telescreen.org

I might need to subscribe to the Washington Monthly soon.  (And I might, if I weren't already buried under a pile of stuff that needs reading.)  Here's an insightful essay on a topic I haven't given much thought to:  women's boxing.

Busy weekend.  I'm exhausted, though it was a good time.  I'll wrap it up when I have more of a chance to write.

So what did you think of the Oscars?  I thought Chris Rock was great...and I'm glad I saw him host, because I doubt he'll be back next year.  (And of course the Post hated him.)  I share his perplexity over some of the unconventional -- and tacky -- staging, like having the nominees for the "lesser" awards gathered on stage, or when they're delivering the Oscar to the winner's seat and making them give their acceptance speeches in the middle of the aisle.  (I guess they're seated so far back that it'd take too long for them to get up to the stage.)

It felt like the telecast moved along at a faster clip than in years past (and indeed it did; three hours and 15 minutes.)  But I missed seeing some of the big production numbers that they used to do.  And has the Academy quit showing those amazingly-edited Chuck Workman films, or was the opening montage it?  And the telecase seemed to be directed differently; the timing was a bit off, and they didn't show as many of the usual reaction shots of attendees.

Ah well.  I've got pictures to upload and entries to write (not to mention, y'know, the real job I gotta go and do.)

P.S. -- And good on Halle Berry for actually showing up in person to collect her Razzie.

ADDENDUM:  A couple other points:  As Defamer mentions, Hilary Swank's "girl from th'trailer park" shtick is kind of worn out by now.  I can see it when you're accepting your first Oscar, Hils.  But your second?  You're already there.  You've for-real Made It.  Act like a star.

Speaking of which, it's definitely a classy move to save thanking Clint for last.  It's not a classy move to say you're going to save Clint for last, then thank Clint, then thank Warner Brothers and your publicist.

And finally:  Adam Duritz and Sideshow Bob...separated at birth?

Vidiot's First Law of the New York Subway:

The worse the music, the louder the headphones.

Hey, I see that Chico Bangs is blogging once again, this time over at eviltwintheory.com.

want, originally uploaded by adampsyche.

OMG, I want one of these.

(shamelessly stolen from Little FROS)

NYPL facade, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

Via Americablog, I see that "Jeff Gannon" is trying to sell his domain names for thousands of dollars.  This is how he deals with those "mistakes" he made "in his past"?  (Never mind that some of his escort profiles are still up.) 

BaconWhores.  Because the only thing better than bacon is someone to cook it for you.  (via MeFi.)

From the fine folks who brought you Frootsoop!

(Also:  Darn.  But:  there's hope!)

Well, well, well.  Look what just oozed up:

Did you know the AARP hates US troops?  And loves gay marriage?  That's obviously the message sent by the ad on the left.  And, I'm sure these positions come as news to the folks who are in charge over at the nation's largest single special-interest group.

This ad, found over at the American Spectator website, points to an outfit called USA Next.  USA Next's website seems to position itself as an alternative to the AARP...kind of a competing senior-citizens organization, if you will.  (Although, on the page where you can sign up to join, they note that "there are no age requirements for joining.")

However, as reported in the NYT yesterday, USA Next is a "conservative lobbying organization. . .which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles" and "plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP." Thus, the AARP-spits-on-the-troops-but-embraces-the-gay-love smear.

USA Next's origins seem less than savory.  To quote the NYT again:

Formerly known as the United Seniors Association, USA Next was founded in 1991 by Richard Viguerie, a Republican pioneer and mastermind of direct mailings, who raised millions of dollars from older Americans using solicitations that sent alarming messages about Social Security. In 1992, there were allegations that the group was used as a device to enrich other companies owned by Mr. Viguerie, drawing criticism from watchdog groups and Democratic lawmakers.

(Incidentally, Richard Viguerie is also tied to the Moonies.)  And here's the Washington Monthly on the United Seniors Association, in an article published in May:

Then there's the benignly-named United Seniors Association (USA), which serves as a soft-money slush fund for a single GOP-friendly industry: pharmaceuticals. USA claims a nationwide network of more than one million activists, but, just like Progress for America, listed zero income from membership dues in its most recent available tax return. USA does, however, have plenty of money on its hands. During the 2002 elections, with an "unrestricted educational grant" from the drug industry burning a hole in its pocket, the group spent roughly $14 million--the lion's share of its budget--on ads defending Republican members of Congress for their votes on a Medicare prescription-drug bill.

