Walter Shapiro on Guckert

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Wednesday November 16, 2005 · 7:26 PM PST

2005/11/16 · 19:26

I write for Salon.com from time to time. Last night in NYC there was a big bash to celebrate Salon's 10th anniversary, and along with all the big celeb journalists, little peons like me got to attend as well.

Walter Shapiro has just signed on as Salon's Washington correspondent. I ran into him at the bar & introduced myself.

Then I said, "Hey, let me ask you something. Strictly off the record. Won't tell a soul. What's the real story on Gannon/Guckert? What's the buzz? What's the rumor mill say?"

And Walter Shapiro said. . .

"I don't know. That all happened when I was at Harvard. I was a visiting fellow."

And I said, "Oh come now. You're connected. You use a telephone. You use email. You must have heard something. I don't understand how (a male prostitute with free reign to walk the halls of the White House) was not a big national story. It's almost like all you guys hushed it up. Did Gannon have a White House client? Was he somebody's boy-toy before they cooked up that stupid "correspondent" cover story?"

And Walter said, "The White House press corps is full of whacky characters."

"But what about the Secret Service visitor logs?" I insisted. "What about that funny business with the day passes? What about him telling Wilson he had seen that secret State Department memo?"

"Like I said, I was at Harvard."

Earlier in the evening I had run into
Jim Sleeper. He asked me if I knew what certain of the Salon editors looked like. He was trying to connect with people that he had known for years only as voice on the phone or in email.

I tried to engage him in chit-chat but he was on a mission.

Stay tuned for more scintillating vignettes from my night out with the big literary stars, and I hope you have vacariously enjoyed my brushes with liberal celebrity journalist greatness.

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Walter Shapiro on Guckert

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