"Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the US economy . . . [Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" (Actually, Rush Limbaugh had lampooned Reid's position with the phrase "soup lines"; Reid never said it.)

"Since there have been so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"

Now I don't get all exercised about the fact that the guy "has virtually no journalistic background," as the Globe does. There isn't much to be said for having such a background. In fact, not having one might free a person to ask the questions that "real" journalists would be afraid to ask. Gannon, unfortunately, chooses to use his lack of journalistic background to ask questions that the White House could very well have scripted for him.

As a matter of fact, it appears that much of Talon News's "news" is written by the White House. Reports the Globe: "many of the reports Gannon filed for Talon News 'appeared to be lifted verbatim from various White House and Republican political committee documents.'"

Perhaps Talon would like to change its name to Pravda.