So:  Who came up with this slimeball ad?  Guess what?  It's the same folks that worked for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  Quoth the Times:

To help set USA Next's strategy, the group has hired Chris LaCivita, an enthusiastic former marine who advised Swift Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth, formerly known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on its media campaign and helped write its potent commercials. He earned more than $30,000 for his work, campaign finance filings show.

Officials said the group is also seeking to hire Rick Reed, a partner at Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, a firm that was hired by Swift Vets and was paid more than $276,000 to do media production, records show.

For public relations, USA Next has turned to Creative Response Concepts, a Virginia firm that represented both Swift Vets - the company was paid more than $165,000 - and Regnery Publishing, the publisher of "Unfit for Command," a book about Senator John Kerry's military service whose co-author was John E. O'Neill, one of the primary leaders of Swift Vets.

The Times seems to be charitably refraining from pointing out that, of course, the Swift Vets' claims completely fell apart under scrutiny.  They lied relentlessly to smear John Kerry, all with tacit White House approval.

Remember Chris LaCivita from a couple grafs up?  He advised the Swift Boat liars, helped write their (misleading) ads and has been hired by USA Next, presumably to craft more misleading ads for them.  Josh Marshall has some interesting things to say about LaCivita:

LaCivita, for those who follow these things, is a veteran astroturfer and hired gun, who's had a hand in all sorts of funny-business over recent years. We're most interested to see if he gets pulled in to testify at the oft-delayed trial of Jim Tobin later this year.

Tobin, you'll remember, is the former New England Chair of the Bush-Cheney Reelection Committee, who back in 2002, when he was the Northeast political director of the NRSC (the Senate Republican campaign committee) organized the phone-jamming hijinks to sabotage Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts in the Sununu-Shaheen senate race.

Sununu ended up winning by a solid enough margin that he probably didn't need the help. But two of Tobin's co-conspirators have now pled guilty in the case and Tobin (whose trial has now been delayed a few times) is scheduled, I believe, to go on trial in June.

Now, Tobin was the Northeast field director for the Senate Republicans and the guy he was working for was none other than our man Chris LaCivita, the political director of the committee in the 2002 cycle. The fairly obvious question of what LaCivita did or knew about the operation has, to the best of our knowledge, never been addressed.

Since then LaCivita, along with Tobin, went to work for that Johnny Appleseed of astroturf, Tom Synhorst and his outfit DCI. And of course last year LaCivita was doing the Lord's work helping to gin up the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to maul John Kerry.

LaCivita is certainly a busy guy; he's also the executive director of Progress For America, which also happens to be mentioned in that Washington Monthly article:

Another GOP soft-money conduit is Progress for America, a self-described "national grassroots organization" that listed zero income from membership dues on its last tax return. Like many such groups, it is run by a handful of operatives with a half-degree of separation from the GOP. Its founder is Tony Feather, the political director of President Bush's 2000 campaign. Feather's own consulting firm handles direct-mail and get-out-the-vote contracts for Bush's reelection effort, the Republican National Committee, and the party's congressional campaign committees. The former political director of one of those committees, Chris LaCivita, is now executive director of PFA. The group's Web site used to describe its purpose as "supporting Pres. George Walker Bush's agenda for America," but that slogan, apparently too brazen to pass legal muster, has since been changed; now PFA supports "a conservative issue agenda that will benefit all Americans." The group hopes to raise up to $60 million in soft money this year, and has enlisted the help of some prominent Republicans to do so, including Bush's campaign manager, chief campaign counsel, and party chairman. Thus, when Bush's lawyers accuse the Democrats of organizing a "soft-money conspiracy," they know what they're talking about.

(Progress For America's lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, also served as counsel to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  However, he had to resign that role when it was revealed that he was also the chief outside counsel to the Bush campaign.  Illegally.)

