Friday, February 18, 2005

 
It's a little too early to know how the Jeff Gannon thing will play out, but my own fearless prediction is that it's too damn funny to hurt Bush very much. (the image of Dan Aykroyd's SNL character, "Fred Garvin, male prostitute" keeps popping into my head.)Unless the administration's speech writers are morons, they're busily working on pre-emptive yuks allowing the Prez to laugh along with the rest of the country. Expressions of "deep regret}, "sincere apologies" or vows to "cut this cancer out of the Presidency" will be seen as running away from the Guckert rakers with the "Dick Tuck" between the legs.(Dismissal of Gannon as a "third-rate buggerer" might be OK.)
Surely at this moment tens of thousands of conservative bloggers (with and without press or porn credentials)are typing out rebuttals of the "Yes, but at least Gannon, Armstrong Williams et al didn't...blah, blah, yaddayaddayadda" form. The stuff "writes itself" and I have nothing novel to say, but- i.e. At least, and unlike I.F. Stone*, their funding stopped at the water's edge. At least the White House didn't leave raw FBI files around for them to rummage through. Unlike some NYT reporters, Gannon made up only his credentials(ala Ward Churchill), not his "stories." The Bush guys can take some credit for maintaining the existence of democracy in (the?)Ukraine, whereas the Times still has not disavowed the Pulitzer won by Duranty for his denial of the famine in that country. And so on.

random notes(i.e. too lazy and tired to organize): The Bush admin may have lost a little dignity, but given the overwhelmingly "liberal" outlook of most reporters, many citizens will be willing to forgive it for taking Robert Frost's advice:
"Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!"

There should be more reminders that Armstrong Williams, Michael McManus, and Maggie Gallagher(cited in today's Minnesota RedStarTribune staff editorial)who accepted money from the HHS and Department of Education for plugs and advice regarding the Medicare prescription bill, the "No Child Left Behind Act" and "marriage policies" are mere pikers considering what has surely been spent on programs and textbooks promoting left-wing and anti-Western propaganda in primary education. Like many other parents, I have some qualms about introducing the subject of homosexuality to very young children, and while favoring and trying to promote "tolerance"(a term abhorrent, of course, to some "gay rights" advocates), have qualms about proselytizing by either "evangelicals" or "activists". Many conservatives(and one supposes libertarian types, as well)object not to Heather having two Mommies, but that *both* of them believe that the conquest of the Americas by europeans was a wholly evil, icky thing,(and that the Mexican reconquistas are justified in their invasion and hatred of "white" America) and that Joseph McCarthy was a far worse monster than Josef Stalin and so forth.

On a final note, one hopes that KJL's skills as an editor are godunov to prevent the Corner from becoming a dog's (or Boris')breakfast after John Derbyshire's "Sulzberger's mighty organ." It was badenov when on another thread, some poster signed with something like 'Hugh Jorgen" but I didn't add to the dignity of the site by replying with a post from a thinly disguised(and "classic")"Richard Gazinnia." Leaving out the "the"s is, of course, the standard in aping the english of Russians,(with the notable exception of Vladimir Nabokov-I've got copies of "The Lolita" and "The Bend Sinister" around here somewhere) but I'm still a little hazy on definite and indefinite articles, particularly newspaper articles. -especially (the)one about the "the" libel suit of the late Lillian Hellman against the later Mary McCarthy.

*As to whether he can be fairly described as an agent of the Soviet Union may depend upon the definition of "Izzy." ....sigh...that doesn't look as clever as hoped...back to bed....