Nice analysis and you are obviously correct, nothing could have happened without Rove's approval. So who is this guy's lover/sponsor? Rove himself?
It was not only Matthews on that program. G. Gordon Liddy was also drooling over Dubya's manly package.

I don't believe anti-Bush liberals who say that their biggest concern is how the White House security process failed and allowed someone like Guckert in.

If Guckert had been a danger to Bush or anyone else, no one making the argument that Guckert's so-called breach of security is the "real" issue would have cared. In fact, some of them would have been pleased.

Please ignore our resident trolls like Toby and the others (there not subtle and therefore, are easy to spot).

Mike -- take your pick; it's a short list. Logic tells me one thing and my gut tells me something else. In the past when I have this sort of disconnect, my gut has always been right. But perhaps not this time.

I've been saying this since the same idea floated to the surface at Kos. He's there because he is a prostitute, and the press is the cover. It turned out that the cover couldn't hold up forever, which revealed the other aspects of Jeff "Don't Quit Your Gay Job" Gannon.

Sex is the story, and it means someone with considerable juice is the boyfriend.

Thanks for the careful explication of this. I agree that the only logical explanation is that JimmyJeff had a powerful sponsor who even now is unwilling to cut him loose. The WH press cover may have been chosen not just to keep JimmyJeff nearby in DC but also to provide an excuse for him to travel with his sponsor. I am sure the industrious researchers over at kos and elsewhere are looking into any trips JimmyJeff may have taken to "cover" the WH.

There was a breif mention of Gannongate on the News Hour tonight. The latest white house claim is that they 'inherited' the rules on day passes from the Clinton administration.
Once again, its all Clinton's fault.

Great work Marie!!! Keep it up. It really is a maze.

If, as you postulate, Jim/Jeff's source for the CIA memo was the WSJ story, why won't Jim/Jeff just come out and say that? He's been asked [forget which recent interview it was, but Americablog has it], and he wouldn't give a straight answer. But then he can't give a straight answer as to why he changed his name from Jim to Jeff either.

One thing for certain, if Jim/Jeff had been run through any kind of security check, plenty of red flags would have turned up, enough for any low level Secret Service or FBI guy to keep him far away from the WH, let alone presidential access. Letting a guy like him in should have been instant termination for the people in charge of the background checks. The fact that he got in, and stayed in for years, despite the easily discovered fact he was a gay prostitute, indicates to me that he, or someone he works for, holds some heavy lumber over someone's head in the White House. All the rest of the "story" is windowdressing. Someone in the inner circle of the Bush Administration knew all about Jim/Jeff and arranged his passes. Any other explanation would have to be based on a level of sheer incompetence that would stretch belief even in the Bush Administration.

I'm still struggling with the reasons why this obnoxious turd was there in that particular role. Why wasn't he hired as a WH intern for gawdsakes, if he was just somebodies toy?

Why the press briefing room, why not in the WH?

Either he's squirmin scotties boy, or it involves the WH Press. Was he one of their "minders" or something?

Or, who else would he report back to, viguerie? He's gay, isn't he? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And you're right toby, nobody is particularly concerned over the preznit's well being, because we KNOW the guy was there with their knowledge. The question is why was he there, knowing what a creepy character blot he could be if and when the truth came out.

Denmark stinks, doncha know.

now.....think about it. Lets say a new "reporter" gets a day pass to WH press conferences...and he asks pointedly harsh questions about Bush Admin policies, really puts Scotty on the spot. Tell me that the fellow wouldn't have a thorough, and I mean thorough, background check done by the end of the day and the results reported back to Karl Rove. And if the fellow turned out to be a fake reporter and a gay prostitute, tell me the WH wouldn't have every Media outlet in the land screaming about the Leftwing Liberal Plot to plant a Gay Reporter in the White House by the end of the next news cycle.

Why wasn't he hired as a WH intern for gawdsakes, if he was just somebodies toy?

Well, perhaps "whoever it was" didn't want the exposure at work. There are perfectly good reasons that one might not want GG working in the same office, particularly with people one sees every day.

