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Yeah, I did it. I went there. Because this Jeff Gannon thing is not going to go away.

Let's go for a round-up of the blogs and major media sources.

The first link, of course, goes to AmericaBlog, the site that has done some first rate investigative journalism on this story since day one. For those of you just getting up to speed on this story, browsing a week's worth of posts on this site should tell you everything you need to know. The short version? As Salon explained a few days ago:

Whether news that Guckert was able to go from posting his gay male escort services online to being ushered into the White House under a phony name on behalf of a fake news organization -- and was never asked to pass an FBI background check -- constitutes a real "story" among the Republican Party faithful, or the mainstream press corps, remains to be seen.

Well, within the past 24 hours it seems that the story has indeed become a story. Let's take a walk, shall we?

Our first stop is in this morning's NYT, courtesy of a column by Maureen Dowd:

I am very impressed with James Guckert, a k a Jeff Gannon. How often does an enterprising young man, heralded in press reports as both a reporter and a contributor to such sites as Hotmilitarystud.com, Workingboys.net, Militaryescorts.com, MilitaryescortsM4M.com and Meetlocalmen.com, get to question the president of the United States? Who knew that a hotmilitarystud wanting to meetlocalmen could so easily get to be face2face with the commander in chief? It's hard to believe the White House could hit rock bottom on credibility again, but it has, in a bizarre maelstrom that plays like a dark comedy. How does it credential a man with a double life and a secret past?

OK... that's just the funny bit. Here's the meat:

I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values? At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months. In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend? He used a driver's license that said James Guckert to get into the White House, then, once inside, switched to his alter ego, asking questions as Jeff Gannon.

Reason #1 the story is gaining legs. It hits home with the media. If people like Maureen Dowd cannot get press passes, but a male prostitute with no previous journalism experience can... Nothing motivates human behavior like self interest.

Of course that's not to suggest that this isn't a real story. It is. Potentially a huge one, depending on who in the White House it turns out Gannon/Guckert/Whatshisname was sleeping with. But no, that's not reason #2...

Reason #2 is the national security angle. Self-interest is enough to get a day or two of coverage, no more. But national security, well, that changes everything.

Reason #3 comes to us in a story also found at the NYT, this time in a column by Frank Rich:

How this happened is a mystery that has yet to be solved. "Jeff" has now quit Talon News not because he and it have been exposed as fakes but because of other embarrassing blogosphere revelations linking him to sites like hotmilitarystud.com and to an apparently promising career as an X-rated $200-per-hour "escort." If Mr. Guckert, the author of Talon News exclusives like "Kerry Could Become First Gay President," is yet another link in the boundless network of homophobic Republican closet cases, that's not without interest. But it shouldn't distract from the real question - that is, the real news - of how this fake newsman might be connected to a White House propaganda machine that grows curiouser by the day. Though Mr. McClellan told Editor & Publisher magazine that he didn't know until recently that Mr. Guckert was using an alias, Bruce Bartlett, a White House veteran of the Reagan-Bush I era, wrote on the nonpartisan journalism Web site Romenesko, that "if Gannon was using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover." (Otherwise, it would be a rather amazing post-9/11 security breach.) By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news. Of these six, two have been syndicated newspaper columnists paid by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the administration's "marriage" initiatives. The other four have played real newsmen on TV. Before Mr. Guckert and Armstrong Williams, the talking head paid $240,000 by the Department of Education, there were Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia. Let us not forget these pioneers - the Woodward and Bernstein of fake news. They starred in bogus reports ("In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting," went the script) pretending to "sort through the details" of the administration's Medicare prescription-drug plan in 2004. Such "reports," some of which found their way into news packages distributed to local stations by CNN, appeared in more than 50 news broadcasts around the country and have now been deemed illegal "covert propaganda" by the Government Accountability Office.

After covering the national security issue from a slightly different angle, Rich moves to reason #3 this story will continue to push forward - propaganda. Although this story has faded in recent weeks, its lack of coverage was only a temporary hiatus. Remember that when the Armstrong Williams story first broke, numerous groups, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a massive FOIA request to determine just how widespread the practice of paid propaganda was. Well, the results of those requests won't be back for some time, but until then, this story fits the mold in a way no one could have imagined.

