So Jeff Gannon and David Korn are good friends....

[Sparkle]

Gannonblog

February 25, 2005

Somebody on the Left has some sense. My good friend David Corn of The Nation risks the scorn of his base with "Problems with Gannongate".

----------

Well, I gather there is nothing wrong with that. I'll give Mr. Corn a pass if Gannon is a good friend of his. He probably doesn't want to say anything bad about his friend.


edit: I changed it to Korn with a K, but I switched it back to a C, I was right the first time.

[mattclearing]

1. His good friend, whose name Gannon can't spell?

Corn just keeps going downhill in my book. I thought it was the Nation. Eleanor Clift is more progressive than Corn lately.

[hector459]

5. Good, good friends. So what does that mean?

Just asking.

[mattclearing]

8. I doubt it means much. See my message below.

But I'm sure they've bumped into each other and had a few laughs at those Press Club dinners.

[tx_dem41]

36. So a straight man can't be friends with a gay man?

Or two gays can't have a platonic relationship? I'm confused by what you are attempting to imply.

[skypilot]

2. I've always been a bit on the fence about David Corn...

...and if Corn is somehow defending Gannon that doesn't sit too well with me. That'll have to go in the "con" column on David Corn.

[Career Prole]

3. Yeah...what the heck.

Amigos in the end.

[The Magistrate]

4. Why Take Guckert's Word For It, Ma'am?

[Sparkle]

6. Well, I probably won't now since the poster in message #1

pointed out that Korn is spelled Corn. They must not be good friends. We'll see if David Corn makes a comment about that.

Sir.

[mattclearing]

7. You're right. My message is inconsistent...

If they aren't friends, which the misspelling clearly implies, then I shouldn't blame Corn for it.

However, I'm amazed at the degree to which Corn has capitulated on major issues. He accepts a lot of DLC/Establishment Dem/Neo-Con premises that I just don't see as legitimate.

Now John Nichols, he's the real deal for sure.

[leftynyc]

12. Excellent point Mr. Magistrate

It's hard to keep track of his many lies as it is.

[skypilot]

13. He might be lying about their "friendship"...

...but he's not lying about the "Problems with Gannongate" article.

[leftofthedial]

9. do they spend lots of quality time together

hanging out at the Korn hole?

[Al-CIAda]

10. Gannon must be lurking here at DU looking at what we are posting

and writing his 'blog'.

[Sparkle]

14. Really?

Yo Gannon! How's it hanging?

:-)

[Califooyah Operative]

21. indeed he is.

He's trying to get to us by trying to draw ties between himself and democrats, i'm guessing he'd like to take someone down with him. His site/blog screams 'i need attention/sympathy/support'

[EVDebs]

11. See this post. Korn works for Vanden Heuvel...whose father was

CIA in Thailand with Wild Bill Donovan back in the days when Donovan was ambassador setting up the drug running Golden Triangle ...

Does the apple fall far from the tree ?

www.thenationaldebate.com/profiles/Katrina%20vanden%20Heuvel.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1622985

Operation Mockingbird is nothing if not all inclusive politically.

[MeDeMax]

15. fyi, David Korn is a famous computer scientist...

in the unix computer world David Korn is a famous name:

<http://www.kornshell.com/~dgk/>



--

[Sparkle]

16. But it's not the David Corn that Gannon is talking about..

Hmm. Maybe Gannon got the two mixed up. He could know both of them.


David Corn

[EVDebs]

23. Sorry about misspelling ! The original post has me all messed up

[theorist]

29. Yep, of ksh fame. n/t

[oasis]

17. Corn was mighty quick out of the gate to deflect any criticism of Gannon.

Corn was on the story early with his "admonition" article in an apparent attempt to headoff the chorus of Gannon bashers. This was before he could do any in depth investigation.

It was as though he was assigned to put out the brush fire before it reached the timber laden forest.

[skypilot]

18. I read the article...

...and it oozes coyness and disingenuousness. He defense of Gannon's John Kerry-as-the-first-gay-President article was particularly slippery. You don't have to call Kerry a pansy in the article for it to be homophobic. Gannon was appealing directly to the homophobia of Bush's base, the ones who believed that Kerry was going to legalized gay marriage and take away their bibles. Corn seems to ignore this.

[RBHam]

20. BINGO!

Operation Mockingbird has planted their agents on both sides of the political divide.

