They Planted a Gay Whore in His News Conferences!!!
I’m going to get to what it means that the AP–purportedly the most neutral source of "news" out there–is harping on the Nico Pitney question. But first, check out what this "news" entity claims in paragraph nine of their story–presumably to meet the AP’s requirement for false equivalency.
Grumblings about favored reporters are not unique to the Obama White House. There were suspicions — never proved — that President George W. Bush’s press operations often planted friendly questions in his news conferences.
Never proved?!?!
They not only planted friendly questions in their news conferences, they brought in their very own gay prostitute to ask those questions. Not to mention paying people like Armstrong Williams to push their policies and flying their favorite Generals around so they’d pitch the Administration line on teevee.
But in the false equivalency moral universe of the AP, allowing a reporter who has announced he’s going to solicit questions from Iranians directly to pose one of those questions is the big scandal.
White House officials phoned a blogger from a popular left-leaning Web site on Monday evening to tell him that President Barack Obama had been impressed with his online reporting about Iran. Could the writer pass along a question from an Iranian during the president’s news conference on Tuesday?
Of course. The next day, The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney got a prime location in the White House Briefing Room and was the second reporter Obama picked for a question.
And so the supposedly hyper-neutral arbiter of what is news joins the pout-rage that the journalist doing the best work on a story gets to pose a question on that topic.
It’s bad enough that Fox and Politico are–predictably–bitching about this. For the AP to consider this "news" at all just shows how far gone the press is in protecting their privilege over embracing the spirit of journalism. Once again, the White House took this question because:
- Nico’s reporting and the role of Twitter in the Iranian crisis are signature moments showing how technology can foster democracy (which is pretty much Obama’s schtick, anyway)
- That same technology offered average people on the other side of the world–the people actually involved in this historic event–a way to pose the President of the United States a question about their actions
And you know what? Those average people actually engaged in history asked one of the toughest questions of the press conference!
If the AP cared any more about democracy and reporting and free speech, the lede of the story would be: "President Obama answers historic question from democracy activists in Iran and in doing so embodies the principles of democracy."
But instead, we get still more pout-rage from a dying press.
I don’t know what the writer’s definition of “prime” is, but on whichever channel I watched the presser, standing up at what was apparently the very back of the room does not qualify as “prime” real estate.
*spit*
“prime location” = code for “they let a dirty f*cking hippie blogger in OUR room!”
From my understanding, that part is actually true. It had been planned for the larger setting of the Rose Garden, but was moved to the briefing room, which is fairly small. I think Pitney really was moved up to where he could ask his question.
Now this is one thing wrong with “moving on” instead of establishing some provable conclusions about at least some of this stuff —not that the Bush-Rove press tricks are necessarily the best venue for certifying, of course, but one can see plainly how easy it is to insist on pretense when it hasn’t been gavelled down with the appropriate sentences handed out.
If anyone knows about Privilege, it’s the AP.
AP is the only — the ONLY! — news organization that is guaranteed a question at every WH press conference. For them to whine about who else the president calls on after they get to ask the first question is rather bizarre.
Pout-rage from the same media which never questioned why a fiddy-dollar-two-day-journo-cert-moonlighting-manwhore was permitted to ask softball questions in the run-up to war, let alone ask why this moonlighting-manwhore’s outlet plagiarized so frequently?
Yeah, that’s exactly why I got started with citizen journalism in the first place. I could do a better job from my desktop than they could in the White House press gaggle – no plagiarism or man-whoring required.
Speaking of man-whoring and blackmail, what’s this Sanford trip all about?
talkingpointsmemo.com seems to have adopted that one. They’ve even got a timeline going.
The MSM has to create a ruckus, to cover up the fact that they got p*wned by an online journalist, who asked one of the best questions ever posed to an administration.
Chip, Chuck & Co. do not want to be outed as the poseurs we all know they are.
Mr. “What took you so long ?” does not even deserve to have his name printed here …
What was the question?
