Author: SusanG

From Markos:

Our host used to lease space at a wholesaler data center. The host  bought its own building, and is in the process of physically moving  all their servers to the new facility. The process was supposed to  take 2 hours, in the dead of night, and we were supposed to have a  message on the site explaining the situation.

But, as is often the case with technology, things didn’t go according  to plan. I’m not sure what the problem is, and since I know they’re  scrambling trying to make things right I don’t want to call and further delay them demanding an explanation. There will be time for  that later. But bottom line, moving 10 servers (in addition to all their other clients) from one physical location to another is not easy. Lots of things could go wrong, and apparently many of them did.

The past five years under the flag-wrapped Bush administration has served as a long-term Schick Center aversion therapy program for me and our national symbol. I’m having trouble stomaching the sight of the stars and stripes these days; whenever I see it trotted out, I sense bullshit is on the way in some shape or form – another small erosion of a prized civil liberty, another call to shut my fucking pie hole and fall into line, another lie, another rationalization for use of torture, another invasion of an “uncooperative” country half a world away.

I say it’s time we abandon the flag.

I know there’s a legitimate argument to be made that we shouldn’t let the neo-cons get away with besmirching our national emblem, that we should reclaim this country and this symbol, bring it back to represent the core beliefs of the republic. But I fear I can’t undo the emotional and mental associations so stridently and hypocritically evoked by the conservative crowd over the past few years. The stars and stripes have been wrapped around so many authoritarian plutocrats that the stench of their political philosophy has sunk into the very fabric of its being. It’s so crawling with the lice of faux patriotism, hidden agendas and propagandistic coercion that I think it’s time for progressives to abandon it.

God knows, it’s not the flag’s fault. We forget, but it’s only a geometric pattern, after all (although try telling that to the right-wing in this country and you’ll be eviscerated faster than you can mumble “flag-burning amendment”). Just as there was nothing inherently wrong with formerly neutral symbols of past regimes and movements – the hammer and sickle, the swastika, white robes and hoods – there is nothing wrong per se with 50 stars and 13 stripes (although I would suggest that this diverse country would be better served by a more subtle symbol than one making use of simple arithmetic). But the flag’s appropriation and guilt by association with causes inimical to true liberty have put it – for me at least – in a category with other emblems of discredited and shameful acts and philosophies.

But not to worry. I propose a richer, more complex and ultimately more appropriate symbol for this country, one with which we’re already familiar: the Statue of Liberty.

I love the Statue of Liberty, always have and always will. For one thing, it has a human face on it, a reminder that human beings are, after all, the bottom line, that governments are designed to create social contracts that further the dreams and talents of individual citizens for the benefit of all, to provide stability, and to promote order and cooperation between members of society. It also helps that this face is not a militaristic, fearsome warrior, but a compassionate female face that greets the world head-on, with dignity, openness and strength.

I love the fiery torch uplifted, representing passion, warmth and light. I get shivers when I remember that this was a gift from a foreign country, thanking us for the gift to the world of our democratic experiment.

But most of all, I love the inscription. Face it, this country was founded by the losers of the world. If you were sitting pretty, rolling in wealth and power and respect in your home country, you were a fool to cross the Atlantic and start over. Only the desperate, the shut-out, the shunned, the criminal, the adventurous malcontents were willing to make that godawful oceanic voyage. Oh, yeah. And the enslaved. Let’s not forget the enslaved, the ones we shipped from Africa and the ones who were here, awaiting the arrival of Europeans.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

If these words aren’t the epitome of progressive, democratic beliefs, I don’t know what is. Out of misery, we construct hope. Out of the unwanted, we found a nation. Out of the oppressed, we create freedom – true freedom, not the sham kind that’s on the march in civil war-torn Iraq, shoved down the throat at the barrel of a gun. Out of the “refuse” of the world, we build the longest-lived experiment in democracy, because we believe, in our heart of hearts, in the dignity and worth of every human being.

Let the right keep the flag and its weird fetishistic attraction. Me, I want this country to hold a fiery torch high and return to the ideal of being the light of the world.

Next up: Dump the Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem. It’s too long, too unmelodic, too difficult to sing and now too associated with crappy causes. I propose This Land is Your Land, which gets to the heart of what this country is all about in a much quicker fashion.

