From the Ashes Rises The Liar, The Whore
By Anthony Wade
February 24, 2005
You have got to be kidding me. The completely disgraced and irrelevant Jeff/Jim Gannon/Guckert has popped back up today and seems to have added borderline personality traits to his resume because he has clearly become detached from reality while he was gone. There he was again today on jeffgannon.com playing the victim and the hero of the right, while completely ignoring what had transpired and recreating history in the process. Luckily, there is that annoying thing known as a public record we can rely on to debunk this male hooker turned faux journalist.
In his Â"current columnÂ", entitled Â"Fear and Loathing in the Press RoomÂ" we have multiple lies and misstatements which require some analysis. I would be remiss if I did not point out that Jeff/Jim could not even be original in the title of his new column, ripping off the recently deceased Hunter Thompson, a man who would not tolerate such a parasite as Jeff/Jim.
For background, I call this man Jeff/Jim because he is a liar who used a fake name to access the White House Press Pool. His fake name was Jeff Gannon, a name he claims he used because his real name, Jim Guckert is just too dang hard to pronounce. Whatever. Jeff/Jim should have stayed away after he was exposed, in more ways than one.
Going through his Â"columnÂ" we see (Jeff/JimÂ's words in italics, followed by my commentary):
Â"During my tenure I developed some good friends there who welcomed the refreshing perspective I brought to the briefings and respected my courage for asking the questions that I did.Â"
Courage? Courage to ask the questions that he did? LetÂ's take a look at the courageous questions that Jeff/Jim asked when he was pretending to be a journalist.
1) Â"In your denunciations of the Abu Ghraib photos, you've used words like 'sickening,' 'disgusting' and 'reprehensible.' Will you have any adjectives left to adequately describe the pictures from Saddam's rape rooms and torture chambers? And will Americans ever see those images?Â"
Hmm, nothing courageous here Jeff/Jim. You see what this is, is an example of a fluff question. It is barely a real question because it is rhetorical in nature designed only to set up Scott McClellan to talk about Saddam, when the questions were about Abu Ghraib. There is nothing courageous Jeff/Jim about deflecting difficult questions from an administration that may have condoned torture as a policy. An example of a courageous question here may have been asking about the legalese language used by Alberto Gonzales to possibly justify torture that may have actually led to Abu Ghraib. Courage, is in asking for the truth Jeff/Jim, not shilling for someone like a whore.
2) I'd like to comment on the angry mob that surrounded Karl Rove's house on Sunday. They chanted and pounded on the windows until the D.C. police and Secret Service were called in. The protest was organized by the National People's Action Coalition, whose members receive taxpayer funds, as well as financial support from groups including Theresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation.Â"
Guess what Jeff/Jim, no courage here either. It is not courageous to overstate a situation for the sole purpose of propping up the administration. It is not journalistic. To then further link the protest to the wife of an opponent of the administration, and lie in the process, is not courageous, it is weaselesque.
3) Since there have been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"
Lastly Jeff/Jim, these are not even questions. They are a pathetic attempt by you to pimp for this president. There is nothing journalistic about asking ridiculous pseudo-questions that serve no other intention but to malign John Kerry and prop up George Bush. Once again Jeff/Jim, you are not courageous, you are a whore. Well, more about being a whore later. For, now, letÂ's go back to his new Â"columnÂ".
