‹ Hadn’t Thought Of It Quite This Way … •
… this didn’t come up during the election campaign … or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered even then, considering how the mainstream media is in GWB’s payroll and all.
Even tho’ the GuckertGannon story has been done to death, Maureen Dowd has an interesting, and sarcastic, bit in the NY Times today.
Useful to note that she, who has been covering White House and national politics since at least 1986, couldn’t get a WH pass initially, even tho’ GannonGuckert could … as she says , they need to get someone with blogging experience on the security vetting team 
From here piece in the NY Times:
At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I’d been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he’d renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.
In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend? He used a driver’s license that said James Guckert to get into the White House, then, once inside, switched to his alter ego, asking questions as Jeff Gannon.
Mr. McClellan shrugged this off to Editor & Publisher magazine, oddly noting, “People use aliases all the time in life, from journalists to actors.”
I know the F.B.I. computers don’t work, but this is ridiculous. After getting gobsmacked by the louche sagas of Mr. Guckert and Bernard Kerik, the White House vetters should consider adding someone with some blogging experience.
Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?
Or maybe Gannon/Guckert’s willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing. One of his stories mocked John Kerry’s “pro-homosexual platform” with the headline “Kerry Could Become First Gay President.”
With the Bushies, if you’re their friend, anything goes. If you’re their critic, nothing goes. They’re waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they’ll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs and replacing them with ringers.
At last month’s press conference, Jeff Gannon asked Mr. Bush how he could work with Democrats “who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.” But Bush officials have divorced themselves from reality
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link
http://blog.wirearchy.com/2005/02/17/too-bad/trackback/
February 17, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Anonymous
Jon, I’ve been blogging all day and meant to get to the Dowd piece and then saw your post. Her’s was clearly the hardest hitting, and funniest, take on this story I’ve seen yet. I love her toying around with the homosexual angle on this whole thing.
Your post on coaching a week or so back was terrific. I wanted to comment, but by the time I finally got caught up after my Hawii trip, there was already a very list of comments. Having spent the better part of the last 15 years coaching executives, I’m also pretty bemused by the mushrooming of coaches out there. Like an old friend of mine once said about coaching, “it’s an easy thing to do badly.”
Keep up the great work!