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Wolf Blitzer and CNN Join
Propaganda-Gate, Shills for the White House
By Anthony Wade
February 11, 2005
The White House propaganda machine has been
unraveling for over a month now. It started with revelations that
Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 to shill for the same No Child
Left Behind Act that he had previously spoke out against. It
continued into Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus being paid tens
of thousands of dollars to pimp the Bush Marriage Initiatives, with
Gallagher potentially lying to Congress in the process. The latest
cockroach to come to light was a fellow named Jeff Gannon, or at
least that is what we thought his name was.
As discussed yesterday (http://opednews.com/wade_021105_propaganda.htm)
and last week (http://opednews.com/wade_021005_newmedia.htm),
Gannon had been uncovered as a liar. He lied on his “resume” when he
stated he graduated from what turned out to be a two-day
seminar. He lied when he said his name was Jeff Gannon. He lied when
he said he worked for a legitimate news agency. Now that he has been
outed, by the new media, we see some of the “mainstream” media
rushing to shill for the shill, to pimp for the whore. Besides Sean
Hannity, who you expect faux-journalism from, we saw Howard Kurtz
actually trying to paint Jeff Gannon as the victim of the bloggers
who did the investigative work that he only wishes he understood how
to do. At one point, Wolf Blitzer asked Kurtz if there was any
relationship between Gannon and the White House and Kurtz
categorically denied any relationship, based on the word of, the
White House. I guess Howard Kurtz will not be winning any awards for
investigative journalism any time soon.
Wolf apparently was not satisfied with the
coverage Kurtz tried to provide for Gannon. He managed to obtain an
“exclusive” interview with the now retired Jeff Gannon. Was this
going to be a hard nosed piece of journalism, or nothing more than
another shill for the propaganda machine? Shill, pure and simple.
Wolf started by allowing Jeff to explain why he
used a fake name. The only probative question offered by Wolf in
this exchange was, why? Jeff Gannon explained that he used this fake
name because, “my real name is too hard to pronounce.” His real
name? Jim Guckert. Ya, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? He actually said
that he used the fake name of Jeff Gannon, because Jim Guckert is
too difficult to pronounce. I am not making this up. Now, one would
hope that a reporter with the standing of Wolf Blitzer would probe
with the obvious follow-up question of “are you kidding me?” Nope,
he let it walk on by and moved on.
When asking J-I-M (that is tough to pronounce!)
about why he resigned if he had done nothing wrong, again, Wolf let
him answer without a substantive follow-up. J-I-M’s answer was that
he was being stalked, including on his way to church. Now, an
investigative reporter may have been able to put together that there
had been no Sundays passed, since this story became in the public
eye. G-U-C-K-E-R-T’s real name was not revealed until this past
Monday.
Continuing through the softball fluff piece,
Wolf allowed the following lie to pass from J-I-M’s lips, “Talon
News is a legitimate, conservative, online news service.” If Wolf
was really doing his job he would have pointed out that Jim Guckert
was actually denied a hard press pass specifically because his
employer was not a credible news agency. The fact that Blitzer chose
to not call Guckert on this is more evidence that his “exclusive”
was nothing more than an opportunity to continue to portray J-I-M as
the victim. This is not journalism. It is the packaging of the
truth, the re-creation of the truth, to serve an agenda, period.
The last piece of evidence I will submit is
when J-I-M said that Scott McClellan “never knew what was coming”
when he called on Gannon. Are you kidding me? Crooksandliars.com is
nice enough to link this following compilation of the “questions”
asked by J-I-M over the past few years.
http://movies.ziaspace.com/Gannon_Questions_Countdown With Keith
Olbermann.wmv
How can any responsible reporter allow this
statement to go unchallenged? How can any reporter allow such a
ridiculous excuse as J-I-M G-U-C-K-E-R-T, being too difficult to
pronounce? How can anyone pretend to be a reporter, like Blitzer,
and not ask the real questions? Why didn’t Wolf ask J-I-M why Talon
News has scrubbed their website of anything Gannon-related? Why not
ask about the connection to the Valerie Plame incident and how this
fake reporter ended up with a secret memo involving that case? Why
not ask how J-I-M managed to get called on by the President at a
rare news conference? Why not ask him how Scott McClellan knew his
real name, and why he still called him by his fake name? Why not ask
him any probative questions at all?
The answer is simple. Wolf Blitzer did not have
this “exclusive” in your interest. He did not conduct this
“exclusive” interview with any pure journalistic integrity at heart.
He simply provided an outlet for G-U-C-K-E-R-T, to continue to play
the victim and play damage control. In doing so Wolf Blitzer and CNN
have proven where they line up when it comes to real journalism and
protecting your interests. They are part of the problem, not
the solution. You need to be very careful when choosing where your
“news” comes from and whose interests are being served. Is the news
being packaged for you? Is the truth being manipulated for you?
Propaganda-Gate is just starting to unravel and with each passing
day we see where your typical mainstream media is lining up. CNN has
chosen to not be on your side. They have lined up with a man who
thinks J-I-M is a difficult name to pronounce. They have line up
with the prevaricators and the spinmeisters that make up the
propaganda machine of this White House. If those words are too
difficult for Wolf to pronounce, just substitute the word, L-I-A-R.
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 Wade’s
Archive:
http://www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm
Email
Anthony:
takebacktheus@gmail.com
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