Â"It wasnÂ't until I asked Â"The QuestionÂ" that everything abruptly changed. Initially, my colleagues had no reaction to the query posed to President Bush. It wasnÂ't until Rush Limbaugh drew attention to it that there was any interest at all. But that was enough to get a liberal group dedicated to attacking conservatives in the media to mobilize. It was horrified that the relentless string of hostile and a few downright disrespectful questions had been broken. My greater sin in their eyes, however was that I dared to suggest that two Senate Democratic leaders held an illogical view of the economyÂ's weakness and the strength of Social SecurityÂ"
Allow me to introduce you to a lie Mr. Jeff/Jim. You are correct that your Â"questionÂ" is what stirred the pot. For reference, that question was:
Â"Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. 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 -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"
You apparently forgot one salient point Jeff/Jim. Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton never actually said those quotes. Now, maybe you did not realize that because you heard it on the Rush Limbaugh show and gosh, whatever ole Rush says must be true. You see Jeff/Jim, Rush was making a joke about how Reid and Clinton viewed the economy. You heard him, and assumed the quotes were real. Since you were not a real journalist, you did not bother to check the source, verify the quotes, or check the veracity of the entire story. Instead you regurgitated the Rush Limbaugh joke as fact, in a fake question, to the President of the United States. It had nothing to do with your assertion that they may view the economy inaccurately. The greater Â"sinÂ" as you put it, was your packaging a softball question, which contained your attribution of two quotes to Senate leaders that they never said, which you heard on the Rush Limbaugh show. Since your entire Â"careerÂ" could be viewed as a joke, I can see how you may have been confused by RushÂ's joke. When you spend your life in dis-reality, it does become difficult to differentiate what is real and what is fiction.
Â"Immediately the questions about how I got into the briefing room began to be asked. After all, I had Â"no journalistic credentialsÂ" despite the fact that I had written over 500 articles for Talon News over a two-year period. I must be a plant, because there simply cannot be a conservative journalist walking on the hallowed domain of the Fourth Estate built over an old swimming pool.Â"
Couple of points here for you Jeff/Jim. One, if you have done over 500 articles you may want to check Talon because they have scrubbed your very existence from their site. Secondly, writing articles does not grant you journalistic credentials. I have written hundreds of articles but I do not presume that I would be granted access to ask the President of the United States a softball question. The fact that you write, does not make you a writer. In fact, most of your Â"workÂ" has been debunked as being nothing but plagiarism, with entire sections of GOP press releases lifted verbatim, and then passed off as your column. In journalism, Jeff/Jim, this is a big faux-pas. I understand you would not know this, since you were not really a journalist. Lastly, the free thinking world did not presume you were a plant because you were conservative. That is another lie by you. The reason we know you are a plant, is that there is no way you should have ever been granted access to the press pool to begin with. Let me let you in on a little secret Jeff/Jim, you were never a journalist. In fact, you were denied a hard pass from the pool. Undeterred, you somehow magically made it in to every press conference for two years, with no journalistic training, no real news agency behind you, and lets say a colorful background at best. Someone let you in Jeff/Jim. We all know it. You know it. The new media will find out soon enough who that person is Jeff/Jim. Not only were you granted access where you should not have, but you were called on regularly, to bail out Scott McClellan and then we are supposed believe that Bush himself just happened to call on you. Maybe you are divorced from reality Jeff/Jim, but the rest of us are not. You are not only a whore, but you were a plant.
Â"I feel badly for my colleagues who became the target of these same people on the Left who harshly chastised them for allowing a traitor operate among them. How could they stand idly by while Jeff Gannon breached the ideological barrier that kept conservatives out of the White House briefing room?Â"
No Jeff/Jim, you do not get to lie anymore. This is not about conservatives in the White House briefing room; it is about whores in the White House briefing room. It is also about a mainstream media that knew you were a shill and a plant and stood by and did nothing about it, out of fear of an administration that controls media. You can go pimp these lies somewhere else Jeff/Jim, no one is buying your propaganda anymore.
Â"The well-funded liberal attack machine, Media Matters, filled with operatives from the DNC and failed Democratic campaigns incited activist bloggers to wage a full-scale jihad against me. All sorts of personal information about me, including my Social Security number was published on the internet. Threats against me as well as my family led to my voluntary resignation in the belief that would bring it to an end, but the bloggers were aiming for my total destruction.Â"
Nice try Jeff/Jim. You keep missing the point though. This was never about you because you are completely irrelevant and inconsequential. You are but a symptom of a far greater problem. You were the one Jeff/Jim who boasted that you were out there for the taking and finally, people took you up on it. It is not about your Â"destructionÂ". If you go on to have a great career in the Â"serviceÂ" industry Jeff/Jim, that would be fine with me. As long as you do not poison this country anymore by bringing down the last vestiges of journalistic integrity into the sewer from whence you came.
