GANNON / ROVE / RATHER connection

[Eloriel]

I think you're all missing it completely. Of all the important things about Gannongate, this is THE most important, IMO:

Mangate A link between Hannity/Gannon/Rather Memo story
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1588477
Link: http://mediamatters.org/items/200502100001

I have posted numerous times re Rathergate that I considered it a set-up, tho not necessarily meant to snare Rather specifically. It was classic Rove M.O., IMO.

Rove also set up James Hatfield, now-deceased author of Fortunate Son, by giving Hatfield confirmation of Bush's earlier cocaine use, and other details. But Rove purposely planted one WRONG "fact" with Hatfield -- the political party affiliation of some Texas judge, IIRC. The books had been printed and at least some of them distributed when some very nasty news broke about Hatfield's past, AND the wrong "fact" was revealed. The one-two punch totally destroyed Hatfield's credibility, and St. Martins (the original publisher) pulled the books back and destroyed them.

In Rathergate, the underlying facts were basically true (and not in dispute) but the documents used to demonstrate those facts were found to be bogus. SOMEONE planted those documents specifically wanting them to be found out SO THAT the journalist (Rather or whomever) could be discredited, the story becomes THAT instead of the underlying facts, etc. -- just as poor Dan Rather complained as the whole thing was unfolding.

GANNON apparently "broke" the story that Rather's documents were likely "false" or fake. WHERE DID HE GET THIS REMARKABLE INFORMATION and in such record time, to boot (within mere hours of their initial release by CBS)? Is it all that likely that he developed it on his own?

(And for some reason I can't get the Media Matters story to come up -- can any one else?)

We need to focus more on this angle, and hopefully get some of the blogs and possibly even MSM to focus on it.

[LisaM]

1. Gannon and Buckhead both = FReepers

and both have some affiliations with the GOP - Gannon with the Texas GOP.

[DefenseLawyer]

7. Eberle and "Buckhead"

are both affiliated with the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

[understandinglife]

17. You are correct & check starroute's post #65 in this DU thread, entitled:

"HMMMM --- Gannon broke CBS Rathergate ????? With Hannity (Fox)" posted by cthrumatrix on 10 Feb 2005.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3085776#3087195


Peace.


TBO;24/7

[starroute]

18. Viguerie/Eberle/Morton Blackwell/Reverend Moon complex

"Buckhead" (Harry W. MacDougald) who first raised the forgery claims about the CBS memos is on the advisory board of Southeastern Legal Foundation and has handled various cases for them. Bruce Eberle did fundraising work for both Southeastern Legal and their star client Gary Aldrich back during the anti-Clinton jihad and at one point included Southeastern Legal in an appeal for donations to his favorite causes.

Mike Krempasky, who set up the rathergate.com site was an instructor at the Leadership Institute from 1999 to 2002. That is where "Gannon" got his journalism training at a weekend seminar. The Leadership Institute was founded by Morton Blackwell in 1979 as a school for Republican activists and dirty tricksters. In the late 60's, Blackwell had served on and off as the head of the College Republican National Committee, turning it into a school for dirty tricks. Karl Rove got his training in both the College Republicans and Blackwell's Leadership Institute.

Bruce Eberle learned his own trade as a direct-mail fundraiser by working for Richard Viguerie before he set up on his own in 1974. Morton Blackwell also worked for Viguerie for many years before he founded the Leadership Institute in 1979. It was Viguerie who perfected the art of direct-mail solicitation in the 70's, introducing many unscrupulous practices that his disciples have followed faithfully. So in that sense, Viguerie can be considered the godfather of all three parts of the GOPUSA/Buckhead/rathergate.com cluster.

It may or may not be significant that Viguerie has also had ties to Reverend Moon. As early as 1977, he conducted a fundraising appeal for Moon's Children's Relief Fund that only returned 6.3% of the donations to help needy Asian children. There were investigations of the matter in several states, and Viguerie was temporarily banned from fundraising in Ohio and Connecticut.

In 1985-86, Viguerie was on the brink of bankruptcy and was forced to sell his magazine, Conservative Digest. The Unification Church came to his rescue, tossing him the account for distribution of their Insight Magazine, buying his office building, and in 1987 hiring him as secretary and fund-raiser for the American Freedom Coalition.

