- The White House press room has often been a cockpit of
intrigue, duplicity and truckling. But nothing challenges the most recent
scandal there.
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- The latest incident began with a sequence of questions
for President Bush at his January 26 press conference. First, he was asked
whether he approved of his administration's payments to conservative commentators.
Government contracts had been granted to three pundits, who had tried to
keep the funding secret. "There needs to be a nice, independent relationship
between the White House and the press," said the president as he called
swiftly on his next questioner.
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- Jeff Gannon, Washington bureau chief of Talon News, rose
from his chair to attack Democrats in the Congress. "How are you going
to work - you said you're going to reach out to these people - how are
you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from
reality?"
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- For almost two years, in the daily White House press
briefings Gannon had been called upon by press secretary Scott McClellan
to break up difficult questioning from the rest of the press. On Fox News,
one host hailed him as "a terrific Washington bureau chief and White
House correspondent". Gannon was frequently quoted and highlighted
as an expert guest on rightwing radio shows. But who was Gannon? His strange
non-question to the president inspired inquiry. Talon News is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of a group of Texas Republicans. Gannon's most notable article
had asserted that John Kerry "might some day be known as 'the first
gay President'".
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- Gannon also got himself entangled in the investigation
into the criminal disclosure of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie
Plame. Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent
by the Bush administration to discover whether Saddam Hussein was procuring
uranium in Niger for nuclear weapons. He learned that the suspicion was
bogus; appalled that the administration lied about nuclear WMD to justify
the Iraq war, he wrote an article in the New York Times about his role
after the war.
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- In retaliation, Plame's CIA cover was blown by administration
officials. Gannon had called up Wilson to ask him about a secret CIA memo
supposedly proving that his wife had sent him on the original mission to
Niger, prompting the special prosecutor in the case to question Gannon
about his "sources".
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- His real name, it turned out, is James Dale Guckert.
He has no journalistic background whatsoever. His application for a press
credential to cover the Congress was rejected. But at the White House the
press office arranged for him to be given a new pass every single day,
a deliberate evasion of the regular credentialing that requires an FBI
security check. It was soon revealed. "Gannon" owned and advertised
his services as a gay escort on more than half a dozen websites with names
like Militarystud.com, MaleCorps.com, WorkingBoys.net and MeetLocalMen.com,
which featured dozens of photographs of "Gannon" in dramatic
naked poses. One of the sites was still active this week.
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- Thus a phony journalist, planted by a Republican organisation,
used by the White House press secretary to interrupt questions from the
press corps, protected from FBI vetting by the press office, disseminating
smears about its critics and opponents, some of them gay-baiting, was unmasked
not only as a hireling and fraud but as a gay prostitute, with enormous
potential for blackmail.
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- The Bush White House is the most opaque - allowing the
least access for reporters - in living memory. Every news organisation
has been intimidated, and reporters who have done stories the administration
finds discomfiting have received threats about their careers. The administration
has its own quasi-official state TV network in Fox News; hundreds of rightwing
radio shows, conservative newspapers and journals and internet sites coordinate
with the Republican apparatus.
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- Inserting an agent directly into the White House press
corps was a daring operation. Until his exposure, he proved useful for
the White House. But the longer-term implication is the Republican effort
to sideline an independent press and undermine its legitimacy. "Spin"
seems quaint. "In this day and age," said press secretary McClellan,
waxing philosophical about the Gannon affair, "when you have a changing
media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is
a journalist." It is not that the White House press secretary cannot
distinguish who is or is not a journalist; it is that there are no journalists,
just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power.
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- - Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President
Clinton and author of The Clinton Wars
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416370,00.html
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