Dude ! Check out the video, including Obama’s lead-in
Also note how far back in the crowd Nico is …
I can’t do that at the moment.
Sorry, I had to take a v. imp. call.
Obama’s lead-in: “Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”
Nico’s question was from an Iranian – “Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there isn’t that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working for?”
Obama’s response: “Well look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground, we can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country. What we know is that a sizeable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, considered this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There [are] significant questions about the legitimacy of the election. And so ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States. And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government. What we can do is to say unequivocally that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with peaceful dissent, that spans cultures, spans borders, and what we’ve been seeing over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports, violates those norms and violates those principles. I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.”
This was copied from Marcy & Masaccio’s comments on the thread that I linked to previously.
Okay, this might be the best EW headline ever…
Nothing beats “Sweet Judy Blew Lies,” and if anything could, it’d be “If It Sounds Too Good for the Goss, It’s Worth a Second Gander.”
Agreed; but this IS good.
But instead, we get still more pout-rage from a dying press.
It’s really true; the press is dying. Soon enough, no more newspapers and no more network news. Perhaps we ought to console them, comfort them, show them that they won’t be dying all alone, that all things eventually die, etc. etc. (”It’s going to be just fine, AP. You know we’re here when you need us….“).
To scold them is to treat them as if they weren’t dying–as if they had the time and leisure to mend their ways. It enables their denial, which can be soothing for the moment, but not for the longer haul.
Most important point. The White House did not know in advance what the question would be.
Exactly how is that a plant?
O/T, or back to torture
Ex-detainees ‘allege abuse at US Afghan base’
Published: Wednesday June 24, 2009
“Former detainees of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have alleged a catalogue of abuse at the US military facility, the BBC reported Wednesday, after a two-month investigation.
“Ex-inmates listed mistreatment including beatings, sleep deprivation and being threatened with dogs at the base north of Kabul, said the broadcaster.
‘”They did things that you would not do against animals, let alone to humans,” said one former detainee, identifed as Dr. Khandan, while another described having a gun put to his head and being threatened with death.”
The detainees were held in Bagram between 2002 and 2008.
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/E…..42009.html
Sounds like AP has a “teacher’s pet” kind of attitude.
Democracy begins with freedom of the
pressAP and conservative media.Seeing Gannon/Guckert so early in the morning elicited an “Eeeeeeek!” And then I ran across this very bizarre story:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0…..01,00.html
That’s rich….but it creates a moral problem; if you are sympathetic to the “Pensioners” do you have to be to the big dick?
Ouch.
(not really; I may have been sympathetic had they not beat him).
Yeah, they got too vicious for me, too. Still, a heckuva way to wake up. I had to mow the yard to get back to a more reasonable perspective on things.
Any chance we can get Froomkin into one of these things? It’d be worth it just to see everyone’s reaction.
Chuck Todd certainly has himself an attitude these days too. He’s been dreaming that as MSNBC’s White House correspondent he’d control all dialog, and Obama sees it differently.
It’s actually kinda fun to watch.
Chucky doesn’t understand why BO refuses to give the answers that he, Chip, Ed and other blowhards want him to. They’re so eager for a scoop that they’re willing to fling poo and appear defiant while asking questions that an Editor of a High School Paper would find inane.
yes, the question from the iranians was one of the toughest and so much on target vis-a-vis our powerful and dangerous nation (i’m talkin’ usa, just to be clear).
and then there was this beaut from another real reporter in that white house room – helen thomas (as recounted by glenn greenwald in his column today):
“… The single most significant event in shaping worldwide revulsion towards the violence of the Iranian government has been the video of the young Iranian woman bleeding to death, the so-called “Neda video.” …
For the last question at his press conference yesterday, Obama was asked by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux about his reaction to that video and to reports that Iranians are refraining from protesting due to fear of such violence. As Obama was answering — attesting to how “heartbreaking” he found the video; how “anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust” about the violence; and paying homage to “certain international norms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression” —
Helen Thomas, who hadn’t been called on, interrupted to ask Obama to reconcile those statements about the Iranian images with his efforts at home to suppress America’s own torture photos (”Then why won’t you allow the photos –”).
