Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media

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November 30, 2007

CNN 'Debate-gate' Rages On

CNN's YouTube Republican presidential debate will go down in history as one of America's biggest media scandals alongside Dan Rather's fake documents and Will Duranty's Pulitzer Prize-winning pro-Stalin proganda for The New York Times. The cries of "foul" from conservatives and Republicans will soon be drowned out by the wails from those who rightfully lose their jobs at CNN for the supposed objective forum that was rife with Democratic activists posing "gotcha" questions.

So far, bloggers have unmasked no less than NINE "undecided voters" who have obvious and announced ties to Democratic presidential candidates or pro-Democrat special interest groups. It is likely that more fraud will be discovered soon.

At this point, an investigation of the screening and selection process needs to be conducted. The network officials responsible for organizing the debate should be identified and held accountable.

I'm calling on CNN President Jonathan Klein to immediately initiate such an inquiry. In the past, Klein has had much to say about press integrity and should step up to the plate now that an enormous fraud has been perpetrated on his watch.

As I note in my book, "The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report", Jonathan Klein, is also the former CBS executive who uttered the famous quote about those challenging the authenticity of the documents Dan Rather used to smear President Bush: "These bloggers have no checks and balances...[Y]ou couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

Where were those "multiple layers of checks and balances" at CNN, Mr. Klein?

In his April 2005 keynote address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Klein had the audacity to suggest that the White House Correspondents Association cancel its gala and "instead spend that time and energy creating standards - and enforcing them - for those who would call themselves White House correspondents." By this he meant find ways to keep independent conservative journalists like Jeff Gannon away from the White House briefing room. It would appear that Jonathan Klein and his minions have perfected a filter to keep Republican and conservative voters from CNN debates.

America deserves some answers Mr. Tool.

Posted by jeffgannon at 08:57 AM

Hillary Hardening Media Shell

Old Media reporters sympathetic and supportive of Hillary Clinton are complaining about limited access to the candidate. Can you imagine how little access the press will have once she is ensconced in the Oval Office?

Posted by jeffgannon at 08:37 AM

November 29, 2007

Blogtalk Radio Interview with Andrea Shea King

This week, I spent an hour with radio talk show host Andrea Shea King on Blogtalk Radio dicusssing my book, "The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report".

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:44 PM

CNN Debates Reveal Strong, Long Clinton Ties

CNN earned the reputation of being the “Clinton News Network” long ago. Wolf Blitzer and Company carried Bill and Hillary Clinton's water during their two terms in the White House, so no one should be surprised that CNN is doing it now. The two most recent debates broadcast demonstrate the shameless collusion with the Clinton machine and the Democratic Party.

In the Democratic debate, Wolf acted more like a lamb after being warned by Clinton campaign officials not to pull a “Russert” on their candidate, that is, to ask a tough question. Blitzer complied, meekly giving Mrs. Clinton the opportunity to give a poll-tested, one-word answer about New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s plan to give drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, the query she tripped over in the previous debate and not follow up. The charade included a plethora of “undecided voters” who turned out to be partisan activists reciting planted questions. The discovery of the fraud brought a Clintonian wave of denials, then admissions and finally promises not to repeat the offense.

Yet in the Republican debate hosted by CNN, the network chose a handful of YouTube video questions from thousands of submissions that “just happened” to be from Democratic activists and political operatives. So far, bloggers have discovered four such phony questioners:

Concerned Young Undecided Person “Journey” = John Edwards supporter “Journey”

Concerned Undecided Log Cabin Republican supporter David Cercone = Obama supporter David Cercone

Concerned Undecided Mom LeeAnn Anderson = Activist for the John Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers union LeeAnn Anderson

Concerned Undecided Gay Military Retiree Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr = Hillary/Kerry supporter and anti-”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” activist Keith H. Kerr

CNN not only selected Gen. Kerr’s question, but the network flew him to the event venue to be in the audience. Following the candidate’s answers, gay moderator Anderson Cooper then turned the microphone over to Kerr who delivered a speech about the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The retired general is a gay activist member of a Hillary Clinton campaign steering committee. Cooper apologized for not being aware of Kerr’s activism or ties to Clinton, but such a denial is a lie on its face. Gay journalist Anderson Cooper knows quite well of Kerr’s activism, but believes he can pull off a stunt like this because he is able to conceal himself in the protective closet the Gay Left provides for him. Cooper’s personal life, even though he is a media celebrity, is off limits to scrutiny because he is willing to advance the liberal gay agenda in the Old Media.