[RBHam]

19. Corn is an Operation Mockingbird "gatekeeper" of the Left...

His laughable attempts to smear the "9-11 conspiracy theorists" clued me in on this duplicitous jack ass.

[Must_B_Free]

22. I wouldn't even let David Corn hang out in my turd

he has always been a left basher

[BrklynLiberal]

27. I have had my reservations about him for a while..something just did not

sit right. Too many of his articles WERE left-bashing.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

24. David David David.

"Bloggers have made much of his apparent effort to earn a buck as a prostitute for men. This is not gay-baiting, they say, it's hypocrisy. The question is, hypocrisy on whose part?"

Uh, maybe because that would be illegal, and raises questions of blackmail. Why wasn't he properly vetted by the WH when Congress denied him a press pass?


"Bloggers should think hard when they complain about standards for passes for White House press briefings."

Really?


"Nation Magazine founded 1865."

David Corn founded about the same time as the rest of us.

[trumad]

25. I read the Corn piece this morning and he blew it right off the bat

by indicating that Talon and Gannon pretty much had a right to be in the press conf. Problem is, Gannon was in the press conferences before Talon was invented.

[deacon]

26. Well, if Korn can't be out there risking to get to the truth, then he is

no better than gannon as a "reporter."

[gulfcoastliberal]

28. Corn is a sack of shit.

Let him defend Gannon. He shows his true colors.

[Octafish]

30. Corn also said there's nothing too suspicious about 9-11...

...especially when it comes to the non-role played by Bush Inc.

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=66

Perhaps Corn's been compromised by a rent-boy? If so, it's likely more journalists similarly are "good friends" of Guckert. That may be the ultimate goal of Rove's mole in the press corpse.

[Tinoire]

34. Total turd Bush Apologist for 9-11

He went after the authors of the book "Forbidden Truth" also calling them "conspiracy theorists" :wow: (I posted the author's response to him below). Back in the 80's he attacked Oliver Stone's movie JFK saying that the official line from the government was the truth. Anytime the official line needs defending from the Left, there's David Corn. I'm pretty disgusted. Honestly, because of your thread, I found out some things about him I didn't know and am even more disgusted than I first was. I'm glad you started this thread. Has he gone after Michael Moore yet?

Right after Corn went after Ruppert, the Bush administration dispatched him to oil-producing Trinidad, on an all-expense paid junket, to teach their journalists about "investigative reporting".
Somethings about this guy totally stink.

I had been dispatched to Trinidad by the U.S. State Department to conduct a two-day seminar on investigative reporting for local journalists (your tax dollars at work!)
http://www.alternet.org/story/11893

Corn is an unabashed apologist for the Bush Administration and the intelligence community. You know what his bottom line is about 9-11? Hold on to your chair:

the only alternatives that should matter are those that are demonstrably true. With that kind of reasoning it's no wonder he went after Cynthia Mckinney for peddling "unproven conspiracy theories."


In a March 1 column, Corn detailed the e-mail he has received alleging government involvement in 9/11. “I won’t argue that the U.S. government does not engage in brutal, murderous skullduggery from time to time,” he wrote. “But the notion that the U.S. government either detected the attacks but allowed them to occur, or, worse, conspired to kill thousands of Americans to launch a war for oil in Afghanistan is absurd.”
http://www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/analysis/2002/0524oil.htm
===

by David Corn

On March 25, during a Pacifica radio interview, Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat, said, "We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11.... What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?" McKinney was not merely asking if there had been an intelligence failure. She was suggesting--though not asserting--that the US government had foreknowledge of the specific attacks and either did not do enough to prevent them or, much worse, permitted them to occur for some foul reason. Senator Zell Miller, a conservative Democrat from her state, called her comments "loony." House minority leader Dick Gephardt noted that he disagreed with her. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer quipped, "The congresswoman must be running for the Hall of Fame of the Grassy Knoll Society." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called her a "nut." Two months later, after it was revealed that George W. Bush had received an intelligence briefing a month before September 11 in which he informed told Osama bin Laden was interested in both hijacking airplanes and striking directly at the United States, McKinney claimed vindication. But that new piece of information did not support the explosive notion she had unfurled earlier--that the Bush Administration and/or other unnamed parties had been in a position to warn New Yorkers and had elected not to do so.

