Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga
The Jeff Gannon story is still bouncing around the Internet, and
now there are pictures. The kind you shouldn't open up in the office.
The X-rated twist has made for a lot of clandestine clicking in a town
where Deep Throat conjures images not of a porn star but of a man in a
parking garage. But it has also deepened the debate over blogging and
the tactics used to drive a conservative reporter from his job as White
House correspondent for two Web sites owned by a Republican activist.
In most Beltway melodramas, the resignation ends the story. The problem
for Gannon, whose real name is James Dale Guckert, is that he told The
Washington Post and CNN's Wolf Blitzer last week that he never launched
the Web sites whose provocative names he had registered, such as
hotmilitarystud.com. But a Web designer in California said yesterday
that he had designed a gay escort site for Gannon and had posted naked
pictures of Gannon at the client's request. The latest developments
were first reported by John Aravosis, a liberal political consultant
and gay activist who has a Web site called americablog.org. "What
struck me initially was the hypocrisy angle," Aravosis said. He said he
was offended by what he called Gannon's "antigay" writing. Gannon
became a target of liberal bloggers after he asked President Bush at a
news conference last month a loaded and inaccurate question about how
he could deal with Senate Democrats "who seem to have divorced
themselves from reality. [more]
CONYERS AND SLAUGHTER SUBMIT FOIA REQUEST FOR HOMELAND SECURITY RECORDS RELATING TO JAMES D. GUCKERT A.K.A. JEFF GANNON. With
the story of faux reporter "Jeff Gannon" growing more bizarre and
salacious by the minute, at least two Members of Congress want more
information on how the conservative activist got clearance to cover
White House news conferences under a pseudonym. Reps. John Conyers
(D-Mich.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) sent a Freedom of Information
Act request Tuesday to the Department of Homeland Security seeking all
records pertaining to the Secret Service's decision to clear the
"reporter" into White House news conferences. "He is not a legitimate
journalist," Slaughter told HOH. "I think of all the legitimate
journalists who would love to have access to the White House. And he
gets in there with no clearance and is given access to private CIA
memoranda. This is devastating."[more] and [more]
