New Yorker article on Gannongate...going nowhere"

[snowbird42]

http://newyorker.com/talk/content/index.ssf?050228ta_talk_hertzberg

[villager]

1. it's true, nothing will happen in Congress...

...question is whether additional facts can escape elsewhere, and reach critical mass outside the usual confines of control or power...

[Pirate Smile]

2. This is why 2006 is so important.

"The non-Fox cable news outlets began to pick up on it last week; msnbc even assayed a special logo, “Gannongate.” A better name for it, though, would be “Nothinggate,” because nothing is what is likely to come of it. What all the memorable scandals of the past thirty years—real and fake alike, from Watergate to the Clinton impeachment—have had in common is that the opposition party controlled at least one house of Congress, which gave it the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas. If Bush ends up having an easier time of it in his second term than any of his two-term predecessors since F.D.R., it won’t be because the scandals aren’t there. It’ll be because the tools to excavate them are under lock and key."

We need to control one of the Houses in Congress.

[phaseolus]

3. this quote is on the mark

"If Bush ends up having an easier time of it in his second term than any of his two-term predecessors since F.D.R., it won’t be because the scandals aren’t there. It’ll be because the tools to excavate them are under lock and key."

[bettyellen]

4. the tools to excavate the scandal are under lock and key ......

A better name for it, though, would be “Nothinggate,” because nothing is what is likely to come of it. What all the memorable scandals of the past thirty years—real and fake alike, from Watergate to the Clinton impeachment—have had in common is that the opposition party controlled at least one house of Congress, which gave it the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas. If Bush ends up having an easier time of it in his second term than any of his two-term predecessors since F.D.R., it won’t be because the scandals aren’t there. It’ll be because the tools to excavate them are under lock and key.

[Democrats_win]

5. Good point. Its a gordian knot that we've got to find a way to cut.

Democrats have worked hard over the past four years and as "sorry everybody.com" shows, it wasn't enough.

[bettyellen]

15. it's not mine, it's from the new yorker article in the OP.......

not trying to plagerize,
but then again i'm not a bald rentboy either...

[zann725]

8. Then we need to keep it "kicked" until Foreign Press investigates

"It's not over 'til it's over." All this nay-saying clearly has a motive at discouraging our fervor to get to the bottom of this.

And it is for that reason that we should NOT walk away from this. Not now. This story is on OUR turf.

NGU!

[fooj]

12. Grab a shovel!! Lets keep digging! This will only become

"Nothinggate" if we allow it to become Nothinggate!

[roseBudd]

13. What we need is DUer "boots on the ground"...

IMHO of course.

Incredible amounts of information have been unearthed so far. There are still many questions as to who Gannon/Guckert actually is. In "real life" as opposed to online life, these questions would be delved into by sending an investigator to interview people who may have information. This would include neighbors, former and current (Delaware & DC; old city directories and white pages available at libraries) former coworkers (auto painting business) miltary contacts (FOIA?) associates and friends (fraternity, gay bars in DC and Delaware)

Plan of action:

Delaware and DC DUers could sign up to do "boots on the ground" research. Perhaps gay DUers could help to shake loose information in the gay community at bars and salons. A first place to start is the Wilmington Library to view the old phone books and city directories to find out his old address. Same oth DC, need to find out exactly where, Gannon is living, then steal his trash, stakeout his building, chat up his neighbors.

Lawyer DUers may be able to offer resources, especially lawyers who have done criminal representations. Ditto of prosecuters and former law enforcement who may be involved in private investigation.

There is no more Woodward and Bernstein, we must do it ourselves and right now we need confidential informants.

[BrooklineT]

6. Isn't that the truth!!!!

I'm sure no one's surprised??

[Fridays Child]

7. Maybe certain members of Congress and the press won't investigate...

...this because they're afraid that their own names might be on Jimmy Jeff's Rolodex.

[snowbird42]

9. smoke screens

It seems to me that we have a smoke screen a day.
Yesterday the secret tapes
Today plot to assasinate Bush

No time for Gannongate.
I hope the digging continues

[tinanator]

18. theres a WORLD of "there" there

I never expected such a rush of faux scandals trying to bury and distract. Its bigger than we could ever guess, no doubt about it. Keep on it, any one of us is better at digging than the fascist domestic press. Foreign and expatriated journalists are going to help, no doubt about it. Just get their work into the brains of the Bushbabies, and keep a light on the Franklin/Lawrence King/Omaha stuff
The hell with the crybabies, this is the big one.

[spooked911]

10. well seriously, there are bigger reasons to impeach Bush than Gannongate

and it just ain't gonna happen until the Dems get congress back.

[tinanator]

19. impeachment is a pipe dream

what you want is a total disenfranchisement and utter humiliation of the Bush dynasty. CRY HAVOC!!!!!!!

[Al-CIAda]

11. The mole, the US media and a White House coup

The mole, the US media and a White House coup
The reporter who wasn't is part of a wider press scandal, writes Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer

For two years Jeff Gannon cut an unobtrusive figure at White House press conferences. The shaven-headed, craggily handsome man worked for an obscure news agency called Talon News, known for its conservative sympathies. He was often the subject of jokes by colleagues on weightier news organisations.
No one is laughing now, because Gannon was far from being a harmless distraction. He was writing under a false name and working for a Republican front organisation. Suddenly, his 'softball' questions to White House officials looked less like eccentricities and more like plotting by an administration which has frequently displayed a dark mastery of the arts of press control.
When it emerged that Gannon was also linked to gay prostitution websites and might be a gay prostitute himself, the scandal as to how he was allowed daily access to the White House grew even murkier. The American media is now being forced to confront the possibility that Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, was simply a Republican plant, used by officials, including President George W Bush, to ask easy questions in difficult press conferences. 'The idea of having a mole in the White House press corp is amazing, but that's what it looks like,' said Jack Lule, a journalism professor at Lehigh University.

Con't-
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1418539,00.html


=====


I agree- Its on OUR turf!

[demgrrrll]

14. I remember Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee talking to Redford and

Hoffman in the film All the Presidents Men. He was yelling at them because none of the other major newspapers thought they had a story and he was worried about looking like a fool. Happens. Doesn't mean the New Yorker is right either. We need to continue to be persistent and relentless in our quest to make this story stick.

[NYCGirl]

16. If this thing has legs, it'll probably result in some low-level staffer

from the press room staff taking the fall for it. There never seems to be a shortage of drones to fall on their swords for this administration.

[marcologico]

17. Don't they wish.

Let's just say that Eustice Tilly is no Hunter Thompson.

[jojo54]

20. Another *ism lie!!

He's a friggin hipocrite!