*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

In today’s Washington Post ombudsman column, “Covert Question, Open Controversy,” Deborah Howell says, “Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece, critical of the Bush administration's use of intelligence, set off a chain of events that led to the disclosure of Plame's job.”

But information and testimony revealed during the course of the Libby Trial indicates that it wasn't Wilson's op-ed piece that set the off the chain of events leading to their disclosure of the CIA WMD analyst and her covert network. The Bush administration began its campaign to discredit Valerie Plame/Wilson at least a month prior to the release of her husband's article.

I can’t criticize Howell for her focus on the op-ed as the ball that got the campaign rolling. I, and most of the media, having been basically taking the same line in previous postings on this topic. Most of the writers on the CIA leak have been doing the same. Joseph Wilson’s book, The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity, takes the same tack: that the outing of CIA analyst Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, was retaliation for Wilson’s July 6, 2003, op-ed column, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.”

But when Wilson wrote his book, he did not have access to behind-the-scenes discussions about his wife now revealed through the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. Retaliation there was, in spades, but testimony and documents in the Libby trial demonstrate, unrefuted, that administration discussion of Mrs. Wilson began several weeks before Wilson’s column appeared.

The reasons why are still unclear, and the prosecution was not permitted to delve into ramifications of the leak. But that the administration was already targeting both Wilson and his wife, Valerie --- overseeing a crucial intelligence network monitoring WMD activity in the middle east --- is now beyond question.

So why, beyond Wilson's op-ed, was the Bush Administration previously so intent on discrediting one of its own CIA assets?...

Oh, the indescribable irony continues.

Former-hooker-turned-fake-journalist James "Jeff Gannon" Guckert responded (sort of) to a recent BRAD BLOG article referencing his White House "correspondent" fakery, as filed by our special Libby/CIA Leak Trial correspondent Margie Burns.

We failed to notice the response/obfuscation on his little blog when it was originally published since, frankly, the traffic from "Gannon's" site didn't trigger high enough numbers for us to take note of it in our "incoming traffic" hit-counter.

While we hate to draw any more attention to the silly, disgraced GOP operative, his presence in the White House briefing room --- dropping phony Administration talking points (or perhaps more precisely, Office of the Vice-President) during the early days of the CIA Leak revelations --- deserves notice and further investigation, in our opinion.

Also of note is the subsequent scrubbing of White House website documents referring to "Gannon's" questions at the time. That matter was also recently reported by Burns, and seems to be in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

Anyway, we'll make "Jeff's" day and send him a bit of traffic today by quoting the lead of his blog item, in which he knocks the irony meter off the chart by calling Joe Wilson a "proven liar," and even goes so far as to write (apparently with a straight face): "The search for truth is not a smear campaign, it is the essence of journalism."

Fifteen more minutes, then, for silly "Jeff":

You'll have to read the rest of his piece to see how Republi-journaloid "Gannon" doesn't actually bother to offer any actual "proof" for his case that Wilson is a "proven liar." But in "Jeff's" imaginary Fox "News"-based world, we suspect that simply saying something out loud --- like "we know for a fact that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons" or "the insurgency is in its last throes" --- is "proof" enough for him and the other Bush dead-enders still left out there.

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

Just prior to the 2004 elections, The BRAD BLOG revealed a number of embarrassing White House moments that had been scrubbed --- in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 --- from their website. Eventually, in the weeks just prior to the election, and after WaPo, AFP and other wire services picked up the story which broke here, they were forced to restore all of that information to the website. (Highlights from that series of reports here.)

Now it looks like they may be at it again.

Two years ago, I posted a piece at another web site on “Go ahead, Jeff,” i.e. Jeff Gannon, actually named James Guckert, at White House press briefings. The White House web site has a search function of sorts, usable given the exact name or phrase as a keyword. My search term in February 2005 was Scott McClellan’s phrase “go ahead, Jeff,” meaning – as Jeff’s sympathetic questions made amply clear – that McClellan was calling on mysterious White-House-press-pass person Guckert/Gannon, whose exact activities in the White House have yet to be clarified. I have tried to phone Mr. Guckert but probably have not gotten through.

The precise dates of those press briefings at which Mr. Gannon/Guckert had been explicitly called on, found at that time, were November 17, 2004; December 10, 13, 17 and 21, 2004; and January 10 and 25, 2005.

Now, belatedly running the same search this morning, I found further briefings with equally revealing questions posed by Mr. Gannon. However, the previous references to Gannon/Guckert appear to have been scrubbed...

Former homosexual male prostitute cum disgraced former White House correspondent, James "Jeff Gannon" Guckert has decided to ring in in support of Ann Coulter's recent posting of private information of a BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger on her website.

It's been three days since Coulter posted a personal email address and phone number of author and actress Lydia Cornell on the front page of her website. The petulant act by the Republican talking head was in apparent retaliation for an article written for BRAD BLOG by Cornell which described her experience in trying to track down a copy of a fundraiser address Coulter had given recently for the Alachua Florida Republican Party in which she called for the repression of free speech by Democrats.

Cornell has received myriad threatening emails and crank callers in the three days since Coulter posted her private information online. She has asked Coulter to remove it and Coulter has so far refused.

