New Gannon/Guckert oddities: Pilate's question

I've said it before and I'll say it again: In George W. Bush's America, Pilate's question is the only question.

The recent forged documents "proving" that journalist William Arkin was a Saddam spy joins a long list of similar deceptions to emerge from this administration and its operatives. Now we learn that the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert affair has taken on a new layer of fraudulence.

Not only was "Gannon" a fake journalist using a fake name while working for a fake news organization. Not only were we given fake rationales to explain his ongoing White House access.

Now we learn that -- contrary to his many claims -- he's not even a real Marine!

He has claimed to be a Marine with the rank "E4 Corporal," "Inactive Reserve/Guard not drilling." (So far, everyone seems to have avoided the obvious pun arising from the words "not drilling.") No available records prove that he has ever served in the United States military.

Apparently, the military "thing" was just part of his hooker persona -- sort of like a porn star dressing up like a cheerleader.

I know that a man falsely claiming to be a corporal cannot be tried for "impersonating an officer" -- but still, I wish that some sort of law covered a pose of this sort.

Now let's take another look at Gannon's involvement with Plame affair. Granted the opportunity to interview Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, "Gannon" posed this loaded question:

"An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

The wording indicates, but does not specify, that Gannon/Guckert has access to this classified document; he now claims that he did not. Most observers who have looked into this incident have let the matter rest with Guckert's latter-day disclaimers. They do so prematurely.

That "internal government memo" turns out to be yet another forgery -- just like the one that targeted William Arkin:

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

(My emphasis added.)

The only "news organization" (if it can be so labeled) to question Wilson on the basis of this fake was Gannon/Guckert's Talon news.

Too many people operate under the misapprehension that forgeries make themselves -- that faked documents "just happen." In fact, a bogus memo of this nature could only have been sewn together by a skilled operative with inside knowledge -- in short, by a covert agent who hopes to accomplish a political goal.

The question thus becomes: Why was this particular bit of buncombe foisted on the public by way of "Jeff Gannon"?

One obvious answer suggests itself. The fake document was created for the precise purpose of handing Gannon/Guckert a cudgel with which to bludgeon Joseph Wilson. If the bogus text had rattled him sufficiently, Wilson's response to Guckert might well have provided the conservative propagandists (who live to twist words) with ammunition.

And what if Wilson offered a smooth denial -- as, in fact, he did? The conservative press was then free to repeat the forged memo's accusations ad nauseum while dismissing Wilson's response as evasive.

The politics of unreality allow for marvelous new techniques of character assassination. And we are left, once again, with Pilate's question.