The Rant
Is Dubya in the closet?
By DOUG THOMPSON
Feb 28, 2005, 00:04
Ah, the irony of it all. The administration of George W. Bush, easily
the most homophobic president of modern times, deployed a homosexual
escort and promoter of gay life styles as one of its “propaganda as
journalism” shills.
James Dale Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, infiltrated the White House press
corps as a so-called journalist working for two GOP-backed web sites.
He quit after some left-wing blogs outed him but – like most
Washington scandals – the story gets juicier.
The bloggers revealed Guckert had registered a number of web site
domain names with gay themes, including hotmilitarystud.com. Guckert
admitted registering the names but claimed he never put up any web
sites with gay themes.
Like so many who shill for Bush’s White House, Guckert is a liar.
Paul Leddy, a California Web designer, says Guckert contacted him in
an America Online chat room in 1999 and contracted with him to create
a gay escort web site, paying $200, plus $50 in monthly maintenance
fees. Checks to pay the fees came from Bedrock Corp., a company also
listed as the owner of Guckert’s blog, jeffgannon.com. Leddy says
Gannon submitted nude photos of himself for posting on the site.
Another of Guckert’s web sites offered his services as a male escort
for $200 an hour or $1200 a night. Guckert described himself as
“military, muscular, masculine and discrete.” (His misspelling, not
ours).
Guckert is also a tax scofflaw. Delaware court records show he failed
to pay more than $20,700 in personal income tax from 1991 through
1994.
Bush’s minions saw Guckert as a valuable commodity, granting him
access to classified documents, including the infamous memo that outed
Ambassador (and Bush critic) Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Palme, as a
CIA operative. House Democrats are demanding a special investigator
into that stunt.
Still unanswered is how Guckert became a poster child for an
administration that preaches homosexuality is a sin and threatens the
wrath of God on anyone who advocates gay lifestyles. We thought the
holy rollers who have taken over the Republican Party only dropped to
their knees in prayer.
Yet Guckert’s sexual preferences are not the story here (they just
make it more interesting). Real concerns should be raised over
increasing revelations on how the Bush administration uses paid
propagandists disguised as journalists. From video press releases
dressed up to look like real news stories to hundreds of thousands of
dollars in payments to right-wing columnists to write favorable
opinion pieces about the administration, the Bush administration
proves it will stop at nothing to mislead the American public.
We once thought it impossible that anyone could top Bill Clinton’s
ability to look the American public in the eye and lie like hell but
Dubya makes Bubba look like a bumbling frat boy.
Bush lied to Congress, our allies and the American people about why we
needed to invade Iraq. He lied again to Congress and the country about
the true cost of his politically-motivated Medicare prescription plan.
He lies repeatedly about when the Social Security system will run out
of money. Recently disclosed audio tapes shows he lied (through
omission) about his past drug use.
And, to promote his lies, Bush’s administration and backers deploy
liars like James Guckert to pose, under an assumed name, as a
journalist.
And were these political hacks are so desperate to find a shill they
didn’t even bother to check his background?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Perhaps Bush, like other public homophobes, decries the gay life
because of yet another secret in his sordid past. Maybe booze and
cocaine wasn’t the only thing our President stuffed into an available
orifice.
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