Â"They dug deep for dirt, dredging up things long past and erecting a fantasy world worthy of a Vince Flynn novel. What they found is domain names and sexy pictures from which sprung rumors and conspiracy theories. Based on some of the emails IÂ've received, many of these people were conflicted with hatred for my politics and tingling they experienced while viewing pictures said to be me.Â"
Clever gay-bashing here Jeff/Jim. The facts though are these. You went on CNN and stated that these web domains were never hosted and were for another client. Americablog did not have to dig too deep at all Jeff/Jim. Someone came forth to give you up, just like that. The websites were hosted and the pictures on them, were of you. By the way, if you are inferring that the pictures of you naked and spread eagle are not you, then you need to tell your twin to find another line of work.
Â"Criticism of my work and my journalistic background is fair game, but the intensive scrutiny into my personal life, especially things from the past have startled many in the journalistic community. Now Democrats in Congress are demanding that the White House do more thorough investigation into the personal lives and sexual histories of reporters.Â"
No Jeff/Jim. Your life became fair game when you lied about who you were and what you did. You lied on your resume to make it sound as if you Â"graduatedÂ" from a journalistic school, when it was a two-day seminar. You lied about your name. You then lied about your Â"news agencyÂ" and now it turns out that you were in the press pool, before Talon News was even in Â"businessÂ". When you host sites that sell yourself as a male prostitute, which is illegal, YOU have opened up this can of worms. Do not play the victim, you do it as well as you played the journalist, which is to say not well at all.
Â"But because I am a conservative, they continue to try to smear me with allegations of behavior that they otherwise would vigorously defend.Â"
Wrong again Jeff/Jim. First of all, you are not being smeared with allegations. There have been over 40 naked pictures of you found on gay-hooker sites where you charge $1,200 for a weekend and you boast how you like to be on top. It gives me no pleasure in reporting it, YOU said it Jeff/Jim. YOU posted your pictures. YOU sold yourself. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are a conservative; it has everything to do with the fact that you are a liar.
Â"This episode is so rich with irony that it will take me many columns and a book to deal with it all. What is most telling about the Left is how quickly it was able to abandon its sacred principles of free speech and privacy to attack someone it disagreed with.Â"
Glad to see you intend to make money off of your lies Jeff/Jim, just what whores do. You confuse some more issues here though. Free speech is sacred. It is not for protecting you. You do not have a right to lie Jeff/Jim. It is free speech we are seeking to preserve by keeping vermin like you our of the press pool. You are a liar, not a journalist. The people of this country need to know the news they hear is unfiltered, and unbiased. DonÂ't you dare drag free speech, a concept you have egregiously abused, into your wretched defense.
Â"This is not to say that I have not made mistakes in the past. Like all of us have at one time or another, I made poor choices and exercised bad judgment. But I believe in a forgiving God who changed my life. It was through that renewal that I went on to have a career as a reporter and further blessed to become a White House correspondent.Â"
I am a born again Christian so I agree with Jeff/Jim here that God is a forgiving God who is in the life-changing business. I hate to cast doubt here but God did not make Jeff/Jim a White House correspondent, someone within the White House did. Also, if Jeff/Jim truly changed his life than there are some pictures he needs to explain, and this time, not lie about.