[From the diaries by susanhu. A must-read.] While many progressives are predicting that the botched hurricane response will be the death knell of the “drown it in the bathtub” wing of the GOP (what I now think of as “tax a bit less and die anyway” conservatism), I’m not nearly so optimistic.

Here’s a prediction, however, I believe I can make with more certainty: We have seen our last on-the-scene, uncoordinated, unfiltered coverage of any natural or manmade disaster in America. The government simply cannot allow this fiasco of true coverage of an event to recur.

We cannot be allowed to see dead bodies floating in the nation’s waterways and shoved to the curbs in our metropolitan streets, or to see dehydrated and dying babies, or to have video coverage that starkly shows overwhelming numbers of blacks wallowing in human shit starving to death, or to have on-the-scene reports of snipers and looters vividly showing an elemental breakdown in law and order.

No, sirree. This is not the patriotic way in Bush’s America.

No more angry reporters on camera demanding answers, shaming the government’s incompetence or pointing out the flat-out lying of the happy talk spouted by the people supposedly in charge of coordinating disaster relief. No more angry Anderson Coopers, crying Geraldo Riveras, outraged Shep Smiths. No more pointed timelines from CNN ticking off the details of absolute bullshit coming from this nation’s leaders.

I predict that the first excuse for shutting out reporters will be that they need to be protected, that security can’t be guaranteed or that the public health risks are too great to allow them exposure to the scene. If media outlets insist their representatives will be willing to take that risk, they then will be told that they hamper relief efforts by getting in the way or by becoming potential victims themselves (thus using up precious government resources and attention). This will probably be enough to assure compliance by 90% of journalists.

Continued BELOW:

For the few insistent purists, however, who will not willingly give up raw, on-the-scene reportage without a squawk, the patriotism card will be pulled. They will be told how it empowers terrorists and “blame America firsters” to see first-hand scenes of chaos in American streets, that it enables our enemies to see any exploitable weakness, that it serves no purpose to undermine the will of the great, grand American people to cope with tragedy or to donate to worthy relief causes.

For those who disbelieve my scenario, please refer to the PR talking points used to shield the American public from the horrors of Abu Ghraib. There you have the basic outline.

I do predict there will be “embeds,” however. We will be able to see coverage by reporters (probably from Fox News, if they’re not forced to pay a price for Shep Smith) assigned to National Guard “handlers,” depicting grateful minorities receiving water with “God bless you” on their lips and “Jesus loves you!” ringing out loud and clear in deserted – but tidy – streets.. Lots of warm, fuzzy moments of sick people in wheelchairs hugging rescuers, lots of interviews with “folks” who praise the efforts and effectiveness of the government. Who knows? Maybe at long last camera shots of flowers strewn in the streets will make it to television screens nationwide. This administration does seem fond of that image.

So if you’re blaming yourselves for being glued to the TV, obsessed with this unfolding disaster, let yourself off the hook. Tell yourself you’re doing it as a witness to history. You’ll be telling your grandchildren some day … “Once upon a time, I actually saw real media coverage of human misery caused by government incompetence.” They’ll probably not believe there IS such a thing, being of a generation that will never have seen such a phenomenon. But you’ll know otherwise, and that’s no small thing, being able to testify to the truth of historical events – which is why the shutdown must eventually occur.

Dear Mr. President,

As a rule, I don’t give advice to political opponents, but faced as we are with a natural disaster in Louisiana and a political disaster in Iraq, I’m spotting a light at the end of the tunnel here that could save your hide and satisfy people like me – who want the death in Iraq to end, even if it gives you a political boost.

For once, the politically expedient thing to do is also the right and honorable thing to do. As a politician, I’m sure you’re aware that the convergence of those two particular outcomes rolls around about as often as Haley’s Comet, so I suggest you seize this opportunity.

Here’s what you do: Bring the troops and their equipment home. ASAP. Tell the world how you were really, really digging this democracy building thing, it was a great and glorious gig, but after listening to FEMA Coordinating Director Bill Lokey today, you realized that your first duty is to the American people – and helping one of its most charmed and magic cities recover from a devastating tragedy. Those troops could be used here, for a long, long while. Here’s what your FEMA director said, in case you don’t have a link:

Lokey said he anticipated FEMA will set up a permanent office in the area.

Recovery will take so long, he said, that some workers could spend their entire career working on Katrina.

“This is the most significant natural disaster to hit the United States,” Lokey said.

