MISSING THE POINT: I’ve gotten a lot of lefty email like this piece from Andrew Moyers:
So you think it is alright to have a gay male prostitute in the WH press room? Where were you when we needed you? You can have done great work in defending Bill Clinton’s discretions.
Dude, I think you mean indiscretions. And I did coauthor this book, which was seen as generally pro-Clinton, enough that Lanny Davis used it as a text. But, see, I’m a libertarian — I’ve got no problem with gay male prostitutes. Or even gay female prostitutes (they have those, right?). Heck, I’d legalize prostitution — gay and straight — if it was up to me, and think of its practitioners as every bit as respectable as other professionals like lawyers, lobbyists and journalists. (Maybe moreso, as I suspect the client satisfaction rate is higher . . . .)
What I don’t quite get is when the Left became such a bunch of obsessively puritanical, curtain-peering Gladys Kravitz types. Lighten up, guys! It’s only sex, and as we all know, especially post-Clinton, sex, and lying about sex, is no big deal!
UPDATE: Wrong link for “obsessively” above — fixed now. Thanks to reader Rick Francis for pointing it out!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein slams Howard Kurtz. Ouch! Mickey Kaus can only look on in wonder. And envy.
MORE: Reader Thomas Castle emails:
You are, again, missing the point entirely. The problem with Gannon isn’t that he’s a gay male prostitute, it’s that he’s a vetted WH reporter using a pseudonym and masquerading as a journalist when he is, in fact, merely a shill. THAT’S the offensive part. This business that he was booted because he’s gay, or a prostitute, or both is bogus, although I’m sure some of the fundies do indeed have a problem with it.
I don’t know. That’s not what Moyers was saying, and what I was responding to. But let’s see: “Masquerading as a journalist when he is, in fact, merely a shill” would disqualify rather a lot of the poseurs I see shouting at press conferences. As for the gay angle being why he was booted — that’s what Howard Kurtz said, and I believe it. And while you can claim that this isn’t really about the gay angle, a quick look at the juvenile gay-themed stuff on the lefty blogs suggests otherwise. I should also note that while Moyers did charge that Gannon was a gay male prostitute, I don’t think that’s been clearly established. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
For some more serious journalism, here’s an analysis of softball press conference questions that names names and quotes transcripts. Five “Gannons” are identified.