Sen. Biden says:
Why isn't every major network in the country investigating a security breach, forget anything else. How could the FBI, for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member. I've read more FBI reports than I ever wanted to know. How could that happen and no one had any idea who this guy was?... The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated.
Why isn't every major network in the country investigating a security breach, forget anything else. How could the FBI, for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member. I've read more FBI reports than I ever wanted to know. How could that happen and no one had any idea who this guy was?... The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated.
now this is funny
bill maher on gannon:
http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/billmaher021805gannon.html
bill maher on gannon:
http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/billmaher021805gannon.html
Plame & PropaG: Gannon was GOPUSA Officer/Directorby SusanG
[Subscribe]
Sat Feb 19th, 2005 at 02:44:07 PST
Not only was "Jeff Gannon" (or whoever) a "reporter" (or whatever) for "news agency" GOPUSA (or Talon News or whatever), he also was either an "officer" or "director" as of October 28, 2004. Or so Google cache tells us - grab that page fast! It'll be scrubbed by noon!
(I swear, by the time this story ends, the quote key on my laptop is going to be broken.)
But like everything else with this group's public face, it's malarkey. There are no "officers" or "directors" of GOPUSA other than Robert R. Eberle, at least on file with the Texas Secretary of State as of February 19, 2005. But apparently Mr. G was so esteemed by his former employer just four short months ago that his already pumped-up biography as "reporter" was turbo-charged with more sass and pizzazz by gracing him with yet another phony title (or two ... it's hard to tell).
And people, please, when visiting this page, take note of the sweet irony of the George W. Bush quote sailing above Mr. G's head: "What people can dream, people can do."
Diaries :: SusanG's diary ::
On to the Press Secretaries: "It is all a bit odd"
Ari's musing comment about oddity has got to take the prize for best understatement of the Propagannon fiasco uttered thus far. But the year and the disaster are young, the news cycle on this mystery ruthlessly high-paced. Who knows? By the end of the year, "It is all a bit odd" may not even rank as seventh runner-up.
Here's where we officially stand right now:
Scotty says he's only known Mr. G was using a fake name for a few weeks. After ten or twelve wildly speculative days about Talon's real standing as an official news organization - and almost immediately after Mr. G was caught on videotape in a pre-Talon-existing press briefing - Scotty confesses to Editor and Publisher (after God knows what torture was applied), that really the first day pass to Mr. G was issued when he was working under the auspices of GOPUSA.
Sheesh, Scotty. Want a tip? You want this story to die so you can get back to giving us the "unvarnished and unfiltered" truth of your unadulterated spin? Come clean all at once and quit the dribbling out of crucial information over weeks. It's like ripping a bandage off -- do it all at once. Sure, it hurts like the dickens for an instant, but hell ... it gets it over with.
[Note: I came up with this piece of press handling advice without the benefit of a two-day Leadership Institute seminar.]
And another thing about those "few weeks" ... I guess I'll take him at his word for now that he only knew Guckert's real identity for twenty days or so. Still, isn't it kinda creepy that he kept calling him "Jeff" even after he was aware he wasn't "Jeff" at all? Isn't that like something you see Big Bird and Elmo do on Sesame Street, just continuing the game when they know it's not real?
Does this mean I can be called Queen of Santorini, Mighty Sorceress of Blogsylvania, by Scotty when I get my day pass? Will he play pretend with me too? Just for a few bogus weeks, like he did with Mr. G? Pleeeeze?
And then there's Ari's weirdness. "I don't think that party organizations should have people in that room acting as reporters," Fleischer said, explaining his initial concerns. "They are advocates, not reporters, and a line should be drawn." But, after speaking with Eberle and looking at Talon News, he was convinced that GOPUSA.com and Talon News were not official party sites. Link
Really, Ari? You needed a phone call to clarify that? And you still clarified it the wrong way? I know you're retired and this is probably moot, but ... if someone shows up from some website called DemocratsUSA.com and they have NO journalism experience and no physical address in the real world, feel free to turn them away. No phone call necessary. We'll all understand.
The other strange thing about Editor and Publisher's great interviews with the two press secretaries is this: Neither knows anything about the day pass press credentialing process. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Never mind that it seems they only supervise twelve people. Never mind that their basic job description is to handle the press. Identifying exactly who qualifies as press and who doesn't is apparently too plebian for their position. Now imagine this as a business model (and remember, we were promised a government that would be run by a CEO, if you recall). You have twelve employees. Your company does nothing but ... say, sell things to dentists. And you, as head of the enterprise, have NO idea whatsoever how you figure out if someone is a dentist or not. I'm not expecting these press secretaries to do the manual work of actually handling the pieces of paper requesting day passes or anything, but I do expect my public servants - especially the heads of departments - at least to know the mechanics of identifying their target audience.
Apparently that's too much to ask.
