SF Chron - Who is Jeff Gannon?

[RBHam]

LOBBING softball questions at White House press conferences is hardly a new phenomenon, but having them thrown by a pseudo-journalist with a sleazy background who mysteriously cleared security checks is. Add in the fact that reporter Jeff Gannon used a false name and his employer was a Web site called Talon News staffed almost exclusively by Republican activists and you have the whiff of a scandal.

Whether Gannon, whose real name is James D. Guckert, was a White House "plant'' may never be known because officials in the Bush administration have taken great pains to distance themselves from the controversy. But passive denials only increase the lack of credibility to explanations of how the White House credentialed Guckert, even though he was representing a pseudo-news operation, using an alias and was linked to X-rated Web sites.

Gannon was given enviable access to the White House press room nearly every day for two years and often was called upon by officials, including President Bush himself. If the White House decided to look away because it could count on Guckert to cozy up to the commander in chief with hard-hitting questions like, "How are you going to work with (Democrats) who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" then the administration should respond to demands by some members of Congress to explain how a fringe "reporter" with a dubious past could so easily breach security.

not going away?...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/24/EDGJJBFG2M1.DTL

[dutchdemocrat]

1. Page B - 8

Page B - 8

[EVDebs]

2. Speaking of reality, the SF Chronicle had a case waybackwhen

of military intel officer Michael Aquino from the Presidio who could have been the 'template' for this Gannon/Guckert scenario.

Plausible deniability through weird circumstance would be something an Operation Mockingbird payola scandal would need or, say, a domestic military PsyOps wartime disinformation campaign. It keeps the money flowing to DoD who can really use it now since they lost $2.3 trillion (CBS News' 'War on Waste' article quoting Rummy).

They just gotta have more for the war machine and can't have Dems 'divorced from reality' mucking that up you know.