The tale of the conservative journalist who quit after a slew of questions about his background were raised by liberal bloggers has taken a new turn due to highly specific allegations and details just released by the blog Americablog.
GO HERE to read them yourself (WARNING: There are some adult photos and the links are reportedly quite explicit). The bottom line: Americablog’s John Aravosis, after much investigation and collaboration with his readers who helped with some details, has a post alleging that conservative journalist Jeff Gannon may have actually been a gay hooker named James Guckert who is all over the Internet (and he gives you the links plus photo comparisons of Guckert and Gannon).
Read it yourself. We won’t go into the details here, except to give you this part of Aravosis’ explanation as to why he contends this story is vital:
So in the end, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?
This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we’re talking about. It’s looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a “daily basis.” They reportedly made a decision to give him – one of only six – access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky – a tasteless episode, “inappropriate,” whatever. Monika wasn’t a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can’t find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?
None of this is by accident.
Someone had to make a decision to let all this happen….Who?Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy that is such a challenge to grasp in this story. This is the same White House that ran for office on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage…Who in the White House is at the center of all of this? Who allowed this to go on in the People’s House?
UPDATE: The allegations now get even WORSE. Raw Story reports on the same allegations as Americablog adding:
Some question whether Gannon may have leveraged a personal intimate relationship with someone at the White House to gain access to President Bush. Guckert also says he was given access to an internal memorandum which named then-covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Such leveraging of personal relationships have seen increased scrutiny after the resignation of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who admitted to having an affair with a male staff member.
Sources have intimated possible relationships with members of the White House staff.
And Raw Story names a specific, high profile Bush administration figure. NOTE: A reminder that these are still allegations.
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UPDATE II: This story is coming under fire from a lot of blogs, and not just on the right:
—Pennywit offers a detailed analysis, starting off with this:
Is there any sense of decency left on the Internet? If the latest Gannon-related allegations are any indication, then there truly, truly, is no sense of decency left on the Internet. In fact, I would go so far as to say that blogs are populated not by reasonable individuals, but instead by the very dregs of the politically aware, scum-sucking bottom-feeders who emulate the very worst practices of William Randolph Hearst, the dean of yellow journalism.
Read his whole post because he gets into ethical and legal issues here.
–Blogs on the right also offer their detailed criticism of the story. Wizbang’s Kevin Aylward says this story is hypocritical. There’s also criticsm here, here and here….and other places.
–It’s staunchly defended at other blogs, such as this and this.
UPDATE II: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is issuing a slew of denials. These include the fact that Talon News had political party links; that Gannon was a phoney name (he only learned that recently); and that he never talked with Gannon outside the briefing room or at social events.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.