Pro-Clinton set-ups at CNN stretch back to the 1992 election. During a Larry King Live interview of incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush a week before Election Day, Clinton campaign communications director George Stephanopoulos “just happens” to phone into the program to confront Bush.

In my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”, I connect the dots between CNN and the Democrats and document the network’s deference to the Clintons. I was driven from the White House press corps after being falsely accused of being a plant and excoriated because I asked a single question that liberal activists believed to be “too friendly.” How about this zinger to President Bill Clinton from Wolf Blitzer from a March 19, 1999 press conference:

"There’s been a lot of people in New York state who have spoken with your wife, who seems to be pretty much convinced she wants to run for the Senate seat next year. A) how do you feel about that? Do you think she would be a good Senator? And, as part of a broader question involving what has happened over the past year, how are the two of you doing in trying to strengthen your relationship, given everything you and she have been through over this past year?"

It will be most interesting to see if “friendly reporters” like Blitzer will be excluded from the White House press corps if Mrs. Clinton is elected president. Will the “Gannon Standard” be applied to the liberal horde already slobbering at the cuffs of Hillary’s pantsuit?

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:11 PM

November 26, 2007

Delusional Dan Defiantly Defends Debunked Dirt

New York magazine has a lengthy interview with former CBS anchor Dan Rather which details the depths of the disgraced newsman's self-delusion. Rather is still out there defending the fraudulent Texas Air National Guard documents and asserting the underlying story is true. A reading of the article full of quotes from Rather illustrates the arrogance and elitism of the Old Media.

Dan Rather will be appearing at the National Press Club on Monday night, participating in the Kalb Report, a series that serves as a pre-mortem of newspapers and television network news. Other panelists discussing the presidency and the press include NBC's David Gregory, New York Times reporter David Sanger and Hearst columnist Helen Thomas. As a member of the National Press Club, I'll be there to hear the Bush bash-fest from these rabidly liberal journalists.

In my book, "The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report", I discuss my role in Rathergate in a chapter titled, "Shock and Awe - Shocking and Awful". I was the first reporter to identify CBS News producer Mary Mapes as the source of the phony documents - breaking the news to a nationwide audience on the Sean Hannity radio program. My source inside CBS News described a near-meltdown of its Washington bureau and the deep split between factions rallying behind Rather and those wanting to depose the tyrannical anchor.

Dan Rather seems determined not to go away quietly and occasionally reappear to accept some undeserved journalism lifetime achievement award. Instead, Rather is suing CBS, and in the process providing an insight into the workings of the biased Old Media. Like Bernard Goldberg, that's the story Rather should have done long ago.

Posted by jeffgannon at 08:54 AM

November 25, 2007

*CSPAN BookTV Airs Press Club Book Fair Interview*

CSPAN interviewed me about my book, "The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report" at the National Press Club Book Fair on November 1. The interview has been broadcast intermittently since then, however a scheduled airing will be broadcast Sunday at 2:20PM

Posted by jeffgannon at 10:28 AM

November 21, 2007

McClellan Excerpt Revives ‘The Big Nothing’

The publicist for a book written by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released an excerpt on Monday that set all of the Old Media tongues to wagging again about the Valerie Plame Affair:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration "were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

This tantalizing bit seemed to have the intended effect judging from the volume and trajectory of spittle emanating from the mouth of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Visions of the Fitzmas that never came surely danced in the heads of David Shuster and Keith Olbermann. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd predictably recited the Watergate mantra, calling on the new Attorney General to launch an investigation to determine the extent of any cover up and “what the President knew and when he knew it."

However, something tells me that the three paragraphs “cherry-picked” from the manuscript were meant to convey something that succeeding paragraphs would qualify and perhaps mitigate. Consider McClellan’s own public statements from an interview with Larry King on March 6, 2007, after Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice:

KING: Scott, were you lied to?

MCCLELLAN: Well, Larry, I said what I believed to be true at the time. It was also what the president believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.

That directly contradicts the conclusion many have drawn from the excerpt released Monday.