More from Josh Marshall on USA Next, namely its chairman and CEO Charlie Jarvis:

Before he got the USANext gig, Jarvis was an executive vice president of Dobson's group Focus on the Family. And in the interests of bringing you all the information, it seems that it is not 100% accurate to say that USANext is a slush fund purely for the drug industry, seeing as how Jarvis was willing to bring the group out in favor of the rights of seniors to drill in ANWR after an Anchorage-based company called Arctic Power cut a check for $181,000. And if all that weren't enough, it seems that as of the summer of 2003 the Social Security Administration itself had secured a 'cease and desist' order against Jarvis's group for sending out mailings that "mislead the public into believing the mail is officially sent or approved by the Social Security Administration."

What a bunch of winners, eh?

I wonder...will the White House be quite as upset about these sorts of "special interests" as they were about the 527s during the election campaign?  (Putting aside, of course, the fact that both Swift Vets and MoveOn.org are 527s...and that George W. Bush signed the law that created 527s.)  It seems to me to be pretty close to political suicide to go after the AARP, so this seems like a breathtakingly audacious move.  Who better to do it, then, than USA Next?  They're nicely insulated from the White House, so Bush himself won't suffer much political fallout from the country's biggest association for seniors for his attempts to phase out their biggest entitlement program.

As a Talking Points Memo reader discovered, there are two more USA Next anti-AARP ads floating around; you can see them here  and here.  (They're pretty far out there, but not quite as laughable at the troops/gay marriage ad.)

Hmph.  Lying astroturf groups, misleading mailings, hateful and misleading ads, phone jamming, soft-money fundraising...is this starting to smell like a Karl Rove orchestration yet?

UPDATE:  I see that USA Next has pulled its anti-soldier/pro-gay marriage ad.  That was fast.

ADDENDUM:  I like this remix of the USA Next ad, posted by "furiousxgeorge" at MetaFilter:

(Or this one, from dKos)

Here's a nice essay on "vanity cards" ...those two-second film clips after the credits on TV shows that tell you who produced it.

(See also this MetaFilter thread.)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--Dylan Thomas

Well, shit.

This really hurts.  My jaw dropped when I saw the headline.  Literally.  (That doesn't happen too often, and every time it does, I always think to myself that the word "jaw-dropping" is overused and it rarely happens, but it actually does fall open of its own accord sometimes when I'm confronted with something that shocks me.)

I was a fan, yes, an admirer, yes, but I wasn't Hard Core Gonzo.  I didn't want to live my life like him, nor did I particularly want to hang out with him.  But the man could flat-out write, in a way that no one else could (though it isn't to say that no one tried) and I was in complete and utter awe of that.  I would read his columns over at ESPN every now and then, and I was always oddly reassured that no matter what, there was always a lucidly crazy man out in Colorado doing whatever he damn well pleased, doing very unwise things very loudly and having the time of his life while doing it, and telling his meta-post-magic-hyper-image-whatever stories in a way that no one else could touch.

(Yeah, so he wasn't what he used to be, back in the day.  None of us are.)

I was unprepared for how much this is affecting me and the size of this Gargantuan loss I feel.  I wasn't ready for this big lump in my throat right now.  I'm sitting cross-legged on my bed at two in the morning, aching for sleep, on the verge of crying, and with a shot of Lagavulin inside me (and another one close at hand.)

I want to quote liberally from two things he wrote:

Observing the observed, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

A patron and a sculpture, at MoMA.

Nice AP article about Ben & Mena.  Joi Ito gets a quote, too.

(Incidentally, Mena's the only person I've ever met who's mentioned in not one, but two different songs.)

A brief roundup of some "Jeff Gannon"/James Guckert-related links:

• Who invited him to the White House Christmas parties?  (Hard to say you weren't well-connected when you get invited to those multiple times.)
• Five days after swearing off interviews, "Gannon" talked to the WaPo.  Interview highlight:  "People criticize me for being a Christian and having some of these questionable things in my past."  BS.  I'm criticizing him for lying about things -- including the questionable things in his past, misrepresenting himself, and subverting the democratic process.  Whether or not he's a Christian (and if he is, he really should take another, closer look at that whole "Thou shalt not bear false witness" thing) is immaterial.
• He also notes that "My side of the story has been poorly reported."  Well, perhaps if you hadn't avoided the press and declined all interview requests for five days, your side of the story might have gotten out there.  (Oh, I get it.  It's that pesky dad-blamed liberal media again.)
• This Editor & Producer story has an interesting little nugget:  "Asked this afternoon about reports that he was scheduled to appear on the Anderson Cooper's CNN show tonight, he denied it strongly. One hour later, a CNN spokesman told E&P, "He's taping it right now."
• Here's the video and the transcript of that CNN appearance.  My favorite parts:   
  • COOPER: I spoke with Jeff Gannon earlier this evening. I started by asking him why he doesn't use his real name?
    
