"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?" (NY Times - regt required)

WTG Maureen Dowd! This is a MUST READ. As some of you may know by now, James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, has become the center of a BushCo scandal, in which he posed a White House Press Corp "reporter" for some 2 years! Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who originally denied it, called him upon repeatedly. (Then, of course, the actual footage came out with him getting a softball question from the supposed credentialed journalist!) Now the plot thickens and the press is starting to pick up on it. It seems Mr. Gannon, or Mr. Guckert, has a past that just won't go away.

I find this quite the typical modus operandi from BushCo, so this charade doesn't surprise me. The real question is: why didn't the real reporters in the room find this out sooner? We all know journalists investigate each other. It is the nature of the beast. But, this situation makes you wonder what the hell is going on up there.

Dowd finishes off: "With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes. If you're their critic, nothing goes... Even the Nixon White House didn't do anything this creepy. It's worse than hating the press. It's an attempt to reinvent it."

My sentiments exactly...