Aaron Brown (echoing many on the Right) sees l'affaire Gannon as a "so what" story. But, as recently as 2003, a Scott Ritter arrest for a misdemeanor (the case was dismissed) was a story he clearly found important (see Jim Tragos' buzzflash.com reader contribution on this)--even though it had nothing to do with Ritter's arms-inspection expertise and was long over and done with. Brown found it important because of the talk then going on about it--yet he doesn't feel the same is true in Guckert's case. Others bring up the example of Left-leaning Helen Thomas (among others) in the White House press corps as, somehow, a defense of Gannon/Guckert and an attempt to dismiss Leftist outrage. In what must be a surprise to them, none of these commentators are not getting away with it, not today. Until recently, however, they did--and did so over and over again.
While, over the past decades, people on the Right have been learning how to focus on their "essential" issues, they have also been mastering the art of keeping the Left off message. They've learned how to change the subject, bring in red herrings, and dismiss the topic without allowing the Left to successfully raise the issues the Left wants discussed.
Right-wingers must have been chuckling as they led the Left down trails leading straight away from what had seemed to be the issues at hand.
But the Left, for all its appreciation of nuance and recognition that everything connects to everything else, is learning. No longer is it so easily distracted from what should be the main points.
This isn't happening from the top, however, but from the bottom, from the outraged people who have watched over and over as their liberal leaders cave in to the Right or are again fooled by the Right. No longer is the Right so easily able to set the agenda!