Â"At the heart of all this is the further erosion of the Old Media. The Left is engaging in Â"21st Century McCarthyismÂ" in an effort to blacklist conservative journalists in order protect their domination of the media. These people may have exposed some of my human failings but they have also revealed their own hypocrisy. The damage to me is done, and it wasnÂ't fatal. But we are only beginning to see the effect of Gannongate on the Old Media and the Left.Â"
There was no Â"GannongateÂ". There was simply a flawed man who went about the business of lying. To say anything more is to lend more credibility to an empty shell. There is no domination of media on the left. That is part of the big lie. The GOP has invested billions of dollars over decades to build up a humongous media army that they wield with impunity. Whenever Bush or the GOP needs a point made, they can call their talk radio minions such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and their cable cohorts such as Joe Scarborough or Chris Matthews to push their talking points. Last week, Karl Rove wanted to talk unfettered about BushÂ's social security scam, under the guise of journalism so he gave Sean Hannity an Â"exclusiveÂ". There is no blacklisting of conservative journalists; conservatives control most media at this point. What there is, is an uprising. The new media stood up and said that blatant liars, without credentials do not belong asking the President of the United States meaningless questions, while real reporters are banned. Whatever damage was done to Jeff/Jim was the fault of Jeff/Jim, if that was his real name.
At the top of his website Jeff/Jim has the unmitigated gall to call himself the Â"voice of the new mediaÂ". This is a pathetic attempt to claim the title, the mantle, of the very people who uncovered his farce. The new media is the voice of Media Matters. It is the voice of Opednews.com. It is the voice of William Rivers Pitt and Truthout.com. It is the voice of AmericaÂ's blog. It is the voice of Daily Kos. It is the voice of the people. It is the voice that says no to state sponsored media and propaganda. Jeff/Jim knows this but could not resist lying one more time.
So today Jeff/Jim rises from the ashes of the demise of a fake Â"career.Â" He is full of bravado still, alternating between playing the victim and playing journalist. He tries to rebuild legitimately, what he never had, credibility. He pretends that he is somehow the victim of a vicious smear campaign orchestrated by the powerful Democratic Party. He forgets that it was he that lied. It was he that lobbed the softball questions. On his website today he states:
Â"In regard to the allegations about my personal life, I have been advised by my attorneys not to comment on any of the details pending the outcome of any possible legal action I might pursue. Therefore, I won't be discussing any of that stuff here.Â"
Sure Jeff/Jim. The thought of suing Amerciablog or Daily Kos, has to have the left salivating. Deposing Jeff/Jim and asking him to explain how he gained access to the White House press pool, under oath, that would be phenomenal. The fact is that Jeff/Jim has no legal grounds to stand on and he knows it. There is nothing untrue that has been said about him. The mess that his life has become is of his own doing. We have not even discussed how he managed to get a hold of a secret document outing a covert CIA operative, a felony. We have not discussed how he gained access to the pool before he even worked for Talon. We have not discussed how Jeff/Jim received information, including when we bombed Iraq, far in advance of the mainstream press. We have not investigated how he calls a volunteer reporting job a career in journalism and where his money comes from. Money usually reveals all sorts of connections. We have not discussed how the man who runs Talon thanked Karl Rove specifically on his website for guidance. Go ahead Jeff/Jim, sue away. The witness stand is a wonderful panacea for discovering the real truth.
Lastly on Jeff/JimÂ's website, his scrolling message at the top reads:
Â"So feared by the left, it had to take me downÂ"
Delusions of grandeur notwithstanding, the bottom line is Jim Guckert took Jeff Gannon down. Jeff Gannon wanted to be a reporter, but he had no training, so he pretended he did. He had no real news agency to work for, so he made one up. He could not write original articles, so he plagiarized GOP press releases. He could not get in to the White House, so he had someone plant him. He could not ask an honest question, so eventually, people took notice. They started to ask honest questions about Jeff Gannon and soon discovered that Jeff Gannon was Jim Guckert.
Jim Guckert had lied on his Talon website resume. Jim Guckert had not paid back over $20,000 in back taxes. Jim Guckert had apparently set up gay-military websites. Jim Guckert had prostituted himself online for $1,200 per weekend for his sexual services. The problem for Jeff Gannon was not the left. The problem for Jeff Gannon, was Jim Guckert.
Anthony Wade, a contributing writer to opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies and abuses of the government. He is a 37-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.
Anthony WadeÂ's Archive: http://www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm
Email Anthony: takebacktheus@gmail.com
A