(snip)

I learned this after I wrote a column dismissing various 9/11 conspiracy theories. I expressed doubt that the Bush Administration would kill or allow the murder of thousands of American citizens to achieve a political or economic aim. (How could Karl Rove spin that, if a leak ever occurred?) Having covered the national security community for years, I didn't believe any government agency could execute a plot requiring the coordination of the FBI, the CIA, the INS, the FAA, the NTSB, the Pentagon and others. And--no small matter--there was no direct evidence that anything of such a diabolical nature had transpired.

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=66

===

David Corn Defies Logic!

Paris

David Corn alleges that our book makes a "theory" of the events leading up to the September 11 attacks, distorts reality and shows little or no evidence to confirm our assertions.

For the author, the world seems divided between those gallant fellows pursuing the truth (David Corn, I guess) and those running conspiracy theories. This simplistic and Manichean view does not reflect the nature of our work and would usually deserve no comment from me, except when such an irrelevant article emanates from such a well-known organization.

I don't know the author, nor his credentials to write on these issues. The fact is that most of the issues he raises are currently under scrutiny of the Special Investigation Committee of the US Congress and they've been investigated by the United Nations several weeks ago. I have too much respect for the work of these authorities to think they may investigate "conspiracy theories."

Regarding the handling of investigations involving Saudi Arabian individuals and entities, I spent five years working on these networks and tracking Al Qaeda assets. I was the first to write an extensive report on Al Qaeda financial networks for the intelligence community. This study was given by the French President Jacques Chirac to President George W. Bush in September 2001 and has been responsible for the closing of several so-called Islamic charities that happened to financially support Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. My experience and the high level contacts I had with the FBI disqualifies the doubts and snide comments made by a nonprofessional on these issues.

(snip)

As a drunk diplomat makes bad diplomacy, political editors make bad international affairs analysts when they simply ignore the facts and try to view the world through their Manichean eyes.

I hope, at least, to have repaired this.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD
(Author of http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DJEAN-CHARLES%2BBRISARD&pg=3&sig=MuBTrncluAd-9Rf363-mFgervZI">Forbidden Truth - by Jean-Charles Brisard, Guillaume Dasquie)

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/07/14614.shtml


Here's David Corn defending the "official line once again as he responds to Brisard:



The book sidestepped toward its highly provocative assertion. But here is the essence of their argument about September 11:

"From February 5 to August 2, 2001, the United States engaged in private and risky discussions with the Taliban concerning geostrategic oil interests.... The suicide attacks of September 11 were the outcome of this initiative."

Ponder that statement. The authors are saying that negotiations--which they portray as secret talks between Washington and Kabul--led to the strikes of September 11. That would mean US Administration officials-- mainly from the Bush White House but also, it seems, from the Clinton White House--share blame for the attacks, that the United States, via these talks, needlessly provoked Osama bin Laden and his crew. This is hot stuff: The Bush Administration, driven by its fealty to Big Oil, causing the deaths of thousands of Americans.

(snip)

David Corn

[Jim Sagle]

31. Ahh yess...The Great Cornholio.

;)

[Catherine Vincent]

32. I think Gannon does read DU. He corrected the spelling in Corn's name.

From his blog:

"Somebody on the Left has some sense. My good friend David Corn of The Nation risks the scorn of his base with Problems with Gannongate."

[Tinoire]

33. Korn is a total POS, Tried to discredit Palast, Ruppert and Gary Webb

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1570262

==

He's gone after Mike Ruppert, Gary Webb and tried to discredit Palast for talking about Election Fraud.

Screw him. Progressive Californians will never forgive him for helping clean Pacifica of Progressives and trying to turn it into another boring, establishment loving, NPR.

temper tantrums against people like Ruppert.

"evidence to date is that the election results were not rigged but were produced by a flawed system" - David Corn

Screw him and anyone else who wants the public to believe that 9-11 happened just as Bush told us, that the elections weren't stolen and that the CIA wasn't running crack into this country. And screw him for trying to discredit & silence the antiwar movement as far back as November 2002.

==

Re: The September 11 X-Files http://www.commondreams.org /
views02/0531-03.htm

To David Corn and Common Dreams:

Your latest missive is surprising for its weakness. It deserves only the briefest of responses because, as an avalanche of information continues to demonstrate, the U.S. government did have foreknowledge of the attacks and there was an orchestrated effort to allow the attacks to occur. FBI Special Agent Robert Wright's recent press conference is but another brick in a wall that grows sturdier by the day. Time is on my side here.

I'll quickly pass over many of the erroneous points in your story to get to just a couple that warrant two or three sentences. Allen Dulles' old quip that "the American people don't read" has changed with the Internet and it will afford you no cover.

