Jeff Gannon's Still Copying-and-Pasting!

Oh boy, here we go again ...

Hillary soliciting and taking fake questions has brought America's favorite fake journalist - Jeff Gannon - out of his cubicle (Hmmm, wonder if it's styled after Jimmy Olson, famous cub reporter, or if he goes for the edgier, disheveled look, ala Bernstein and Woodward from 'All The President's Men', or maybe the retro, art deco Cary Grant-His Girl Friday motif?).

Following the Bush Grindhouse's attempt to just bypass all pretense of formality and conduct their own press conference - with their own people posing as journalists (see "Wag The FEMA"), Mr. Gannon, much to our surprise, left a lengthy comment, which we recount in "Jeff Gannon Speaks ... To The Garlic!".

And, it was discovered, that Gannon, much to our chagrin, was merely spamming the comment on just about any blog or site that noted his status as a fake journalist.

He's Still Copying-and-Pasting!

This week, he's badgering Jon Perr, over on Perrspectives, using the same exact comment (if your linked challenged, it's merely a copy-and-paste of a post from his own website)

He hits Perr's post “Hillary's Planted Questions and George W. Bush, Master of Political Theater” with his annoying self-promotion, to which Perr counters back with “Jeff Gannon Selling Book, Himself in the Blogs?”.

Now Perr had the same reaction as The Garlic, wondering if this was the real Jeff Gannon, or a fake Jeff Gannon (which we run that out in the Jeff Gannon Speaks post).

Gannon - and, remember, he's a "real journalist" now - counters back with more self-promotion, basically regurgitating the self-promotion he initially copy-and-pasted, and fanning out his feathers in the process.

Perr has responded back, asking for, well, verification of his claims and we've yet to hear back from the boy reporter.

It's The Dollars ... It's Always The Fucking Dollars ...

Just out of curiosity, The Garlic wanted to get a sense of Jeff Gannon, and his ever-puffed-up claims of being a real, professional, accredited journalist.

So, we took a cue from The Decider/Commander/Shakespeare Guy and used "The Google".

Jeff Gannon certainly is a popular fellow.

Searching Jeff Gannon: Results 1 - 10 of about 308,000 for Jeff Gannon.

Okay, he had his 15-minutes of fame, so that doesn't seem to be out-of-line.

Searching Jeff Gannon + Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 64,800 for Jeff Gannon + Journalist

Hmmm ... Pretty big drop there

Searching Jeff Gannon + Professional Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 12,000 for Jeff Gannon + Professional Journalist.

Yikes! ...

Searching Jeff Gannon + Accredited Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 9,860 for Jeff Gannon + Accredited Journalist.

The floor is caving in ...

Now, admittedly, this isn't all that scientific, and we lay no claims that this is the definitive judgment on whether or not Jeff Gannon is a real or fake journalist.

However, the trend shines through;

The further Jeff Gannon moves away from his heritage of being a fake journalist, the less popular he becomes.

Here's The New Plan

So Jeff, if you really want to sell that new book of yours, I suppose the laborious process of spam commenting might move a few copies.

But if you embrace, and run with, the fake journalist angle, sky's the limit!

Take a cue from others.

Abbie Hoffman. Noted social and political activist (I realize your rightwing buddies would probably describe him as a radical).

He played into his public image and put out "Steal This Book".

You can tweak things a bit.

I'll give you the "America's Favorite Fake Reporter" to use ... Maybe have one of your old escort photos on the cover (any publisher will tell you, sex sells) ... Get some new testimonials for the dust jacket ... You know, the Faux News crowd, or, whoever it was that snuck you into the White House ...

Ari Fleischer is running a new propaganda unit, he may be able to prop you up again.

Instead of combing through Google, or Technorati, Memeorandum, et all, to see who's dissing you, so you can do your copy-and-paste thing, you make these changes and you won't have time for spam commenting, you'll be hitting the circuit, the toast of the town.

There's a brand new 15-minutes of fame spotlight waiting for you Jeff Gannon.

Can't you just see all those book-signing posters, heralding "Tuesday, 2PM - America's Favorite Fake Reporter", with a photo of your newly-designed (remember, sex sells) book cover?

And if you really hit it right, think Oprah, and think the dressing down she gave that other fake author.

Through the roof, baby! ... Through the roof!

America's Favorite Fake Reporter

Was Something In the Air, or Water, Last Week?

Man, the Rightwing Freakshow was at it last week.

