The Dean of Dirt

Gannon/Guckert is the new Monica Lewinsky

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, February 24, 2005.

Originally I'd wanted to write about the ascendancy of Howard Dean as the leader, driving force and public face of the Democratic Party. I had wanted to explain why this is a good thing — good, that is, if you believe a two-party system can still be rescued from this corporate war-state of America. In the parlance of the alcoholic, the Democratic Party bottomed out over the past four years. It woke up on the morning of March 20, 2003, hungover and unable to remember what it had done the night before … until family members explained how it let George W. Bush get his illegal Iraqi war on. Rather than standing up to the most corrupt, mendacious and malicious regime in American history, Democrats chose to keep drinking on the taxpayers' tab.

Beyond simply disappearing or becoming Republican, as per our own Joe Lieberman, the party couldn't go any lower. Once it hit bottom, the Democratic rank-and-file sought help, turning to Harry Reid — who, though no flaming progressive, has shown more backbone in the past five weeks since being picked Senate minority leader than Tom Daschle did in five years — and to Howard Dean. A lot of ground has to be made up, and quickly. The race is on for the midterm Congressional races in 2006 (isn't there a real Democrat who can take on Lieberman in the primary?). Judging from his enemies, Howard Dean may be the only one left, of any political stature, who can pull this off. If you can judge a man by those who attack him, Howard Dean has all the right enemies. Just in the past week, he's been slimed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Cokie Roberts and Ken Mehlman.

With that said — and a wish to pursue this positive development in a later column — something else has reared its ugly head that demands to be addressed. It, or he, goes by the alias "Jeff Gannon," though his real name is Jim Guckert. Jeff/Jim is the new Monica Lewinsky. That is, he possesses no discernible talent, no professional experience, and no legitimate venue (a Republican Party-funded website called Talon News) and yet he's intimate with the president.

Guckert/Gannon resigned from his so-called "news service" job on Feb. 8, after the fact that he was using an alias became public. It was also shown that he had been denied a press pass at Capitol Hill because his identity could not be properly identified. Somehow, however, the White House granted him one. It has also emerged that naked pictures of Gannon have appeared on gay escort sites, where he advertised his services at $200 a hour.

What separates Jim/Jeff from the rest of the pack of media whores is that HE REALLY IS A WHORE. Yes, as in male prostitute. As in, he has sex with men for pay, while also being a valued Republican press, ahem, orifice. Daily for the past two years, Jeff/Jim has attended press conferences in the White House and is one of the "journalists" favored by George W. Bush.

Don't look away from this, America. Don't shrug your shoulders and call it, as Ari Fleischer used to say about every breaking scandal, a "partisan fishing expedition." This is not partisan. This is The Manchurian Candidate in a G-string. This is a veritable golden shower of high crimes and misdemeanors. Why?

You might recall the name Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent whose expertise was weapons of mass destruction.

As I put it in my Jan. 8, 2004 column ("Watergate Redux"), the leak of her identity "served as nasty political revenge against Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who would not take the fall for the claim that Saddam had received uranium from Niger. Nonetheless, those claims became the pretext for an invasion of a nation that posed no imminent threat to our nation, in violation of every international treaty or code of conduct to which we have ever subscribed … There's a criminal loose in the White House, a person (or persons) so dangerous that they would jeopardize national security for short-term political gain."

"Jeff Gannon" might be one of those people. Or, then again, he might just be one of those people's, ahem, handmaidens. Either way, he's one of the "journalists" to whom Plame's name was leaked and who, in turn, attacked Wilson. "Jeff Gannon" also knew about Bush's plans to invade Iraq four hours before Bush announced them in March 2003.

There is something so loopy and inexcusable in all this, something that doesn't just besmirch the dignity of the White House but administers a golden shower on the Constitution.

Who is "Jeff Gannon" and why is he pissing on us?

This is beginning to piss me off.

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reprinted from The Hartford Advocate