The President quickly cut her off with these remarks:
THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, Helen. That’s a different question. (Laughter.)
The White House Press corps loves to laugh condescendingly at Helen Thomas because, tenaciously insisting that our sermons to others be applied to our own Government, she acts like a real reporter…”
I didn’t see that, so I’m glad you linked to it. I mostly don’t bother with the press confs anymore bc Obama is worse than Bush – he says just as much nothing and doesn’t even have the good grace to get flustered over lying and obfuscating.
So Helen tried to ask him one of the real questions that someone would actually want to hear answered and got cut off and laughed at and that’s our torture supporting press corps. Oh wait, I’m sure that question and many others like it (Mr. President, the Iranians have said they will be holding trials for un-uniformed, unlawful combatants they picked up —- have you been in touch with Ahmedinejad to explain to him how preventive detention works instead and give him some tips on how the US handled the journalists that it killed, disappeared and put into detention for years without charges? Any thoughts on loaning a judicial task force headed by Scalia and Thomas to help the Iranians out with a Amadinejad v. Mousavi judicial approach? Oh yeah, Mr. President, remember that nifty speech in Cairo where you said leaders needed to start talking openly about the things that are discussed and admitted behind closed doors? Why are you subverting the whole of the national justice system instead of taking responsiblity on your own shoulders for your own determinations to let torturers skate – why don’t you talk openly about the truth and pardon the criminals and take responsiblity for that, instead of destroying the shreds of our justice system?)
Why watch crap like Williams and the upcoming Gibson/Sawyer interviews and watch all kinds of right wing questions get posed, followed by softball excuses to let Obama finger steeple and give the reporters a chance to bask in his “seriousness” and never get anything asked that you want to hear answered?
This gets at the heartbreaking duplicity of Obama’s moral righteousness especially as US drone bombing that can be reasonably expected to kill civilians continues in Pakistan. Its not really funny is it? Thanks for noting this moment.
Marcy’s crosspost at Kos is very popular this morning, about 300 comments so far. It seems that they enjoy the title as much as the post!
Though there’s a small group of people very pissed about the title, some because it demeans sex workers (I can particularly understand how it might be demeaning to sex workers to compare them to beltway journalists) and bc I used the word “gay.”
Geez, I wonder how many of those are concern trolls …
Please head on over to DKos and recommend Marcy’s post, folks … let’s keep this at the top for a while
Professional sex worker = hooker
Beltway journalist for mainstream media = whore
One of these is worth their money far more often than the other; I can see why sex industry workers might be miffed.
LOL … Rayne !
is Gay all of a sudden a bad word??
Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay
Some of those comments are mind numbing … perhaps that was the intent.
Congrats on your Nuptials, may wedded bliss be yours forever !
Many thanks Petro, everyone had a great time, and like bmaz sez… I got the better end of the deal!
Like I tell all my friends, you’re a very lucky man and if you should ever forget, she will always be right there to
remind you … *g*
I simply cannot let mom go out on her own; keeps getting in trouble. Next thing ya know, she’ll be creating a bomb scare somewhere….
Only when you are a hypocritical asshole.
ohhh.. doncha just love the “never proven” part of that ?? i wonder just how much “proof” is required …
we’ve had instance after instance where the “truth is obvious” and was completely ignored by the “normal press” .. years of it ..
makes ya gag … eh ??
We need to find a way to “grade” these reporters. I suggest have the Pulitzer committee grade the questions asked over the last 30 days.
-ask an inane question; go to the back room
-ask a good one, move up one row
have the guys outside the room leave examples of “what would you have asked” and move one winner a month into the actual press room.
Ya’ know…treat ‘em like kindergartners.
O/T – for bmaz and fans of F1 … F1 boss Mosley to step down – from msnbc
Yeah, it was part of the deal to unify the factions; didn’t get rid of Ecclestone though.
