You'd think that having their reporters blocked from the White House press pool (see, for example, Maureen Dowd, who, after covering Presidents since 1986, and having her press pool application ignored for 2 years by Ari Fleischer, was told by Scott McClellan that she had to undergo an FBI security check which could take several months) while a gay hooker operating under an assumed name for a fake news organization was given *daily* passes spanning 2 years (both Fleischer, and McLellan) would be enough to get the news organizations out of phone-it-in mode. (Over at AmericaBlog, they thought for about 12 hours that a pass seen in a video of Gannon asking McLellan a question was a permanent pool pass; turns out, AmericaBlog soon found, it was not).
And why should they care? Not because gay-baiting is a national sport. Not because Gannon repeatedly asked Fleischer, McClellan, and even Bush partisan softballs which mock the fourth estate even more than having Armstrong Williams take $240K in payola to play Bush's tunes.
Gannon was one of ~six reporters (including Judith Miller of the New York Times; Tim Russert; Tim Matthews of Time Magazine; and Bob Novak) to whom the White House leaked the CIA cover of Valerie Plame for revenge on her and Joe Wilson during the Nigerian Yellowcake scandal. In the "one of these things is not like the others" game, Gannon is the odd-man-out in this group.
Whoever leaked to the reputable reporters leaked to Gannon, too, and not because he's a reputable reporter. Clearly, the leaker has a strong bond to Gannon. The leaker was probably responsible for Gannon getting his press access, too. Thus -- figure out who gave Gannon his press credential, and you've probably figured out who the leaker was in the Plame affair.
So, who was it? Nobody knows. On AmericaBlog , Ari Fleischer says he has no idea who approved Gannon's press passes while he was there (McClellan was on staff at the time, but no word from him on who's responsible).
Friday, February 18, 2005
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2 comments:
There's an alternative explanation: (at least) two different people were involved. One person gave Gannon daily press passes, the second thought (correctly) he would push the Plame/Wilson link and so leaked to him.
If so, the two are in cahoots. "Cahoots" is Texan for consipracy to leak Classified information.
The Daily Kos discussion on Gannon (which you linked to earlier, Bob) makes it clear that Gannon's sole raison d'etre was to provide cover for the White House on Iraqi WMD and Wilson/Plame. It was really the only issue he cared about. So yes, I would say, if we find out who gave Gannon his press pass, that would cast a very interesting light on the Plame Affair.
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