Snap, Crackle, Gannon!


Remember how Condi had her bad hairdo in a twist recently when she felt the great Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was “impugning” the soon-to-be-Secretary’s truthometer?

Memo to Karl: Any ideas on how to sneak shill Senators onto Congressional Committees? Oh, wait…Brownback, Thune, Cornyn, Bunning, Chambliss, Santorum, Craig, Isakson and the aptly named Crapo...um, never mind.

Yeah, that impugning stuff can be rough.
As we rapidly approach the White House hard pass-less 3rd anniversary of this humble blog, I’m reminded these days of the personal frustrations with the media and Bush II America which fueled the creation of this attempt to make the post September 11th knot in my stomach go away.
Frustrations that, I think, were best summed up by an exhausted Jason Bourne at the ending to The Bourne Supremacy and posted in this space in the early hours of this past morning under Jasper Johns’ evocative 1958 American flag:

When what you love gets taken from you, you want to know the truth.

I think many of us, these days, can relate to Jason’s simple truth.
As I said yesterday and as is evidently more clear this morning, GannonGate has, indeed, entered a new phase in what promises to be a multi-pronged (pardon the expression) scandal with a historic new element and an expansion of the ramifications first really noted in the run up to Campaign 2004; a scandal noticed and investigated first by ordinary citizens enabled and empowered through modern digital technology and a bit of programming generally referred to a self-publishing software or blogs.
The big boys in media and governmental power seem very nervous as Friday 211 dawns with GannonGate occupying a meaty chunk of major media Gray Lady space:

Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative.

Meanwhile, at what used to be the Washington Post, Da Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt as they run to the cozy blankie of a think tank with this quote from Matthew Felling, media director for the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs:

The blogosphere "is the international waters of the Internet age -- a lawless area where anything goes…rumors the mainstream media responsibly ignores."

Did that sink in to all of you “anonymous assertions” asserters?
The dude’s “nonpartisan” and willing to be quoted on the record so seems to say the pouting scrunched-up face of Kay Graham’s legacy.
Why it’s not like “Jeff Gannon” and Karl Rove shared a mysterious mentor.
Oh, wait:

[“Jeff”] and Karl Rove seem to share a mentor -- a largely under-the-radar wingnut named Morton Blackwell.

Yup, nervousness seems to be today’s Washington-New York power axis watchword if I’m any judge of Aaron Brown's large doughface.
But, don’t take my word for it.
If you are endowed with broadband and a large buffer (wink, wink) watch Aaron’s interview with AmericaBlog’s John Aravosis where Aaron, in a tizzy over Gannon/Guckert’s privacy rights to material he (Gannon/Guckert) self-published is trampled by Aravosis’ simple truth:

How did somebody [Gannon/Guckert] get this kind of access? I think the White House is behind this.

As I wait for an inventive web head to find the truth to Gannon/Gunkert claim of “700,000 daily” unique visitors to Talon News, I think it’s wise to consider the words of White House Press Secretary Scotty McClellan:

Where do you draw the line?

Where indeed Mr. McClellan as even more bloggy types are remembering Craig T. Spence?
Media Matters has Windows Media and Quicktime files of Gannon/Guckert's February 10 Wolf Blitzer interview and David Brock's Court TV appearence.

Image: AOL, Google
- posted by Sean @ 7:36 AM