Heh heh, nice placement of Moseley news in the Guckert/Gannon thread!
What with Mommy busy juggling a hundred things and the #1 post at DKos, I felt that she’d be too busy
to notice … *g*
EW – and lets not forget the scripted conference with soldiers – that the AP itself reported :
BTW — what was that question from Gannon? Something tough, wasn’t it? *w*
OT – waiting for the “America’s Dept of Justice Said We Could” defense – bizarre story of two retired couples who kidnap and torture (oh, wait, they enhancedly interrogate) the financial consultant who handled their investments and lost them money (they they had never bothered to report anyway). One couple are retired doctors – wonder if they faxed Mitchell for a consult?
orwasitallaciaroleplayinggame?
True story: A couple went to their Broker and with raised voices, demanded to know why they lost $150,000.
His response: “Why the heQQ are you so angry, I lost over a million !”
Well, you know, if they had oprion or warrant expiration/due dates coming up, it could be a ticking time bomb situation. Very poignant!
Isn’t that bizarre, though? As I said upthread a bit, after the Guckert/Gannon picture and that story, I was compelled to go mow the grass and try to regain my usual perspective. And now the Sanford thing! It’s really been an Eeeeeeeeek!-y morning.
OT – can I just say that this Sanford thing is delish? Seriously, our side can’t be this smart, or this lucky.
Something else is at play here… cosmic stuff
OT, Sanford.
He just said, “(when I was in Washington) I was in a group called C Street.”
Ahem, is he referring to the Fellowship/Family?
Is the Family systematically cleaning house?
Interesting. This story still has some odd features to my eye —does it not seem unnecessarily spectacular, crudely timed, etc., even if in the end it is marital and professional strain vibrating against each other— but some of that could be explained by lack of choice.
REALLY??
Si. Looking for a transcript…
Ooops! You already saw it. (Was going to link it for you.)
Stanford was seeing a woman in Argentina. Another GOP’er bites the dust.
Pure Juice.
Hey you !
Shocking !
I thought Argentinian women had good taste …
I’m just catching up, been offline…was there anything to corroborate it was a woman he was seeing in Argentina?
And no, it’s not teh gay, it’s the hypocrisy.
Just as it’s not teh gay that’s an issue with Gannon/Guckert. It’s the lying, the cover-up, and the whoring (and I mean quail-wing-eating press gaggle whoring).
Josh at TPM is saying it was a woman.
He said it was a dear, dear friend.
Uh-hunh.
Last time someone pulled that “dear, dear friend” shit on me I walked.
I hope Mrs. Sanford has been getting the names of good attorneys.
Do you think he meant ‘dear’ as in endearing, beloved or ‘dear’ as in expensive ? *g*
Hmmm, if he wanted to break it off, maybe she was threatening him with exposure? Maybe he’d run out of ways to roadblock her, or at least delay till after Father’s Day. Who knew Sanford was such a catch?
TPM Muckraker has a blurb on it now.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..ection.php
Is the Fellowship setting the field for 2012?
Jeebus, was just talking about that with a friend; what if the crazy-assed far right Christianist fundie branch of the Republican Party decided after Huckabee’s faction couldn’t get the veep nod from McCain that they’d clean out all of the potential threats in favor of Huck?
I don’t think it was a heterosexual affair, even moreso now that I realize that he was part of the fundie cult, the Family.
The “dear, dear friend” line raised the red flag, or should I say the rainbow flag for me, too.
And Gov. FathersDay never said, “I am not, and never have been, GAY.”
So does that mean he is?
AP “neutral”? Since when? They’ve been slanted pretty hard right for a while, now, and their ’selectively complete’ news stories haven’t been making them more friends
Hahahahahaha.
Family Research Council removes Sanford’s picture from Values Voters Summit website.
Previously, the website for the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit 2009 featured a picture of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, advertising that he was a potential speaker. But Pam Spaulding points out that following Sanford’s announcement of an affair, his picture was quickly removed from the website.”
[They show before and after pix of members.]
