How Do You Sleep?
Let's say there's a journalist in the White House press corps you don't like. Let's say he doesn't ask questions you want to see asked. He's a conservative, and you're not. He's not in the pack that hounds the administration. He's too much of a softball pitcher to a president you only want to see smacked down, continuously.
So what do you do about it? How about you dig around till you find out he's also the owner of three domain names for gay porn Web sites. Then you broadcast that information to the world and force him out of his job.
On sites like this one, the congratulations for having outed one journalist are mingled with hints of which journalists should expect their laundry to be rifled next:
Perhaps someday the media will be as thoroughly purged of diversity as the university humanities departments. And gay voices will only be permitted to speak on one side.
There were other ways to approach this. Apparently this Gannon fellow did mediocre work, and was using a name not his own to get his credentials. You could question the way the White House press pool is chosen. Yet they did none of that very seriously. What they did seriously was, they went for the man's sex.
How do you sleep nights?
There might be a tad of remorse, because in the witch-hunt posts, a floating rationale starts out heavy and early on the "gay conservative in the closet" angle, then shifts after a while into "he worked for a media organization that did gay-unfriendly articles, therefore he was a self-loathing wacko," then drops the gay angle altogether, after the damage has been done.
By about halfway down the page, it's about his pseudonym, and his supposedly being "a shill posing as a reporter," just like Armstrong Williams. But the people so relentless in tracking down the gay porn sites aren't troubling themselves to look for a shred of evidence of that. Guilt by association is enough.
Are the private lives of all journalists now fair game? If so, I better get out of this business. I was picked up in a police sweep of house of ill fame in Philadelphia in 1984, and that was just for openers. (I was just in there for the bar, which was a helluva good time.) Or do only certain journalists who work for organizations that hold certain editorial positions have to worry about this?
Do you justify exposing a man's sexual secrets, and using them to drive him from his job, because you represent the political faction that wants to advance the public acceptance of gays? The faction that castigates its opponents as prudes and puritans? The side that says what you do in your bedroom is your business and nobody else's? The party of compassion and the rainbow flag?
Then that would be the same reason, I guess, you send out a former Klansman to ask questions to a black woman on her job interview.
Because, you know, you're not the people who do that kind of thing. And if you do do that kind of thing, it's because you're part of the solution, not part of the problem. And because some animals are more equal than others.
So what do you do about it? How about you dig around till you find out he's also the owner of three domain names for gay porn Web sites. Then you broadcast that information to the world and force him out of his job.
So much for Mr. Gannon. Who will step up next to face the liberal press corp and the scorched earth militant lefty bloggers? Any other brave blogging souls on the right willing to put up with the intense media and blogospheric scrutiny and ask for a press pass? Daily Kos would love to rip you a new one. Here's today's Daily Kos on the subject, where he says that some of his best friends are gay, while celebrating the demise of Gannon for his sexual orientation.
On sites like this one, the congratulations for having outed one journalist are mingled with hints of which journalists should expect their laundry to be rifled next:
For another suggestion, check into cartoonist Chuck Asay. During the campaign he hawked the party line to a "T" and scathingly attacked all Democratic Party issues and policies in a way that made the administration's positions and policies look the best.
Perhaps someday the media will be as thoroughly purged of diversity as the university humanities departments. And gay voices will only be permitted to speak on one side.
There were other ways to approach this. Apparently this Gannon fellow did mediocre work, and was using a name not his own to get his credentials. You could question the way the White House press pool is chosen. Yet they did none of that very seriously. What they did seriously was, they went for the man's sex.
How do you sleep nights?
There might be a tad of remorse, because in the witch-hunt posts, a floating rationale starts out heavy and early on the "gay conservative in the closet" angle, then shifts after a while into "he worked for a media organization that did gay-unfriendly articles, therefore he was a self-loathing wacko," then drops the gay angle altogether, after the damage has been done.
By about halfway down the page, it's about his pseudonym, and his supposedly being "a shill posing as a reporter," just like Armstrong Williams. But the people so relentless in tracking down the gay porn sites aren't troubling themselves to look for a shred of evidence of that. Guilt by association is enough.
Are the private lives of all journalists now fair game? If so, I better get out of this business. I was picked up in a police sweep of house of ill fame in Philadelphia in 1984, and that was just for openers. (I was just in there for the bar, which was a helluva good time.) Or do only certain journalists who work for organizations that hold certain editorial positions have to worry about this?
Do you justify exposing a man's sexual secrets, and using them to drive him from his job, because you represent the political faction that wants to advance the public acceptance of gays? The faction that castigates its opponents as prudes and puritans? The side that says what you do in your bedroom is your business and nobody else's? The party of compassion and the rainbow flag?
Then that would be the same reason, I guess, you send out a former Klansman to ask questions to a black woman on her job interview.
Because, you know, you're not the people who do that kind of thing. And if you do do that kind of thing, it's because you're part of the solution, not part of the problem. And because some animals are more equal than others.
