The Gannon/Guckert Whitehouse Scandal

An open letter to the Parents' Television Council:

I'm shocked that the White House, for two years, let a male prostitute into press conferences with the President and the Press Secretary, as well as a White House Christmas party.

His real name is James Guckert and his nom de plume is Jeff Gannon. This man is not a real journalist, since he has often copied articles and commentary from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. He has also written pieces that impugned homosexuals! Guckert has spent more time as a male prostitute, developing sexually explicit websites in which he states that he and military men are available as escorts, and there are pictures showing Guckert naked on these sites.

The White House personnel in news conferences called him by his assumed name, although he showed his real name to security for daily checks. Either this is a security breach in which prostitutes and people with assumed identities can get close to the President, or the White House is consorting with known prostitutes who lie about being anti-homosexual when they are really gay.

It is wrong for the White House to let in fake reporters. It is wrong for these fake reporters to be prostitutes. It is wrong for these fake reporters to pose as anti-homosexual when they are really extremely gay, promoting the lifestyle in public under their real identities.

This is a security concern because people posing as journalists can assassinate leaders. This happened to Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the heavily armed leader of the Afghani opposition, a few days before the Attacks on America in September 2001. Fake journalists came to interview this Northern Alliance leader, who opposed the Taliban, and they shot him as the 'interview' began. Probably whomever sent these folks knew that the Taliban would be targeted shortly after the upcoming plane bombings of NYC and Washington, D.C. Massoud was the best armed and most pro-US alternative to the Taliban. Certainly, this 'fake journalist' tactic can and has been used to assassinate other world leaders.

In addition, the name of an active CIA operative, Valerie Plame, may have been leaked to Gannon/Guckert a few years ago. This is a violation of federal law, and it indicates that the White House was using this prostitute/journalist as a plant to further a vendetta against a CIA officer who provided intelligence that proved that the President was lying about Iraqi nuclear capabilities during a State of the Union address. The motive for the vendetta is that Plame's heroic husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson who accompanied her on her mission, penned an op-ed that proved that the President was wrong about the yellow cake uranium from Africa that Iraq was supposed to be procuring. Gannon/Guckert is under investigation about this crime now. Meanwhile, the rightwing journalist who outed Plame, Robert Novak is free and clear. He has White House connections. Two reporters who did not 'out' Plame are facing jail for protecting this White House source, even though they never even wrote about Plame!

There are many hypocritical, immoral or at least incompetent things going on in the White House when it comes to security and providing reliable public information. This Guckert/Gannon scandal is bad for the press, bad for the White House, and bad for our democracy.

Let's take a stand against this outrage.

Let's push for:

• accountability,
• fairness towards the press and critical inquiry,
• fairness in Federal security checks and in press conferences (Helen Thomas and Maureen Dowd, two respected journalists for real publications have been barred from the White House or at least marginalized),
• real security for the President,
• real information about the government we are paying for coming from our government,
• stopping the vendettas against writers doing their real jobs, and
• stopping the use of anti-gay hypocricy as a way to manipulate public opinion.