Later in the same interview, McClellan responded to the allegation that the White House sought to gain from ‘outing’ Valerie Plame:

Well, Larry, remember that the person was the one who was the original or primary source for Robert Novak, the column that started this whole investigation really was Dick Armitage, who was the deputy secretary of State, not really a proponent of the Iraq war. And it was certainly not a partisan gun-slinger as Robert Novak said in his article or said later in an interview. In terms of any other involvement beyond that, what came out in this trial is what I learned for the first time. So I don't know of any effort beyond what we have seen in this trial come out in the media that was going on. I think one of the questions that this gets to is, was the administration trying to discredit or retaliate against a critic? I would say that the administration was trying to set the record straight. Whether or not people were involved in leaking someone's name and that name was classified, that's a different matter. I don't know anything about that.

McClellan indicated that his entire knowledge of the ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame from both his personal knowledge and the public record was complete at this point, yet did not make any claim that high-ranking officials sent him out to “pass false information” about it. McClellan’s meaning in the book excerpt is murky at best and does not necessarily contradict the definitive statements he made to Larry King.

While the pundits parse, let’s review the facts:

1. Valerie Plame was not a covert agent at the time Robert Novak published her name and therefore no crime was committed in releasing her name.
2. Richard Armitage was Novak’s source for the information, not Karl Rove or Scooter Libby.
3. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew that Armitage was Novak’s source at the beginning of his investigation and found no evidence to suggest that anyone at the White House was involved in giving Valerie Plame’s name to the press to retaliate against Joe Wilson.

The extreme bias of the Old Media is well illustrated by the news reporting of this latest rehash. Matthews, Shuster and Olbermann and their ilk are quick to promote the idea that Bush not only lied about Valerie Plame, but engaged in a covered up. Yet all of them refuse to acknowledge that Joe Wilson is a proven liar. I was the only White House reporter to get the Valerie Plame story right. I confronted Wilson in 2003 about his deception about how he came to be sent on the mission to Niger and the Senate Intel Committee confirmed it a year later. The truth was that Vice President Dick Cheney did not send Wilson to Niger, but that his wife played a role in it. Wilson claimed that he “debunked” a possible connection between Saddam Hussein and Niger to acquire uranium, but his CIA debriefers believed that Wilson’s report tended to support it.

In my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”, I refer to the Valerie Plame Affair as “The Big Nothing” since the entire ordeal was a media-generated “scandal” perpetuated in the absence of fact by the crass politicization of the legal process. Wilson and Plame have already been exposed as attention-hungry frauds that deserve to be scorned or ignored. The more important discussion at hand is the Old Media’s willingness to exclude facts that do not fit the scenario they are trying to advance. Objectivity is not even at issue, as the discussion of bias is well beyond the question of whether or not it exists.

The Valerie Plame Affair is a shameful example of reporters and news organizations deliberately misleading citizens in order to affect a political outcome. Before the rise of the New Media, such operations could be accomplished with a high expectation of success, since opposing viewpoints and contradictory evidence could be kept away from the public. However, the Old Media continues to follow the same playbook, without realizing the field of battle has leveled. From Jayson Blair’s fabrications to Dan Rather’s phony documents to Hillary Clinton’s planted questions, the Old Media and their ideological soulmates on the left will get tripped up with greater frequency if they fail to adjust to the realities of the New Media.

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:12 PM

November 20, 2007

Why Americans Don't Trust The Old Media

The Associate Press initiates a new series of postings focusing on why the Old Media is so mistrusted with this incredulous headline:

Critical Cuban Elections in January

This story suggests that the outcome of phony balloting is in doubt. Yet the AP will give voice to every lunatic theory about the 2004 stolen election in Ohio.

Posted by jeffgannon at 02:46 PM

Hillary’s Attempted ‘High-Tech Lynching’

Conservative columnist Robert Novak caused quite a stir over the weekend writing that a Democratic operative told him that the Clinton campaign possessed a cache of scandalous information about rival presidential candidate Barack Obama, but had decided not to use it. Before long, the camps of the frontrunner and her closest challenger were trading accusations and denials, much to the delight of bored reporters and pundits looking for something to spice up the dulling march to Mrs. Clinton’s coronation as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

The ensuing discussions about the source, timing and substance of the claims gave rise to myriad conspiracy theories and psy-ops intrigues. Is there a traitor in the Clinton camp? Did Obama’s people float the rumor to make Hillary look bad? Had Robert Novak made it all up to cause a controversy among Democrats or to burnish his reputation as the “Prince of Darkness”? These are so many questions that most Americans could not care less about.

