I think he went back to his previous "occupation" with someone at 1600.

The only other reporters with similar anomalies would be any other reporters who were engaged in homosexual relations with the President or other member of the White House staff.
Maybe he and the Chimperor used to both put on their cheerleader outfits.

What do you mean, "went back"? The man clearly never left.

as juicy as this info seems...Gannongate is not going anywhere. Face it, if Plamegate is dead,Gannongate will be too.

Gannongate may never develop into a real 'gate', but it sure is interesting to speculate on who Jeffie was servicing in the WH, and also fun to rub BushCo noses into some embarassing stuff.

Would be interesting to see the Presnit's schedule on those days when Jeffie was in the WH and there was no briefing. Or Rove's, or Card's, etc.

One thing we can feel pretty sure about: JG wasn't there for an intellectual discussion of conservative philosophy or the national interest.

I surely is possible that he could have been there to get his marching orders updated, but that doesn't have the sizzle of a bald-head rub or ride on Jeffies reputed major asset.

Imagine if this happened during Clinton's Presidency. It would be front page for weeks. Damn liberal press.

Being there when there's no press briefing, checking in but not checking out, leaving by a different exit--whatever could he have been doing? We know it's not escort service, because JG had changed his profession by this time, and this homophobic WH would have no use for such things. Whatever could he have been doing? And with whom?

The report at Raw Story leaves a lot to be desired. The citizen journalists at propagannon.com are checking on those days when there was no scheduled Press Briefing. As of late yesterday, they had discovered that there were events (photo-ops) at the WH on those days. Even the dates where JG spent many hours at the WH included an event other than the press briefing.

It's going to take time to sift through this report to determine if there is anything in these logs that indicate obvious suspicious WH access for JG. These logs do make it harder to conclude that JG was just a casual day pass tripper. But we already knew that because JG attended WH Christmas press parties. The missing log-ins and log-outs are the most interesting. However, as the WH can claim that the Secret Service merely slipped up, those don't prove anything. So, that takes us back to where we've been on this for the past month. Is it plausible that the WH had no idea who this guy was? Is it plausible that the Secret Service is this incompetent? As it didn't take that long for the blogger investigators to come up with a wealth of information on JG, it seems completely implausible to me that they didn't know who he was. And as I pointed out in my write-up of this, if they merely wanted to plant a GOP shill, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people they could have used that would have passed the smell test far more easily.

The ePluribusUnum investigators continue to work this and fill in the holes. Such as confirming that no military record exists for JG. JG's performance at the "What is a Journalist" seminar reinforced my perception that he continues to get coaching on TV/public presentation skills. (Compare his performance when asking GWB that question and his first TV interviews after the story broke and his second round of appearances a week later. Nobody improves that much without some very skilled coaching and a lot of practice -- sort of like what they put GWB through before his performances.)

It's still going to take a "Deep Throat" to break this thing wide open.

It's still going to take a "Deep Throat" to break this thing wide open.

Unfortunately, the Deep Throat in this case is the one with the most to hide.

Personally, I'm now sure that W and / or Trickier Dick (Cheney) are closeted and obviously pent up. Having him in the press room, and then seen around the White House later is just cover. "Oh, there's that 'journalist' again - ho hum." When in reality, he was there to "stain the blue dress."

And they say they are all rightous, pious folk!?! HA!

(Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

stevil -- FWIW, I checked with a number of men with finely tuned "gaydar" while I was working on my Gannon piece. They reported that Bush and Cheney didn't set it off for them. Whereas, Rove consistently does. GWB does have a very long pattern of what appear to me to be homoerotic fetishes, but that may be all they are. As this WH most likely won an election by bashing gays and lesbians, it's more interesting to me that someone like JG would be so close to someone very high up in the WH than who the John may be.

Correction -- that should be ePluribusMedia not ePluribusUnum.

Matt -- metaphor not porn. Like the Watergate Deep Throat, a Guckert Deep Throat shouldn't personally have anything to hide, at least not in the Guckert affair.

Matt -- metaphor not porn.

Oh, I know. Wasn't the original alias "Deep Throat" still assigned in reference to the movie?

Marie:

First off, thanks for your wise words about the credibility of such pieces; I'll defer to you on such matters given the work you have done on this story to date.

As for whom Gannon may have been friends with, I don't think it was either of the top two guys but rather someone on staff. And when you come right down to it, surely this could have been just one more cog in the White House disinformation machine and nothing more. But as you said, there were plenty of other willing media whores with actual credentials for such work without bringing in a male prostitute for the job.

Slow news day or what?

I must concur with the 'imagine if this happened during a Democratic administration' reaction.

I wonder if Monica Lewinsky ever came (ehem...ehem) and went without signing out?

And in the age of Post-9/11 (which changed everything you know) and the Homeland Security Department no less! Can you imagine. A two bit wanna be journalist coming and going from the White House on a day-pass as he pleases. No wonder Dick Cheney was spending so much time in an undisclosed location.

Come to think of it maybe there are some undisclosed exits from that undisclosed location of his.

