Who Gave the Presstitute Special Treatment?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know.

Nights in White House satin: The comings and goings of Jeff Gannon

Okay, maybe there's no scandal here. Lots of people, mostly tourists, visit the White House. But it does seem odd that Gannon was there at least 32 times on days when there were no briefings, or returned later in the day to the presidential mansion after a briefing. Seems he'd spend about an hour or hour and a half in the White House on these occasions. Or he'd be there for an hour or hour and a half before or after the briefings. I suppose that it could be shown he was there to consult with someone about what sort of questions he might raise in the next briefing, that could produce a small scandal. But the media hasn't really taken on the president's manipulation of reporters to date and protested and exposed it effectively.

The records also show days when Gannon checked in but never properly checked out, beginning in July 2003 or five months after he started his White House journalistic activities. This doesn't necessarily cry out "Scandal!" since lots of people have slept over at the Bush White House. But usually they're big fundraisers or family members. For someone like Gannon to be there, apparently sleeping over, on twelve different nights seems curious. Surely he had his own lodgings nearby. But after all, in his "reporter" capacity he was a friend of the administration and like Jacko says, friends often let friends sleep over. Dowbenko indicates that the president was in his house on all these occasions, but I imagine Laura and the Secret Service people were there too. Of course it is a big house, room for everybody and a degree of privacy even in these terror-haunted, well-monitored times.

White House, Secret Service Stories on Gannon/Guckert Passes Don’t Match

Friday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told ePluribus Media that his office had never requested a 30-day security clearance for James D. Guckert, aka "Jeff Gannon," directly contradicting a statement made earlier that day by the U.S. Secret Service.

The Secret Service’s "30-day access list program," used by the White House press office, would have allowed Guckert to visit the briefing room for a 30-day period without undergoing daily criminal-history checks.

But not the Corporate Media, they're so over it:

Gannon's story left critics tarnished, too

The phrase in BOLD is the real truth about the corporate media's (non)coverage of the story:

Despite the sex pictures, the linchpin of the scandal was always the allegation that Bush and/or his press secretary, Scott McClellan, catered to Gannon so that his softball questions would make the president look good. Having Gannon in the press room allowed McClellan to change the subject whenever a mainstream reporter began to bore in with a tough line of questioning, according to the bloggers who promoted the story.

But the allegation was never proven. McClellan argued that he called on questioners in a routine manner, getting to Gannon only after fielding inquiries from larger news outlets in a fairly predictable order. Veteran White House correspondents backed him up. Meanwhile, McClellan maintained that his office did not give Gannon favorable treatment in getting a press pass. Former White House press secretaries from the Clinton administration generally sided with McClellan.

At that point, despite the lurid aspects of Gannon's past, most newspapers gave up on the matter as a news story.

Yes, this is the low to which the corporate media has fallen. If the source denies the story, IT'S OVER! Time to look for the next runaway bride.