Maybe they went off their meds, or there was something in the air, or water.

Garlic readers know of our fleeting brush with the infamous faux reporter, Jeff Gannon (okay, he spam commented a bunch of sites, seemingly, anyone that called him a fake reporter, but, it was all we had to work with).

Our good friend Barry Crimmins also took note of it, in his post Dang me!, along with Dennis Perrin, author and another great humorist, who has been butting heads, of sort, with some dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds on that Un Poco Pink Balls, or some such moniker.

Check it out, or go straight over to Dennis Perrin and read his hysterical posts on it.

And, while you're in the mood, check out Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report, and his riff on Fox News’ Hannity rails against Halloween, which ‘teaches kids to be liberals’

Lame Duck President and a Lame Duck Freakshow ... Not sure which one is going to be worse ...

Oh, God help us!

Jeff Gannon Speaks! ... To The Garlic!

A minor occurance on The Garlic this week.

Monday started in quite typical fashion. Fired up the computer, pulled up The Garlic and, lo-and-behold, there was a comment in our "Wag The FEMA" post... A big, shiny comment ...

And it was from Jeff Gannon!

Could it be the same, softball-throwing Jeff Gannon? The fake-reporter-working-for-a-fake-news-organization Jeff Gannon?

It quickly passed through my mind, that, no, it couldn't be. It had to be a fake Jeff Gannon, and that quickly turned into thinking who would want to be a fake Jeff Gannon?

Would they be longing, or plotting, to get into the White House Press Briefing Room and feed pablum to the Press Secretary (though, the current one, Dana Perino, certainly has shown she doesn't need a plant in the audience, she does fine creating her own)? Was this fake Jeff Gannon also a hot military stud? Was this fake Jeff Gannon sitting there, day-after-day, hoping against all hope, that another covert, CIA agent would be outed, so fake Jeff Gannon could play a role in exposing their name?

Would the fake Jeff Gannon be calling themselves by a name different from their given one?

That one made me think of the Steven Wright joke, about making instant coffee in the microwave oven.

I suppose, a fake Jeff Gannon (and using a fake, fake name), could, possibly, find some work, in one of those celebrity look-alike agencies.

But that gave way to wondering if the real Jeff Gannon was a celebrity.

Infamy, certainly, the 15-minutes-of-fame thing ... But does that 15-minutes in the spotlight automatically give you the title of "celebrity"?

I checked The Google, to see if I could find any requirement, standards that had to be met in order to call yourself a celebrity (and not a fake celebrity, the kind that would work for a look-alike agency).

Didn't find anything. Anybody can call themselves a celebrity, though, it's not clear that anyone else would call you one. You could probably count on some friends and family, but that's not a given.

I mean, let's be real here.

If it only takes 15-minutes to become a celebrity, Christ, the place would be crawling with them.

There'd be all kinds of celebrity news shows ... Reality shows ... Game shows ... Probably sports and dancing shows ...

Wait a minute ... Scratch that ...

I got back to the comment ... The Jeff Gannon comment

You can read the comment, in full, here.

Just the heading, right under "Jeff Gannon Says" was a give-away that a compliment was not going to be forthcoming;

"Old Media Ablaze Over Staged FEMA Presser"

And then the first five words - "Liberal activists and the Old Media"

Hmmm ... Using "Old Media twice in the opening ... Made a quick mental note to imprint that the words "Old Media" sits in the Rightwing code book. Mr. Gannon then recounts the fake FEMA press conference, accurately (no, he doesn't indicate that he dreamed, wistfully, of being able to sit in that one) and, in the second paragraph of the comment, offers a scenario that excuses FEMA for pulling a fast one (Hint - blame the Liberals and Old Media).

Third paragraph infers wrong impressions were put forward - again, by the Old Media - on Hurricane Katrina (Hmmm .. Cameras focused on thousands of people at the Morial Convention Center without any food or water, for days, was an incorrect impression) and that he learned a big enough lesson ... And then it comes, right there in the third paragraph;

"In my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”, I detail the flawed coverage of one of the greatest natural disasters in American history – a record that has yet to be corrected."

He's hawking a book

Fourth and fifth paragraphs are Gannon defending himself against the "phony reporter" charges, pointing to "Liberal media activist Keith Olbermann noted it on his nightly train wreck of a talk show and the lefties of the blogosphere dutifully repeated it ad nauseum."

