Did Scottie know that Gannon's real name was Guckert or did he not?

[Goldmund]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000799881

That's a story that has him claiming he did not.

But I could swear that I had originally heard otherwise -- that Scottie said he DID know that Gannon wasn't his real name.

Am I wrong? Anybody else heard both claims?

[noamnety]

1. He was on the Plame subpoena list a year ago

Do you think given the publicity surrounding that, they wouldn't have looked into who he was? I guarantee they knew his name AND his connections.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0306-02.htm


In fact, I'll go a step further to say that if they didn't look into his background at that point, they were grossly negligent, and it raises a whole other set of questions.

[Goldmund]

4. You're preaching to the choir

I was referring solely to Scottie's claims -- it seemed like he gave two mutually exclusive statements.

[johnfunk]

2. Scottie's quite the adept liar and obfuscator - I would wager he did know.

Snott McClellan's White House Press Room: where truth can't get pass the "security screening.'

[Angry Girl]

3. Yeah, I remember that too. Here it is...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000799182
By Joe Strupp
Published: February 11, 2005 4:05 PM ET

Although Press Secretary Scott McClellan and others at the White House knew that Gannon was not his real name, they always referred to him by that name, he said in the interview. "My professional name is Jeff Gannon, and that is what people called me," he explained, adding, in an odd reference, "It is like Kirk Douglas, they do not refer to him when they meet him by his real name."

Dana Milbank said this, as reported in http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14148-2005Feb10.html:

"t is clear that Scott McClellan knew it wasn't his real name. He had to provide his real name to get into the White House. So here you have the press secretary of the United States playing along, addressing this guy by his pseudonym. So there was some degree of complicity, even if he wasn't granted, against White House rules, an actual hard pass. . . .

[Goldmund]

5. That's it -- thank you!