Anomalous Data - Dumpster Diving: The new American Political Sport

Monday, February 14, 2005

Dumpster Diving: The new American Political Sport

I realize that the Republican’s started the whole muck-raking, sex-obsessed dirty-tricks thing by spending $70 million finding a stain on a blue dress and trying to take Clinton down with it.

I also realize that the claim of “restoring honor to the Office of the Presidency” is a bit hifallutin’ for a guy that has to hire “journalists” to promote his agenda and talk up his policies.

And it’s a bit of tantalizing irony in the thought that an administration that has this much momentum from hateful anti-gay rhetoric might have hired a gay male prostitute with fake credentials to lob soft-ball questions to the President as part of the White House Press Corps…

…and certainly, if this Jeff Gannon guy had ANYTHING to do with the “outing” of Valerie Plame he should be thoroughly investigated…

…but really, even considering all of this, I have to say that reading this “expose” has left me feeling like neither side has any humanity left. I provide the link so you all can make your own judgement…but I’d be just as happy if you would skip the link, because it will do nothing but appeal to the lowest, darkest, angels of you nature.

And I was so inspired by Lewis Black last night, and now the wind has left my sails.

I feel much like I did my first few failed attempts to quit smoking…you know, when the cravings build up and you just suck down five or six of those suckers, because you were totally weak and now you feel completely gross and sick and hateful toward yourself and your own humanity?

….yeah…like that.

We’re better than this people. We have plenty of damning crap on this administration, and plenty of threads to pull to get more without having to further exploit the nekked flesh of some poor, deluded, self-hating loser. I realize that he took the pictures and he wrote the ads and he made the decision to do the things he did…but that doesn’t make our prurient interest in it right.

And as someone who found Ken Star to be a pathetic sex-obsessed ghoul…my mind just can’t make this OK because it’s hitting the opposition.

Like I said, if this guy was improperly credentialed and vetted, if he was given improper clearance, if he was hired to “out” Valerie Plame and do other dirty tricks for the administration, then lets find out about it, but please. Nobody is elevated by this. Nothing is build or won or accomplished by it. It is scorched earth tactics and it is unworthy of us.

Monday, February 14, 2005 4:32:51 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) | Comments [2] | Political

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:02:22 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Wow...Jeff is pretty damn hot! I have *such* a weakness for boxers...

Oh, uh, sorry, I got distracted there. This is a big deal, even if it has a prurient side. This guy didn't just hire himself out, it appears he was trying to encourage men who were actually in the military to join as escort service as well, quite probably with the intention of exposing them as homos and getting them kicked out. Which is pretty bad when you think about it - the White House was paying a man to lure gay service members into exposing themselves so they could be exelled from the military.

I don't think the case that this guy had anything to do with Valerie Plame is very strong. But it is interesting to think that everyones favorite conservative blowhard might have gotten the info from this guy...and really makes you take the phrase 'blowhard' in an all new light.

I think all this really does is expose the basic ethic of the Whtie House even more clearly - that ethic being hypocrisy. No moral, value, ethic or belief the White House claims to hold is genuine. They make all those claims only to 'win over' the self-righteous elements of the public, all the while laughing at the people who believe them as they proceed to try and destroy the world.

The fact that 'Jeff' may or may not have been a gigolo is really immaterial. Much more important is the fact that he had no credentials at all and while working as a columnist for a website that makes the Nazi party look 'pink' was given access to the White House that real journalists culd never, ever hope to get. At each of the what, three press conferences Bush held in his first 'term', this guy was given more chances to ask questions than anyone else. Questions written, handed to him, and carefully rehersed with W.H. handlers - although Carl Rove was probably too busy to attend him personally. At least in THIS proffession.

And on the prositution thing, was he? Advertising to sell yuor body doesn't mean you sell your body. IS ther any proof from any customers tha he actually ever did it? Or was the whole web-site thing only to establish credability to better work the ouster circut?

Personally, I'm not at all surprised by this. This is the sort of thing I've known Bush was doing all along. It's only going to be worse this time. And just wait until he ditches the Constitution entierly and establishes himself as king.

The Evil Cub

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 10:15:31 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Cub,

I'm not saying there isn't a Jeff Gannon story...I'm just saying this isn't a helpful focus. I don't care if he is gay or not. I don't care if he was a prositute. I don't care if one of his clients might or might not have been Scott McClellan. I certainly think the conjecture about his client list got out of hand just before Scott McClellan and went beyond the pall when it got to Rove and Bush.

Yes, it matters if the websites were done at the behest of the government to "out" millitary personell, to gain blackmail information, or whatever. That wasn't even a question addressed in the article.

Yes, it matters that "Jeff Gannon" was using an alias, and had no credibility or credentials as a journalist and yet had access to the white house under a press pass.

Yes, it matters if he was masquerading as a "journalist" while on the payroll of the White House to mislead the American public with softball questions written for him by the administration.

And yes, it is important that he might have had access to classified information that was leaked to another journalist; who used that information to expose the identity of an undercover operative working on a matter of national security.

While the story mentions most of these issues, it does nothing to substantiate them or further the discussion of these important topics.

It's purpose is to associate the administration with purile and (for many) distasteful subject matter and images, and make salacious insinuations about it.

It's a blind ally, unless it can be proven that the websites were actually used in the manner you describe, but I have seen nothing that would indicate that anyone is even thinking along that line. The comments are so focused on the appearnce that "Jeff Gannon" might be gay, and that he might have clients in the White House that nothing else really rises above the fray...and that's unfortunate.

I am much more interested to find out who betrayed our country than in knowing if Jeff Gannon's "client list".

For me, treason, entrapment and fraud should be the big story...and I just don't see that focus coming from the article, or from the comments associated with it.

Trees

kemaris

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