Proof of complicity?

Sometimes I am reminded about how far I still have to go before I can compare my little creative outlet to all the "real" blogs out there. I enjoy writing, and like to think that I'm informing at least a few friends and aquaintances about the injustices of this administration.

But then I see what blogs can really do and it humbles me. I try my best to spread the word and inform people about things they may not know. Real blogs, however, uncover new information, actually do some investigative journalism, and bring to light the dark secrets of the Bush White House and other power brokers. (Investigative journalism, by the way, is something newspeople used to do before they became peons of mega-conglomerates and turned into Karl Rove's PR machine.)

A firestorm is (hopefully) brewing around the blogosphere about a "journalist" going by the name of Jeff Gannon who was allowed access to the White House despite the fact that his only journalism training seems to be a two-day seminar at The Leadership Institute, whose mission is, and I'm quoting verbatim here, to "identify, recruit, train, and place conservatives in politics, government, and media."

Journalists work for years for the privilege of gaining a coveted press credential for the White House. This guy comes out of nowhere, working for a tiny outfit called Talon News, and gets a credential, no problem.

Which in itself, might just seem like dumb luck. But on Jan. 26, Gannon asked Dubya the following question:

Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

This is when the proverbial shit hit the fan. The question was so obviously loaded that it prompted several keen bloggers to investigate Gannon's background. Bloggers at Daily Kos (here), World O'Crap (here), AmericaBlog (here), and others found out some truly shocking things. In addition to his startling lack of journalistic experience or training, here is what they found:

1) Jeff Gannon is not the man's real name. He is really James Dale Guckert, but he somehow managed to get "Jeff Gannon" on his White House pass. This means one of two things: Either the Secret Service had a glaring and extremely dangerous and inexcusable lapse of security, or this is damning evidence that the White House is complicit in this outrage.

2) Talon News, the online magazine he reported for, is owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican who also owns GOPUSA.com, which "brings the conservative message to America." Eberle (and maybe Gannon) seem to also have ties to the infamous Swift Boat Veterans.

3) Gannon may have been intimately involved in the outing Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent, which happens to be a felony. He may not have been the one to reveal her identity, but he appears to have been part of the coverup and attempts to Shield Rove and Lewis Libby from blame, according to this very detailed thread on Daily Kos. It gets very complicated, but it seems the White House was using him to give credibility to their ludicrous argument that Plame was not in fact a covert operative, that her identity as an agent was "public knowledge," and therefore no felony was committed.

There are other, less important revelations, like the fact that a company Gannon ran registered gay military domain names like hotmilitarystud.com, and that Gannon literally plagiarized the "soup lines" quote from Rush Limbaugh's show a day before. (Harry Reid said no such thing.)

But what has been exposed so far must be pretty significant, because the parties involved (Talon, GOPUSA) are running scared. They have both removed everything related to Gannon from their Web sites, except a statement from Eberle on Talon accepting and "understanding" Gannon's resignation. Unfortunately for them, there's the WayBack Machine.

It boils down to this: A man with a fake name and no journalism experience who works for a right-wing "news" outlet was let into the Bush White House press room, and called on to ask loaded questions. This is damn near impossible without willing participation on the part of the administration. That should tell you everything you need to know. The White House allowed, nay, encouraged a right-wing operative pretending to be an independent journalist to gain unprecedented and unwarranted access to the administration, mocking everything the Fourth Estate stands for. Further proof that the power structure of the GOP is a well-oiled machine, designed for deception. When will America realize that John Edwards was absolutely right? This administration is not being straight with the American people. And not just about Iraq's WMDs. About everything.

You'd hope that sooner or later, as truth-seekers keep pulling these threads, the whole sweater might eventually unravel. But time after time, somehow it does not. The machine has knitted an extremely tight sweater. It may take all of our power together to undo their stitching. A Daily Kos member named NYBri has realized this and has called for all who care to join him in a new form of journalism, with hundreds of people working collectively to expose the workings of this increasingly opaque and secretive government. I, for one, plan to join him. Who's with me?

All hail Molly Ivins...

...because she can so succinctly sum up everything that's wrong with the Dubya White House:

I don't get it. The divide between the rhetoric and the reality in this administration is larger than I can span. The dissonance between the noble ideals expressed and the nasty actions is too raw for me.

