Our favorite fake reporter, Jeff Gannon, in one of his “news” columns last year, said that John Kerry, were he elected, might someday be known as our “first gay president.” His saying this was completely in keeping with the strategy of the Bush campaign, which took full advantage of the raging gay marriage debate to mobilize their backward Bible-thumping base… Democrats, it was clear, loved sodomy. Democrats, if they had their way, we could be certain would use the public schools to turn us all gay. Bush, however, like an emissary from God, was here to defend us though. He’d “protect” marriage against the tireless assault of those militant queers who want to do disgusting things like grow old together in peace.
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s politically expedient to push hot buttons like these and to motivate people at the cores of their reptilian brains. “The other guy wants to make your son gay. I’m here to defend your family.” That’s pretty persuasive stuff. I can see how someone like Jeff Gannon would take the easy shot against Kerry. It’s hard to pass something like that up.
In the book “What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Tom Frank suggests that there are two types of Republican leaders, the ones that work their way up through the party system, and the ones who, sensing a groundswell, use a social movement to carry them along. His book is full of examples of this – ambitious men and women latching onto evangelical themes and catapulting themselves farther ahead into the political universe. With that in mind, I would suggest that several leading Republicans have nothing against homosexuals. No, they’re just using them to whip up the masses and further their own agendas. That, I think, explains how someone like Jeff Gannon could on one hand casually smear John Kerry while on the other partaking in hot man-on-man action. (Man sex, I would imagine, has to be so much hotter after a day of stirring up anti-gay hatred.)
As for Gannon, the trolls in the comments section of this site have suggested that I’m only covering this story because of the fact that it’s recently come to light that he was, before he turned to fake journalism, a male prostitute. I suppose the argument is that I wouldn’t have cared if there was a fake journalist in the White House press room lobbing softballs at the president and his press secretary if not for the fact that he was buggering men for cash. (It also ignores the fact that I was writing about Gannon a week before the sex-for-hire stuff came out.) While it does strike me as quite funny, and appropriate, that this man worked as a male prostitute before doing the work of the administration, I don’t think I’d be any less interested in the story if the man was as asexual as, say, Condoleeza Rice.
On a somewhat related note, the ACLU has just announced their 2005 Work Plan. If you get a chance, and if you’re interested in things like the separation of church and state, free speech, individual rights, and reproductive freedom, check it out and consider joining. We could use you… or at least your money.
10 Comments
Mark, by that last metaphor, do you mean Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice or the “Condoleeza Rice” Oil Tanker? Because I’m sure there are some that would say large ships filled with petrol are very sexy.
No, not the tanker
Interesting that Marks new beef with Gannon is fake journalism, now I’m cetainly not going to call his stories hard hitting but I wouldn’t exactly call them fake. Can you post an example of a fake story? As a criteria for fake news I can offer a few examples..
Jason Blair (those were really fake)
Dan Rather (using fake documents to make your point)
Michael Moore (a master of using video edits)
Maureen Dowd (famous for taking a very long quote and replacing key phrases she doesn’t like with … to make her point.. this is referred to in the blogsphere as a dowdism)
Seeing how there isn’t (wasn’t) much outrage from Mark over these sources, I can only come to two possible conclusions..
1) Mark is trying to use Gannon as a guilt by association straw man for the administration. I will admit he was probably a shill, but where have his comments been picked up by the other journalists in the room and reached publication? Talon news was a very small outfit without much influence. When he applied for a congressional pass he was turned down flat (Congress is controlled by republicans).
2) Mark thinks that conservatives hate gays.. and continues to flog the Gannon was gay mantra to cause them embarrasment. When the Frank issue came up most people decided that was a personal matter and moved on.. Why does a gay republican bother people so much?
Still trying to figure out why this story is so important, Gannon resigned his job which proves, that just as in the case of Blair justice has been metted out by the marketplace.
Do you hear that John????
That’s the sound of silence. This is what happens when facts get in the way of Mark’s articles. The libs are running for their wet beds, panties in a wad. Typically the next post will ignore your incite and move on to important things like humane mouse traps for the house. Still, I sense that they are becoming smarter just reading your posts. They often hesitate now before hysterically flying in with their over sensitive name calling plethora of emotionally driven babble.
Shitcock!!
ummm, nice argument! This is just the type of lively debate I expect from mm.com.
I just needed a little snack. Fridge is always full here, ain’t it?
OK, the baby finally went to sleep and I’m here. What is it that I’m supposed to answer now…. Something about why this concerns me more than the Jason Blair case? Let’s see, Jason Blair was one individual asshole who lied. It was shocking that he made it as long as he did, considering the ability of the fact checkers and editors at the Times, but he pulled it off. For a while. He eventually got caught though, ending not only his own career at the Times, but those of others. I think that I probably did mention it at the time, but I’m not sure what I would have said…
This other case, the one we’ve been discussing, however, is more interesting to me as it involves the aggressive message management of the administration. It’s not one man making up news stories – it’s a well-tuned organization of men deciding how the American people should receive their news, and how much news they should get. It’s not an isolated event, but the part of a greater pattern, one that lots of us started noticing when it first became known that the Bush administration was supplying television stations with pre-recorded “news” reports with what appeared to be run-biased reporters talking about the administration’s
So, where’s the rebuttal? You’ve had over 24 hours to think about it now.
It’s all over in the gannon thread that you are afraid to look at. So you are home because you have a bloodshot eye? You frickin’ pussy.