Jeff Gannon, Jim Guckert, and... Prostitution?

Remember "Jeff Gannon," the White House reporter who lobs softballs at Scottie McClellan when the other mean reporters won't let up with the real questions?

The "Jeff Gannon" who accused his colleagues of "working off the talking points provided by the Democrats" and then was found to have copied info directly from GOP documents and used it in his "news report"?

This would be the same "Jeff Gannon" who was subpoenaed in connection with the Plame investigation because he somehow obtained a copy of a purported State Dept. document which said that Ms. Plame had a hand in arranging the assignment to Niger for her husband (an allegation -- and document -- denied by the CIA).

Yes, we're talking about "Jeff Gannon, Washington Bureau Chief, Talon News" -- Talon News being the rinkydink wingnut "news service" chaired by the same guy who runs GOP USA (the wingnut site that is less upscale than Renew American, but slightly more professional than BushCountryUSA, and apparently run by various members of the Texas GOP).

Anyway, ever since it was revealed that "Jeff Gannon" is a pseudonym (even though he apparently gets daily White House passes issued in that name), bloggers have been trying to ascertain his real identity. Susan G. at Daily Kos (with the assistance of her readers) has been very energetic and organized in this endeavor, and has uncovered a great deal of interesting and suggestive info about "Jeff" and his associates.

So, just who is Jeff? Well, his Talon News bio has been delated, but it formerly indicated that he was a obtained a B.S. degree in Education from the Pennsylvania State University System, and attended a two-day right-wing school of journalism ("the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism"). Oh, and he "lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC."

His posts at his site "ConservativeGuy.com" also seem to have disappeared, but Susan and her readers found an archived copy of his "Who is Conservative Guy?" bio -- and it seems to indicate that "Jeff" can't hold a job:

Quote:

I've been a preppie, a yuppie, blue-collar, green-collar and white-collar. I've served in the military, graduated from college, taught in the public school system, was a union truck driver, a management consultant, a fitness instructor and an entrepreneur. I'm a two-holiday Christian and I usually vote Republican because they most often support conservative positions

His gun of choice is a Beretta 9mm, and he drives a Nissan Pathfinder.

...

And few, if any, of his colleagues in the White House press corps appear to have so few qualifications for the job.

Anyway, "Jeff" seems to be your basic loser who has tried a lot of dead-end jobs and get-rich quick schemes, and then finally, despite any previous experience in journalism (or even any experience or interest in politics or government) got some wingnut group with possible ties to the GOP to pay him a salary -- and now he's a White House Reporter. So, he's everything that Judson Cox hopes to be in 20 years (although Judson has worked on local campaigns, so is probably overqualified to be Jeff).

And yet, despite that lack of background, and the fact that Talon News isn't really a news organization, somehow the White House lets Jeff into the press conferences ever day, and regularly takes his questions.

Don't believe it? Well, here's part of a program note from Sean Hannity's radio show from last year:

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Sean spends a moment with Jeff Gannon, Washington Bureau Chief for Talon News.com. Jeff talks about his daily meetings with White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan.

And now Jeff has his own weekly radio program on "RightTalk," along with such notable wingnuts as Paul Weyrich and Grover Norquist.



Well, today Atrios seems to have IDed Mr. "Gannon":

Sources allege that Jeff Gannon's real name is James D. "JD" Guckert, though I have not been able to confirm this.


But this would make perfect sense, because when the folks at Kos did some digging into the background of Jeff's various sites, they found that they were all registered to "Bedrock Corp" of Wilmington, DE, and the address provided was a Mailbox, Inc location. However, poster dqueue did some further Googling and found another address for Bedrock Corp. of Wilmington -- this address was a single-family home, and it was associated with a "Jim Guckert" who was listed on a business directory page for court reporting and secretarial services in Wilmington. (I found another listing for Bedrock Corp, this one describing it as a "Management Consultant business" -- so, maybe Jim provides both secretarial services AND management consulting.)

