Conason/"Liberal’ Media Silent About Guckert" (A Great Read)

[KoKo]

Liberal’ Media Silent About Guckert Saga

by Joe Conason


How did this character obtain a coveted place in the White House? What did the White House press staff know about him? How does his story fit within the larger scandal of payola punditry, with federal funds subsidizing Republican propagandists in the press corps? Did someone in the Bush administration give him a classified document?

Such questions are evidently of little concern to our liberal media outlets, whose leading lights prefer to deliver prim lectures about the unwarranted invasion of Mr. Guckert’s private affairs and his victimization for his conservative views. In fact, everything known about him comes from material he posted on public Web sites, but that’s beside the point.

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart—or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps—and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now.
http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp

[TomClash]

1. Joe should know

there is no "liberal media."

[mattclearing]

2. Pssst...I think that's why he put "liberal" in quotes. n/t

[TomClash]

9. Pssst . . . there is one place in the article where he didn't

[Zeke]

3. I'm So Pissed...

If the Guckert story played on TV like Paula Jones or
Lewinsky, Bush would be over and the GOP would forever
lose control of middle America red states.

Shit, for Lewinsky, ABC News actually aired computer
graphics of the WH interior, ala "Clue", saying, "They
were alone together here and there, etc."

But for Guckert: silence?!

[Patiod]

7. I checked a few times, and didn't see it

But Michael Jackson, on the other hand.....

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Just outta curiosity...

Did Drudge give any space to this story? I never go there, but have a RW friend (really--a friend, a good but very angry guy) who reads Sludge faithfully & if Fudge carried it then my friend knows, although he hasn't mentioned it.

[Zeke]

5. No Idea...

All I know is what I've already wrote.

If the story played like Lewinsky of Jones,
Bush and the GOP would go away.

[BOSSHOG]

6. Where is the outrage from the right?

Why isn't jerry falwell damning the white house for such an ungodly situation? Why isn't limbaugh blathering on about the compromise of classified documents and how unamerican that is from this white house? But lets not call them hypocrites.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Silence within:

Bill Bennett
Lucianne Goldberg
Jerry Falwell
Pat Robertson
(Rev) Dobson
Bob Jones
All Senators (except Kennedy and MAYBE Lauteneberg)
All Representatives (except Conyers and Slaughter)
Every pundit and guest speaker from every foundation, assocition, and think tank who talked in outrage about Clintom
such as Coulter, Ingrham, Huffington, Sammons, Fineman, Iskofsky, Malkin, all the long-blonde Barbara Olson types,C Boydon Gray, Meese....you get the idea.
All the right wing MSM hosts and executives.
All the right wing newspaper and magazine celebrities Sally Quinn, Bradlee, Pruden, Blakely. No one from American Spectator has said anything.
All the lawyers for Paula Jones, the other Jones type accusers and their public relations representatives.
All the right wing lawyers such as from the Rutherford Foundation.

There is no outrage out there. Knowledge of a CIA operative to male prostitution. NOT ONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANY OBJECTION. NOT ANY OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE OBJECTED.

[KoKo]

13. It's amazing isn't it? The "Vast RW Conspiracy" who hunted Clinton over

a personal Consentual "Sexcapade" are silent when it's one of their own...

I don't think Repugs understand the word "Hypocracy." Or, more likely, they choose to ignore it not seeing that the fault lies within them..:-(

[Cocoa]

10. imagine indeed

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart—or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps—and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now.

[Lindacooks]

11. I'm constantly amazed at the conservative spin pundits.

Whenever any scandal pops up in the Bush* administration, I just never would have been able to think of the spin they use! They must spend all of their time trying to figure out how to dodge the truth and how to turn arguments on their heads. Who would have thought that a gay prostitute with phony credentials in the White House could be spun as a privacy issue?

God, I hate those fucking hypocrite Repukes.

[peacetalksforall]

12. Kick to keep a list of the silent vs the squeamish - the squeamish being

Olberman, Crier, and? Who else else has said something....Kurtz doesn't count.

Keep the list going - rate them for their concern about the US of America.

Those who mention Plame and everything that has to do with the real issue regarding Plame earn the highes rating because of - what is involved - the outing a CIA operative which involves law breaking which involves WMD which involves SOTU which involves PNAC? JINSA? AIEA? AEI? DOD? in the attempt to fake a Saddam-Niger deal in a letter which involves Italy and Israel and the U.S.

[kskiska]

14. Well, he certainly gets around

What Mr. Guckert seems to have been is not a journalist but a Republican dirty trickster. He was schooled at the Leadership Institute—an outfit run by veteran right-wing operative and Republican National Committee member Morton Blackwell. (It was Mr. Blackwell who distributed those cute "purple heart" Band-aids mocking Mr. Kerry’s war wounds at the Republican convention last summer.) His former employers at Talon News include leading Republican fund-raisers and former officials of the Texas Republican Party who have been active in partisan affairs for the past two decades.

[KoKo]

15. I know...it's amazing how the same group repeats and repeats and

is into everything. I wonder how they have the time...sheesh. But, I guess if I was paid as much as they are and had that much influence, I'd find the time...:-(

[Zuni]

16. We didn't hear the end of Dan Rather and the TANG story on 60 min.

But when it comes to the WH having a political operative and male prostitute in the WH Press Corps, nothing