Yesterday, we saw Democratic leaders retreat a bit in their fervent pursuit because of Guckert's alleged prostitution. How is this playing out in the media so far?
Tim Graham of National Review Online wrote a piece claiming a bunch of "Gannons" during the Clinton administration (including Blitzer, McClendon, and Donaldson). In his piece, he writes that "liberal media elitists say they want only `real' journalists, not `partisan operatives,' to be allowed in the White House briefing room"
Howard Kurtz continues to show of his sharp journalism skills by
harping on quoting Kincaid of Accuracy in Media as saying "The campaign against Gannon demonstrates the paranoid mentality and mean-spirited nature of the political left." (
Mikecan 1978 and
Jules Seigel touch on the article as well). He throws some Aravosis quotes in there, but readers walk away from the piece with Cox' (Wonkett's) words ringing in their ears: "bloggers are wrong to bring that into the mix of things of why he shouldn't be a White House correspondent. Aren't we bloggers in favor of a lower bar of access, not a higher one?" To be fair, he does touch on the Plame angle, but only because it's inevitable I suppose, given that he has to talk about House Democratic Whip Hoyers' call for a Plame/Guckert investigation.
How else is thing being handled outside Daily Kos?
The Chicago Sun-Times gives it a blurb (no Plame); and David Corn over at The Nation called Guckert "innocuous," doubting he's a White House plant and "wondering" if there isn't some "blog-hysteria" going on.
So what have we learned? That it now falls upon us, my fellow Kossacks, to remind them why they can't let some nudie pics get in the way of discovering what, if any role Guckert played in disclosing the identity of a CIA operative.
There may not be any link between Guckert and the Plame investigation. But you know what? It's fucking disgusting that, given all the suspicious evidence piling on day after day, the media won't even entertain the idea.
Since they won't do their job, we're doing it. Rest assured, we've giggled at the nudie pics and moved on to the more important matter of Guckert's White House connections. But we need your help.
Guckert has lawyered up (what a surprise), so now that he won't be on talk shows giving it some attention, we have to pick up the PR weight. A press release is being drafted, but in the meantime....
In your emails and LTE, let's remind the world why this matters:
1. Guckert is no journalist. Therefore, the "journalist privilege" he asserted when the FBI questioned him about the Plame investigation is non-existent. He now owes the American public an explanation of how he knew of the existence of an internal, classified CIA memo, and now...he has no excuse for giving that explanation.
2. Guckert himself boasts that the White House Press Corps is for "journalistic elites."
3. Guckert, with zero journalism experience, somehow became a member of this "journalistic elite."
4. The White House told the American people it will do "anything we can" to assist the Plame investigation. Press Secretary Scott McClellan put his person name and integrity on the line when he said "that includes me personally, as well." A promise was made by the Bush administration of full disclosure in anything and everything that gets to the bottom of this possibly treasous act. Guckert may be part of the investigation, so the Bush administration needs to live up to its promise and disclose: (1) the standards for issuing Press Passes; and (2) any connections it may have with Guckert or GOPUSA.com.
5. Speaking of GOPUSA.com. Mollyd reminds us that Guckert is just part of a larger scheme. Why has GOPSUA.com, which boasted an unqualified prostitute as its star writer, not been utter discredited? Will Talon News continue to be granted White House access?
6. And as far a privacy goes, it would help to reiterate that everything in our own investigation was found online, publicly. And over at AmericaBlog where someone contacted John about the escort sites? Hey, guess what? That's journalism.
I hope we can give the story more legs so we can get closer to the truth. We're still investigating, and the media's relative silence won't stop us from that.
Thanks for getting this out there.
Media Blaster
Update [2005-2-16 11:39:50 by georgia10]:: About Kurtz. Did he do a good job with the article? Well, relatively speaking, I suppose. Given the shitty reporting he's done on this issue the last week or so, yeah, his article seems comparatively good. But, before we're so quick to laud him, let's not forget the role he played in framing this as a "liberal bloggers invade privacy of poor journalist" story. We're still trying to recover from that.
I would have prefered it is his article mentioned that Guckert published this stuff online, it was his own his websites/comments that were his downfall.