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false one. White House officials refuse to discuss why they let Guckert in or what, if any, criteria they used to determine his qualifications. "We're trying to get more details about how this was done," says Mark Smith, vice president of the White House Correspondents Association.
Last week, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., requested from McClellan all documents related to Guckert's press passes. "As you may know, Mr. Guckert/Gannon was denied a Congressional press pass because he could not show that he wrote for a valid news organization. Given the fact that he was denied Congressional credentials, I seek your explanation of how Mr. Guckert/Gannon passed muster for White House press credentials," Lautenberg wrote. On Monday, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer noted, "This issue is important from an ethical as well as from a national security standpoint. It is hard to understand why a man with little real journalism experience was given a White House press corps credential."
The gay escort angle may also force Guckert's conservative defenders to rethink their position. Writing last week for Men's News Daily, a conservative site often aligned with Talon, columnist Sher Zieve insisted, "My, most reliable, source advises that ... before coming to Washington D.C., Jeff was in software. The site domain names were registered, by Jeff, for a client or clients. The same source advises that these sites were never brought on-line, for said clients."
Writing for the right-wing media advocacy group, Accuracy in Media, Cliff Kincaid dismissed the controversy as "laughable," insisting Guckert's only "crimes" were "that he was too pro-Republican, attended White House briefings, and asked questions unfair to Democrats." And at Power Line, the conservative outpost that wrote relentlessly about CBS's troubles with its Bush National Guard story last year, the site has confessed bewilderment about the Guckert controversy. "I can't figure out what the story is," wrote one of Power Line's contributors.
Whether news that Guckert was able to go from posting his gay male escort services online to being ushered into the White House under a phony name on behalf of a fake news organization -- and was never asked to pass an FBI background check -- constitutes a real "story" among the Republican Party faithful, or the mainstream press corps, remains to be seen.
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