Red Herring: The Right Wing Media

In case anyone has lost count, allow me to list below the number of scandals involving right wing corruption of the media:

-Valerie Plame: the CIA operative whose name and occupation was linked to the media. This information could only have been leaked by one of 7 people with access to it. The revelation of the name of CIA operative is treason. The informant has yet to be identified.

-Karen Ryan: the reporter who produced videos in which she "mined" the prespecription-drug plan in 2004 and reported on its merits. These reports have now been deemed illegal "covert propaganda" by the Government Accountability Office. Alberto Garcia, another "journalist" was accused of similar bribery, but in Spanish.

-Armstrong Willaims: The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air.

- Ketchum Inc. public relations firm: The Education Department has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news.

-Maggue Gallagher: right-wing columnist, vitriolic homophobe, was paid $21,600 in 2002 by the Bush Administration to report favorable on Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging heterosexual marriage as a way of strengthening families.

-Eason Joran: CNN news executive is forced out of his job for saying that the US army may be targeting reporters in Iraq. This is something that was said on a panel, was not recorded, aired or printed anywhere. But the new keepers of Political Correctness have deemed this offense worthy of a shit storm.

-Jeff Gannon: the pseudonymous pseudo-journalist who was given full press credentials at the White House, and was called on during briefings with the express purpose of steering controversial topics out of conversation. He was given credentials one month before his right wing news organization even existed. Turns out he was also associated with male military prostitution. Ironically, he wrote about Kerry as being the First Gay President, for his refusal to support the FMA. Even better, he told the Washington Post this weekend:
"I've made mistakes in my past," he said yesterday. "Does my past mean I can't have a future? Does it disqualify me from being a journalist?" I wonder, did he and his allies show the same mercy to Clinton? Maureen Dowd wrote an inceniary editorial on L'Affaire Gannon in the New York Times, howling at the injustice of being denied a press pass at the start of the first Bush term.

Money quote:
I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?
At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

-Swift Boat Veterans: shadowy ties to the GOP.

-Rush Limbaugh: serial husband, drug user, and now Bush envoy to Afghanistan. He will be going to Afghanistan to report on how wonderful life is there. But who is paying for the trip?


All of this amounts to one giant red herring. The GOP loves to invoke the image of the left-wing, elitist media bashing the GOP and not reporting the "truth". It turns out, they have become the most media-entrenched party, with illegal, and potentially treasoness ties to the disemination of propaganda in the modern history of the United States.