Expert Witnesses

I’ve been busy and bloggered for the last day or so and missed the latest blogging panel and GG kerfluffle. My goodness, the mainstream media certainly is having a difficult time understanding what both blogging and prostitution are. And you’d think they could figure it out since they practice certain elements of both pursuits on a daily basis. No wonder they don’t question the Bush administration’s lies. They just aren’t very bright, apparently.

Others have more than adequately discussed the usual frustrating lack of informed liberal bloggers on the panel and the absurdity of inviting GG to represent “blogging.” Clearly the press is having a little bit of difficulty understanding these internets and it’s going to take some time to educate the poor dears.

But this is not just another blogging confab, is it? Jimmy Jeff on the panel represents a unique opportunity to discuss some of this “new journalism” stuff if they really want to do it. It’s a blog that broke the Gannon story and it’s a blogger who knows all the details. John Aravosis owns this story and if GG is given a forum to tell his side of the story, Aravosis should be invited also to ensure that he isn’t allowed to continue to deny that he was a hooker who sold himself on the internet as a “military” man while he was “reporting” from the white house press room.

See, this is a real goddamned story that, for reasons that elude me, has become lost in some sort of Victorian delicacy that certainly wasn’t evident during the Monica Lewinsky scandal when reporters and pundits regularly speculated about whether the she and the president had both experienced orgasms during their trysts. I recall a panel on one of the shoutfests drawing pictures of penises to illustrate whether the president of the Unites States might suffer from Peyronie’s disease as Paula Jones alleged (wrongly it turned out) in her bogus lawsuit.

This is not a matter of intruding into someone’s private life. Guckert was selling himself on line for profit. Perhaps I missed it, but I am unaware of any interviewer who has pinned him down on that fact. Now, because they haven’t done their job, this guy is actually rehabilitating himself as a representative of “new media” and is called to discuss the role of the internet in modern journalism. It’s ludicrous. I’m beginning to think that the whole Jeff Gannon story is really a reality show cooked up by Hollywood to snooker the entire country. He’s really Jamie Kennedy.

Here’s the deal. Jim Guckert, male prostitute, operated as a reporter who got very unusual privileges in a Republican White House that is so enamored of the Christian Right that the GOP is now writing one time only laws on their behalf against the will of 80% of the American people. That’s what we are dealing with. And it is clear that the extremist minority that is basically running the country has not heard about this male hooker in the White House because Fox (purveyor of pornography) and Rush and Pat Robertson have not told them. Someone should. For the good of the country.

I’m glad to see that they’ve included Matt Yglesias who will likely make a persuasive case that blogging is merely a new technological tool for specialists and professionals to communicate, much as academics and journalists do now in their respective fields on paper. I don’t agree with that view, but I do think that it could provoke an interesting discussion at the blogging panels that we haven’t already heard a thousand times before from the usual suspects. And he is a real blogger who’s been writing serious political posts for years now. He might be able to at least school some of these bimbos in the press about what constitutes a real blog. Good luck to him.

However, by virtue of Guckert’s presence this blogging panel is probably not the place to discuss such dry academic subjects. While it is required by law evidently, that all blogging discussions include at least two panelists who write frequently about anal sex, this one actually features a guy who made a profit at it. Matt may not be able to add much to that discussion because I don’t think he’s been following that story very closely. Maybe Wonkette could be persuaded to pin old Jeff down on his professional activities, but she might be a bit too focused on the what, not the who. Or they could just invite Aravosis who might actually be able to get to the truth. If, of course, that’s what they’re interested in — a big if.

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