Candidate Clinton will not be required to comment on whether her operatives participated in such things as the campaign sloughed off the whole affair as yet another manifestation of the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Obama on the other hand is left to defend himself against the whispering campaign. Reporters will question him as to what might be contained in the dossier and rampant speculation in the press will drown out any discussion of policy or position from the candidate in the final weeks before the crucial test in Iowa. Obama can rail against the dirty politics, but the noose has already been slipped over his head. What I find interesting is that even the race baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have not spoken up for Obama.

However, the incident highlighted a key concept that may resonate in the minds of voters long after Obama and the other pretenders fade into Super Tuesday. It does not seem to be too much of a stretch to think that Hillary Clinton would attempt a “high-tech lynching” of her African-American rival or anyone else who stood in her path back to the White House. Many Americans still recall the smear campaigns the Clinton White House ran against political foes as well as the female victims of Bill’s sexual marauding.

In an environment of anti-incumbency and the desire expressed by voters in 2006 against “politics as usual”, Clinton is most vulnerable since she represents the Washington establishment more than any other candidate. The stain her husband put on the office of the presidency combined with the revival of the pair’s particularly nasty brand of “politics of personal destruction” could undermine her campaign if character becomes an issue.

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:53 AM

November 16, 2007

Hillary’s Brownshirts Drown Out Competition

Voters hoping to learn more about the positions of Democratic presidential candidates came away from Thursday night’s Las Vegas slugfest empty, confused and a bit angry. Even though CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer promised that each candidate would have ample time to articulate their key points during the broadcast, much of the face time went to Sen. Hillary Clinton. When the camera wasn’t on her, the questions were about her or the other candidates were talking about the former First Lady.

Following the Russert debacle in the last debate, the Clinton campaign went to work on Blitzer, turning Wolf into a lamb. No tough questions were posed to the woman who claims to be able to stand up to tyrants and terrorists. Worse yet, whenever one of the other candidates said anything critical of Mrs. Clinton, her cheering section loudly booed.

Along with last week’s “planted question” scandal, the Clinton machine’s strategy of media manipulation is becoming increasingly clear: intimidate journalists, manufacture “news” and silence dissent.

If the election was being held in 1968 and not 2008, I might be more concerned. Clinton’s Nixonian posture with regard to the media is based on a model that no longer exists. The reason there has been no “Cronkite moment” that secured America’s defeat in Iraq is that the New Media has allowed enough of the truth to seep through the liberal media blockade to neutralize the antiwar propaganda.

During the 1990s, Hillary was able to discount critics on the right by referring to them as the “vast right-wing conspiracy” and the sycophantic liberal media dutifully went along with the ploy. However, the rapidly changing media landscape renders that tactic ineffective. In the past, it was possible to shout down contrary voices, like Hillary’s brownshirts tried to do Thursday night, but the Internet prevents that from happening on a larger scale.

As I discuss in my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report", Democrats are not dealing with the New Media well because they are not used to competing in the free marketplace of ideas. Tim Russert pierced the media bubble that has surrounded Clinton since she came back to Washington in 1992 and left her gasping for breath in an unfamiliar environment. Previously, the only tough question posed to her came from me in 2005 when I suggested to President Bush that Sen. Clinton was “divorced from reality” because of her view that the economy was on the verge of collapse and social security was rock solid. As a result, Mrs. Clinton’s “goon squad” at Media Matters came after me, just as they have done to anyone who dares to criticize her. Observe what it did to Russert as well as the “don’ts” Media Matters put out before the CNN debate.

One of the things Barack Obama is right about is that Mrs. Clinton is stuck in the 1960s. Certainly, the Wellesley grad has not strayed far from the radical socialist orthodoxy she espoused as a college senior. So too, very little has changed in her perception of the media. Clinton is banking on the Old Media’s willingness to buy into her Potemkin village of contrived cackles and obfuscation. What she has not yet come to grips with is how to deal with the New Media and keep it from breaking through her façade to expose the real Hillary.

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:29 AM | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

Who Will Lead The Democrats’ ‘Anbar Awakening’?

By every measure, the tide has turned in Iraq. American troop deaths are on the decline along with the number of roadside bombings and incidents of sectarian violence. The flow of refugees out of Iraq has reversed course and those displaced within the country are returning to the neighborhoods where they once lived.