One reason this Moon connection to Viguerie may be significant is that Bobby Eberle has written for the Moonie Washington Times and Insight Magazine. Another is that the anti-environmental group Frontiers of Freedom, whose vice president, Kerri Houston, is also on the board of Bobby Eberle's GOPUSA, has its own Moon connections. Most notably, its chairman, Malcolm Wallop, is associated with the Moon-sponsored Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation.

In addition, long-time Moon operative Lynn Francis Bouchey is an adjunct fellow of Frontiers of Freedom. Bouchey's connections with Moon may go back as far as 1975, when he was working for the American-Chilean Council and planting pro-Pinochet news stories with the help of his friend, Lee Edwards, who was then an editor for Viguerie's Conservative Digest. He was definitely working for Moon in the 1980's when he was running the Council for Inter-American Security, of which Malcolm Wallop was also a member. The activities of this group ranged from supporting the Nicaraguan Contras to spying on left-wing activists. (Roger Fontaine, who was the first publisher of "Stolen Honor" producer Carlton Sherwood's whitewash of Moon, was also a member.)

None of these associations are proof of anything. But it does seem interesting that (1) Buckhead, rathergate.com, and GOPUSA all have connections that ultimately point back to both Richard Viguerie and Reverend Moon and (2) this group of people taken as a whole has a long history of dirty tricks, fundraising scams, and fake news stories.

[EVDebs]

23. Yo, dudes. Your info links directly to WayneMadsen's research

on The Fellowship. Check it out.
http://jamboi.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/31/175217/25

[Al-CIAda]

50. Fascinating

[seventythree]

30. good work

[starroute]

35. A few more bits and pieces

I was looking over my notes late last night and was reminded that Richard Viguerie was also a member of the American Council for World Freedom, the first US affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League, founded in 1970 by Lee Edwards (who I mentioned above in connection with Bouchey.) This was a period when Reverend Moon was extremely close to the World Anti-Communist League and was funding it heavily. (He would distance himself from it slightly by 1975, as word of its extensive fascist connections in Latin America started to come out.)

The American Council for World Freedom and the American-Chilean Council had a number of members in common with one another. There was also a considerable overlap with Reed Irvine's Accuracy in Media, founded in 1969, which was the first organization dedicated to fighting the "liberal" media. Irvine (who died a few months ago) and his group had connections to Reverend Moon as well.

So what this comes to is that even though the people directly connected with GOPUSA and Talon News seem to be fairly young Texas conservatives without much history, they are connected at one remove with a number of older figures (Bruce Eberle, Morton Blackwell, F. Lynn Bouchey), all of whom go back to a very specific nexus in the early 1970's. The two generations are also connected by a common intent to oppose, influence, or subvert the mainstream media, and a willingness to use unscrupulous means in the process.

There is also a connection -- both then and now -- to Reverend Moon, whose Washington Times and Insight Magazine seem to be playing a pivotal role in a general right-wing machinery for distributing smears and attacks against Democrats, liberals, and left-wing organizations.

I am coming to the conclusion that there *is* no vast right-wing conspiracy. Instead, there are any number of sub-conspiracies, groups of old friends, and even isolated individuals on the right, each with their own agenda. They all share certain goals in common, along with a propensity towards covert-ops methods of propaganda and subversion, and at moments of particular opportunity (like the Nixon, Reagan, or Bush II administrations) they tend to flow together like slime molds into larger conspiratorial organisms.

I believe that sort of flowing together is what we are seeing here.

[janx]

39. Hannity recently *announced* on the air that he has not

frequented freeperland in years.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1344622/posts

There is apparently some back-and-forth going on between Hannity and freeperland--because of the Gannon/Buckhead connections?

[Donailin]

2. I also knew the moment the blogs shut down the Rather memo

that it was a Rove setup, my intuition went off like a burglar alarm at Tiffany's. My first question was, "Where did the memo come from!?" And to this day, we don't have that answer. Some lady at a fair? In retrospect, it was a perfect set-up.

[FreedomAngel82]

13. Exactly

Anybody who knows anything about the Bush family knows he was AWOL. :eyes: Only thing is nobody ever talked about it before.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

3. Something REALLY smells fishy...

and it appears to be a school of fish.

I hope that it is more than just the 'planting' of fake journalists...there's got to be a money connection that can be traced.

