Real Politics

Gannongate? What Gannongate?

I've heard many liberals screaming recently that this is the liberal-victory-equivalent of Rathergate.  I concur; the "Jeff Gannon" scandal is completely overblown in my opinion.   It doesn't fit in a -gate class for the following reasons (or at least not yet):

• No false information was specifically broadcast, AFAIK.  Dan Rather tried to mislead the American people with the broadcast of libelous documents.  While it's obviously nice to have a bipartisan press core, that's not remotely possible.  And it's wrong to weed out the one conservative among a backdrop of hardcore liberals.
• The allegations of ownership of gay pornography websites and of "Gannon" (real name:  Jeff Gucker) hasn't be proven yet, again AFAIK.

Obviously, this is a developing scandal (albeit one which I think will amount to nothing); I'll keep close tabs on it.

A Star-Tribune Columnist Slanders Power Line

Power Line:  This Is Getting a Bit Tiresome

I can understand why would it be; having to defend oneself against baseless charges loses its entertainment value after a while, especially under these circumstances:

For the fifth time in the last six months, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and its columnists slandered us today

The columnist who is at fault, "Camille R. Gage," decided not to write about Rathergate (Power Line played an instrumental role in provoking Rather's fall), but about illegal aliens becoming registered voters in Racine, Washington.  Apparently, "after a few phone calls," Ms. Gage "discovered" that the news was "false."  A federal investigation is now taking place over the charges; why Ms. Gage does not disclose her sources is even more troubling than what she allegedly discovered from them.

This, in conjunction with other journalism scandals of late, reaffirms in my mind that blogs are increasingly necessary both as a new media source and as a means to counterbalance what takes place on other news sources.