Several factors came together to change what many believed to be a quagmire for the United States and an intractable civil war between Shi’a and Sunnis into a hopeful scenario of a secure and democratic Islamic nation in the heart of the Middle East. The dramatic shift in the conditions on the ground in Iraq can be directly attributed to the “surge” of troops into areas held by insurgents and al Qaeda. The show of American military strength and resolve convinced insurgents and rival factions to turn on al Qaeda and drive them out. Consequently, the terrorists were routed from their safe havens and security began to grow from the bottom up. The turnaround in a western province nearly given up for lost in 2006 is referred to as the “Anbar Awakening.”

Insurgent militias and al Qaeda forces ruled the territory, but the terrorist group’s imposition of a Taliban-style of sharia law antagonized the population. Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha led a movement to oust al Qaeda from the region. President Bush visited Anbar province in early September to demonstrate how much the situation had changed. Similar awakenings have spread across the country enabling Iraqi forces to take control over more aspects of their own security.

Gen. David Petraeus reported all of this during in his testimony before Congress in the despicable “Betray-Us” hearings. Gen. Ray Odierno expressed a similarly positive assessment in a much less publicized presentation at the National Press Club in October. In the wake of these reports an amazing political transformation has been taking place on Capitol Hill. President Bush and his most loyal supporters do not appear to be standing so alone on the war anymore. Once wary Republicans closed ranks behind the President to sustain his vetoes that ruled out timetables for withdrawal of troops and other legislative tactics that would micromanage conduct of the war. The voices of war critics within the Republican Party have also grown faint. All of the GOP presidential candidates except for long-shot Ron Paul have strongly endorsed completing the mission in Iraq.

The evidence of success in Iraq can be gauged by how few stories about the war end up on the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post or lead the nightly network newscasts. Recently, Charlie Gibson opened ABC’s World News Tonight broadcast by saying: “One item from Baghdad today. The news is… that there is no news. The police told us that, to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad and today no bombings or roadside explosions were reported.”

In July, liberal Brookings Institute foreign policy scholars Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack wrote a piece for The New York Times suggesting that the United States might prevail in Iraq. More recently, the liberal punditocracy has begun to fret that Democrats’ opposition to a war that America was winning could haunt them in 2008 and beyond.

However, there is a problem with the Democratic leadership. Who will lead the Democrats’ Anbar Awakening? Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman might have been able to pull it off, except for the fact that he got bounced from the party in 2006 because he supported the war and had to run as an Independent to retain his seat. Last week, he chastised Democrats for their obsession to pull troops out of Iraq in order to hand a defeat to President Bush.

Democratic leaders in Congress are unlikely to bring the party’s thinking into line with reality. In April, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared, “The war is lost.” Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have introduced over forty bills to cut off funds or force a premature withdrawal with such increasing urgency as if desperate to secure defeat before victory can be achieved. None of the Democratic presidential candidates would risk the wrath of the hardcore antiwar base of the party by suggesting the Iraq war is winnable and that the mission deserved a chance to succeed. Alleged Democratic hawk Rep. John Murtha, who has been pushing a “cut and run” strategy of “redeployment” away from the battlefield for over two years could never admit that antithesis of his plan was working.

Such is the political quagmire for Democrats. The party is so invested in the defeat of its country’s own military that it cannot admit its own defeat in bringing it about. Anyone breaking ranks with the defeatists is severely chastised by the radical groups like MoveOn.org and Code Pink that have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party. Rep. Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat returned from Iraq in August and suggested that the surge was working. The leftists savaged Baird and called for his head. If no Democrat steps up to lead the awakening, the party’s reputation of weakness, defeatism and cowardice will be affirmed in the minds of Americans for another generation.

Posted by jeffgannon at 06:15 PM | TrackBack

November 06, 2007

Sack Jack Croddy; Send Jeff Gannon

Fire a coward; hire a patriot

A recent “town hall” meeting called to allow foreign service employees an opportunity to discuss so-called “forced” assignments to the embassy in Iraq confirmed what I long suspected about the State Department. Jack Croddy, an undistinguished career officer opposed to the “must fill” order for postings to Baghdad whined, “It's one thing if someone believes in what is going on over there and volunteers. I am sorry, but, basically, that is a potential death sentence, and you know it.”

He continued to wail, “And then another thought—who will take care of our children? Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

Croddy’s stunning display of cowardice, disloyalty and selfishness revealed the weakest link in American foreign policy. When Democrats rail about a “failure of diplomacy” in Iraq, they errantly point to the White House instead of their fellow travelers among the striped-pants crowd.

