David Corn of The Nation, which has been a rock-solid bastion of liberal thought for a century, says of the Talon/Gannon deal: "What I found leads me to ask--gasp!--if Gannon/Guckert, on a few but not all fronts, has received a quasi-bum rap." Corn says of the Congressmen wanting an investigation that it "shows how far off the rails well-intentioned people can go when scandal is in the air." Tim Graham of the Media Research Center also has an article featuring 16" softballs for President Clinton: "If anyone who asked softball questions at the White House "had to go," the White House briefing room would have almost emptied out in the Clinton years." And from Instapundit:
I agree with Rik Hertzberg [of the New Yorker] that it's a nothinggate. Or, as Marc Cooper says, a "big yawn." I don't think it's in any way comparable to the use of forged documents in an attempt to swing a Presidential election -- and I think that anyone who does think so is pretty much beyond rational discourse.
I also think that the people who are trying to inflate this into a big issue are making a dreadful mistake. I eagerly await the reaction when the White House responds to this criticism by requiring everyone who attends a press briefing to make a full financial and sexual disclosure, and starts rating news outlets as "real" or "fake" according to bias. (If I were Rove I'd make some rumblings about this to the press corps, and I'd explicitly cite the lefty bloggers by name, just to stir up trouble . . . .) ...
I think that the gay-baiting from some of the lefty bloggers -- and my emailers -- does them no credit. And it really is gay-baiting. And the focus on the gay angle, which nearly all this email features, also betrays a rather deep misapprehension of how I feel about stuff -- do I look like a social conservative? As James Lileks wrote:
I just find it amusing that people think that because I support less aggressive taxation and the War I must therefore believe gays should be driven into a pit lined with sharp stakes, and therefore I’m a hypocrite. How does that work? It’s like saying “you oppose partial privatizing of Social Security? Well, then you obviously want abortion legal up the moment when the baby crowns.” Doesn’t follow.
Nope. Not to anyone with a clue, anyway. I think the Gannon-bashers are diminishing themselves by overplaying this issue.
Ryne has more.
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