It seems there is some debate over the reason why the Gannon/Guckert story has legs. The original press conference where Gannon lobbed his over-the-top question to the President was nearly a month ago. Both the prostitution and Plame angle were outed two weeks ago. As this story goes stale, people are starting to comare its seeminess to something akin to Michael Jackson's troubles.
There are those of us who take joy in rehashing the whole neoconservative/gay prostitute hypocracy. Others furrow their brow and ask why a guy with two names was allowed to stand within 20 feet of the President. Still others wonder how a person with a weekend worth of journalism education could have access to everything happening in the West Wing.
It is in the last point that we are getting warm. Access to everything.
I am reminded of an excerpt from
Al Franken's book, 'Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them)' :
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post incurred official disfavor by writing about the taboo subject of how much the President loves to lie...By withholding routine information such as travel itineraries from troublesome reporters like Milbank, the White House was able to prevent them from asking embarrasing questions. It's hard to ask the President embarrasing questions if you can't find him.
It wasn't just the White House. Over at the Pentagon, tough guy Donald Rumsfeld knew how to court-martial a nosy reporter...When [Thomas] Ricks [of the Washington Post] asked why he had been excluded from a trip on which American journalists were allowed to cover a Special Forces operation for the first time, a press officer told him: "We don't like your stories, and we don't like the questions you've been asking." (emphasis mine)
So, if the White House policy is to black list every reporter that asks tough questions, pretty soon in the press room it gets a little esier to find a good seat. Now the President has the need for seat fillers. They use seat fillers at the Oscars. Every time Jack Nicholson gets up to take a leak, some guy in a dark suit walks down and takes his seat so that when the camera pans the audience, it appears to be a packed house.
Back to my point. It seems that the White House press advisors are trying to meld the Republican town-hall meeting format (sign th eloyalty oath or else) with official press confrences. If left unchecked, in the end, no one will ever be able to ask the President a question that has not been properly vetted. The President will answer to no one.