Ah, Molly, that was beautiful. This dissonance is what rings in my ears, causing massive headaches. It rings so loud that I cannot understand how it can be drowned out by the blare of Dubya's rhetoric about "freedom" and "moral values." But apparently most people do not seem to have noticed what Molly and I have noticed.

I wonder how all the veterans who "support our troops" felt upon finding out (if they bothered to find out) that Dubya's new budget proposes to cut veterans' benefits. I wonder how happy poor midwestern and southern people will be about "preserving the sanctity of marriage" when they find out the healthcare programs they count on are eliminated. I wonder how many of those farmers who had giant BUSH/CHENEY '04 billboards propped up on their fences felt like they've had the rug pulled out from under them when they found out Bush wants to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in farm subsidies from the budget. But I guess that's OK cuz he's gonna use that money to "fight terra" and insure freedom. I guess we all have to make sacrifices.

Except, of course, the very rich. You know, the ones who need the least government assistance but get the most. Betcha didn't know (unless you already read all of Molly's column) that income over $90,000 is not taxed for Social Security. Eliminating that cap alone would nearly "save" Social Security. We don't need to mess with privatization. I have yet to grasp how privatization will "save" Social Security. (I put "save" in quotes because it's debatable how sick the system actually is.) Every time an institution gets privatized or deregulated, the people get screwed and the very rich get richer. (Think Enron.)

But I rather doubt that Dubya is interested in putting fair tax burden on the very rich. Not exactly his M.O. Instead, he'll screw all the rest of us. But that's OK cuz at least we're getting screwed by a man who opposes gay marriage and abortion.

The Mark of the Beast

Don't normally do pictures, but...

All is NOT Forgiven!

I am absolutely astounded by how many people (mostly from the right, but a few liberals, too) are so quick to say that the apparent success of the vote in Iraq justifies our invasion. Conservatives on opinion pages all over America are taking cheap shots at us "lefty 'insurgent' supporters" and saying we should suddenly forget all the deception and agree that, yes, Dubya has been right all along.

Let me put it to you as simply as I can: NO!

An election that the "librul" media and the administration claim is a success when the votes haven't even been fully counted yet is in no way vindication for years of evil lies to America and the world, for gross human rights violations, or for the deaths of 1,441 Americans and somewhere between 15,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

Even if this election eventually brings about a stable, working democracy in Iraq, there is no clause in the Bible that says that the ends justify the means. In my estimation, the means of this war violated the First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Commandments. If you are confused about what I mean, click on the link above and read what each Commandment covers. A quick example: The First Commandment says, "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me." One type of "god" mentioned on that Web site is power.

Aside from all that, it is WAY too early to declare that this election is a "success." Yes, millions of people voted and only 45 of them were killed, but that means nothing until the new government assumes autonomous power, the violence ends, the terrorists (who were not there before our invasion) are defeated, and all Iraqis (Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Christian) have stability and freedom in their lives. And don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Dr. Alterman alerts us of a similar claim of election success in a little place called Vietnam. That turned out to be 100 percent wrong, and I don't think I'm being overly pessimistic to hold out for further evidence before reaching a different conclusion on Iraq.

AND IT STILL DOESN'T JUSTIFY A SINGLE ONE OF BUSH'S LIES!

No Hope for the Future

I used to think that "old people" were just being, well, old people when they worried about "kids today." But you know something? Old people might just be right.

According to a new survey on the First Amendment by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 36 percent of high school students believe that newspapers should get government approval before publishing stories. And nearly three-fourths "either do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted."

What that says to me is that nearly three-fourths of high school students need to be held back a grade or three. How can so many of our young people not realize the myriad freedoms the First Amendment affords them? Do they think it would be possible for ANY part of pop culture to exist in its current state without it?

The First Amendment is the first Amendment for a reason, and it is absolutely critical in a successful democracy. If a government is allowed to exert control on what people say, it ceases to be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. The founding fathers were all too familiar with the oppression of a tyrranical government, and did not mince words when drafting the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law...

I'm beginning to wonder what kids are taught in school today. Maybe the problem isn't what they're being taught. Maybe it's how they're being taught. Maybe in civics class they should be put through an exercise where, for a week or so, students are punished for saying things that are remotely dissident or anti-establishment, or for reading books or listening to music that have anti-establishment themes. I guarantee you they would all have a newfound appreciation for the First Amendment that all the textbooks in the world couldn't convey.