Speaking Strictly for Myself
I don't care if Mr. G is gay; I happen to think he's not. I don't care if he owns domain names that make us all (and the mainstream media) giggle. I see no evidence that he's running any sort of prostitution ring and I think any sort of charges along these lines should be backed up with solid research. I don't care if years ago he posted a racy picture of himself online - and by the way, if that's what's considered pornographic these days, a lot of you are on one of the different internets than I am. If this supposedly horrible sex stuff is what's bringing him down in all this mess, it's not only sad for him as an individual, it's sad for us as a nation.
When I look at the people representing the press in these briefings, I don't care what pictures of them are floating around, what they're sexual orientation is or what domain names they own. What I want to know is this: are you a qualified reporter from a recognizably legitimate outlet? It is on
these counts that Mr. G should be escorted out of the hallowed briefing room, not on this mindless titillating speculation about his private life.
And oh, yeah ... remind me. Just what was this guy doing with access to an internal classified memo?
His lack of qualifications, the dubious nature of his "news" outlet and his access to that memo are the real questions. The rest is just smoke and mirrors.
And I'm well-aware that I'm going to be hit up with lots of comments filled with references to bringing knives to gunfights and admonitions to just imagine what the other side would do with this information. So be it. The rest of you, I admit, are far more sophisticated in political strategy than I am, and I'm sure my naiveté is showing. At any rate, what I think doesn't matter, because this is all out of our hands now and the spin has begun - as we all anticipated it would.
I also know I differ from a lot of Kossacks in that I think it's perfectly okay to have blatantly conservative reporters at the White House, just as I think it should be okay to have blatantly liberal ones. Mother Jones and the National Review should both be allowed to question whatever administration is in power. Established bloggers should as well; I have no problem with Red State or Daily Kos being there.
What I object to are "lifeline" questions tossed to the president or his press secretary by someone who is looking more and more like a deliberately devised fictive character planted to provide fawning relief from the (laughably mild) "tough" questioning of real journalists. Somehow, I think Rich Lowry or Jonah Goldberg or George Will would have been a little more subtle, and I can live with some subtlety in the process.
It's true the hypocrisy angle should bother me, that of a self-proclaimed washed-in-the-blood of Jesus Christian getting caught out in what could be interpreted as a sex scandal, but I can't work up any energy over it. My hypocrisy outrage meter was busted somewhere between the time we had our nationally recognized morals guru busted as a gambling addict and when Limbaugh was forgiven for shouting that all drug addicts should do jail time during the period that he was an addict himself.
Aside from the routine "Jesus forgives everything" fall back line, the people who support conservatives honestly don't see any problem with telling people how to live on the high road while taking the load road themselves, and I don't think adding any more hypocritical scalps to our belts is going to do any good. If the sheer weight of numbers of conservative scandals counted for anything, the entire right-wing structure would have collapsed long ago. I don't see any traction in this.
Understanding the Diary Process
Apparently a lot of people are having trouble distinguishing between the story and the research process. Let me explain it. When I post a diary - or when any of the other research diarists does - what is in the textual essay at the beginning of the entry is the equivalent of a "story" in a series in a newspaper. It is just as well researched and verifiable in terms of facts as an article in The New York Times. Wait a minute ... let's change that. Let's use the L.A. Times as an example for now.
What appears below the essay - in the comments - is basically the equivalent of newsroom chatter, speculating on the meaning of facts and joking about them. And if you think the comments were bawdy and raucous the night those AOL pictures turned up, all I can say is you've clearly never been in a real newsroom and therefore have no grounds to criticize our "virtual newsroom" process.
A Word to "Professional" Journalists
I realize it's tough to wade through the diaries - though not nearly as tough as doing the thousands of hours of research we did - but look at it this way: you get a paycheck and we don't. You can bill your masters. At least do us the courtesy, if you're going to lift our research unattributed, to look at all the research and how we connected the dots. Additionally, if you're a self-proclaimed media expert pronouncing elitist judgment on our methods in national outlets, take a long, hard look at how many discussions and admonitions about posting sensitive information - all of it public information, mind you - were made in every single diary. We found criminal records and civil lawsuits on individuals that were never posted. There were ad nauseum scoldings from both NYBri and myself on these basic tenets: No phone calls to individuals. No visiting residential addresses of individuals. No following people around.
