HotMilitaryStud & the President

When the latest White House press-fixing scandal broke, forcing faux White House correspondant Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) to step down, I assumed that it was only because he represented a fake news agency (Talon News, not one of the funny ones). This story, now turning up everywhere from Keith Olberman to The Daily Show to actual news outlets, has taken such a bizarre turn that I don't even know what to think anymore. Can this all be really happening? But let me backtrack for a moment, recommending you (the reader) check out editorials by the excellent Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd (who are actual reporters and thus do a better job than me).

The gist is that for the past two years, the alias-clad Guckert has been admitted into the White House press room and called upon for a softball non-question whenever Scott McClellan gets in hot water. The prez knows this guy and has called on him. But while Guckert/Gannon was appearing as a talking head on political news programs and writing articles like "Kerry Could Become First Gay President," he was also a $200/hr. gay escort on the Internet. If this was written in a novel, it wouldn't be plausible. If Clinton had tried this crap he would have been eaten alive. This was why, when people started scrutinizing who Gannon was, he disappeared. Now it turns out he's embroiled in the Plame affair as well. I always backed off of superlatives before recently, but now there's no escaping it: the Bush administration is the most scheming, corrupt and reckless presidential administration in history (the ghost of Warren Harding breathes a sigh of relief).

(Personally, I think that the term "press-fixing" is a pretty good one. It's a play on "price-fixing." A Google search doesn't reveal any other examples of this, so perhaps I've coined a phrase. Feel free to use it at parties.)