Akkam’s Razor

This diary from DailyKos highlights the strengths and weaknesses of online communities and organized activities. They are doing plenty of work, but there seems to be a lot of worker bees and drones, but no queen.

That being said, there are a plethora of interesting tidbits that are arising out of their work. I’m always amazed at how so much of the political noise the right generates can be traced back to an increasing small and tightly knit group of people. The DC Fishbowl also managed to do a little interview with him where he basically states that “Jeff Gannon” is a psuedonym. Wait, a guy who is in the press corp, asking questions, often on national TV, for a news network that recently sprung up, is operating under an assumed name?

Here’s the cliff notes.

Jeff Gannon (which may or may not be his real name) works for Talon News, and is a member of the White House press pool. His claim to fame is throwing softball style questions out to whoever is holding the press conference. Media Matters for America called him out after one of his columns turned out to be a near regurgitation of GOP talking points.

From there, the DailyKos community took off in a dozen directions at once. Plenty of shadiness regarding Gannon, Bob and Bruce Eberle (big GOP fundraisers and activists), the Liberty Institute (and their $50 Journalism Class), GOPUSA, the Freedom of Speech Foundation, the Time of Grace Ministries, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Nigerian Yellowcake Uranium, and much, much more…

Update: So far, TN has taken Gannon’s bio page down (cache). His blog, conservativeguy.com, gets stripped of info (archive.org)