One additional point regarding the NYT article

The Washington Post did not "reveal" that Guckert had created escort sites, as the NYT reports. AMERICAblog.org revealed that fact, along with the help of DailyKos, Eschaton, World O' Crap and the blogosphere in general. While we appreciate the mainstream media finally focusing on this story, we'd appreciate the hardwork of the blogging community being credited appropriately. Read the rest of this post...

NY Times with Gannon/Guckert and Eberle...raises more questions

CORRECTION: We had earlier reported in this story that Dan Froomkin of the Wash Post reported that Gannon had been subpoenaed. In fact, Froomkin reported that White House records about Gannon were subpoenaed, NOT that Gannon himself was subpoenaed. Apologies to Dan Froomkin for that error.
-----------------

Ok, another interview with Jeff/Jim. My question for reporters who are interviewing him is: how do you know if he is telling the truth? He has different stories for different reporters. But on some level, that's okay. It keeps the story churning. And, have you noticed, the MSM really does seem to becoming more engaged. Could it be they smell a story?

That aside, Sunday'sNY Times article includes interviews with Gannon/Guckert and Bob Eberle from GOPUSA.

Eberle knew Jeff/Jim had two names, and thought, that despite his complete lack of journalistic experience, he did a fine job:

The operator of an activist Republican Web site and news service said Friday night that he had known for two years that his White House correspondent went by two identities.

But the operator, Robert R. Eberle, denied in an interview that the correspondent, Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James D. Guckert, was an administration plant or was given preferential treatment as a Republican partisan to ask soft questions at briefings.

Okay, before you read this next passage, ask yourself this: if you owned a website, and had a reporter working in the White House, would you pay attention once in a while to what said reporter was up to?:

Mr. Eberle, breaking his silence about details of the events, which have been portrayed by Democrats as a Republican effort to manipulate news, said it took him by surprise in early 2003 when the freelancer he had taken on as Jeff Gannon said he was gaining White House accreditation under the name James D. Guckert. "He said Gannon was his professional name; he didn't like the sound of his other name," Mr. Eberle recounted.

Mr. Eberle, 36, an aerospace engineer with a penchant for conservative politics, said the disclosure raised no red flags about Mr. Guckert's journalistic credentials or professionalism.

Mr. Eberle said that in the two years that Mr. Guckert worked for him, he had not kept track of his volunteer reporter.

Jeff/Jim weighs in again. I repeat my question from above. Do these reporters have any sense as to whether what he is saying is accurate? There have been some huge, let's call them "discrepancies," in Jeff/Jim's story to date. And this passage should convey to the White House Press Corps just what a joke is was that he sat among them:

Mr. Guckert, who wrote for the Gopusa.com Web site and its offshoot Talon News, agreed. In an interview on Saturday, he said had never even made phone calls to administration officials, not even to ask routine questions or clarify basic facts.

"My relationship with the White House and with Talon News was on the basis of a reporter and a reporter only. And all that, all of this other stuff out there that I was given favorable treatment, access to things - is absolutely, categorically untrue," Mr. Guckert said.

Jeff/Jim defends his journalistic technique:

Mr. Guckert said Saturday that he had no journalism experience before arriving at Gopusa, apart from working for his high school and college newspapers. Asked why he did not, in his function as a White House reporter, even try to interview White House officials, he said, "I thought there was a lot of meat that came out of the press briefings."

"You may say that lacks some kind of journalistic ambition," he added.

You might say that....among other things. Yet, this man with no journalistic talents or ambition somehow came up with a clever technique to interview Joseph Wilson. He denies seeing the Plame memo. He was just being a clever journalist, for a change:

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.

Funny thing is that Dan Froomkin reported in his "White House Briefing" Blog for the Washington Post on March 10, 2004 that records about Gannon had been subpeonaed, based on a report from Newsday:

Which of These Is Not Like the Other?

As Tom Brune reported last week in Newsday, the federal grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative has subpoenaed White House records on contacts with 25 journalists.

The list (low on the page) is full of familiar names: Columnist Robert Novak, of course, and MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Time's James Carney, The Post's Mike Allen, Newsweek's Evan Thomas.

And then there's Jeff Gannon of Talon News.

Back in the NY Times piece, there is another interesting tidbit in the article that confirms a connection exposed by RawStory.com earlier today:

Mr. Eberle said that he and some friends founded Gopusa out of his Houston home about five years ago and later created Talon News. They expanded by buying another conservative site called MillionsofAmericans.com.