I mean, sure, we've grown used to the idea that this administration would favor news organizations that support their point of view. Fox News has simply become an unfortunate fact of life. You'd think, however, that with a major media organization like that in your hip pocket you wouldn't need to push any further. But not this group, no. First they had to pay off supposedly independent journalists to parrot the party line. Then, not content with breaking the law in only one arena, they had to push further still. Somehow, someway, someone decided it would be a good idea to plant a pseudo-journalist in the White House press pool to ask the president questions like "Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

Which is the take The Christian Science Monitor offers up in its piece today. Near the end, however, they present reason #4 - Congressional interest:

In a preemptive move last month, senior House Democrats called on the White House to halt "use of propaganda" to push the president's plan to create private or personal accounts in Social Security. Democrats are requesting all materials created for radio, TV, or newspapers and other venues to promote the plan. "There is a pattern of propaganda by the Bush administration that must be stopped," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. The Gannon case raises the tougher question of who gets to be a journalist. In Washington, credentialing standards vary among the different branches of government. Gannon, who wrote for the GOP-linked Talon News website, was first criticized by liberal Internet bloggers, who objected to the pro-administration slant in his questions, such as "How are you going to work with [Democrats] who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" Turned down for a congressional press pass because he did not meet the standards set for a journalist, James Guckert (Gannon's real name) has had access to the White House briefing room for more than two years on day passes. "Many seasoned journalists have not had the honor of attending the events or enjoying the access Mr. Guckert has," said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) of New York. This week she asked for release of information on Gannon's credentialing.

No disrespect to Rep. Slaughter (D-NY) intended, but I wish it was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and not Slaughter making the request. (For the record, Sen Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) are also on the case) Of course the initial request must come from someone, and from a political standpoint it is surely better to have a foot-soldier make it than a general. But if this story is going to gain real traction, a request will need to come from much higher up. And as this builds, the likelihood of that happening grows each day.

But we're not done yet, oh no. Because reason #5 is a doozy, one that will drive the story for at least another 24-48 hours. Every time you think this just cannot get any weirder... It seems that somehow, someway, Gannon/Guckert found his way into a White House briefing BEFORE he was employed by the phony-Talon News organization. For the details we turn to Salon.com's Eric Boehlert:

Thanks to the continued digging by online sleuths, there's now documented evidence that Guckert attended White House briefings as early as February 2003. Guckert, using his alias "Jeff Gannon," once boasted online about asking then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer a question at the Feb. 28, 2003, briefing. The date is significant because in order to receive a White House press pass, Guckert would have needed to prove that he worked for a news organization that, in the words of White House press secretary Scott McClellan, "published regularly," in itself an extraordinarily low threshold. Critics have charged that while Talon News may publish regularly, it boasts a nearly all-volunteer news team which includes not a single person with actual journalism experience. (The team does, though, have quite a bit of experience working on Republican campaigns.) In other words, the outfit is not legitimate nor independent, two criteria often used in Washington, D.C., to receive press credentials. But what's significant about the February 2003 date is that Talon did not even exist then. The organization was created in late March 2003, and began publishing online in early April 2003. Gannon, a jack of all trades who spent time in the military as well as working at an auto repair shop (not to mention escorting), has already stated publicly that Talon News was his first job in journalism. That means he wasn't working for any other news outlet in February 2003 when he was spotted by C-Span cameras inside the White House briefing room. And that means Guckert was ushered into the White House press room in February 2003 for a briefing despite the fact he was not a journalist. Whereas it was once suspected that White House press officials in charge of doling out coveted press passes went easy on Guckert, a Republican partisan working for an amateurish news outlet who would routinely ask softball questions, it now appears those same unnamed White House officials simply ignored all established credential standards -- including detailed security guidelines -- and gave Guckert White House access, even though he had no professional standing whatsoever.

Two important points:

1. C-SPAN cameras captured him inside the room. Smile Jim/Jeff! UPDATE: Steve Clemons has a video capture that shows the man himself in action!

2. He was allowed in the room before landing his position with a FAKE news organization!

Of course, this new reason #5 is really an extension of some of the previous reasons, but given the way it pushes this thing forward I think its worthy of its own #.

Right.

I could go on but I'm running out of time. So, to wrap up:

For one last overview of the issues at hand, see Sidney Blumenthal's piece on Salon.com. The highlight:

Thus a phony journalist planted by a Republican operation, used by the White House press secretary to interrupt questions from the press corps, called on by the president for a safe question, protected from FBI vetting by the press office, disseminating innuendo and smears about critics and opponents of the administration, some of them gay-baiting, was unmasked not only as a hireling and fraud but as a gay prostitute, with enormous potential for blackmail.

Which, of course, brings up Reason #6, the one I suspect we'll hear plenty from in the coming weeks. Blackmail.

And while we're at it, although there's nothing new about this today that I'm aware of, don't forget Reason #7, the Valeria Plame affair. Somehow, after just a week on the job, Gannon was one of a select few to whom the Plame-related CIA documents were leaked. Looking for a break in the case, Mr. investigator? Grant this guy limited immunity and something tells me you'll get to the bottom of things real quick.

But enough for now. Really, I mean it.

What better way to wrap up the latest on a fake news story than with the masters of the genre - The Daily Show. When a real news story is so bizarre even these guys couldn't have invented it, what does it tell you about the world in which we live?

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