[FreedomAngel82]

14. Maybe all of the

planted paid "journalist" go back to the same person. I definietly think Rove and some other people have their hands in it. This smells like something he'd do.

[Robin Hood]

4. It's got Rove written all over it.

Bush continues to not answer the questions about his national guard service. You are on to something here. Too bad that we don't have any journalists left in this country. The blogs are having to do all the work that journalists used to do.

[Nite Owl]

5. Did you see this thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1603655

The CBS people are not going quietly into the night. Hopefully it is all coming together now. The tangled web they wove.

[WestHoustonDem]

6. Wow - everything is tied together. The link works for me. n/t

[Marnieworld]

8. I'm not missing it

See my post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3130916&mesg_id=3130933

I also think he was the Plame Leak.
:D

[Senior citizen]

9. I just emailed 60 Minutes and suggested

that it would be nice to see some coverage of this.

Unless they're ALL prostitutes, of course.

[autorank]

27. ...and you know they are Senior citizen. I'm going to bug them too!

Ask them to read the blogs and find out how they got screwed on RatherGate.

[Al-CIAda]

49. You have to think they have someone on this.

[dbt]

10. Thank you, Eloriel!

You have a finely-sharpened set of Bullshit Cutters!

:thumbsup:
dbt

[yurbud]

11. send this to the guys at CBS fighting for their jobs!

[Disturbed]

15. Escort worked for over two years as volunteer.

How did he survive economicaly? Back taxes $20K. Why isn't the IRS on his case? This scandal is just now heating up. It could lead right to Rove. There is actually no proof that Escort is gay. His Web Sites may be a ploy to snare gay military men. To assume that this guy is what he appears to be is not good journalism. I feel that this story has some elements that may surprise more than a few people. The Whore Media aren't going to investigate this. They are going to try to make light of it and shuntt aside ASAP but it won't die.

[EVDebs]

21. Look into Operation Mockingbird (media manipulation) by CIA

www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_ louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html

and also check out CNN and PsyOps. Army signal corp HQ is Ft Gordon in Augusta, GA http://www.augustagausa.com/ourtown/ft_gordon.shtml
(sorta near CNN in Atlanta). PsyOps is part of this.

"CNN and PsyOps" www.counterpunch.org/cnnpsyops.html
is another good place to begin asking questions.

[FreedomAngel82]

12. On Greg Palast's website

he has an article on why they (Rove and whoever helped him) got to Mary Mapes. According to him they got her because she would be the only one who would talk about voting fraud in the MSM. It is interesting. I wonder how he got that as well and if he ever even saw it or just went with the info given to him from someone?

[checks-n-balances]

31. So Palast says why they went after Mapes - to squelch election fraud talk

(A little light bulb just went off in my head)

Thus, they could kill 2 birds with one stone:

1. They get to drive one more nail into the coffin of a FREE press

2. At the same time, they stifle any coverage of election fraud

It seems that half of what Rove & Co. does is to set up stories that manipulate public attention - that is to divert our attention to atrocities like killing Social Security on the home front, and empire building on the international scene.

These people are unspeakably evil, the way they are treating us and the rest of the world as pawns on a chess board.

I must read that Palast piece as soon as possible.

[msanthrope]

43. If you check out Gannon's

posts on Freeperville, he references Mary Mapes.

I've read lots of his posts.

Also noted a few other posters who are possibly Gannon--foils for him.

[TexasSissy]

16. This would only serve to endear Gannon to the Republicans.

And justify his existence or anything else he's done. Whether Rather was set up or not, the story was not vetted for proof and accuracy, and the network is on the hook for that. Less said about Rathergate, the better, IMO.

[Generator]

22. I disagree

I think that fighting is the BEST thing that side can do to bring the house of cards down.

From the link above:

"a recent article in The New York Law Journal, James C. Goodale, the former vice chairman of The New York Times, called the CBS investigation "a flawed report. It should not be swallowed hook, line and sinker."

He added: "Surprisingly, the report is unable to conclude whether the documents are forgeries or not. If the documents are not forgeries, why is the panel writing the report?"


Why the hell should they lose their job, CBS be disgraced when nothing was ever proved?

The real point is that it's against the "unspoken code" to go against Bush. And damn that has to end. The fact that they are fighting means they don't think they WERE WRONG in putting out that report. Not totally objectively wrong.