That link,as Raw Story explains, connects Eberle right to the heart of the GOP. Every article about this story gives a few answers, but creates many, many more questions. Read the rest of this post...

SAT. EVENING OPEN THREAD

The Gannon story just keeps on giving. Lots of different details being worked over. Anyone getting on top of Negroponte yet? (No pun intended Jeff/James!) For background on Negroponte and his time in Honduras in the 80's, see this post. Read the rest of this post...

Be careful of misinformation...

Folks, just a word of caution to everyone on visiting our site, but also to the good folks working like dogs at DailyKos, World o Crap, and everyone else on this story. I'm starting to sense some disinformation coming our way, especially in the comments section of the blog. We've all finally captured the attention of the mainstream media and made this story a story. We've also captured the attention of the Bush administration and other GOP bad guys, and I suspect they're trying to feed us bad info so we jump on it, print it and thus they can try to debunk all of our good work.

All I'm saying is that I recommend everyone be doubly careful about sussing out any information you find, see printed, or receive before running it on your blog, emailing it around as truth, etc.

Everyone has done such great work to date, let's make sure we don't let these guys win at their dirty tricks. :-) Read the rest of this post...

The money trail

Interesting update from RawStory, lots of possible research leads here... Read the rest of this post...

Cuz it's time we applauded the MSM when they do good

(Thanks to Michael for sending this. BTW, I think this is a photo-shopped photo, it's not of a real rally, though there should be one.) Read the rest of this post...

Gannon didn't tell the truth about when he started using pseudonym

1. According to Editor & Publisher he began using a pseudonym in 2001:

He began using the [Jeff] Gannon name in 2001, while working in Pennsylvania to help a friend with a start-up business in auto repair, one of several jobs he said he'd had outside of journalism prior to coming to Washington.

2. He actually began using the pseudonym "Jeff" in 1999.

Gannon/Guckert started using the name "Jeff" by September 1999 at the latest. Gannon told Paul Leddy, the man who built his escort Web site, that his name was "Jeff," and several of the photos on the escort site are named variations of "Jeff.jpg." Also, an escort customer left a review on one of Gannon's escort sites stating that he hired "Jeff" in the winter of 1999 (the review was posted in July of 2000 and refers to the prior winter).

3. So why does Gannon appear to be hiding when he really started using the pseudonym?

4. Gannon told E&P; in the same interview cited above:

GANNON: I use a pseudonym, because my real name is very difficult to pronounce, to remember and to spell. And many people who have been talking about me on television have yet to pronounce it correctly.

But Guckert used the pseudonym "Jeff" with Paul Leddy, the Web developer, yet Leddy says Guckert never provided his last name. If Guckert only uses the pseudonym to make it easier for folks to pronounce, remember and spell his name, why was "Jeff" a better name than "James" to give the Web developer? Same question regarding Guckert using the name "Jeff" with his escort clients. Did he actually tell the escort clients his last name was Gannon, or did he stick with "Jeff," and if he stuck with Jeff, why did he use Jeff, as it's not any easier to remember, pronounce or spell, and that's the reason he said he used the name?

Not to mention, this doesn't answer the question of WHY he changed his first name at all. Anderson Cooper hit Gannon on this on CNN yesterday (Friday).

GANNON: I use a pseudonym, because my real name is very difficult to pronounce, to remember and to spell. And many people who have been talking about me on television have yet to pronounce it correctly.

COOPER: But I mean, your real name is James and you used the pseudonym Jeff.

GANNON: Yes.

COOPER: How is James so much harder than Jeff?

GANNON: No, no, I meant my last name.

COOPER: Well, your real last name is Guckert, and the pseudonym you used is Gannon.

GANNON: Yes. It's easier to pronounce, to remember and to spell.

First, Gannon isn't that much easier than Guckert - does Gannon have one n or two, and is it on or en? But more importantly, Jeff is not any easier to pronounce, spell or remember than James. Sure, his answer MIGHT work for Guckert, but it doesn't explain why he didn't just become James Gannon. His answer simply doesn't work for why he changed his first name. So why DID he change his first name? There could have been lots of reasons, maybe he just hated the names James. But he didn't say that. He said it was to make it easier to spell, etc., which simply isn't right.