NuhImSayin'?

yes they knew what/who he was. Duck and Matt ask the question: why "whomever" let him stay around? I think the answer is found in most of the BushCo actions, i.e. they just don't care because they think they can get away with anything. In the end, the WH is an office.....anyone who's ever worked in a large office knows there are lots of secrets and not-so-secrets and most involve sex. And most involve sex between high level and low level. Ask Bill Clinton. He did it "because he could". Intern/cub reporter.......straight/gay.....impeach/........

Muons -- on the CIA memo -- didn't mean to imply that Jeff read it in the WSJ. I think Jeff is scripted and was given that question to attempt to catch Wilson off guard and disclose something. Whoever crafted the question for Jeff was careful to make sure that the question did not come out of thin air and there was a public source that could be cited. Jeff couldn't keep his story straight on this because he made up so many. For over a year he's been using it to make himself sound important and in the know. On this one, he really wasn't, but for him just having someone important giving him the question to ask led him to believe that he was in on something secret and important. They've finally gotten him to memorize his line -- "read it in the WSJ."

Marie: You are so right about everything. Why was a male whore in the WH??????
I have learned to ignore the Pretzel. I pass all his comments. This site should have names posted first. Talk Left had the same problem and, the changes has helped.
When you go to reds sites, to checks what is happening with their agenda, you find out quickly that no ones answered to them.
There is no conversation. That is why they are here.

Duckman: I'm still struggling with the reasons why this obnoxious turd was there in that particular role. Why wasn't he hired as a WH intern for gawdsakes, if he was just somebodies toy?

WH employees and the press who seek hard passes have to pass a background security check. They knew he couldn't pass.

Repack Rider -- agree. If you look closely at where the two big breaks in this have come from, you can see that our gay brothers have been doing the heavy lifting. Should mention that dqueue at dKos did find the name Jim Guckert and posted it in the 1/29 Diary, but it was ignored. When Guckert's name did surface in Atrios along with the AOL picture, it was clear to me from that and the domain names that we were looking at someone actively seeking a certain type of male company. Unfortunately, many of those looking into this were probably like me and completely clueless that something like male escort service websites even existed and therefore, it was not something we looked for.

great post marie..this is gonna head somewhere to the top...the faith based top..ain't life grand

It is amazing how the so-called Christian right is completly silent on Gannongate. Whatever happened to protecting America from the sodomites?

rlprather: It is amazing how the so-called Christian right is completly silent on Gannongate.

The Freepers, Ann Coulter and others have not been silent. They are busy blaming liberals for violating Gannon/Guckert's privacy. The so called Christians only have two gears: follow the lead from dittoheadland or remain silent. Like the unmasking of the sexual piccadillos of other DC pols like Newt during the impeachment process, they remain silent. The "christian" leaders are all a bunch of hypocrites (Elmer Gantry successors) and GOP lackeys; so, they have no cognitive dissonance on this. And their followers only pay attention to what their church leaders tell them is important. In this case, a gay prostitute in the WH doesn't exist.

Marie, you rock.
Great synopsis and analysis.
Thanks.

So tell us Marie.
What does your gut say?
What does ho logos say?

I'm gonna guess and say that gut is W himself,
and logic is Rove...

Awesome,Marie. Well done analysis & this isn't even your day job. You are much more talented at your avocation than Gannon was at his. However, I'm guessing he is fairly talented at his vocation otherwise his lover wouldn't be so loathe to let him go.

Your thoughts about not wanting to cut Gannon loose despite the awkwardness (at the very least) of his situation makes me analogize Gannon's situation to a star athlete with problematic behavior on a winning team. No matter how tedious, troublesome, boorish,illegal the behavior is, the team & the fans tolerate it as long as the team is winning. However, when the team nose dives, guess who gets the boot & the blame?

"Read my lips II. I did not have sexual relations with that man!"

John B -- should point out that a "head" and "gut" disconnects informs me that I don't have enough information (or dots) to draw an integrated and complete conclusion. But it doesn't tell me if there is some sythesis between the two that I'm missing or if one if wrong and the other not more than partially right. Fortunately in this case, I'm not forced to make a call due to time constraints and in the past I have erred when required to make a call before I had all the pieces lined up.

