BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week: Jeff Gannon
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
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Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
Since the White House news conferences are really staged public relations events, maybe having a partisan right wing shill in the group is not really hypocrisy. After all, if the rare appearances of Bush before the press are really just orchestrated according to script, having a guy like Jeff Gannon, of the low-profile Republican "Talon News Service" isn't hypocrisy, it's just part of the plan.
Talon's only other contribution to the world is an obscure website called GOPUSA.com, with a mission to "...spread the conservative message throughout America." Well, that explains a lot.
But last week at a Bush press conference, Gannon outdid himself by turning an ironically Orwellian editorial comment into a partisan set-up for Bush.
Thank you. Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh took credit for Gannon's question to Bush.
Gannon insists he's a real reporter, but the media watchdog group, Media Matters, says "Talon appears to be little more than an arm of the Republican Party." And Gannon has been denied credentials by the Capitol Press Office because Talon doesn't qualify as a professional news source.
Gannon's website leaves little doubt that he comes from the right wing Gordon Liddy school of bullet head commentary. Biographical background on Gannon that no longer is on the Talon website indicated that "He is also a graduate of the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism."
And what might that be? Well the Institute website tells us, "The Leadership Institute ... is the oldest and most-respected training organization for conservative leaders." They say they've turned out over 40,000 wingnuts just like Gannon, which goes a long way to explain what's wrong with cable news.
So in addition to taxpayer-funded payola for conservative journalists, phony news video releases in support of the Bushevik policies, psy-op journalism operations, "leaked" lies to Bush sympathizers like Judith Miller of the NYT, the "All Republican, All the Time" propaganda news channel known as FOX News, and a largely fawning and braindead corporate press, we now know about the right wing activists ginning up the scripted Bush public relations appearances. You know the ones that under previous administrations were actually news conferences.
Jeff Gannon is our BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the week because his role at the White House news conferences is not to get information; it is to make Bush look good. He's part of the script.
While, at the same time, Helen Thomas is exiled to a back row because she has the temerity to seek out the truth.
We're betting Gannon, for the softball partisan questions he lobs to the Emperor with No Clothes, gets a front row seat so he can quickly kneel down and thank Karl Rove for putting him there.
Until next week, just remember our motto at BuzzFlash.com: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.
Catch up with you soon.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL