Come clean about "Gannongate"

Over the past several weeks, a comprehensive investigation inside the blogosphere uncovered the truth about "Jeff Gannon" – a "reporter" for the blatantly partisan group GOPUSA and the amateurish Talon News Service who the White House allowed into press briefings for nearly two years. Liberal critics on the Internet discovered that "Jeff Gannon" is actually a pseudonym for the man's real name, James Guckert, and that he has an X-rated past and no journalistic background. The Bush administration needs to come clean about how Guckert, a fake reporter using a fake name working for a fake news outlet, managed to bypass all procedures for credentialing journalists and repeatedly gain access to the White House briefing room and, on several occasions, the president.

The controversy, dubbed "Gannongate" by bloggers, was sparked by a loaded question that Guckert asked

at President Bush's post-inaugural press conference on Jan. 26. Guckert asked Bush, "[Senate minority leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse…How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" Aside from being overly partisan, the question was also inaccurate; Reid never said anything about soup lines. That same afternoon, conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh boasted that Guckert's query was "a repeat, a rehash of a precise point I made on this program yesterday." Limbaugh conceded, however, that Reid had "never actually said 'soup lines.'" The "soup line" phrase was simply Limbaugh's grossly exaggerated characterization of the senator's economic concerns. Guckert then inserted this phrase into his softball question, ultimately triggering his downfall.

Media Matters for America, a liberal advocacy group, soon revealed that Guckert's employer, a web site called Talon News, is owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas delegate to the 2000 Republican convention. Talon has close ties to another of Eberle's partisan enterprises, a web site called GOPUSA.com, which peddles itself as "bringing the conservative message to America." Media Matters performed an in-depth analysis of Talon's content. It found that Talon's "news" and Guckert's articles usually consisted of recycled Republican National Committee memos and White House press releases copied verbatim. Aside from being a phony, Guckert is also a hypocrite; he once ridiculed real journalists for continuing "to work off of the talking points provided them from the opposition [the Democrats]."

Exactly how Guckert managed to gain access to briefings normally reserved for accredited reporters remains to be seen, but it is clear that strings were pulled in the White House press office. Either Guckert was purposely planted in the press room by the White House or, though far less likely, the security measures taken to protect the president are so lax that anyone can get in. According to Salon, Guckert enjoyed unfettered access to the press room not by going through the customary lengthy background check that most journalists face when acquiring a "hard," or permanent, pass, but by obtaining a day pass, which requires only a brief background check. Guckert was forced to get a day pass -- which are intended for reporters visiting D.C. from other cities who need to cover the White House for just a few days -- because his request for a hard pass was denied.

Besides having to work for a legitimate news organization (a requirement that Guckert obviously failed to meet), a reporter who wants a hard pass must have been accredited to cover Capitol Hill. Guckert 's application for Capitol Hill press credentials, which he submitted on Dec. 12, 2003, was rejected. The Standing Committee of Correspondents, a group of Capitol Hill reporters that oversees the distribution of press passes, rejected Guckert 's request because it could not conclude that Talon News was a legitimate, independent news organization, according to Salon. So Guckert, sans a hard pass, somehow managed to circumvent established protocols and use his daily pass to get into press briefings for almost two years.

The recent revelations forced "Gannon" to resign and caused Talon News to remove all content from its web site (The home page now euphemistically reads, "We feel compelled to reevaluate operations in order to provide the highest quality, most professional product possible.") But thus far, the White House has been completely unresponsive to members of the media and Democrats in Congress who have been searching for answers. It's time for some.