Both Ellen (a straight reader of this blog) and Roger Simon alerted me to an excellent Powerline post on “Gannongate.” (For some reason, the Powerline Permalink is not to the article itself, but to their February archives. You may need to scroll down to HAVE THEY NO SHAME? NO, ACTUALLY THEY DON’T).
As far as the “problem” of reporters asking softball questions (which seems to bug left-wing bloggers the most about this story) Roger asks:
How about Gannon/Guckert goes on Larry King to discuss “the art of the softball”? Speaking of which, has anyone looked into Larry’s background? He’s been throwing softballs for at least four (or is it seven?) administrations. Who’s been paying him? I know – CNN. But there could be more…
Heh.
In addition, Lloydletta alerted me to a great piece detailing the flaws in the liberal bloggers’ case against Gannon.
In the extended section of this post, I have provided some excerpts from Powerline’s post. So just click “READ MORE.”
The presence of a Bush-friendly journalist in the White House press corps was taken by the left as a deep affront. A study conducted a few years ago found that the White House press corps is 90% Democratic; apparently the left won’t be satisfied until the figure is 100%. So liberals began “investigating” Gannon. They found that he was a homosexual and started posting photos of him on their web sites, along with vicious personal attacks. . . .
The bottom line is that there isn’t any story here, other than the bottomless depravity of liberals in America. How any of their purported “grievances” against Gannon justifies posting nude photos of him is inexplicable.
And he takes on blogger John Aravosis’ claim that Gannon is guilty of hypocrisy, nothing that hypocrisy is
an all-purpose charge that generally turns out to mean little or nothing. The “hypocrisy” in this case supposedly arises from “asking the gay community to protect him when he attacks us.” This is another stunningly stupid statement. Every word in it is false. Gannon, first of all, never attacked the gay community; the gay community, in the person of Aravosis and others, attacked him. Neither did Gannon ask the gay community to protect him; Aravosis just made that up.
While I have claimed that there’s not much there to this story, Powerline’s Hindrocket writes:
There is, I guess, a story here. . . . the story has to do with the depth to which the Democratic Party and the American left have fallen. Desperate to change the subject in the wake of the Eason Jordan debacle, they seized on poor Mr. Gannon, made silly, baseless accusations against him, denounced him for being a homosexual, and, in the ultimate indignity, tracked down and published nude photographs of him. All to distract attention from Jordan, and to punish Mr. Gannon for the “sin” of being a Republican.
While I don’t agree with everything in Hindrocket’s post, I do share his broad view of the situation. So read the whole thing and make up your own mind.