It's OK that you misrepresented my LAPD record by taking items completely out of context. My full LAPD record has been on my web site for months at www.fromthewilderness.com for the world to look at and see what you have done. I expect that from you.

It's OK that you misrepresent and state that I have hung the entirety of my credibility on the Delmart "Mike" Vreeland case. I have published 56 stories since 9/11/01 and only six of them have been about Mike Vreeland. I expect that as well.

It's OK that you state that I am not a reporter when you fail to mention stories like my investigative report of horrendous conflicts of interest regarding Attorney General John Ashcroft and two sitting federal grand juries where I conducted many interviews. It's OK also that you ignore all of the other reportage I have done since 9/11. I expect that too.

It's really not OK, however, that you state that I have misrepresented stories like a Feb. 13, 2001 story by UPI correspondent Richard Sale wherein I reported that court records indicated that the NSA had broken Osama bin Laden's secure encrypted communications. You wrote, "But in several instances he misrepresents his source material.

"... (T)he actual story noted not that the U.S. government had gained the capacity to eavesdrop on bin Laden at will but that it had ...gone into foreign bank accounts... and deleted or transferred funds, and jammed or blocked the group's cell or satellite phones.'"

Here is a direct quote from Sale's story which proves that your accusation is false: "The U.S. case unfolding against him in United States District court in Manhattan is based mainly on National Security Agency intercepts of phone calls between bin Laden and his operatives around the world - Afghanistan to London, from Kenya to the United States.

"... Fawwaz also provided satellite phones for other members of the bin Laden group, ...to facilitate communications,' the indictment said...

"On August 11, two days after the bombings were completed, bin Laden's satellite number phone was used to contact network operatives in Yemen, at a number frequently called by perpetrators of the bombing from their safe house in Nairobi.

"Since 1995, bin Laden has tried to protect his communications with ...a full suite of tools,' according to Ben Venzke, director of intelligence, special projects for iDefense...

"Since bin Laden started to encrypt certain calls in 1995, why would they now be part of a court record? ...Codes were broken,' US officials said..."

Is this the best that The Nation can do? With that in mind I'll conclude by saying that it is becoming increasingly clear to news consumers around the world that The Nation is serving and defending the interests of a corrupt and illegitimate government while my publication, "From The Wilderness" is truly concerned with the safety, well-being and empowerment of its growing readership. The marketplace is operating in a healthy capacity. It is also apparent that your actual knowledge of how covert operations work is as limited as your forensic abilities. For more than 20 years I have investigated many intelligence cases and I have dealt directly with principals in cases involving Edwin Wilson, Albert Carone, Dois "Chip" Tatum, William Tyree, "Bo" Gritz, Scott Weekly, Scott Barnes, Al Martin and yes, even your beloved Ted Shackley.

In the fall of 1999 two investigators from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence traveled to Los Angeles and copied 6,000 pages of my records. In the fall of 2000 two members of the RCMP National Security Staff - Sean McDade and Randy Buffam - came to Los Angeles, visited me and copied several hundred pages of files in my possession regarding Promis software.

If, at any time, you would like an instruction on how easy it would have been for the Bush administration and the intelligence community to have allowed the attacks of 9/11 to occur without involving massive numbers of people being consciously aware of it I will make the time. That is of course, if it really is your desire to arm the American people with the truth. As to integrity, let's see if Common Dreams has enough to publish my response. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Sincerely,

Michael C. Ruppert

Publisher/Editor

"From The Wilderness"

www.copvcia.com

www.fromthewilderness.com

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060402_corn.h...

On edit:

COPYRIGHT POLICY

All stories that are not in the "members only" section may be reprinted or redistributed for non-profit, educational purposes only.

Any story, originally published in From The Wilderness, more than thirty days old may be reprinted in its entirety, non-commercially, if, and only if, the author's name remains attached and the following statement appears:

"Reprinted with permission, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com, P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA, 91413. 818-788-8791. FTW is published monthly, annual subscriptions are $50 per year."

THIS WAIVER DOES NOT APPLY TO PUBLICATION OF NEW BOOKS.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/copyright.html

[oasis]

35. We need more investigative journalists such as Greg Palast. What the hell

is Corn trying to prove attacking those who speak truth to power? Hidden agenda?

[Al-CIAda]

37. Palast is a fearless patriot and truth teller. Corn is the false

opposition and corporate sponsored limited hang-out, go-to guy.