    GANNON: I use a pseudonym, because my real name is very difficult to pronounce, to remember and to spell. And many people who have been talking about me on television have yet to pronounce it correctly.
    
    COOPER: But I mean, your real name is James and you used the pseudonym Jeff.
    
    GANNON: Yes.
    
    COOPER: How is James so much harder than Jeff?
    
    GANNON: No, no, I meant my last name.
    
    COOPER: Well, your real last name is Guckert, and the pseudonym you used is Gannon.
    
    GANNON: Yes. It's easier to pronounce, to remember and to spell.
  • COOPER: The first record we have now of you actually being at a White House press briefing was on February 28th, 2003, as you said, before Talon News even existed. So why were you given a White House pass?
    
    GANNON: I was given a White House -- well, you will have to ask the White House that. But I asked to attend the White House briefing because I was -- you know, because I wanted to report on the activities there.
    
    COOPER: But GOPUSA is not a news organization.
    
    GANNON: Well, we were -- we were -- we had established a news division, and it was later renamed Talon News.
    
    COOPER: Because this is news to just about everybody. You know, Talon News wasn't registered I think until, well, March 29th of 2003. I think the first articles didn't appear until April 1st. So I guess the questions that are being raised why were you at -- allowed to go to a White House briefing if you are working for GOPUSA, which is a clearly partisan organization?
    
    GANNON: There are many, many organizations, many people that are allowed to attend the White House briefings. I don't know the criteria they use.
    
    COOPER: But you weren't even publishing anything. You weren't reporting anything.
    
    GANNON: Well, actually, I was at the time.
    
    COOPER: When was the first article you ever published?
    
    GANNON: Well, you're -- I don't know that, because I'm here in your studio here. And I don't know the answer to specific dates. All I can tell you is that -- and frankly, all these questions about Talon News and GOPUSA, you need to ask them about that, because I don't represent them any longer.
    
    COOPER: Yeah, we've asked them. They refuse to talk about it.
  • COOPER: This liberal group, Media Matters, which I'm sure you know well about. They have been very critical about you, really looked into this probably closer than just about anybody. They say that essentially, you are not a real reporter. And it's not even a question of being an advocate, that you have directly lifted large segments of your reports directly from White House press releases.
    
    GANNON: All my stories were usually titled "White House Says," "President Bush Wants," and I relied on transcripts from the briefings, I relied on press releases that were sent to the press for the purpose of accurately portraying what the White House believed or wanted.
    
    COOPER: But using the term "reporting" implies some sort of vetting, some sort of research, some sort of -- I mean, that's called faxing or Xeroxing, if you are just lifting transcripts and putting them into an article.
    
    GANNON: If I am communicating to my readers exactly what the White House believes on any certain issue, that's reporting to them an unvarnished, unfiltered version of what they believe.

And this one isn't about "Gannon"...but what about Bob?  Slate wonders something that I addressed a while back, namely:  Why isn't Bob Novak headed for jail?

How to turn an Expedition into a Blazer.

Reuters:  Philadelphia Judge Clears Anti-Gay Group of Hate Crimes

You know what?  Good.

I find Repent America's hateful views to be repugnant.  I find both their views and the manner in which they express them to be offensive.  I wish they didn't confront people in public.  I wish they didn't pervert the Christian message of love and forgiveness by preaching intolerance and hatred.

But that's the wonderful thing about free speech.  The First Amendment unequivocally protects speech, no matter how offensive it is.  (After all, popular views don't need quite the same level of constitutional protection.)