5. Since he used "Jeff" as his male escort pseudonym, why didn't he change it when he went to cover the White House? If you were really looking to leave your hooker past behind, and wanted to work covering the White House of all places, who would keep using their fake hooker name while working in the White House? You'd either adopt a new first-name pseudonym, or revert to your real name (James). He didn't do that. He kept his hooker name at the White House. Why?

Something funny is going on with his pseudonym. Read the rest of this post...

GOP dirty tricksters trying to sabotage AMERICAblog

Well, isn't this interesting. Defenders of Gannon are now phoning people who post comments on AMERICAblog, they pretend to be me, and ask the person to stop posting on the forum. This happened to a good friend of mine who posts here (guys, get a clue, don't call a friend of mine and pretend to be me), and now it's happened to someone else.

First off, when you use a phone, there's an electronic paper trail. Second of all, when you pretend to be someone else, you're very likely bordering on a crime. If this story is so hot that Gannon's, and/or the White House's defenders, are feeling the need to try to sabotage this blog, well all I can say is thanks, and I'm posting this publicly so perhaps we can get another media story out of this.

In the meantime, folks, maybe you shouldn't post your full name to your comments, and be assured I'd never phone any of you.

One more point, this is pure Karl Rove. His MO is to contact people during a campaign and pretend he's representing the other candidate, then do something obnoxious. Good to know we're getting to them, and if any reporter wants the story, give me a holler. Read the rest of this post...

CBS on Rove-Gannon/Guckert and Thune-Gannon/Guckert

This is getting even more interesting....you have to read this piece.

Dottie Lynch from CBS writes a piece investigating links between Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon/Guckert:

Tired and timid are two adjectives never applied to Rove. The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 came through the ranks of college Republicans with the late Lee Atwater, and their admitted and alleged dirty tricks are the legends many young political operatives dream of pulling off. So when Jeff Gannon, White House "reporter" for Talon "News," was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career.

But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the "boy genius." Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon.

GOPUSA and Talon are both owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican and business associate of conservative direct-mail guru Bruce Eberle who says that Bobby is from the "Texas branch of the Eberle clan." Bobby Eberle told The New York Times that he created Talon to build a news service with a conservative slant and "if someone were to see 'GOPUSA,' there's an instant built-in bias there." No kidding.

This story is getting even better.

Lynch also writes at length about the Gannon/Guckert connection to Senator John Thune:

One of Gannon's first projects was an attempt to discredit the South Dakota Argus Leader, South Dakota's major paper, and its longtime political writer, David Kranz. According to the National Journal, which reported on this last November, Gannon wrote a series of articles in the summer of 2003 alleging that Kranz, who went to college with Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle, was not only sympathetic to him but was an actual part of the Daschle campaign. These articles then got a huge amount of play on the blogs of John Lauck and Jason Van Beek, and were picked up by other conservative sites and talk radio. The paper was bombarded with messages about its bias and acknowledges that these had an impact on its coverage.

Daschle opponent John Thune's campaign manager was Dick Wadham, an old political crony of Karl Rove's; the kind of pal Rove could ask to hire his first cousin, John Wood, a few years back. Wadham put the bloggers on the campaign payroll and the symbiotic relationship between the campaign, the bloggers and "reporter" Gannon” continued. On September 29, Gannon broke the story that Daschle had claimed a special tax exemption for a house in Washington and the bloggers jumped all over it. According to a November 17 posting on South Dakota Politics – a site that Van Beek, who has become a staffer for now-Sen. Thune, has bequeathed to Lauck – "Jeff Gannon, whose reportage had a dramatic impact on the Daschle v. Thune race (his story about Sen. Daschle signing a legal document claiming to be a D.C. resident was published nearly the same day Thune began to run an ad showing Daschle saying, "I'm a D.C. resident) has written an analysis of the debacle."

Daschle aides told Roll Call, "This guy (Gannon) became the dumping ground for opposition research." The connections are so strong that there is an FEC challenge which could be a test case on the limits of the use of the Internet in federal campaigns.

Gannon also had Thune on his radio show "Jeff Gannon's Washington," and the White House correspondent for Talon became touted as the "resident D.C. expert on South Dakota politics" by the bloggers. Thune and Wadham (who has been hired by aspiring White House Republican Sen. George Allen) have become go-to guys on the use of blogs in campaigns. Thune was cited in The New York Times as introducing "Senators to the meaning of 'blogging,' explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion."

