By Brad Friedman on 2/21/2005, 10:23pm PT  

Dead-on op/ed about the Gannon story in The Oregonian once again debunking the myth of the "liberal" media...

Try to imagine this scenario: John Kerry wins the presidency and appoints a press secretary who grants a White House press pass to a fake reporter with a fake name representing a fake news outlet. And what if this "Jeff Gannon," whose real name is James Guckert, gets called upon daily to lob softball questions at White House briefings?

And what if it turns up that Gannon/Guckert has an eyebrow-raising connection to the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame?

And what if Gannon/Guckert was involved in setting up Web sites promoting homosexual prostitution? And what if racy nude photos of him start flooding the Internet?

The only thing imaginary about this scenario was the part about Kerry being president. Had it been Kerry whose aide allowed Gannon/Guckert such access to the president, just think of the furor. Conservative Web jockeys, in tandem with talk-radio shouters, would have created a frenzy thrusting the sordid story onto front pages across the land. At the very least, President Kerry's press secretary would be out of a job.

Our only quibble, the unbylined author's line: "Bloggers on the left are no less bullies than those on the right." On that issue, the writer couldn't be more incorrect. Otherwise, a good, short, to-the-point read worthy of encouraging us all to make even more noise until those bastards pay attention.

Have we mentioned lately that we have an "Email it to someone!" button at the bottom of every article?

Share article...