Is someone offending you by what they say?  Talk back.  The cure to offensive speech is not censorship, it isn't litigation, and it's certainly not prosecution.  The only appropriate response is more speech.

I'm with Kevin Drum on this one:

Jimmy Carter, of course, is an actual Annapolis graduate who served on board submarines for seven years. During that time he served on one of the first nuclear submarines, the USS Seawolf, which makes it all the more fitting that the last of the Seawolf class of subs should be named after him. This contrasts with, say, Ronald Reagan, whose closest connection to an aircraft carrier was on a Hollywood sound stage.

Suck it up, guys. I know you don't like Carter, but he was a fine naval officer, a president of the United States, and has done more good in his post-presidential career than probably any president in history. Show a little respect just this once. You can go back to your usual bellyaching next week.

Trivia last night went well, although attendance was a little on the thin side.  My co-host, Janet Rosen, kicked it off with an all-angel round -- from food (what are "angels on horseback"?  What's the Italian for angel hair pasta?) to film (who starred in "Angels With Dirty Faces"?), every question was related to angels somehow.

I went next with my audio round, which was clips from various James Bond theme songs.  Contestants had to give me the artist and title of each song (not the title of the movie; the song title and the movie title didn't match twice: Rita Coolidge's "All Time High" was the Octopussy theme, and Carly Simon's superb "Nobody Does It Better" was the theme to The Spy Who Loved Me.)  I told the contestants that they better appreciate the agony involved in plowing through decades of bad pop-rock.  Have you heard Matt Munro's "From Russia With Love"?  A way-out-of-her-depth Lulu doing "Man With The Golden Gun"?  Sheryl Crow impersonating a torch singer with "Tomorrow Never Dies"?  Madonna's execrable "Die Another Day"?  (It ain't all Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey, you know.)

I then did a round of questions based on airport codes (inspired by this essay.)  I supplied the three-letter codes, and players had to provide the airport.  Do you know what SLC stands for?  How about TEB, YYZ, ORD, MCO, or DTW?

My last round was a visual round, in which players identified advertising icons and told me what companies they worked for.  Icons included Twinkie the Kid, the Noid, the Scrubbing Bubbles, the Campbell's Kids, and Serta's Counting Sheep.

And Janet finished the whole thing off with a "Susan"-themed round.  What quintessential '80s movie directed by Louis Malle did Susan Sarandon star in?  (By the way, did you know that Susan Sarandon was the first actress to win an Oscar for playing a nun?)  Which state, known for its seafood, crime TV shows, and John Waters, claims the black-eyed susan as its state flower?

After trivia wrapped up, we headed over to Tortilla Flats, where we celebrated the 13th Annual Ernest Borgnine Night.  (Why Ernest Borgnine?  Why not?)  Every year, the Wednesday following Valentine's Day is Ernest Borgnine Night.  They show his movies (and encourage patrons to do scenes from cue cards), have soundalike contests, give away hats and T-shirts, post coloring book art, and much, much more.  (More pictures here.)

Did "Jeff Gannon" have a hard pass?

For the record, "Gannon" has said that he didn't have a hard pass, and that he got a succession of daily passes to gain access to the briefing room.  However, "Gannon" has lied before, as we all well know.

A "hard pass" is a permanent pass allowing ongoing access to the White House press area.  They're a lot harder to obtain than day passes, and things like fingerprints and background checks are involved.  From Editor & Publisher:

Currently, two types of press passes are issued. The "hard pass," which allows reporters regular ongoing access to the White House, and "day passes," which must be issued each morning and are good only for one day. Hard passes are more difficult to obtain, requiring the reporter to first obtain a Capitol Hill credential, issued by a committee of congressional reporters known as the Standing Committee of Correspondents.

Day passes appear to be available to any reporter who provides his or her name, address, and social security number and the name of his or her news organization, and can pass a basic security check.

Guckert had been denied a congressional press pass last year after the Standing Committee determined that Talon News was not a legitimate news organization. But he was still able to obtain daily White House press passes by applying each day.

I should note that to my admittedly untrained eye, this doesn't quite look like the hard passes I've seen.  (However, I've only been in the White House press room once, and it's been a while.)  What I think might be the most likely scenario is that the ID in question is from Talon News, GOPUSA, or whatever shill site was posting "Gannon's" "work."  Either that, or it's something "Gannon" threw together with a Mac and a laminating machine.