I really didn't mean to write another diary for a few days, but this phony GOPUSA "officer" thing and the ridiculous responses of the press secretaries just really got my goat. I promise to refrain from further diaries for the remainder of the weekend.
I thank you all for your patience with the Propagannon diaries. Kudos go to Propagannon Project team member babaloo for the Google cache find. We will keep it between ourselves exactly how it was discovered.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/5447/15291
[Subscribe]
Sat Feb 19th, 2005 at 02:44:07 PST
Not only was "Jeff Gannon" (or whoever) a "reporter" (or whatever) for "news agency" GOPUSA (or Talon News or whatever), he also was either an "officer" or "director" as of October 28, 2004. Or so Google cache tells us - grab that page fast! It'll be scrubbed by noon!
(I swear, by the time this story ends, the quote key on my laptop is going to be broken.)
But like everything else with this group's public face, it's malarkey. There are no "officers" or "directors" of GOPUSA other than Robert R. Eberle, at least on file with the Texas Secretary of State as of February 19, 2005. But apparently Mr. G was so esteemed by his former employer just four short months ago that his already pumped-up biography as "reporter" was turbo-charged with more sass and pizzazz by gracing him with yet another phony title (or two ... it's hard to tell).
And people, please, when visiting this page, take note of the sweet irony of the George W. Bush quote sailing above Mr. G's head: "What people can dream, people can do."
Diaries :: SusanG's diary ::
On to the Press Secretaries: "It is all a bit odd"
Ari's musing comment about oddity has got to take the prize for best understatement of the Propagannon fiasco uttered thus far. But the year and the disaster are young, the news cycle on this mystery ruthlessly high-paced. Who knows? By the end of the year, "It is all a bit odd" may not even rank as seventh runner-up.
Here's where we officially stand right now:
Scotty says he's only known Mr. G was using a fake name for a few weeks. After ten or twelve wildly speculative days about Talon's real standing as an official news organization - and almost immediately after Mr. G was caught on videotape in a pre-Talon-existing press briefing - Scotty confesses to Editor and Publisher (after God knows what torture was applied), that really the first day pass to Mr. G was issued when he was working under the auspices of GOPUSA.
Sheesh, Scotty. Want a tip? You want this story to die so you can get back to giving us the "unvarnished and unfiltered" truth of your unadulterated spin? Come clean all at once and quit the dribbling out of crucial information over weeks. It's like ripping a bandage off -- do it all at once. Sure, it hurts like the dickens for an instant, but hell ... it gets it over with.
[Note: I came up with this piece of press handling advice without the benefit of a two-day Leadership Institute seminar.]
And another thing about those "few weeks" ... I guess I'll take him at his word for now that he only knew Guckert's real identity for twenty days or so. Still, isn't it kinda creepy that he kept calling him "Jeff" even after he was aware he wasn't "Jeff" at all? Isn't that like something you see Big Bird and Elmo do on Sesame Street, just continuing the game when they know it's not real?
Does this mean I can be called Queen of Santorini, Mighty Sorceress of Blogsylvania, by Scotty when I get my day pass? Will he play pretend with me too? Just for a few bogus weeks, like he did with Mr. G? Pleeeeze?
And then there's Ari's weirdness. "I don't think that party organizations should have people in that room acting as reporters," Fleischer said, explaining his initial concerns. "They are advocates, not reporters, and a line should be drawn." But, after speaking with Eberle and looking at Talon News, he was convinced that GOPUSA.com and Talon News were not official party sites. Link
Really, Ari? You needed a phone call to clarify that? And you still clarified it the wrong way? I know you're retired and this is probably moot, but ... if someone shows up from some website called DemocratsUSA.com and they have NO journalism experience and no physical address in the real world, feel free to turn them away. No phone call necessary. We'll all understand.
The other strange thing about Editor and Publisher's great interviews with the two press secretaries is this: Neither knows anything about the day pass press credentialing process. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Never mind that it seems they only supervise twelve people. Never mind that their basic job description is to handle the press. Identifying exactly who qualifies as press and who doesn't is apparently too plebian for their position. Now imagine this as a business model (and remember, we were promised a government that would be run by a CEO, if you recall). You have twelve employees. Your company does nothing but ... say, sell things to dentists. And you, as head of the enterprise, have NO idea whatsoever how you figure out if someone is a dentist or not. I'm not expecting these press secretaries to do the manual work of actually handling the pieces of paper requesting day passes or anything, but I do expect my public servants - especially the heads of departments - at least to know the mechanics of identifying their target audience.
Apparently that's too much to ask.
I really didn't mean to write another diary for a few days, but this phony GOPUSA "officer" thing and the ridiculous responses of the press secretaries just really got my goat. I promise to refrain from further diaries for the remainder of the weekend.
I thank you all for your patience with the Propagannon diaries. Kudos go to Propagannon Project team member babaloo for the Google cache find. We will keep it between ourselves exactly how it was discovered.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/5447/15291