Democrats all agree that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily. The McGovernites and their spawn from MoveOn.org, Code Pink and DailyKos have already declared defeat. A few Democrats with a smattering of testosterone like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden give themselves some cover in the event of “accidental victory” by adding that the conflict must be settled politically and diplomatically.

The men and women of America’s brave, loyal and selfless military have already won on the battlefield. Al Qaeda is on the run and the insurgency has ebbed. Security is growing in Iraq from the bottom up as the citizenry chooses self-determination over terror and tyranny. All that remains is for their elected officials to decide how oil profits will be divided. The role of the State Department is to facilitate the political process that will bring about reconciliation. The reason this has not yet happened is evident. If the Croddys of the Foreign Service do not believe in the mission, how are they going to convince the Iraqis to buy into the program?

For those who might choose to believe that Croddy is a rogue element that doesn’t reflect the attitude of most of the careerists and appointees at the State Department, I point to some recent alumni:

Ambassador Joe Wilson, the liar and provocateur who opposed Bush administration policy yet accepted a mission on behalf of his wife’s employer to find evidence that might justify it. Wilson returned to give a report so useless that his CIA debriefers did not even bother to ask for it in writing.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, another opponent of the invasion of Iraq, who gossiped about Joe Wilson’s CIA analyst wife Valerie Plame being responsible for getting him the assignment to Niger. When conservative columnist Robert Novak published the allegedly classified information, Armitage refused to come forward to confess being the source of the “leak.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who complained that the White House “hijacked” foreign policy. Wilkerson’s arrogant claim demonstrated his failure to understand that the White House makes foreign policy and the State Department’s job is to implement it.

Anne Wright, who waited at the State Department long enough to qualify for a pension before dramatically resigning in protest and later joined Cindy Sheehan in ditch outside President Bush’s ranch. Wright now stages demonstration as a member of the radical pro-terrorist group Code Pink, well known for disrupting Capitol Hill hearings. One of its members recently threatened Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with “bloody” hands prior to her testimony before the House Foreign Relations committee.

Many Americans are understandably sickened by Croddy’s remarks. The men and women who risk their lives every day in Iraq might have the same concerns about their family but they do their duty anyway. It is clear that Croddy does not believe in the mission and is therefore unwilling to serve. His outspokenness against the policies he is bound to implement makes him unfit to serve.

Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter suggested that State Department personnel who refuse deployment to Baghdad be replaced with wounded veterans at Walter Reed and Bethesda hospitals. He said, “Let’s replace these reluctant Nellies with America’s finest citizens…Our wounded warriors will serve our country efficiently, effectively and with undying patriotism.”

While I would not put myself in the same class as those who have already sacrificed for the mission in Iraq, I would be proud to serve my country and the cause of liberty to help democracy take root in the Middle East. To that end I have sent a letter to Sec. Rice making this simple offer: “Sack Jack Croddy and send Jeff Gannon; fire a coward and hire a patriot.”

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:46 AM | TrackBack

November 01, 2007

National Press Club Book Fair

Being interviewed by C-SPAN at the National Press Club Book Fair:

On Thursday night, I signed copies of my book, "The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report" at the National Press Club's 30th Annual Book Fair. Many other notables were there with their books as well, including Howard Kurtz, Craig Crawford, Rita Cosby, Larry Sabato, James Reston and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

The publication of my book and its inclusion in the National Press Club book fair is a milestone for me. The past two and a half years of my "celebrity" have had many ups and downs, but I've been humbled and sustained by the prayers and friendship of many - some of whom I only know as an email address.

I share this triumph with all of them.

I know that those who have persisted in the negative characterizations of me and my work as a reporter will never read my book, so I will share with them something from the epilogue:

When I said that I knew what Job felt – his sense of loss – I also know what Job experienced when he was restored. In Job 41:12 it is written, “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” Because of what happened, I have a much larger platform than ever before. I have not only been restored, but brought higher.

While the story of Job certainly applies to what happened to me, the story of Joseph does also. Joseph’s jealous brothers sold him into slavery. When Joseph became powerful and held his brothers’ fate in his hands, he forgave them. Genesis 50:20 records Joseph’s words as “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” It is in that same spirit that I forgive those who acted against me.

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:32 AM | TrackBack

Dana Milbank in Drag - Justice is Served!

So many things I'd like to say, but I'm going to let readers tell me what they think about Dana Milbank getting in touch with his feminine side.

Thanks to Mediabistro

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:13 AM | TrackBack