I was as real as a reporter gets, writing over 500 articles as a White House correspondent, a job that Secret Service records indicate I actually showed up for more than 200 times over the course of two years. The veracity of my work as a reporter has never been successfully challenged."

He then, in the last paragraph, burnished his credentials, indicating he is a member of the National Press Club and that "My book about the media will be featured at the National Press Club’s 30th annual book fair on November 1."

He ends the comment with "Not bad for a “fake, fraud and phony.”

Well, it has been said that "showing up" is about 80% of it.

And he certainly isn't the first, nor will be the last, "fake, fraud and phony" to publish a book.

This comment intrigued me.

The links in it leads back to JeffGannon.com and there, it is descried that the comment was simply a copy-and-paste of a post, dated October 29, 2007.

How disappointing

Here I am, sitting here with my little The Garlic blog, thinking I've gotten whacked by a possible celebrity (see above) and it's was only a cut-and-paste job. No freshly-written prose ... I was just lumped into a mass mailing, probably, a spam comment (Note: After writing this, I discovered it was - see "Was Jeff Gannon a “Fake White House Reporter”?, over on The Democratic Daily)

Some Rightwing fan (possible that fake Jeff Gannon), defending the legendary fake reporter, scanning and jumping through the World Wide Web, parrying back at all the "Old Media" and "Liberal Activists".

So, to satisfy my curiosity, I emailed Jeff Gannon, through his website, asking "to verify comments left on my blog, The Garlic: All The Cloves Fit To Peel, were left by you, and/or you authorized a third party to submit the comment", noting that "it is unsigned (with no link back to an individual email), it is a copy of a post on your website, and with links to your new book."

Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, Surprise"

Just over two-hours later, I received a reply - from Jeff Gannon - confirming that the comment left of The Garlic was with his "knowledge and permission." (Okay conspiracy theorists, get to work, he didn't actually say he posted it; Could, possibly, be that fake Jeff Gannon person). And he was quite cordial, thanking me for checking the source.

And I did call the National Press Club, who verified (over the telephone) that, yes, Jeff Gannon was a member and, yes, his book is being featured in the book fair

So, I have read and reread the comment a good number of times, and I have to admit, that I do agree with Mr. Gannon, that he isn't, and wasn't a "phony reporter".

He was a shill ... A Republican shill ... A Hack ... An RNC, Talking-Points Hack ... A Hatchet Man ... Part of the Sludge Report, Freakshow crowd, or, at least, attempting to earn his way into it (He would have to admit the irony of being gay and Republican doesn't open a lot of doors in Red America; Let's wait and see how many Faux News Network programs he gets on with his new book, though, to be fair, if it offers taking a swipe at Hillary/The Democrats/Liberals/Daily Kos/Media Matters, Fox would put John Wayne Gacy in front of the cameras).

Dwarfs, Finks, Phonies and Frauds, the lot of them.

Whether my writing is good enough, my satire witty enough, that is for others to decide.

Having Gannon comment on The Garlic (and, as of this week, STOPTHEACLU is picking on us), I can find solace in the fact that I've done, at minimum, my 80%.

Bonus Jeff Gannon Links

William Pitt: The Jeff Gannon Experience

Joe Conason: Gannon: The early years; Before he was buttering up Bush at White House press conferences, "Jeff Gannon" was doing the GOP's dirty work in attacking Tom Daschle.

Eric Boehlert: Fake news, fake reporter; Why was a partisan hack, using an alias and with no journalism background, given repeated access to daily White House press briefings?

SusanG/Daily Kos: Plame Leaked by Fake News Source? Overview: Part IV

Howard Kurtz: Jeff Gannon Admits Past 'Mistakes,' Berates Critics

Mark Fitzgerald/Editors & Publishers: Jeff Gannon Returns To Fray With Book Blasting Media's 'Liberal Bias'

A great moment in softball history

The Politico's DNA ... The Other Iraq ... And He's a Bible-Thumper Now ... Around The Garlic Patch

Another installment (in what has been my bad, of being too infrequent) of Around The Garlic Patch

Must Read - Glenn Greenwald's Scoop On The Politico's DNA

Let's get this off the chest, first and foremost.

Can we not have anymore more presidential candidate debates held and hosted at presidential libraries? In in particular, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Between the debate itself (somewhere between 20-30 tributes to the old, doddering drooler), and the pre-and-post MSNBC television coverage, it became a veritable Reagan Love-In.

