Gannon was getting into the White House using an assumed name ...

No he wasn't - he got day passes to the WH (not permanent credentials) under his real name. Gannon was just a pen name.

Um, he posted his photos on the web for all the world to see. You're acting - again - like this was his personal life he was trying to keep private. He wasn't just some software guy doing some job for some customers - they were his sites. He lied about that.

Again, if you're posting your goods on the web, seems to me that you've already given up a good measure of privacy regarding your private parts.

Myself, I'm not sure there's anything more to this than the tawdry angle, but acting all self righteous like you are doesn't seem all that justified.

Check out Americablog today for some pretty damning evidence that Gannon/Guckert is indeed a male prostitute, or at one time was one.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html

It doesn't concern you at all that not only did the White House give this guy daily access to the West Wing, apparently without any sort of background check at all, but that they also slipped him classified docs about an undercover CIA operative?

I'm a partisan Democrat, but I'd be outraged if the Clinton White House had pretend journalists roaming the halls asking slanted questions, while also renting their bodies out on the side. It would make me ask hard questions about who was running the President's staff, and why exactly they credentialed a prostitute. If someone in the White House also revealed an undercover CIA operative's identity to said prostitute, I'd be calling for heads to roll.

I have no idea why anyone would try to defend this at all.

Hal,

I'm acting indignant, not self-righteous. If I were acting self-righteous, I would be explaining how I would never do such a thing.

More to the point, even if the information was in the public domain, if it's not germaine to the topic at hand, I still think it's private information that doesn't need to be dredged up. I think it's wrong. Call me old-fashioned.

Ckrisz,

I'll play your silly game. Is it your position that gay people shouldn't be permitted into the White House, former prostitutes, or only former gay prostitutes? Do you actually have evidence there was no background check, because the White House says that he applied for his daily passes using his real name.

As I've said several times, there may be a story here regarding whether Gannon was some kind of right-wing plant, given Scott McClellan's calling on him by name and his service as a 'safe' questioner for the President. But suggesting he was a gay prostitute does two things: it raises an irrelevant point intended to titillate rather than illuminate, and it tends to undermine your argument since most social conservatives have extremely limited contact with gay prostitutes.

You want to pursue a relevant story, I'll be right there with you. But all I'm seeing right now is innuendo and smears. I have little tolerance for that silliness.

I stand corrected - indignant it is. As to whether it's relevant or not, there's a lot of interesting security issues here. And then there's the fact that it is this administration - and the right in general - that is pushing so very, very hard to ensure the second class citizenship and ensconce discrimination of this lifestyle into Constitutional amendments. Quite frankly, just this fact alone makes it amazingly relevant.

It's also hard to believe this guy didn't get special treatment - given the history of this tawdry affair. And coming on the heels of Bernie Kerick, it does speak to the rather amazing blind spot this administration has for people who are "on their side" in overlooking stuff that any background check would have found out in seconds.

I'd really hate to wake up one morning and find that terrorists had infiltrated and did some amazing amount of damage because simple vetting had not taken place because - well - because it's only democrats that get investigated.

Hal,

Sorry, not buying it. The fact that the Republicans treat people who agree with them differently from those who disagree with them might be interesting if it wasn't how everyone in the world treats people. Democrats will tend to overlook issues with other Democrats and Republicans will do the same for Republicans. I can see the headline now: "People Nicer to People Who Agree With Them!" Something tells me we won't be seeing that on the Times any day soon.

Nor does the fact that the Republicans tend to be harsher on gay issues somehow make someone's sexuality suddenly an issue. I don't know how you can possibly argue that. What's the premise: Republicans are bad for gays, so therefore any gay who is suspected of supporting Republicans should be persecuted for betraying his sexuality?

Um, no. It's not just that they're nicer. It's that people like Bernie - who are in bed with THE MOB - are pushed into head of the Homeland Security. It's the fact that someone who is literally within spitting distance of the president, who is an overripe security risk. I could go on, but I'm not sure what the point would be, seeing as how you don't distinguish between nice favors and outright cronyism and major security threats.

As to the later point you make, I'm not really sure where you pulled that one out of. First, he's being persecuted for being a prostitute, lying about it, getting special treatment from people who hate gays - much less gay prostitutes - and for being an absolute tool of this administration. Forget the nicy-nice questions, there's still the whole Plame memo.

But I guess outing an undercover CIA agent working on WMD issues isn't that big a deal either and is just another witch hunt into personal lives.

:)

"I'll play your silly game. Is it your position that gay people shouldn't be permitted into the White House, former prostitutes, or only former gay prostitutes?"

Finished beating your strawman? Note as well that the Americablog entry notes that a few of those male escort sites with Guckert's pic on it are still live and open for business. How about we just limit White House access for "prostitutes currently advertising services on the internet." Unless they're just taking the tour.

"Do you actually have evidence there was no background check, because the White House says that he applied for his daily passes using his real name."

See the above. Unless the White House disagrees with that limitation, of course. I'd love to see Scotty defend that one.

"But suggesting he was a gay prostitute does two things: it raises an irrelevant point intended to titillate rather than illuminate, and it tends to undermine your argument since most social conservatives have extremely limited contact with gay prostitutes."