These standards are so high that paid journalists don't even bother paying lip service to them. They're violated daily and called "part of the job."
Frankly, it speaks more poorly of the ethics of mainstream media giants than of our own that big-time reporters finally chose to jump into national coverage of this story based on one diary that found the salacious goods on Mr. G when thirty other research diaries were available and open for review. But, you know, that was the boring stuff ... CIA leak timelines, corporation registrations, the history of GOP-funded public relations firms. Yawn. It's work. It's boring Move on.
You don't like the way we're handling this? Fine. Do your jobs then. You sat next to this guy for two solid years and nobody but the Washington Post bothered to raise any questions. Trust me, all of us at Daily Kos would like nothing better than to get back to our own responsibilities and our own personal lives. But until you prove to us you're willing to do some real reporting, we're staying all over this. Deal with it.
And oh, yeah ... one last thing. Where were all of you high-class media critics when Gannon was named on the subpoena list because of the interview with Ambassador Wilson? Did anyone bother to pick up a phone and get in touch with Wilson and find out how the hell that interview with a low-level flak with inside information came about? Oh, yeah, I forgot. Wilson told us yesterday you don't do phone calls to get the real information, you just go ahead and publish anyway. Got it. I'm starting to see the difference between blogs and "real" media.
Let's Clear Some Things Up
1. Daily Kos readers ran across the domain names nearly a week before this feeding frenzy began. We chortled a bit, made a few comments and then moved on. We only wanted the domain information so that we could use address and contact information to run down Gannon's real identity. The fact that other blogs - and now newspapers, radio and television stations - finally picked up on it and made a big deal out of it is not our doing. Seriously, check the diaries. They're all available to the public. We clearly never intended to bring down Mr. G based on the sex stuff. If it were, we would have made a hellaciously big deal of those domain names.
2. Lots of infighting seems to be beginning about who started the story and who "owns" it. Nobody "owns" this. Media Matters started hammering on Talon News and Gannon, Atrios posted the pseudonym question, I posed the Plame question, and readers of ALL these sites began digging. World O'Crap and America Blog have done yeoman's work in terms of summary, advancing the story from a chaotic mess of research facts into a solid narrative. It's almost impossible to sort out who got what from whom. View this as a collaborative effort that not just the Daily Kos community but the blogosphere as a whole took part in, and we should all pat ourselves on the backs for participating. Without the helpful amplification, this story would have gotten nowhere. And if you want to get some real humility about who "owns" this story, visit WebDem's site where all the pieces of the picture - minus the pseudonym - were put together way back in March of 2004. For whatever reason, this great observation didn't get any legs, and he/she deserves lots of credit for (in Mr. G's words) what was "hiding in plain sight."
3. We're working on getting a web site going for all this information, so for those of you who are sick of it and think it's been "done to death" ... well, we're doing our best to clear the information out of here and move on. We ask for a little understanding and patience as we do so. And we apologize for taking up so much diary space.
Clap, Clap: Now Back to Work!
I was going to put the following portion of this project on hold for a bit, but given the right-wing declaration of war on Harry Reid and his family, I think we should move up the agenda.
I want to know how - exactly from what source and to whom - right-wing disinformation is spread. Louise has gone through the Talon News stories and pinpointed five "stories" that Mr. G seems to have broken. I want to: (a) verify via massive googling that he did indeed break them; and (b) follow the infection spread. Who picked up these "stories" and how soon? If you can even pinpoint the time of day they "broke" in each link of the chain, it would be helpful. The usual suspected radio characters and their transcripts should also be combed through.
The stories are:
- Daschle is fiddling with his taxes due to his claim of residence.
- John Kerry will be the first "gay" President.
- John Kerry is linked to a female intern who has fled the country.
- Mary Mapes is the CBS producer who obtained the TANG memos under dubious circumstances.
I'd like one volunteer for each story. If someone gets overwhelmed, immediately ask for help. Additionally, I'd like one person to informally keep an eye on how the inevitable smear on Harry Reid begins and spreads.
I think we may find that there is concerted action here and not just random linking. When we understand the pattern, we can get behind the curtain and do some research on the relationship between the organizations in question.
Thanks for you patience through this long/rant diary. It's been a hell of a couple days, hasn't it?
Previous Plame & Propagannon Diaries
Subsidiary Plame & Propagannon Diaries