Another link in the Gannon scandal

RAW STORY has found a solid connection between the founder of Talon News and GOPUSA and a well-connected relative and business partner whose links to Bush advisors, dubious fundraising and marketing activities and paid commentators abound.

Bruce W. Eberle–a member of the Bobby Eberle “clan” (according to his former website which Bobby bought), the founder of GOPUSA and Talon News–may be the missing link.

[...]

Bruce boasts of raising more than $270 million for various organizations and campaigns, the vast plurality of them conservative. His clients have included Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Oliver North and former Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Bruce’s firm, Bruce W. Eberle & Associates, is also a top corporate sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference. Vice President Dick Cheney and top Bush advisor Karl Rove spoke at the conference Thursday.

Both Rove and Bruce worked for Attorney General John Ashcroft; Bruce took over for Rove when Rove sold his consulting firm to join Bush’s presidential campaign.
  article

I haven't followed all the details of this monkey business, but I'm not certain that the Bruce Eberle link can implicate Rove, since Bobby Eberle may have found and "embedded" Gannon on his own. But, it's bound to be certain that Rove was involved in the scam, if not in picking the person for it. (And for my money - I'd say Karl and Jeffie have met. More than once. And we have that information about Scott McClellan frequenting gay bars in Austin. I'm gonna guess they're all in the same league.)

Bobby and Bruce’s “relations” are nebulous–they have been reported not to be blood relatives by a conservative website, though Bruce himself says they are members of the same “clan.” Bobby works out of Texas; Bruce’s firm is based in Virginia.

The same "clan"? That could raise a lot of questions considering the issue.

[M]ore salient, perhaps, is Bruce’s dabbling in below-the-radar media activity, in which he pioneered a system which boasted of blurring the boundaries between advertising, polling and talk radio.

Bruce also owns the Omega List Company, which manages and rents donor mailing lists. Beginning in 2000, it began selling similar services for e-mail, boasting that it was “a pioneer in the endorsement e-mail field.”

This is of course part of the WH propaganda program - the blurring of news, advertising, and policy. Omega List had the website that carried the information on how journalists could pimp themselves to the WH - a la Williams, Gallagher and McManus. Apparently, the site has been taken down, but The Center for Media and Democracy captured much of it.

The web of linkage is a big one.

Back to Jeff's WH connection...

In an interview on Saturday, [Guckert] said had never even made phone calls to administration officials, not even to ask routine questions or clarify basic facts.

"My relationship with the White House and with Talon News was on the basis of a reporter and a reporter only. And all that, all of this other stuff out there that I was given favorable treatment, access to things - is absolutely, categorically untrue," Mr. Guckert said.

[...]

[Bobby Eberle] denied in an interview that the correspondent, Jeff Gannon [...] was an administration plant or was given preferential treatment as a Republican partisan to ask soft questions at briefings.

[...]

Mr. Eberle said that in the two years that Mr. Guckert worked for him, he had not kept track of his volunteer reporter.

"Jeff did his thing, I did my thing," Mr. Eberle said. He also said that while he saw some of Mr. Guckert's writing samples before engaging him, "I don't know if I actually asked about his background and training."
  NY Times article (registration required - use BugMeNot in the sidebar to get around it)

Could I interest you in the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm selling it cheap.

What kind of news service owner doesn't ask about a prospective reporter's background and training? One that is another WH prostitute, would be my guess.

Mr. Guckert denied seeing a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. operative, even though he had strongly insinuated as much in an interview with her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, the transcript of which he posted on the Internet.

Mr. Guckert's phrasing in that interview so strongly suggested he had seen the classified memorandum that it brought F.B.I. officials to his house as part of the Plame leak investigation, he said. But he said referring to the memorandum as though he had seen it was merely an interview technique.

So that's how we get so many lies and false leads from the WH. They're just using an interview technique when they give press speeches.

Mr. Eberle also said he had no inkling that Mr. Guckert had created pornographic Web sites or offered himself as a gay escort.

That may be true. But if it is, I have to again wonder about a news service owner being unwilling to hire a reporter because of his sexual lifestyle, but willing to hire someone without any reporting background. The fact that he didn't check out the man's background to find either of those things makes it look an awful lot like he was simply the route for somebody at the WH to put Guckert to work.

Former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon (aka James D. Guckert) attended at least two invitation-only events in Washington, D.C.: the 2003 and 2004 White House press Christmas parties.

[...]

"[In] past years, the White House press secretary has played a significant role in arranging the guest list for the Christmas parties."
  Media Matters article

Let's see...who was press secretary in 2003 and 2004 at Christmas time? Could that be Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan? Well, maybe they weren't in charge of invitations. We'll have to wait to find out. Maybe somebody will actually dig that up.

Washington sources tell RAW STORY that calls are flying around the District as much of the mainstream press seeks to catch up with online reporting–including some from such prestigious magazines as The New Yorker.

The wire services have also begun digging, sources say, which could place the Gannon scandal in hundreds of smaller newspapers across America.
  Raw Story article

Jeff Gannon is considering suing liberal interest groups, bloggers and others for a “political assassination” that drove him from his job as a reporter for a conservative news outfit called Talon News, he told NEWSWEEK. Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, singled out Media Matters – a “well-funded” liberal group headed by longtime “attack dog” David Brock. ("Everything we wrote about him came from the public record,” Brock replied.)
  article

Sue them (us?) under what law? Good luck schtupper.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.


Propagannon - All about GOPUSA
'Cash for Commentary' is Business as Usual
The mole, the US media and a White House coup

Background on Gannon the Loose Cannon