John Thune now has the distinction of being elected with the help of a guy who was simultaneously advertising his services as a male escort. How are those for South Dakota family values? Read the rest of this post...

SAT. AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD

Once again, thank you Tivo, because I just watched Real Time with Bill Maher from last night. Leslie Stahl talking about Jeff Gannon. Joe Biden talking about Jeff Gannon. Robin Williams talking about Jeff Gannon. Tommy Thompson talking about NOTHING and just sitting there. The show was hilarious and amazing all at the same time. I'm working on getting a transcript. Anyone else catch the show? Read the rest of this post...

The Bushes Heart Clinton

This article is going to make the freepers and the other right-wingers even crazier than they already are. The NY Times is reporting that both President Bushes have become very fond of Bill Clinton. 41 and 43 apparently really like the guy.

Former staff members said the friendship could offer political advantages for the Bush and Clinton families, softening the edges of a political rivalry, as Mr. Bush's son begins his second term and as Mrs. Clinton considers a run for president in 2008.

Former staff members also said the friendship seemed genuine and was ultimately not that surprising given that there are only five men alive who know what it is like to go through the crucible of the American presidency. At the end of the day, the staff members said, partisan differences were overcome by the power of that shared experience.

"It has its own little Outward Bound quality to it," Mr. Emanuel said.

The new warmth arises as President Bush and Mr. Clinton, who had little love for each other in the past, have grown closer.

"Frankly, President Bush likes Clinton a lot," Roland Betts, a close friend of the president, said. "He says he thinks he's a terrific person. He's not judging his administration. He just likes being around him."

Mr. Betts, who made those remarks in an interview in December, added in a brief interview this week that in his view the current president and Mr. Clinton were charismatic people and that they "saw a little bit of themselves in each other, and they liked it."

This article is pretty funny, actually. It's the great Clinton/Bush lovefest.

But imagine how the right wingers are handling this. Clinton has befriended not only the father, but the son. Ms. Bumiller's story couldn't be better timed. There's been a big conservative conference taking place in Washington for the past couple days. (CPAC which, I am sure, is an abstinence only event.) They will love knowing these guys are all chummy.

And, after all, this was the week where 43 said he would consider raising taxes, just like his daddy. Read the rest of this post...

Follow the Money

Memo to the MSM:

"Follow the Money" was the term used in a White House Scandal thirty years ago. It came from a source named "Deep Throat" (not related to the porn movie, although this current Gannon/Guckert scandal has elements of that, too.) "Deep Throat" helped two young, inquisitive, enterprising reporters break open the story. They followed the money. They became very famous. Wrote books and movies. I mean, really famous. You may have heard of Watergate....it really was a big scandal. Actually, the reason some in your ranks call this Gannongate comes from that...get it?

The bloggers, who many of you in the MSM disdain, have done a lot of leg work for you in this story. Now, it's time for someone to Follow the Money in the Gannon/Guckert affair.

Clearly, someone was paying Jeff Gannon to be in the White House. Who? (And for this one, don't settle for an answer from Jeff....he hasn't been really completely accurate for some of your colleagues.)

Who funded GOPUSA/Talon News?

Did Jeff/Jim get paid by any campaigns or campaign committees? Lots of work was done for John Thune who was, in fact, paying bloggers.

Jeff, as a patriotic, god-fearing, country-loving, conservative American, MUST have been paying taxes. Wouldn't it be something to see his tax forms for the last few years?

GOPUSA is based in Texas. Its leader was a delegate for Bush to the GOP convention in 2000. How did GOPUSA get off the ground? Who funds that organization?

These are just a couple ideas. See, the point here, in case it's not clear, is that there is a lot of this story still untold. But, if you FOLLOW THE MONEY, it may just lead to some answers. Read the rest of this post...

Morning open thread

Chat away Read the rest of this post...

More on that Washington Post interview with Gannon

I had to get up early today to go to an event, and boy that interview got my blood moving.

1. His past. The escort profiles soliciting clients are still live, Jeff. You say once something is on the Internet it's always there. We're talking about LIVE profiles you have up. They're only "always there" if you choose to leave them live. This is ridiculous.

