In a previous column, I wondered about the psychological factors that would drive a gay man to support a presidency allied with the Christian Reconstructionists, who -- er, um -- want to kill gays.
Never underestimate the oddity of the human psyche. One out of ten human beings go "stark raving buggo" (as Alan Moore once put it). And that's not even counting the neurotics and eccentrics amongst us.
Even so, we may have reason to suspect that more prosaic factors led Guckert to do what he did. For one thing, everything this man said, wrote and did was so robotic, so scripted, that I cannot easily believe he called his own shots.
Guckert, we now learn, owed some $20,000 in back taxes. This factor would certainly render a man blackmailable.
We must also consider his likely involvement with providing paid studs to Army lads. Some have argued that he really did nothing more than design prostitution websites. But would a professional (or semi-pro) designer maintain such a tawdry-looking home page -- one of those "anyone-can-make-one-of-these" AOL deals? A page that makes no mention of the fact that he also does design work? I don't think so!
He has also given an interview about that classified CIA memo, connected to the Plame scandal. He now he says he did not see or possess. He just knew what its contents were. And how did he know? He refuses to say!
His explanations as to how he got access to the White House poll hold less water than does a sheet of single-ply bathroom tissue. Keep in mind: Randi Rhodes' producer, who has a MA in Journalism and who has held a number of serious jobs in the field, could not get White House press credentials. So who put out the welcome mat to a lying Charlie Nobody from an unknown web site?
Congresspersons John Conyers (bless his heart) and Louise Slaughter (bless her heart) are pressing for a full investigations.
Howard Kurtz and (I am told) Sean Hannity have tried to picture Jeff Gannon as the "victim" of bloggers. Oddly, they made no such exculpatory remarks about Dan Rather -- event though Dan never lied and "Jeff" lied constantly. Even so, few in the allegedly "liberal" mainstream media want to take this story any further.
Keep in mind that Hannity was positioning Gannon (I wonder how Beavis and Butthead would interpret those last four words) to become a regular cable news talking head. This, even though Gannon's only gig was for a web site that probably receives even less traffic than this one boasts.
Is that how the game works?
Do the conserves find someone open to a little blackmail and then place him in position to become a major media figure? For the rest of his life, he'd be open to manipulation, parroting the script, literally republishing GOP press releases...
How many cable "news" propagandists have a similar history? How many writers for Regnery got into the game via this route?
And if Drudge saw fit to mention any of this, I missed it!
So how can we use this episode further? Either get Guckert to 'fess up, or find evidence from another source that he was blackmailed. The moment the "extortion" theory gains widespread acceptance, a minor scandal becomes a major one.
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