For now, the specific "who" doesn't matter since we know that he exists and is in a very high level position in the WH.

Will leave it to you to decide how well you read me -- and only note that you may have more experience doing so than anyone else here.

my gut tells me rove is gay..

Is Ann Coulter part of the Christian right? Maybe she is, but her Christianity doesn't show in her language.

god only knows what ann coulter is...she is a vile human being thats for sure..

Marie says:
"For now, the specific "who" doesn't matter since we know that he exists and is in a very high level position in the WH."

Totally agreed on that point.
Your post makes this quite clear.

rlprather: Is Ann Coulter part of the Christian right?

No. She's only part of the rightwing noise machine like Rush, Hannity and they others. But the "Christian" right takes their lead from these people. They run with what easily dovetails with their rhetoric and let Rush etal. run with the stuff they can't so easily sell and endorse it by their continued general support of the lying windbags.

Marie:

Superb analysis. Something fairly big (and maybe very big) is swimming under the surface in this deal.

The one thing that is known about Dear Leader and Karl is that they learned a very valuable lesson from Watergate -- that when you throw people over the side to save yourself, they start singing before they hit the water.

Hence the not - firing of anyone no matter how incompetent and/or evil they are if it means they would start singing about something very unpleasant (George Tenet -- Medal of Freedom winner and all around goof).

The corollary is that they will toss people who they don't worry about singing. Hence, all the economic policy people (Paul O'Neil, etc.)getting tossed -- Karl doesn't care what embarrassing things they say about the reality of policy - making in the WH; that's just not something he's interested in.

A conclusion to be drawn is since no one has been fingered/tossed/etc. this long after G/G's cover has been blown that what's underneath is serious; Karl knows the fingeree/tossee would start talking about G/G and the story that fingeree would tell is probably pretty good.

The media will do nothing, so it's going to be up to the blogosphere to get to the bottom of this.

fbg46 - good points. We really are on our own on this, and can only hope that there are a couple of people good enough at investigations to be working this on the ground. We also have to remember how long it took to crack the Watergate burglary wide open. Those guys were tried and convicted before the links could be established.

this story is huge...thus all the silence about it...it's almost surreal that it happened...i was watching the press conference the day bush called on gannon/guckert..and he asked that question about dems being divorced from reality on social security...it struck me as so odd that a reporter could be so openly biased...he was an obvious plant...this is a faith based presidency..they ran on it...they ran all over the country on amending the constitution about gay marriage....these are some sick people..i think they may have overstepped a bit though..it ain't going away....

Gannon is a whore. Enough money and HE WILL sing the song.

phidipides -- yes, he is a whore, but he's a whore who has tasted power and G. Gordon Liddy is high on his list. Therefore, "Enough money" alone may not do the trick or if it would the price would be very high.

Gannon wailing about "McCarthyism" on his website is the pot calling the kettle black. He is only the most egregious example of how Rove undermined the system, larded it with money and sugar-coated GWB's world view so that he was shocked, shocked during the first debate with Kerry that anyone with brains might disagree with him.

Gannon has got to go, but so do the others who've done enough damage already to destroy our democracy. Deep Throat, where are you?

as always the republican response to gannongate is specious in nature..they say he's gay so what..they don't like to throw in that he's a gay prostitute...who gave him the passes..it's a simple guestion...was he given entrance to the white because of someone he was involved with????how did he get in??.

Yes. There's something rotten in the White House. It's not flesh but it stinks of false rectitude, self-righteousness, and greedy nastiness.

Let's face it, this is a huge scandal. Gannon a gay hustler gets into the WH 200+ times and spends the night 12 times (check rawstory.com for that one), plus is a phony journalist and a security breach. So who had the power to get him in? Karl Rove (lifelong closet case, no female relationships), Bush, Card or Cheney? I say Rove all the way, obviously. Rove who has waged anti gay political campaigns for the far rightwing, as well as three 100% dishonest smear campaigns against war hero candidates.