I didn't watch every minute of the coverage, but I suspect no one brought up the irony of having the debate in the hanger that housed the old Air Force One that Reagan (and other Presidents) traveled on.

The airplane of the union-busting President.

It was Reagan who broke up PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization), two-days after they began a strike for better working conditions. Not only did he fire them, but he also banned them from federal employment.

Since Reagan is, quite erroneously, credited with bringing down the Soviet Union (more like it happened on his watch, the cumulative effect of previous administrations maintenance of the Cold War), perhaps PATCO was his test run (Can't you just hear him, practicing "Tear down that control tower" over and over?).

There. Feel better.

The main purpose of this post is to bring your attention to, and encourage you to read through it, the exceptional reporting/writing of Salon's Glenn Greenwald on the DNA of the spanking new media outlet, the on-line political magazine, The Politico.

They pulled in some big name journalists from The Washington Post, Time Magazine and other places and it was going to be a new day. There's also ties to Matt Sludge but that, more-or-less, is unofficial and not in their masthead.

Well, Greenwald lays it all out.

The Republican Candidates Debate Thursday evening was sponsored by MSNBC and (quick, take a guess), The Politico. How did a fledgling start-up media company score such a hit?

Greenwald, quoting Mike Allen of The Politico;

"She [Nancy Reagan] was escorted out of the hall by Frederick J. Ryan Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, and president and CEO of The Politico."

Not only is The Politico's DNA and money coming from a long-time Reaganite, but also from a long-time friend and supporter of Chilean Dictator and murderer, Augusto Pinochet. Friendship, plus business ties.

Links

Who funds and runs the Politico?

The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press

GOP Presidential Candidates Transcript

Of Dead Policies, Boxes in Boxes, Meme's, Links and Lazy Saturday Afternoons ... Around The Garlic Patch

Around The Garlic Patch ... A Few Good Links To Check Out

If he were alive and in business today, would Pinochet be a subscriber to The Politico?














This Wasn't In The Brochure

Perhaps you've seen the slick television commercial, promoting the campaign of "The Other Iraq".

Kurdistan. You know, those good Iraqis. The one's not fighting, or killing, U.S. soldiers.

In fact, as AntiWar.Com notes, the Kurdish Regional Government hired Russo Marsh & Rogers (RM&R) – a Sacramento, Calif.-based public relations firm with close ties to the Republican Party - to produce the campaign "... that will thank the American people for supporting the war in Iraq, and encourage Americans to visit and invest in the Kurdish region."

Well, there was a most disturbing (sickening, actually) article found on Memorandum today.

A teenage girl, in Kurdistan, from the minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, apparently fell in love with a Sunni Muslim boy.

And what did that bring about in "The Other Iraq"? The Good, Civilized, Enlightened Iraqis?

"The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy"

If the Kurdish Regional Government truly wants to establish itself as "The Other Iraq", then they will move heaven and earth to bring this young girl's killers to justice.

Contact the Minister of Justice, Farouq Jamil Sadig to encourage their "investment" in this matter.

Links

Kurdistan hopes promotional push will increase foreign interest

Iraq Kurdistan to Tourists: Don't Confuse Us with the Rest of Iraq


If traveling to "The Other Iraq" beware of the water and bring your own rocks






Must Be The Cure

This past Thursday was, if you missed the parade (and let your imagination run with that - Macy-like giant floats of the Bible, characters from the Old and New Testament, ending with a Easter reenactment, where the cut loose the Jesus float, to have it ascend into the heavens), or were wrought with anxiety over the pending 45-day jail sentence issued to Paris Hilton, the National Day of Prayer.

Yep, complete with Presidential Proclamation and a little ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

Dana Milbank, of The Washington Post, had a piece on it yesterday.

What stood out was who has handling the press of the people putting on the "Bible Reading Marathon".

None other than that softball-throwing cheesecake, James Guckert, better known as Jeff Gannon, formerly of Talon News.

Also involved, running the National Day of Prayer Task Force, was Shirley Dobson, wife of fire-and-brimstone Focus on Family founder, James Dobson (you know, one of the guys that helped "cure" Ted Haggard).

I wonder, if Dobson and the gang, developed that cure with Gannon, before applying it to Haggard?

Links

What is Talon News, and why does it have press credentials?

Online Reporter Quits After Liberals' Expose

Jeff Gannon Admits Past 'Mistakes,' Berates Critics

It's not your father's Sunday School anymore