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..c-website/
Hell, the entire SC governor’s office site has been down all day.
http://www.scgovernor.com/
Says “Server Too Busy” now, but I don’t believe it, since I was checking earlier and it simply was not there.
SC is sure getting good service from their tax dollars…
Did you see that the dethroned Miss Whatever, Carrie Pre(washed)jean, is still on the webpage? What a group?!
Perhaps it’s a matter of aesthetics: they needed her picture to counter-balance the one of Fred Thompson.
They are both creepy, so dunno about that balance thing!!
i was looking for a description of the warm welcome senator ensign received from his republican AND demo colleagues when he returned to the senate.
i couldn’t find what i had recalled reading, but i did find this in the nytimes:
nytimes is in brackets
[ John Ensign to confess to an extramarital relationship. …
August 28, 2007 – The Caucus
Senator Says He Had Affair With an Aide
The woman’s husband was a member of Mr. Ensign’s official Senate staff. … Well : Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back? …
June 17, 2009 ]
honest, i did not set this up.
go see for yourself:
go to – nytimes
go to – Your Search
enter – “ensign welcomed back to senate”
This is where I just have to say… I love emptywheel! Knocked it out of the park, Marcy…)
This is the same AP that sued non-profit blogger(s) for copying & pasting AP stuff. They obviously feel threatened. And probably are threatened.
AP. ‘Nuff said.
The Lehrer Newshour did a segment on Obama’s treatment in the media, and the issue came up of MSM reporters being extremely peeved and pouty when Obama departed from norms – i.e., calling on bloggers, and not calling on media orgs in the correct order, and not calling on longstanding respected media orgs.
Do they not realize what entitled spoiled whiny brats they come across as?? It is absolutely astonishing to me.
They have to defend their territory, even if it means pissing on their Jimmy Choos.
*I’m looking at you, Chip Reid !*
As a gay man I find your post title both offensive and homophobic. What is relevant about Gannon’s sexuality to the point of him being a planted journalist? You say it as if being a plant AND gay somehow makes it even more salacious. Sadly, our president’s lack of respect for the LGBT community seems to be rubbing off on the progressive community as a whole.
SO glad you brought up James D. Guckert (aka. “Jeff Gannon”) What’s the old rent boy up to these days?
“…dying press.” I wonder wonder wonder wonder……. why? Maybe they are not representing the truth. Maybe the corporate tentacles have compromised journalistic integrity and objectivity of the press. Maybe the ad space limits the
spininformation omitted by design. The dying press does not have “hyperlinks” to offer evidence in support of one’s position? Maybe the press is really not free as we are indoctrinated from birth? But you know what, unlike the dying press Emptywheel and the like make sense and offer credible evidence to support their positions…….. unlike the dying compromised press.“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57
“The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” –Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:38
We are not safe!
If Gannon were of a different sexuality or race or ethnicity, would the author of this piece have used qualifiers such as “straight whore”, or “black whore”, or “latino whore”? Somehow I doubt it, and if she did, the outrage would be immediate. I am sick of seeing so called liberals so easily slip into gay bashing and homophobia. I know I don’t comment here regularly, but I saw this headline blaring on memeorandum and felt compelled to let you know what kind of unintended effect your language may be having. I’m sure I’m not the only gay person who had this reaction. It is all too acceptable to use this kind of degrading rhetoric about gays, even in liberal circles. It is damaging to our community and it needs to stop.
Yeah, well, there are plenty of very open and prominent gay voices in and around the greater FDL community, and not a single one has evidenced any problem whatsoever. You are the only one, but your concern has now been made clear.
does that make it acceptable then? jeez. In case you didn’t know this isn’t some private club you have here. I said in my comment that I was directed here from memeorandum. If you are only beholden to the “FDL community” then you might want to publicize yourself a llttle less. If your rude response is exemplary of your community’s reaction to a suggestion that they might want to be a little bit more sensitive to a diverse readership, then I’ll take that to mean “my kind” aren’t welcome here.