Jeff Gannon: Pseudo Reporter
Quits
The New York Daily
Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link
BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
February 09, 2005
WASHINGTON - A conservative ringer who was given a press pass
to the White House and lobbed softball questions at President
Bush quit yesterday after left-leaning Internet bloggers
discovered possible ties to gay prostitution.
"The voice goes silent," Jeff Gannon wrote on his Web site.
"In consideration of the welfare of me and my family, I have
decided to return to private life."
Gannon began covering the White House two years ago for an
obscure Republican Web site (Talon-News.com). He was known for
his friendly questions, including asking Bush at last month's
news conference how he could work with Democrats "who seem to
have divorced themselves from reality."
Gannon was also given a classified CIA memo that named
agent Valerie Plame, leading to his grilling by the grand jury
investigating her outing.
He came under lefty scrutiny after revelations that the
administration was paying conservative pundits to talk up Bush's
proposals. By examining Internet records, online sleuths at
DailyKos.com figured out that his real name was Jim Guckert and
he owned various Web sites, including HotMilitaryStud.com,
MilitaryEscorts.com and MilitaryEscortsM4M.com.
"The issue here is whether someone with connections to male
prostitution was given unfettered access to the White House and
copies of internal CIA documents. For a family values
administration, that's pretty creepy," said John Aravosis, one of
the bloggers chasing the story.
The White House didn't return a call asking how someone using
an alias was given daily clearance to enter the White House.
On his TalonNews Web site, Gannon had written that liberals
were out to get him because he's a white conservative man who
owns a gun, drives a sport-utility vehicle and is a born-again
Christian.
Yesterday, however, he abruptly quit, and all of the stories
he wrote were erased from the Web site. A great many were on gay
issues, including one detailing John Kerry's "pro-homosexual
platform" that was headlined mockingly, "Kerry Could Become First
Gay President."
Originally published on February 9, 2005
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