Wink. Wink. :-0

Matt -- yes, but it would work even better in this case.

Steve, why the "someone on staff" explanation doesn't work for me is that the whole story would have ended months ago if the WH threw this person overboard. The GOP learned from Watergate that festering wounds lead to cover-ups, and cover-ups don't work forever. If there has been no crime or moral lapse among the highest level officials in a story, get rid of it before risking that the cover-up will become the crime. That's why I don't buy that the Plame outing was anything other than a GWB, Cheney and/or Rove operation. These guys are too good at getting one of their own to take a bullet for them or simply casting them aside when they are no longer useful, that in this instance either it's at the top or they completely screwed up on the loyalty of this staff John.

What say you, Muckdog...we know you are reading...

......... my perception that he continues to get coaching on TV/public presentation skills.

Marie! It sure looks like he's getting talking-in-circle coaching. Like from Scottie, who is a Master of Circles.

Where are your write ups?

anon -- a professional speech coach weighed in on this at dKos the other day and said that he had no doubt that JG was being coached/trained -- and trained by someone (or several) with top notch skills. Rove isn't GWB's TV coach, that's not his forte. My guess is that it's a team and Karen Hughes is on it.

My take on Guckert is here - Part I and here - Part II

As I stated above, the ePluribusMedia at propagannon.com has uncovered more data since I weighed in, but nothing they've found refutes my working hypothesis nor does it suggest any alternative hypothesis -- while it remains possible that Guckert simply fell into this through some undefined link to Bruce Eberle or one of his associates or backers, it is still difficult for me to accept that the WH would have gone along with such a scam or that they couldn't have known that it was a scam.

I still think there's a reason he was in the press room. If he's servicing ssomeone in the WH, why bring attention to him?

I disagree T2, in that the particular scandal may not go anywhere, but the info that arises from it might. And that's why we need to keep pushing this.

could it be that nobody at the WH even knew about Gannon's real life. Maybe they were just using him as a phony flack. You know, we're not dealing with real smart people there.

To add to Duckman's point,

Most scandals start with allot of smoke in one place, and catch fire in another, typically after a period of time. Now we know the Whitehouse is not going to do anything about this investigation (scratch that they're going to do everything in their power to stop it), but as long as there is an independent movement to get to the bottom of this (of which many have much more information then I), someone is going to crack eventually.

T2 - it would be hard not to believe that the WH was not using him as a phony flack -- but that only begs the question, "Why Guckert?" Ignoring his porn credentials, this guy offered zilch for us as a phony flack. The rightwing is churning out GOP "journalism" hacks faster than they can probably use them. So, why not use one of them? Even for such a low level hack job as Guckert had.

(I do tend to think that his WH friend didn't know about JG's professional internet postings. Or thought they had scrubbed all of them.)

ohscottyboy -- if muck can't find a way to work brown rice or whole house fans into the discussion, he's at a loss.

Rep Slaughter and Conyers still on the case and have issued another request to Scotty:

Slaughter

Recommend reading.

Donnie, LOL...and don't forget the mass transit.

Come on, of course they knew who he was. That's what happens when you become so arrogant that you think a scandal can't touch you. They are probably right on that one.

The facts are Gannon is a homosexual hooker. He was placed in the press core to lob softball questions at the President. He came and went in the WH without supervision evidently. Rules that applied to every other journalist did not apply to Jeff. What I want to know is what does Jeff have on this WH? Oh, and the press doesn't see this as worthy of a story. That alone is a give-a-way.

Vince Foster

Wait, he was not a reporter!

I wonder how many other reporters have similar anomalies with their Secret Service security records? Just asking.

Until that question gets answered, these other questions are fun but premature.

Well, I hate to fuel such speculation, but have a look at Bush's apparent affection for the Saudi royalty the degree of which is certainly interesting, even if culturally sanctioned, so to speak. However, maybe there is something to the pictures in what they tell us about W. It is pure speculation, but with these revelations that Jeff Gannon/James Guckert was at the White House much more often than just for press briefings and apparently stayed overnight, and given that Bush has a serious bald head fetish (have you seen all the pix relating to his rubbing baldies of the press?), and given Bush's very odd remarks to the Canadian cabinet secretary named `Scott' [how he was much prettier than Bush's Scott (McLellan)], and given that Bush has over the years taken pains to privately explain his dislike of gay bashing as he publicly does so (noted when he was a frat boy at Yale by no less than Lanny Davis [c.f. http://towleroad.typepad.com/towleroad/2004/10/if_the_shoe_fit.html]), noted when he took aside an openly gay texas legislator to explain that his public dissing of gays that day was just politics and did not reflect on his personal feelings towards this legislator, and noting the sour ``I just sucked on lemons'' face when he tersely announced his support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage), one must wonder: Was
Jeff/Jim a guest of W himself?

Just a speculation

This may be the funniest set of comments I think I've ever read. You guys are real talents and I sincerely hope you find regular work in sitcoms or something like that. You'd have one hell of a hit on your hands.

Unless you were being serious. I sure hope you weren't because...yikes.