Jeff Gannon – Still Pretending to be a Reporter! May 29, 2008
Posted by threadingwater in Scott McClellan, politics.Tags: Jeff Gannon
add a comment
In a blog post that should be dripping with ironic exposition but, sadly, is not – former fake reporter Jeff Gannon (not his real name, btw, to add even more incredible layers of irony to this riotous salad) has this to say about the (morally bankrupt) former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and his newfound “come to Jesus” revelations:
By his own admission, McClellan either perpetrated a fraud behind the podium or has done so with this book. Whichever the case, Scott McClellan’s credibility is zero.
However, something as “trivial” as credibility will not stop the rabid liberal media from accepting McClellan’s words as gospel – because it represents the “truth” they desire. The media mavens who once characterized McClellan as a clueless dunce at the bottom of the information totem have miraculously transformed him into a central figure in the decision-making process. So much for their credibility.
While I was attending the daily White House press briefings, most reporters, including me, complained that McClellan rarely strayed from his talking points to provide substantive information.
Jeff Gannon. Writing about credibility.
Priceless.
The Force of Utah May 29, 2008
Posted by threadingwater in music, politics.Tags: Utah Phillips
1 comment so far
You probably won’t hear this news on your local radio, nor read it in your newspaper. Blogs – even good lefty ones – have also been largely silent. A great force of nature, truth and integrity passed out of our collective lives this past weekend with the death of Bruce “Utah” Phillips.
Back when a healthy folk music scene still existed, Utah Phillips passed through my town every couple of years and performed at a small venue called “The Blue River Cafe.” Beyond the music of labor organizing songs and folk tunes he had written and gathered in his cross-country travels, Utah Phillips instructed green young’uns like myself in our country’s labor movement history. He was the real deal. Genuine. A card-carrying Industrial Workers of the World “Wobbly.” A true American patriot and hero.
Then, a couple of years ago, I had the honor of meeting Utah Phillips in person thanks to the long friendship between him and Greatest Husband. I was nervous, as I tend to be when meeting people for the first time, and especially so because I had admired him for so long as a performer and political activist. I needn’t have been. As soon as he discovered my family’s working-class, home-town roots, the conversation flowed and I was fairly astonished at how much he knew about my city’s political and immigrant history.
We met one more time a year ago, and made plans for him and his lovely wife Joanna to stay at our home this spring. His declining health prevented that visit from taking place.
There’s a good biography and video of Utah Phillips performing at a festival one year ago. Check it out. And, while I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, I have a hard time believing that a force as gigantic as Bruce “Utah” Phillips can exit this world all at once. His formidable energy is still out there. I feel it.
Blog Retirement Ends May 29, 2008
Posted by threadingwater in george w. bush, iraq war, politics, scooter libby.Tags: Add new tag, Scott McClellan
3 comments
Holy buckets! You just KNEW this was going to bring me out of blog seclusion.
I’ve sorely missed my old friend, Scott McClellan and can barely believe it’s been two years since he left the White House. Oh, sure, Tony Snow and Dana Perino have had their bloggable moments, but it was Scotty who could be depended upon for blog inspiration. Slow day at the blog post screen? Hell. Just skip on over to the official White House website for a transcript of the day’s press briefing – the well of sycophant word-twisting that never ran dry.
Now Scotty’s back with a tell-all book about his years as press secretary. According to the book, President Bush “is depicted as an out-of-touch leader, operating in a political bubble, who has stubbornly refused to admit mistakes.” He devotes an entire chapter to “Selling the War,” wherein “he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush ‘managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.’”
In short, Scotty provides us with the “big reveal” in which he finally comes around to saying what the rest of us have known since 2000 about Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Rice, Rumsfeld and all the rest of the White House criminals.
Scott McClellan, you are an ass.
While you were worried about your personal reputation during the Plame-gate affair, you should have been worried about the administration’s dissembling of our Constitutional rights. While you perceived that the run up to the war in Iraq was being deliberately manipulated by the President and his advisors so that “the use of force would become the only feasible option,” you should have been worried about the inevitable loss of American and Iraqi lives, about shattered families, children made orphans, about widows and widowers.
Claiming there’s a “Culture of Deception” in Washington does not distance you from responsibility. When your revelations could have done some good, you said nothing. You were, in fact, the bloviating master of saying nothing for three long years.
Nothing has changed.