It may titillate some, but it also illuminates a possible flaw with the way the White House allots press access and identity leaks of undercover CIA operatives. If Americablog can dig up this much info on Guckert in a few days, why can't the White House? It's not just that they're nicer to people who say they agree with them --- it's that they're totally blind to their rather glaring and obvious faults, like Kerik's mob connections and varied corruption allegations.

As for the idea that the Guckert-as-prostitute angle is undermined by social conservatives' lack of knowledge of gay prostitutes --- I doubt Scott McClellan or those approving Guckert's daily passes was aware of Guckert's websites a all. That's a big part of the problem. Hell, it'd be worse if they did know --- how incredibly stupid would it be for them to KNOWINGLY let a prostitute into daily WH briefings to ask questions of McClellan and Bush?

Andrew - are you sure you're not mistaking a certain schaudenfreunde (this that right) of the left that enjoys seeing the conservative gay-bashers being caught as hypocrites (i.e., it's okay to use gays if they serve our purpose) for what you see as a "gay prostitute scandle"? I don't think those of us on the left really care about his night-jobs other than it's really funny that, if he is associated with the WH, what a contradiction in terms.

If you look at the MSNBC video at Arms and Influence, I think you will admit there appears to be a very close relationship between "Jeff" and "Scott," and certainly asking those very biased questions and printing verbatim White House positions as "news" calls into question his journalistic ethics, if he had any.

Oh come on, is it so much of a sin to be in journalism and have conservative views? If this was about journalism it wouldn't be a story. It isn't a story at all without the "gay prostitute scandle" that certain members of the left are drooling over. Its insane. Yeah, the Whitehouse paying people to write stuff for them, that is crooked and I think everyone left and right condemn that. But this is so much of a stretch... I really can't understand why anyone wants to latch on to it. Besides, its such a dead story... the man quit. Its over, move on.

Hal,

You can go to my site's main page and do a search for Valerie Plame if you'd like to see my position on that issue.

Why someone should be persecuted for having been a prostitute or being treated well is beyond me. As for his lying, I suspect you have no evidence of that, given that the site referenced that you claim raises interesting security questions actually raises little more than a lot of innuendo such as 'gee, Gannon might have once been a gym teacher; do we want gay men as gym teachers?'

Crkisz,

Even assuming that Gannon is everything he's being accused of, I would prefer not to go down the road of giving the White House the authority to decide who are 'real' journalists and who can be excluded from press conferences because they're not legitimate.

J,

I've noted several times that the question of whether or not Gannon was a 'plant' is a legitimate one I have absolutely no objections to seeing people pursue. But that's not the avenue these people are going down. They're digging into details of the man's life that are nobody's business.

I'll try to explain this ins a way that even Andy can understand it.

Bloggers found out that Guckert was, as seems uncontrovertible now, hustling himself as a gay male escort.

Whether he had any clients or not, I don't know. Most probably he did, as his website was up and running for some time.

The White House, which has to approve all press pass credentials, seemed either to be obvliviou to this fact, or didn't care.

And, while the rightwing-o-sphere is now bitching about Russ Mokhiber, who is a leftwing polemicist that asks questions of scott McLellan, they seeem to miss the point that Russ, unlike Gannon/Guckert, never got to ask one of his questions of the President at a Prtime Time news conference.

Russ, as far as I know, is also using his own name, and is not (agains as far as I know) a male prostitute.

This does taint the White House, I'm afraid. Because it shows that when it comes toi standards and morality, they will do or say anything (literally as in the case of authorizing the use of torture), to get their propaganda points across, or execute their policies.

If that means looking a blind eye at a (former?) gay hustler who is now a rightwing "reporter" for a fly0by0night internet "news" site set up by the son of one of Bush's Texas politcal cronies, then so be it.

It's not like they care about honesty or anything.

And, Guckert's status is giving rise to all kinds of rumors. Just like the ones that surrounded Bill Clinton. Which, of course, nobody like Andy bitched about when the rightwing was sniffing around his jock.

So, deal with it. Bush and his whole administration are sleazeballs liars and corrupt arrogant assholes.

Just like Gannon/Guckert.

I'm touched you took the time to lay things out so clearly, Hesiod. Let me summarize: you hate Bush and this gives you more ammo, and whatever damage you do to Gannon is irrelevant as long as it allows you to rant about President Bush.

Andrew,

I agree 100%. I think this is an abuse of power on bloggers part. Nobody should revel in destroying someone--digging up the sordid details of someone's private life is so low. I was one of the only conservatives I know who was disgusted by the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal--lets just leave people's private lives alone and focus on real news... And I'd love to see someone prove that Guckert/Gannon was a White House plant, that would be interesting.

This whole controversary has been very interesting to me. Has anyone actually spoken about the security requirements for a daily press pass? I imagine that the only background check they perform for a daily press pass is to see if you have been arrested. How would the press react if they banned 'legitimate' reporters? How do you get nominated for a press pass? I am assuming (I went on whitehouse.gov but couldn't find any information) that the news organization decides who will be the corospondant (in other words you don't come in off the street but must be accredited).

If that is the case, how much say do we want the White House to have in the process? Do we want a world in which the White House can disapprove a reporters access because of a vague security problem? Do we want reporters to fill out SF86s? How should we deal with the new media? Is Talon News a real news source or a partisan spin machine? I don't know but who do we want to make that judgement...the White House?

:leave people's private lives alone and focus on real news...
Lets get real...
It's human nature, people will allways more interesting in 'dirty facts' of an public person, than on general news.

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