This story is not over.

[TexasSissy]

42. I see what you mean, but it is still unethical for a reputable news

agency/network to report a story and a document as "true" or "real," when in fact, that has not been proven to be the case. There would be no problem with the story if they had reported it as "we have been unable to verify the legitimacy of the document" or whatever.

That's what hurt CBS's credibility...the fact that they presented the underlying documents as verified and real, when they had not verified them, it appears. Regardless of how it happened, or if they were set up....news agencies are aware that they can be set up, surely.

Take the case of the Watergate Washington Post stories with Woodward & Bernstein. The editor (according to the movie, at least) wouldn't let them print anything without TWO named, credible, inside sources who had personal knowledge of whatever they wanted to print. That way, the public could rely on what they printed.

No, I'm afraid that CBS is on the hook for that one. All they had to do was include a disclaimer, but it looks like they THOUGHT the docs were real, so they went with it w/o using their usual verification procedures. A shame. 'Cause we all know the STORY, if not the underlying docs, was true.

[Karenina]

51. Check this out...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1603655#1604450

[seventythree]

29. according to Mapes

to this day she thinks the docs were real (CNN tonight) -- and I am not so sure she is wrong. I remember hearing that the raised th showed up on a guard doc that the WH held back until after all this blew over -- I don't know about the other typographic anamolies.

[SpiralHawk]

19. Rather and his allies have yet to get their chops in on this

But you can bet your bottom dollar that he and his staff are TOTALLY ALL OVER IT.

My hunch is that when they finally tell the story their way, Bush's shameful AWOL military record is going to be dragged kicking and screaming BACK INTO THE PUBLIC SPOTLIGHT.

So mote it be.

[bear425]

20. Hannity tried to distance himself from ....

FreakRepublic within the past couple days... wonder why?

[Goldmund]

34. I'm wondering that too

[lala_rawraw]

24. Write It

Darn it... I am looking for journalists for both Raw and OSPA. Write the thing:)

[cthrumatrix]

25. better yet -- get CBS to cover this angle......if they have the courage

[lala_rawraw]

26. There is no courage...

to be had... write it and research it off radar. need help, email me... but write it!!!!

[Eloriel]

28. I invite anyone who's intersted to do so

I'm not a good candidate at the moment.

[No Exit]

32. You bet it was a setup! And they were there

the second it began to break, as though they were saying "on your mark, get set, go!"

It was a setup from before the word "go"! A dirty trick.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Al-CIAda]

36. THIS is why Hannity is trying to distance himself from Free Republic

This is why he said such distancing remarks on air yest.

[Eloriel]

37. A-HA!! Good point.

Thanks for sharing that.

Here's another little tidbit about S. Hannity. He got his "start" in Atlanta (and before that Alabama, I think). He was on right after Limbaugh. He made a really big deal about his he and his wife (he got married while he was here) did NOT engage in premarital sex. At all.

Begins to make a little more sense to me these days than it did then.

[Al-CIAda]

40. Hannity was building up and party to the phony image of Gannon

He is running for his life.

[machiado]

38. New info on this

is at Americablog

http://www.americablog.org/

[susu369]

41. Thanks, machiado

I keep trying to "step away from my computer" - but I simply cannot!

:-)

[Al-CIAda]

44. kick

[Al-CIAda]

45. Photo -Hannity & "Gannon"

[mattclearing]

46. So Gannon = Conservative bloggers who took down Dan Rather?

This guy is such a fucking plant it's ridiculous.

[Califooyah Operative]

47. CBS - Rove-Gannon Connection?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/18/opinion/lynch/printable675050.shtml

[BeFree]

48. The hole bunch are gays, fer sure

Rove, Eberle, Gannon, the whole GOPUSA, are Log Cabin Republickers.

From CBS: Note Gannon met Rove at a White House Christmas Party.. (is Guckert connected, or what?)

"So when Jeff Gannon, White House "reporter" for Talon "News," was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career.

But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the "boy genius." Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon.

GOPUSA and Talon are both owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican and business associate of conservative direct-mail guru Bruce Eberle who says that Bobby is from the "Texas branch of the Eberle clan." Bobby Eberle told The New York Times that he created Talon to build a news service with a conservative slant and "if someone were to see 'GOPUSA,' there's an instant built-in bias there." No kidding.