And when I did some "People Find" checks, I found an entry for "James Dale Guckert" (AKA Jim Dale Guckert), age 47, of Delaware. He was matched with two addresses in Newark, five in Wilmington, and one in Cincinnati, OH. (But you had to pay to get the complete report on him, so I didn't.) Anyway, I'm guessing that James/Jeff used to live in Cincinatti (and maybe attended college there), and has bounced around Delware since then. And he may not actually live on Capitol Hill (at least, he may not have registered his Nissan Pathfinder and his Beretta in D.C.)

I can't seem to find out anything more about Jim/Jeff. I guess he's just one of those people who haven't done anything that made the papers (or the internet). That is, until 2003 when he changed his name and suddenly became a White House reporter, thus beginning his close association with Ari and Scottie and President George! (And he was doing this on a daily basis, and for a fake news service that one wouldn't think could afford to pay much of a salary.*) And then the very next year, he was getting classified (although probably fake) memos which appeared designed to discredit Valerie Plame.

Only in America!



* TalonNews invites YOU to be on the team:

Talon News Team

Want to join the Talon News team? Click here to find out more about being a volunteer reporter for Talon News.

Well, you'd just be a volunteer, but think of all the great cutting and pasting from GOP material you'd get to do. Yes, since Talon News doesn't seem to be making any money, I guess they must get the fund to pay their Washington Bureau Chief from outside donations ...

Oh man, reality is truly stranger than fiction.
"Jeff Gannon", the White House press propagandist "correspondent" for the fake "Talon" news service, turns out to be using a nom de plume.

A group of dKos diarists have been peeling away the layers of Gannon's fake persona, summarized by World O'Crap. In one of those diaries, this revelation is made by Radically Bitter: Among the domains owned by Gannon/Guckert are these:

jeffgannon.com
Hotmilitarystud.com
Militaryescorts.com
Militaryescortsm4m.com

In case this isn't clear enough, those last three are gay sex-themed names. Suddenly, his picture looks appropriately in character.
So why is this relevant, other than today seems to have become "Republicans and sex hypocrisy day"?

In reviewing White House press conferences from the past year, Media Matters for America has noted numerous instances in which Gannon's lobs -- leading questions that often include false assumptions favorable to the Bush administration -- have allowed McClellan to move to friendlier turf, away from having to answer questions on such issues as the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment; [...]

So in addition to the "hyprocrisy and sex" thing, we've got the "hypocrisy and gay" thing.
And no, this wasn't planned. It's not my fault the other side unloaded so much hypocrisy in a single day.

(In a sign of how I've lost complete control over this site, I note, with great irony, that I found out about the domain thing from Atrios.)

Update: There is some concern that focus on the more salacious details of Gannon's hypocrisy detracts from more substantive discussions and investigations currently going on by various diariests.

In a way, that may be true. Gannon is a propagandist, funded by god knows who, who essentially provide McClellan a lifeline whenever the White House press corps backs him into a corner.

I, along with most liberals, couldn't care less if one of our colleagues or employees is gay. That's a problem with right wingers, not our side.

So say Guckert's outing costs him his gravy train at Talon "News", and he is replaced by someone else, would that kill the issue?

I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Personally, I think it would add fire to the crusade if they cut him loose. And it's not as if the "propaganda" angle is tied to Guckert. That one belongs to Talon News, independent of which sycophant they have infesting the White House press room every day.

It was taken down, but I grabbed a download of it yesterday before it went down. Let's just say, it sure looks like a certain ex-pseudo-reporter who has a penchant for writing stories sucking up to the family values/anti-gay crowd.

As always, more power to you if you have an AOL profile that's really sexy and looks, well, kind of gay. But don't go sucking up to the family values crowd and writing stories defending Santorum's dog-sex comments, then expect people to give you a pass on whether you meet the standards of the very family values your buddies are promoting.