More Gannongate

Pam’s got the round-up of mainstream media coverage on Gannongate. (She has also thoughtfully provided some of the Freepish shrieking that passes as dialogue on the Right.)

Reading the coverage so far, I noticed that very few stories are including the Plame connection. Atrios accurately notes there appear to be two Gannongate stories available for the telling:

a) Partisan operative with no background in journalism, whose work frequently involves passing off RNC press releases as his own stories, is allowed to be a part of White House press briefings day after day, operating under a pseudonym, providing a regular lifeline for Scott McClellan and making it difficult for other reporters to get answers to serious questions.

b) Partisan operative with no background in journalism, whose work frequently involves passing off RNC press releases as his own stories, is allowed to be a part of White House press briefings day after day, operating under a pseudonym, providing a regular lifeline for Scott McClellan and making it difficult for other reporters to get answers to serious questions. Oh, and he put up a shirtless pic on AOL and registered domain names promoting gay military porn and prostitution.

If the media thinks "b)" is a big story and "a)" is not, that's hardly the fault of pesky bloggers.

Hardly the fault of pesky bloggers indeed. If the administration wants to blame anyone, they can blame themselves for consistently exploiting, rather than condemning, homophobia. I think, Mr. President, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove, that was a policy best described as likely coming back to “bite ya on the ass,” which, in another little bit of irony, was probably one of the ala carte services offered by Jeff Gannon at MilitaryEscortsM4M.com.