2. We're "abandoning our principles" by going after you? Don't lecture me about principles, Mr. Anti-gay by day, and gay-for-pay at night. You worked for anti-gay bigots, sucked up to an anti-gay president, helped him get re-elected, and expect us to, what, thank you for it?

3. "Every day I learn about another site where there are allegedly pictures of me." Ok, see, here you're lying again Jeff in pure Clintonian style. What "other sites" are you talking about? I've posted links to 8 Web sites, all definitively linked to the same escort Jeff/Bulldog in DC. You're now giving quotes to the Washington Post suggesting that these sites are not yours.

4. Valerie Plame. You didn't have the document, you never saw the document, it was written about in the Wall Street Journal. Nice. But you never told Howard that the WSJ is how YOU knew about the doc. Sure, it was IN the WSJ, but is that how YOU found out? You never told Howie in the article that no one ever TOLD you about the document. Again, parsing parsing parsing.

5. Gannon could "sense" the attack on Iraq was coming? The person I interviewed said Gannon told them that the president was going to speak to the nation in four hours to announced we were attacking Iraq. Pretty damn good "sense" he's got - he even accurately predicted the exact time the president was going on TV.

6. "People criticize me for being a Christian." What?

Clueless, clueless, clueless. The man has learned NOTHING over the past two weeks. He regrets nothing. And I was actually feeling sorry for him until now. Read the rest of this post...

Conservatives whining at talk of tax hike

Complain now, but where were these protests when Bush started to blow the bank? Tough luck but you can't have it both ways. Read the rest of this post...

Gannon/Guckert talks to Wash. Post (and so does Aravosis)

Today's Washington Post has the latest interview with Guckert (damn, that is so hard to write, he should come up with an easier name.)

Titled "Jeff Gannon Admits Past 'Mistakes,' Berates Critics," the first couple paragraphs set the tone:

Jeff Gannon, the former White House reporter whose naked pictures have appeared on a number of gay escort sites, says that he has "regrets" about his past but that White House officials knew nothing about his salacious activities.

"I've made mistakes in my past," he said yesterday. "Does my past mean I can't have a future? Does it disqualify me from being a journalist?"

Gannon chastised his critics, breaking a silence that began last week when liberal bloggers disclosed his real name, James Dale Guckert, and a Web page, which he paid for, featuring X-rated photos of himself. "Why would they be looking into a person's sexual history? Is that what we're going to do to reporters now? Is there some kind of litmus test for reporters? Is it right to hold someone'
s sexuality against them?"

Boy, Jeff/Jim/Gannon/Guckert sounds angry. He just doesn't get it. Fortunately, Kurtz also interviewed John Aravosis, who, I believe, is probably one of the critics that Jeff is berating:

John Aravosis, a gay activist who posted the pictures of Gannon on his Americablog.org, said the issue is not Gannon's right to be a journalist but his "White House access. . . . The White House wouldn't let him in the door right now, knowing of his background."

Aravosis said Gannon is guilty of "what I call family-values hypocrisy. Basically, he's asking the gay community to protect him when he attacks us."

Thanks, John, for explaining it so succinctly. Basically, Jeff/Jim was having a great time bashing gays for the past couple years right along with the other haters at Talon/GOPUSA. (Note to Jeff/Jim, as a homo, they really hate you,too) Now, he's the victim. These right-wing bullies HATE it when someone punches back. For too long, they have been unchallenged. Well, kids, the rules have changed. Tough for you, Jeff. You can't play with the gays at night (or make them pay you by the hour or the weekend), then bash them by day. Doesn't work that way anymore.

As the Post article makes clear, Jeff is on a mission to clear his name and make everyone feel sorry for him. What a joke. He also denied any White House links:

Suggestions that White House officials coddled him or gave him special access are "absolutely, completely, totally untrue," Gannon said, adding that he was often among the last to be called on at press briefings and sometimes could not ask a question at all. "I have no friendships with anyone there. . . . The White House, as far as I know, was never aware of the questions about my past."

Don't you really feel like you can believe Jeff/Jim now? All of us, including journalists, should be very wary of everything he says. He doesn't have a track record of being exactly accurate as Wolf Blitzer learned last week and Editor and Publisher learned yesterday:

Asked this afternoon about reports that he was scheduled to appear on the Anderson Cooper's CNN show tonight, he denied it strongly. One hour later, a CNN spokesman told E&P;, "He's taping it right now."

Read the rest of this post...