Rough Trade

Big bloggy scoop over at AmericaBlog. The suspicion that Jeff Gannon, former White House "journalist", pictured above, was involved in prostitution seems just about confirmed. There's no name-to-name match to confirm this- only photographic evidence. But the photo match-ups between Gannon and a hustler listed on several websites is pretty strong. It looks like him and there are a lot of other coincidences.

John Aravosis, who runs AmericaBlog deserves a lot of credit for uncovering this. However- and there almost had to be a however- he gets a little heated in some of his conclusions:

This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions.

That's possible, but I don't see what makes this increasingly likely. More facts will have to come out, but I'm a big believer in not ascribing to malice what can easily be ascribed to stupidity. John also writes:

Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy that is such a challenge to grasp in this story. This is the same White House that ran for office on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. While they are surrounded by gay hookers? While they use a gay hooker to write articles for their gay hating political base?

There's a moral smear buried in there somewhere. It goes without saying that prostitution is not an exclusively gay thing, so I have to wonder why John thinks that using a gay hooker to write articles makes one more of a hypocrite when it comes to opposing gay marriage than using a gay man who's not a hooker? It's like he's suggesting that gay hookers are somehow more gay than gays who are not hookers, and thus you are being more hypocritical if the gay guy who shills for you is a hooker too. Gay plus, if you will.

We've seen with regard to black conservatives that some on the left feel that racist comments about them are entirely appropriate. It's not surprising that we see the same with Gannon. Noting of course that commenters don't represent the views of the blogger, here are a few comments posted to the AmericaBlog post:

Just because most of us in the republican party particapate in male on male anal sex but publicly display contempt and hate for proud homosexuals doesn't give you the right to ruin the quiet behind closed doors fun we so enjoyed.

So what if we chose of life of pure hypocrisy. This is about our fascist party *cough*, I mean republican party showing America we are the party of moral values. Now excuse me while I give myself an enema.

The strange fascination with the mechanics of gay sex and other practices they imagine to be common among gays is not unusual for people who are not quite right with gays.

The thing that gets me with all this, being a gay guy in America, is; why are there so many homosexuals on the right???? I just don't get it, really. Is it some kind of power thing? Or is it not really a straight or gay thing at all (because that's just sex) but an amoral game to see who can get the upper hand. There's obviously a lot of fags in the upper eschelons of our government, probally, and obviously, mostly closeted. Are they having some kind of contest to see who can be the best "I hate fags more repug BUT I also suck the best repug cock".

And this is a classic:

Those of us who understand these things realize that Bush's stiff walk, where he looks like he has a sore ass, could be the result of repeated sessions bottoming for a rock hard 8 inches.
However, that still doesn't explain where Gannon 'fits in'.

There's more gay-joke-giddiness where that came from. I suspect that many on the left harbor these thoughts but only feel it to be (at least somewhat) politically correct when they have a conservative to unload them on. And always there's the excuse, we're only saying these things because this is what Republicans think. As excuses go, it's a bit glib.

Update: More from Wizbang and Jeff Goldstein.