Attention:

Do not confuse Christo & Jeanne-Claude's The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005 with The Somerville Gates.  They are entirely separate artworks.

That is all.

Frank Rich abso-fricking-lutely hits it out of the park re: "Jeff Gannon":

If Mr. Guckert, the author of Talon News exclusives like "Kerry Could Become First Gay President," is yet another link in the boundless network of homophobic Republican closet cases, that's not without interest. But it shouldn't distract from the real question - that is, the real news - of how this fake newsman might be connected to a White House propaganda machine that grows curiouser by the day. Though Mr. McClellan told Editor & Publisher magazine that he didn't know until recently that Mr. Guckert was using an alias, Bruce Bartlett, a White House veteran of the Reagan-Bush I era, wrote on the nonpartisan journalism Web site Romenesko, that "if Gannon was using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover." (Otherwise, it would be a rather amazing post-9/11 security breach.)

By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news. . .

It is a brilliant strategy. When the Bush administration isn't using taxpayers' money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post discovered that even at an inaugural ball he was assigned "minders" - attractive women who wouldn't give him their full names - to let the revelers know that Big Brother was watching should they be tempted to say anything remotely off message.

The inability of real journalists to penetrate this White House is not all the White House's fault. The errors of real news organizations have played perfectly into the administration's insidious efforts to blur the boundaries between the fake and the real and thereby demolish the whole notion that there could possibly be an objective and accurate free press. Conservatives, who supposedly deplore post-modernism, are now welcoming in a brave new world in which it's a given that there can be no empirical reality in news, only the reality you want to hear (or they want you to hear). The frequent fecklessness of the Beltway gang does little to penetrate this Washington smokescreen.

Go read the whole thing, then come back here and tell me what you think.

UPDATE:  I like Josh Marshall's take, too:

I won't deny a certain discomfort at the vaguely lord-of-the-fliesian nature of the exposure of all this man's lurid ridiculousness. But if it turned out that any other president -- doesn't even have to be Clinton -- had a ringer 'reporter' stationed in the press pool to serve up soft-serve questions, and the same folks had already been caught paying off or buying or otherwise subborning other 'journalists' several times in recent months, AND evidence mounted that the ringer 'reporter' turned out to be a ringer 'reporter'/GI Joe-style male prostitute with what Sid Blumenthal rightly calls "enormous potential for blackmail", don't we figure that this would have ginned up a bit more big time press razzle-dazzle and gasps and awwws by now?

Hey, wasn't this the crowd that was supposed to "restore honor and dignity to the White House"?

Yesterday, there was a table set up in front of the employee cafeteria offering appointments for free cholesterol screenings.

Today, they had a "Chocolate Festival":

Just a quick reminder:  I'll be co-hosting "Drinking & Thinking", a bar trivia night, tonight at Dempsey's Pub starting at 7:30.  Hope to see you there.

I see (in Wonkette) that the rightwingers are now going after lefties in the White House press room.  (I've heard some similar talk about Helen Thomas.)

There are a couple things that I should point out:

• In Helen Thomas's case, she has untouchable journalism cred.  (She's been covering Washington since 1943 and the White House since the Kennedy Administration, for crying out loud!)  Yes, she does write an opinion column for Hearst now, instead of filing for UPI...but that is only since the Moonies bought UPI in 2000.  And, she has her unofficial "dean of the press corps" status, but that's because she's the longest-serving member of the White House press.  She no longer gets a reserved question, because she no longer writes for a major wire service;
• Helen Thomas and (I assume) Russell Mokhiber write under their real names;
• It's one thing when a left-wing opinion writer is challenging right-wingers, or vice versa.  It's an entirely different thing to lob softballs at the press secretary to help him out of a jam;
• The rightwingers are upset at the violation of "Jeff Gannon"'s private life.  They should be upset at the hypocrisy from one of their cheerleaders, considering that he was vociferously denouncing something while simultaneously making money off it;
• I'm assuming here again, but I seriously doubt that either Helen Thomas or Russell Mokhiber are hookers.  You can't say the same for "Jeff Gannon."