs is "uniquely American." The clip is publicized by the usual suspects. But a look at the transcript reveals as always how Everything Is About Him. A Republican woman attempts to voice real life concerns to someone she believes will care, which he deflects while inserting patronizing banter and fake bonhomie. He must have been hustled out of there fast, before he could start addressing her as, "Three Jobba Momma."


Now this looks like an ideal new animal management/soul-saving/busybody meddling project for Jesus's Best Administrative Assistant—

From: Clever Sister
To: Pink
Date: 2/10/2005 9:25 AM
Subject: did ya see this? funny

Zoo tempts gay penguins to go straight
A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden in an effort to
tempt its gay penguins to go straight...

—Why don't they send these penguins to the ex-gay church, or get them drunk & give them viagra?—cs