Of course, it was a dream - how could I otherwise access the Press Room. I shaved my head, did my push-ups and am sitting there asking hard-nosed questions to little Scottie McClellan in my best, sexiest, "Jeff Gannon" voice:
1) Scott, your dad, Barr, recently wrote a book called "Blood, Money and Power" in which he basically pins the JFK assassination on fellow Texan, LBJ. Two-part question: In the course of your father's book he tells us that Johnson had his hard-drinking, loose-talking lesbian sister "suicided" - and thanks to your dad for showing us how it's done down there - but, my first question is: 1) In light of the privacy issues raised in the Gannon case, do you think your dad's book violated anyone's privacy? And, if not, was your father's aim to make us anxious about the Democratic Party or, more broadly, about Texans in general? I really wasn't sure when reading it.
2) Scott, I'm sorry to bring up those the Niger documents again - but a yes or no, will do - did Douglas Feith help create them so that Israeli Military Intel could pass them on to the Italian Secret Police so that they could be laundered and introduced into the Saddam files - both with the Office of Special Plans at home and with Operation Rockingham in Britain's MI5?
3) Scott, now that we've seen more of the 9-11 Commission's work - and thought about the numerous redactions, our readers are just curious - was US intelligence compromised at the highest level on 9-11 because of intemperate pillow-talk with the Saudis and the Pakistanis? Was 9-11 chosen by our enemies specifically because it was leaked to Osama that we would be conducting top secret military exercises that morning?
4) Hey Scottie - you must be sick of evading questions about who leaked Valerie Plame's name BUT what I'd like to know today is different - was the intention of this leaked exposure about anything more than simply embarrassing Joe Wilson? Assure me that it wasn't encouraged by the White House to help derail a line of investigation that might have embarrassed the administration? And, might that investigation have had anything to do with Dr Kahn's lab in Pakistan?
5) Morning, Scott, our readers are curious if the appointment of Negroponte suggests that the intelligence community has surrendered its role to assess the unvarnished truth and will henceforth be simply an arm of policy enforcement? That the "El Salvador" option, torture and gulags are the future for America, both in the world and at home?
6) Scottie, remember those off-shore Enron accounts into which Billions of dollars vanished. Can you assure my reader's that none of those represented anything that could be construed as an off-account political slush fund? Can we also be assured no members of the extended Bush family or any other members of the administration, including yourself, are beneficiaries of these secret accounts? And, fnally, Scott, now that Enron's criminal gaming of energy markets is in public evidence will the Department of Justice pursue recovery and damages?
7) Hey Scottie, the quickly sold Riggs Bank was determined recently to be today's version of the much-loved BCCI. Although it's rapid sale suggests that further investigation could be difficult, can I confidently report to my readers that the presence of Jonathan Bush on its board was simply a coincidence?
8) Scott, the GAO asked for attendance lists in its attempt to do its job vis a vis Vice President Cheney's energy task force. We respect that the Vice President took that position to assert a principal, a despotic one, but a principal just the same. BUT, since it is well known that all these attendance lists would show was that the Vice President consulted industry figures and shunned the environmentalists would the VP's office not wish to close the book by confirming that was the reason, and assuring us that was all the release of those lists might have revealed? Scottie?
9) One month after the 9-11 attacks people started dying from Anthrax inhalation. The powder was military quality. Congress shut down after Democratic senators received death threats. Although initially told that it was the work of Saddam's labs, conscientious gum shoes at the FBI soon assessed that the strain was in all probability from the Dugway Proving Ground and that it had been synthesized at Texas A&M in the early `90s. I was just wondering, Scott, if those honest hard-working sleuths had been rewarded for their efforts? Or had they been fired, like Sibel Edmonds, or forced into retirement like the late John O'Neill or whistle-blower (and former Time Magazine Person of the Year), Collen Rowley? My readers just want to be assured that we're doing a good job on the whole Homeland Security thing.
10) Scottie, those vain self-important Hollywood types are having their annual Love fest next week. Do you agree that Martin Scorsese will finally win his Oscar, because those shallow clotheshorses in la la land just can't resist a movie about themselves? Leaving aside all those Howard Hughes issues and all the Nixon stuff. my readers want to be assured that the president agrees with us that Cate Blanchet was fabulous and well-deserves to win an Oscar for her work in the same film? Also, as point of trivia, that now disappearing Connecticut accent she used - didn't the President's grandparents all talk like that?
When I woke up none of Scottie's mumbled answers remained.
But I knew it was a dream. IN reality anyone of those questions would have had me barred or sent to Camp X-Ray.
The Questions? Tin foil territory, I know.
But you know, if someone had told me three weeks ago that White House security would have been compromised by a gay male prostitute playing the role of a journalist - for over TWO YEARS - even I would have laughed at the patent lunacy of it.
All I have to do though is close my eyes, and new questions just keep coming up.
Sadly, the possibility of ANYONE asking these questions (aside form no. 10 - which was a joke) remains the biggest fantasy of all.