Web Writer Quits After Being ID'd By Liberals

Austin American-Statesman

By Scott Shepard
Washington Bureau

A conservative reporter who asked President Bush at a news conference last month how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders “who seem to have divorced themselves from reality” resigned this week after liberal bloggers uncovered his real name and raised questions about his connections to Republicans.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., fired off a letter to Bush, looking for an explanation of how that reporter, who uses the nom de plume Jeff Gannon, was admitted to White House briefings.

“It appears that ‘Mr. Gannon’s’ presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your administration,” wrote Slaughter, a senior member of the House Rules Committee who has been active in media fairness and ownership issues.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he had not seen the letter from Slaughter, but dismissed her suggestion that Gannon was allowed into media briefings to help promote Bush’s political agenda.

“She must not be following the briefings too closely because she’d see that there are a number of people in that room that are advocates,” McClellan said. “There are a number of people who express their views in that briefing room.”

Bloggers say Jeff Gannon, who had been writing for the Web sites Talon News and GOPUSA, is actually James Dale Guckert, 47, and has been linked to online domain addresses with sexually provocative names.

Gannon’s resignation highlights the no-holds-barred atmosphere of the Web, which enabled him to function as a reporter—his stories appeared on a site founded by Texas Republican activist Bobby Eberle—and produced a swarm of critics determined to expose him.

According to the Washington Post, Gannon’s name was included in the federal investigation of the White House leak that named former U.S. ambassador and Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson’s wife as a covert CIA agent.

Slaughter, in her letter to Bush, cited the recent disclosures that media pundits and columnists—most notably radio and TV host Armstrong Williams—have advocated the president’s policies while receiving money from the administration.