In support of Coulter's invasion of Cornell's privacy, Guckert/Gannon, a shill who had worked in the White House for GOPNews.com until his secret background as a prostitute was exposed, attempted to defend the Rightwing polemicist yesterday on his website by claiming:

Gannon/Guckert presented no evidence to back up his assertion. His reported presence at the White House more than two dozen times when no press briefings were scheduled --- as described in Secret Service documents obtained by RAW STORY --- has never been explained. Gannon/Guckert had no previous journalistic experience before being granted access as journalist to the White House.

Of course, The BRAD BLOG has never posted any such information, as claimed by Guckert/Gannon, but we checked in today with John Aravosis who was instrumental in uncovering the Guckert/Gannon scandal when it first appeared on his AMERICAblog website. He was the first to post links to Gannon's several military-themed gay escort websites (including MilitaryStud.com and MaleCorps.com) featuring full frontal nude photos which Guckert/Gannon had posted of himself online.

Aravosis, who followed the story as close as anybody, tells The BRAD BLOG that he's unfamiliar with anybody having ever published Gannon/Guckert's phone number, home address or medical records anywhere on line. Though he says that when he was alerted to a commenter at AMERICAblog having posted what appeared to be Gannon/Guckert's Social Security number in the comments section, he removed it immediately.

Aravosis strongly disagreed with Gannon/Guckert's claim. "We never knew where he lived. We still don't!" Aravosis told us. "We never had his phone number. Nobody did as far as I know. All the top journalists that I know of had to contact him by email since he never gave his phone number to anybody!"

"As to his medical records," he continued, "The only records we tried to find was his military records because he said he was a marine...and it turned out he was lying!"

Aravosis draws the difference between his work uncovering a phony journalist in the White House being "outed" by his own online websites featuring his own nude photos with what Coulter has done to Cornell.

"It's kind of creepy," he said, "posting someone's personal phone number. When I saw his Social Security number come up in comments, I deleted it immediately. But Coulter is purposely posting that information herself on her own website. I've never used anybody's home information...that's just creepy."

On her website today, Coulter claims she will be appearing tonight on Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor.

As Cornell pointed out in her initial public response to all of this, O'Reilly had slammed the Media Matters watchdog organization when he claimed they "violated privacy" by posting someone's email address online. Though the email address posted was a public email address, O'Reilly characterized those who would do such a thing as "zombies."

Thanks to the posters at Democratic Underground for alerting us to the latest chapter in this shameful saga. A discussion on this, and the continued unanswered questions concerning the Gannon/Guckert story is linked here.

O'Reilly will be hosting zombie, Ann Coulter tonight on Fox "News" at 8pm ET.

At the end of a fun read over at Watching the Watchers on "horrible fiendish cackling harpy" Ann Coulter's latest pile of self-serving venomous horsehit slash apology vis a vis the Gannon/Guckert Scandal, the good (though hard to type) ~A! picks up on a subtle shot that Fox "News" seemed to toss at the Right's favorite new whipping boy, Raw Story.

As ~A! noticed...

Why, ~A!? Because Raw is in the business of reporting news and, of late, they are doing it like no other site on or off the net. You'll note that Fox also took the time to link to faux "news" organization GOPUSA in their article as well. We suppose they'd hate for any of their reader/zombies to start noticing the difference between real news and Fox "News".

While you're watching the Watcher Watchers, you may also want to check out what they've uncovered from Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, whose great offering to history will have been his instructions to his GOP clients to use such words as "Death Tax" instead of "Inheritance/Estate Tax" when hypnotizing their zombies. Well, it worked. And the "Death Tax", along with many other clever turns of lexicographical trickery has made its way into the daily GOP parlance. Yes, language does matter. Especially to zombies.

And as our own aside, by way of reminder, we'll be panelling tomorrow (Sunday) at the Election Reform Teach-in in Santa Monica, with an esteemed group including Congresswoman Maxine Waters and a bunch of other Election Reform All-Stars. If you're local to So-Cal, and the rain has still stopped, come on out and say hey!

We'll be talking, amongst other things, about VR's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign the creation of which is just one of the too-many reasons we've had less time than usual to blog of late. We've quietly launched the VR DV4D campaign this morning and plan to plan to make quite a bit of noise about it this coming week.

But you, dear BRAD BLOGGERS, have heard about it before just about anybody else! So check it out, and send the bad guys a letter while you're there! You'll be glad you did!

More...as ever...later.

As mentioned in yesterday's only post, there are a number of items that are keeping me from blogging here as usual. The good news is, I'm making good progress, so hope to be back on the blog job soon. The bad news is, I'm still up against it for the moment, so blogging may continue to be slow-ish here for a bit longer.

So feel free to consider this another open thread...but I'll toss in a few of the latest notable Gannon/Guckert items:

Over. Out. And hopefully back soon...Oh, good luck to Dr. and Mrs. Yang who are being deposed today and tomorrow down in Florida! Anyone wanna go listen in and report back with notes? It's open to the public! Mrs. Yang is on at 9am tomorrow (Friday) morning!