The Bush Administration Scripts its own Reality!
Can you say "brazen"?! The Bushies' latest effort to manipulate the press is an astounding display of chutzpah.
First it was the disclosure that the Bush administration's Education Department had paid syndicated, conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote it's No Child Left Behind policy in his columns. The came word that two other well-known conservative editorialists -- Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus -- were paid $21,500 and $10,200, respectively, for services rendered the Department of Health and Human Services advising on its marriage initiatives. And let's not forget the infamous 2004 informational video from the same department that coyly ended as if it were a legitimate news report: "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." Unfortunately for viewers nationwide, Karen Ryan was an actress and not a professional news reporter.
But just when you thought it was safe to watch network news again, along comes the sordid tale of James Guckert (alias, "Jeff Gannon"). The White House insists it had nothing to do with Guckert's sudden appearance in the White House briefing room more than two years ago. But Guckert, who has apparently also offered himself as an expensive male escort on gay websites such as hotmilitarystud.com, was able to turn a special day-pass system for reporters into revolving door access to White House Press conferences.
Guckert, who has no formal journalistic training, did claim to be a reporter with Talon News, a website linked to GOPUSA.com. Both, in turn, have links to (you guessed it!) the Texas Republican Party. So, the question is raised: How did such an obviously partisan hack, with no real experience in journalism, and using an alias, get such regular access to the president? In this supposed age of the "War against Terror," are we really expected to believe that NOBODY at the White House vetted Guckert and exposed him for the fraud he was? Not in the more than two years during which Guckert had access to the all-important White House briefing room?! And despite the fact that he claimed to have attended his first press conference on February 2003, prior to Talon News' creation in March of 2003 (the rules are supposed to be that only established journalists for credible news agencies receive press passes)?!
Ironically, it was Guckert's special access that was his undoing. At Bush's televised press conference on January 26, 2005, Guckert (disguised as "Jeff Gannon") lobbed the president the following softball question: "Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy ... 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 with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" So obviously partisan a question was bound to raise eyebrows somewhere, and sure enough the established press and the nation's bloggers went to work, assiduously tracking down Guckert's true story.
So now we know the truth. But, as always, the Bushies simply deny any culpability on their part. "Mistakes were made," they cry in homage to the words of the late Ronald Reagan. Yes, I agree that mistakes were made. But, in contrast to the Bushies' conscious use of the passive voice time and again to obscure the actual culprits, I choose to be more honest. We, the American people, made the mistake of electing this arrogant simpleton to the White House in the first place. Shame on us!
Peace,
Historian
(Souces: www.csmonitor.com, www.salon.com, www.editorandpublisher.com)
2 Comments:
The Historian may be able to add opinion to this article. Accurate or not?
When Democracy Failed - 2005
The Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann
This weekend - February 27th - is the 72nd anniversary, but the corporate media most likely won't cover it. The generation that experienced this history firsthand is now largely dead, and only a few of us dare hear their ghosts.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm
In my opinion, the general outlines of the recommended article ("When Democracy Failed -- 2005") are true, but the author needlessly pushes his analogy too far.
In particular, the "terrorists who traced their origins to the Middle East" bit seems overdone. Hitler blamed the Reichstag fire of 1933 on the Communists, and he did make use of it to seize power and wipe out the last vestiges of Weimar Democracy in Germany. However, nobody at the time made anything of a "Middle Eastern" connection. Nor was Hitler's war against the Jews yet a primary plank of his public rhetoric or regime.
As I said, the fire, although set by a dim-witted Dutch anarchist, was blamed on the Communist Party of Germany. The Nazis later labelled communism as part of the overall so-called "worldwide Jewish conspiracy" they claimed to be fighting. Yes, the Jewish faith has its roots in the Middle East, but the same holds true for Christianity. Ergo, the author could just as easily have talked about how a dictator with Middle Eastern connections (Hitler) waged war on a people with Middle Eastern connections (the Jews), using as his excuse an incident by a terrorist with Middle Eastern connections (Marinus van der Lubbe).
Personally, I think the author should have stuck with his main point that in early 1930s Germany a confused and beleaguered people were manipulated by a crafty politician into giving up their democratic rights in return for a promise of security against unnamed (and basically unnamable for being nonexistent) foes.
But in truth, the conditions of early 1930s Germany and the U.S. in 2005 are so different as to make any anaology between the two basically meaningless. Hope this helps!
Historian
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