Gannon Intrigue Continues

The Jeff Gannon affair gets even more interesting. Turns out, he was granted access to the press room even before there was such a thing as the propaganda "news" website Talon News:

Jim Guckert, an apparent former prostitute, had almost no journalistic experience when he started receiving daily press passes to enter the White House and participate in the daily press briefings. As far as the bloggeratti has revealed thus far, the organization he worked for before resigning last week (embarrassed by revelations of his apparent sex practice), Talon News, had been in existence only days before he received his first White House pass, said to be April 3, 2003, or thereabouts.

But this post, in which someone brags about having asked a pro-war question at a February 28, 2003 White House press briefing, appears to have been made by Guckert under his pseudonym, Jeff Gannon. That would imply that Guckert was admitted into the White House even BEFORE his alleged news service existed. At that time, he [had] done some "writing" over the preceding couple of months for what appears to be Talon's predecessor, Republican activist website GOPUSA.com News. "Writing" is to be used loosely in this case, however, as much of his reporting during that pre-Talon period consisted of cutting-and-pasting stories from other news outlets or GOP press releases.

Or as they put it in Salon:

That means he wasn't working for any other news outlet in February 2003 when he was spotted by C-Span cameras inside the White House briefing room. And that means Guckert was ushered into the White House press room in February 2003 for a briefing despite the fact he was not a journalist.

It is troubling that a the White House is willing to let in a shill to lob softball questions at the president and the White House communications staff, and completely fits this administration's propaganda M.O. But then there's the whole gay prostitute angle, which the right-wingers are attacking us for even bringing up - "If you liberals are so cool with homosexuality, then what do you care if he's gay?"

We don't mind that he's gay. Personally, I don't even care that he's a prostitute. We've brought it up thus far because the Republicans, and therefore Talon News, are against homosexuality. We enjoy pointing out your hypocrisy. But this new twist could actually make the gay prostitute angle much more germane.

[Prepare yourself for wild speculation with absolutely no evidence.]

What if Jeff Gannon, the prostitute, was hired by someone in the White House? What if this Jeff Gannon character realized what was happening and started blackmailing the closeted White House gay dude? What if they shut him up by giving him press credentials? It certainly would explain why he was given a press pass before he was even associated with a fake news website instead of just dishing out their propaganda through any number of other already "accredited" shills, (Tony Blankley or Gloria Borger, for example). Wouldn't it? And wouldn't that be the best story since Monica? Better, because it actually has something to do with governing the nation.

UPDATE: To add to the wildly irresponsible conspiracy theory, Jeff Gannon was given access to the confidential Valerie Plame memo. He refused to answer any questions about his source for the memo, but the FBI just let him go. And as we know, real journalist Matthew Cooper, and almost real journalist Judith Miller are going to be compelled to reveal their source in court or else they will face jail time. Let's ignore for a moment that the true Douchebag of Liberty Robert Novak is waddling free, why doesn't Jeff/James have to testify? Why isn't he going to jail? What might he say if he were put under oath? Just raising questions, my friends...