Jeff Gannon: I Knew McClellan Better Than Anyone
The big dogs in teh GOP propaganda apparatus are going after Scott McClellan with all guns blazing today. Even Jimmy Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) has checked in with some reminiscence of his time in McClellan’s White House press corps, apparently with the full attention and blessings of Fox News.
The smear campaign against former Minister of Propaganda Scott McClellan continues in full fury this morning.
On Faux Friends this morning, anchor Gretchen Carlson opined:
Scott McClellan better not have any skeletons in his closet. I hope he didn’t do anything that he doesn’t want the world to know about because we all have, and all of his secrets are going to be coming out.
That seems like a rather overt threat to me. There have been, eh, rumors about McClellan’s sexual orientation since former White House press room rentboy James Guckert / Jeff Gannon was outed in 2005. Late yesterday evening, Guckert posted in his own blog:
What I hear about the book does not sound like the Scott McClellan I knew for two years. I can say without fear of contradiction, that I knew Scott better than any other White House correspondent or Washington reporter…
Let’s not forget that Guckert / Gannon was up to his hips in the Plame affair. And one of the most profound revelations from McClellan was on his allegedly being kept in the dark on Plame. So, perhaps we can start to connect the dots on the direction that the anti-McClellan smear campaign is heading.
McClellan’s been subjected to some scathing interviews this morning. He’ll also be appearing on Countdown tonight, and that might be some “must see TV”, although Olbermann has a bit of a history of pulling his punches in interview situations such as this one. I’m not sure that we’ll learn anything new. But the point is, the right wing attack dogs are once again going after the messenger, not the message. That’s been their modus operandi as they’ve attacked books from the likes of Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke.
It’s clear though, that the right wing muckrakers are on the prowl, and will certainly destroy Scott McClellan before this verbal shooting war comes to an end. There seems little question at this point that he’ll be a Fredo-style casualty of the Bush Crime Family.
I hope Scottie has made his fortune already, because he won’t be able to get a job toasting bagels at a terrorist lovin’ Dunkin Donuts franchise when the political smoke clears.
Update: Here’s an interesting thought from the feedback to this posting on Buzzflash.net: would the Bush administration really want to drop the Gannon bomb on Scottie? That would seem to be the nuclear option, with significant potential for mutually assured destruction. Jimmy Jeff’s hooks go pretty deeply into the White House. I’m not sure that the White House velvet mafia really wants to go there and ressurect that particular dead horse. Check out this comment from below.
Has “manwhore” James Guckert demanded a retraction yet?
Their desperation to destroy Scott McClellan will be seen for what it is, I’m sure. Meanwhile, we get to see the ugly cat fight in all its glory.
Oh, great stuff, Richard!
In the late 1980s I was a reporter with White House press credentials. When the Guckert scandal broke, I carefully read the details. I was incredulous, and still am, at both the official explanation and the White House press corps’ refusal to delve into the story.
Today’s credentialing procedures are the same as they were 20 years ago. First, a reporter gets credentials on Capitol Hill through a process controlled by the media itself. You have to work a certain number of hours (I believe it’s at least 20 a week) for pay with an independent media outlet. Once you have a congressional pass, you apply for a White House pass. It involves an FBI background check and further verification of your news organization’s status.
Guckert was refused congressional credentials because he didn’t work enough hours, and because his employer was not an independent outlet but was a partisan lobbying group. Without a “Hill Pass,” as they’re called by reporters, he wasn’t eligible to even apply for White House credentials. Therefore, to get into the White House, he had to use “day passes” granted through a separate process managed by the White House political office.
Day passes are generally one-shot deals, but Guckert used 200 day passes that were granted directly by the press office. I can’t possibly overemphasize how irregular this is. It screams foul play. Not only that, but Secret Service records showed Guckert having been admitted on several occasions at night, and not checking out until the next morning. Hello?
This never, ever would have happened in the late ’80s, let alone after 9/11. The White House was locked up tighter than a drum when I was a reporter there. People don’t get in by mistake. Same goes for Guckert’s first-name basis at press conferences, and his admission to special, small-group events with Bush, and for Bush’s having called on him at a nationally televised briefing. Those things never, and I repeat never, happen except by orchestration. NEVER
The Guckert story was mentioned a few times in the Washington Post and the New York Times, but always in brief and always on the inside pages. The Post’s guy, Howard Kurtz, went out of his way to minimize it. The Wall Street Journal never mentioned it, nor to my recollection did the L.A. Times, USA Today, or any network news show except for NBC, and then only once.
I might add that Guckert’s access to the White House began with Ari Fleischer, not Scott McClellan. I predict that none of this will be pursued now. Someone is being protected. Not sure who, but a bunch of people are in on it, including the White House press corps.
The rumors about him go back much further than his time in the White House…
It’s important, however, to also remember that Jeff is known for exhibiting both delusions of grandeur and kinda hammy attention-seeking behavior. I always thought he had an inflated sense of self-importance to say the least.
Let’s not forget that Guckert / Gannon was up to his hips in the Plame affair.
Really? The Times actually reported that, but later backpedaled:
Mr. Guckert denied seeing a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. operative, even though he had strongly insinuated as much in an interview with her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, the transcript of which he posted on the Internet.
Mr. Guckert’s phrasing in that interview so strongly suggested he had seen the classified memorandum that it brought F.B.I. officials to his house as part of the Plame leak investigation, he said. But he said referring to the memorandum as though he had seen it was merely an interview technique. “What I said was no more than what was reported in The Wall Street Journal a week before,” he said.
If you can link to any evidence supporting your assertion, I am sure we would be fascinated to see it.
Even the Kos press release announcing their work on Guckert hedged their bets on the Plame link; my emphasis:
The researchers at DailyKos discovered another issue that *suggested* close coordination with the administration. According to the Washington Post, Guckert *may* have had access to a leaked internal CIA memo which revealed the identity of Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife, then an undercover CIA operative. In fact, because of his *possible* tie to the leak, Guckert was one of a small number to be subpoenaed to testify in the federal grand jury investigation into the matter.
Hmm, no ‘Preview’ function. Well, Preveiw is for sissies…
So I’ve heard, SFOtter. Still, they are still rumors until Jeff Gannon tells the whole world. Then how many Republicans woudl believe Scotty? Wo are they going to believe, a gay man like Scotty or a big strapping President who likes manly things like getting drunk and playing cheerleader? They’ll go with Bush.
I really don’t think they’re going to go further with it. I saw that Fox News briefly threatened to de-closet McClellan, but they know if they did it then the whole Guckert story would come out and it would damage Bush in a big way. Not that George W. was doing the nasty with the guy, but having this stuff going on at the White House would take care of what’s left of the Republicans. That’s not something Fox will do.
The Democrats aren’t going to go after it because gay sex scandals have a way of tainting whoever mentions them. The not-Fix media won’t go after it for the same reason. They’re okay with “Will & Grace” and even a dry topic like gay marriage, but an expose of a rentboy in military fatigues doing it with senior White House staff? Too squeamish for that, I’d say. Plus you never know where it ends up. I suspect Jimmy Guckert has lots of tales (and tails) to tell if need be. The big surprise to me is that the kid is still alive.