Something's been eating me up this last week about the whole Gannon issue, and I think I've got a handle on it well enough to actually put it to diary now. Takes a little thinking outside the box, but try to stay with me as I throw a few balloons out there and see which float highest.
We've been working under the assumption that Jeff "$200 an hour" Gannon was basically used and abused by the White House as their softball tosser, but that possibility never sat well with me. For starters, why use a gay hooker as your fake reporter? Why use a guy with no experience in a room filled with people trained to smell BS a mile away? Why have him throwing such obvious softballs that they'd be noticed by The Daily Show?
It just doesn't make any sense. It's all too sloppy. There's got to be another possibility...
Like, what if Gannon wasn't just a wannabe who didn't realize he was being used? What if the hustler was actually putting on a hustle, and it was McClellan who was being played?
Stay with me here, because I'm going to hypothesize up a storm, and though it'll get a bit icky, I think it's a valid 'what if'. Maybe this hypothetical guesswork can help someone put two and two together somewhere out there, and maybe discover something we've been missing.
Or not.
So I don't think I'm breaking any taboos or spilling any state secrets by pointing out that Raw Story has been making allegations that Scott McClellan is gay, or at the very least bi. I could care less about the guy's personal preferences, personally, but if what Raw Story has been saying is true, it does open up some alternate possibilities in the Gannon Story.
Let's throw a big 'what if' out there... What if McClellan and Gannon had met before, perhaps for a few hours at some outside-the-beltway Motel 6, or after closing time at an Austin bar. A little fun is had, no names are shared, some awful images are conjured that will probably never leave my brain, and the two part ways peacefully with the bill paid in full. Everyone's happy.
Shortly therafter, Ari Fleischer quits as the White House Press Honcho and Scott McClellan steps forth as his replacement. Overnight, Scotty McClanger becomes one of the most recognizable faces on TV, and somewhere in Delaware, an old friend with a big unpaid tax bill comes up with a way to make some easy dough.
A few phone calls are made, and soon panic is setting in at the White House. "Someone is making trouble for McClellan - he wants a job, or he's going to talk to the press about Scotty's hobbies. This could be Mehlman all over again - we've got to placate him somehow."
More phone calls are made - "Hey Eberle, help us out of a jam. Can you give a friend of McClellan a job somewhere? ...No, he's got no experience in anything at all, though he did do the Liberty Institute's $50 two-day 'now you're a journalist' course... Okay, that sounds like a plan. Set up a website, make him the head writer, and we'll put him in the press corps to lob the occasional softball. Throw him some shekels, and that ought to shut him up."
Next thing you know, Talon News is created. Four days later, Gannon is sitting in row six as his old pal answers his questions from the podium. A bullet dodged... for a little while, anyway.
Am I insane? Is it madness to even consider such a hypotheses? Think about it:
- Gannon had no experience at all in journalism.
- His writing was awful, and he plagiarized like crazy.
- His questions were ridiculously partisan.
- He was a gay hooker.
- He had a fake name.
There is NO WAY, if you were looking for a White House press fluffer, that this boob would be your go-to guy. No way in hell. In fact, you could tap any late shift employee at Wendy's Drive-Thru and they'd be just as qualified as Gannon was - so why did they go with him?
And why is McClellan spinning like mad to try to kill the story? Surely all he'd need to say is 'we screwed up, Gannon shouldn't have been let in, but we've tightened procedures now and the issue is over' - and it would be over. Instead, he's playing the hardball silence card, refusing to elaborate on anything, getting pissy at questions asked by journalists - and McClellan isn't the kind of guy that will normally get emotional on the podium, even when he's on the defensive.
I tend to think he's freaking out because the heart of this issue is not Gannon's earlier profession or some plot to put a fake journalist in the White House - it's that Gannon demanded a job in return for keeping quiet, and McClellan ceded.
And that's why it matters that a gay whore was allowed to sit in the White House Press Corps. Forget 'follow the money'... I think this is more a case of 'follow the daisychain', because if McClellan's sex life can see a man-whore planted in the Press Corps, then he is undeniably a security risk.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. But the chance that I might not be makes it worth discussing.
Post-script: It seems my thoughts on the timing of Fleischer's exit and Gannon's arrival were incorrect. Thanks to those below that did the legwork there, but it still leaves the question open - Was the man-whore brought in to the Press Corps because he had dirt on someone in the White House? Was McClellan covering for someone else? Is his annoyance now because he's worried this will expose him for someone else's screw-up?
So many questions, so little lube.