See, it’s going to be a huge, long haul recovery, a career lifetime … way longer, in fact, than you told the American people that it would take to turn Iraq into a democracy. This way, it’s an act of God that forced you to return your attention to your nation (where it should have been all along, but we won’t argue that one now).  You won’t be cutting and running – you’ll be repairing your nation’s shores.

Your supporters will believe you; they swallow any line you feed them. The rest of the world won’t believe you, but they’ll pretend to, just to get rid of our presence in Iraq. Liberals won’t believe you, and will probably say so, but they’ll be so relieved at seeing an end to our occupation, it will sound like nothing but murmurs and whispers to your presidential ears (particularly if you continue to only address hand-picked, adoring audiences).

So do the right thing – for your place in history, your current plummet in the polls and for the general goodwill of humanity. Who knows? The Iraqis may even strew our retreating path with the candy and flowers they were promised all along.

[From the diaries by susanhu.] Whenever I want to get a quick snapshot of conservative talking points, I take a quick – and I mean quick – run around the block at NRO’s The Corner.

And people, it doesn’t look pretty for Bush today. On this single August Sunday morning, we already can mark up one outright defection and one very, very doubting – and questioning – former Kool-Aid drinker.

First, the defection. Andy McCarthy declared today:

For what it’s worth, this is where I get off the bus.

…even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm’s way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace. [Emphasis is McCarthy’s.]

And Jonathan Adler quotes a bailing Professor Bainbridge, who starkly states: “It’s time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent.” Adler goes squishy and mumbles: “While I am not sure I agree with his analysis, he raises questions that conservatives should address.”

Hoo boy. I think the walls are tumbling down.

Please, take your cursors out for a spin around the internet and add your “Pundits Who Are Bailing.” I think for the elitist conservatives, the incorporation of Islamic law into the Iraqi constitution is going to be the breaking point.

Cindy Sheehan’s quest for an interview with the president has captured the attention of a nation. For the first time in a long time, liberals have an edge on leading the national conversation. Trouble is, they don’t understand why and they don’t understand how it happened, so they are going to continue to be mired in the gibberish produced by think tanks and policy analysis, thus boring the electorate shitless and losing attention. Want to keep the advantage we’ve briefly experienced with Sheehan?

It’s very simple: We are a storytelling species. Tell some goddamned gripping stories that illustrate our world view.

This is different from “framing,” mind you (a phrase I’m coming to loathe, no matter how useful). Framing addresses how to name and slant specific policy stances and issues. Narrative illustrates the specific consequences of policy – and propel interest along through a process of plot, which encompasses characters, conflict, action, growth and ultimate outcome.

Human beings want to make sense of a chaotic and superficially meaningless universe, and our brains are consequently programmed to respond to a story arc; it’s how nearly all of our cultural information and our world views are passed on. Even when we are telling of the events of our mundane day at the dinner table, we unconsciously use the age-old structure of narrative: beginning, middle, end (or Act I, Act II, Act III), with the punch of a climax built into the end. (See David Mamet’s superb Three Uses of the Knife to learn more about the structure of daily storytelling.)

We respond to narrative the same way we respond to cocaine: We simply can’t get enough of it. We want more and more and more. That’s why there’s Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s plays, the Bible and the Koran, reality TV, comic books, the Academy Awards and soap operas (the latter proving quality execution doesn’t even matter … just feed us some drama. Now. Fast. We’ll take crack if cocaine ain’t arround). That’s why there’s interest in Cindy Sheehan.

That’s also why the right has gained so much traction in the national conversation: they tell a good story. Terry Schiavo, Bush the recovering alcoholic kickass cowboy, liberals are killing Christmas and on and on and on.

Good versus evil, the small versus the mighty … suspense, heroes, adventures, action – and in Sheehan’s case, the ultimate storyline of all storylines … the noble quest. Get the hang of how to use this structure, and you’ve got yourself a podium with this nation.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s still a need for liberal policy institutes and think tanks to pore over polls, spot economic trends, analyze the statistical impact of proposed legislation. But dumping the resultant reports on the public without giving it a coherent narrative is going to bind us to the “ivory tower academic” image forever – and it’s going to glaze our collective eyes over in the process.

In my view, it’s better strategy to nurture some decent middlemen (or “middlepersons” for the PC crowd) who can tell a decent story – some talented fiction writers and playwrights and screenplay writers – to write press releases and blog interesting stories into the mainstream. Creative writers have the additional advantage of being cheap; “will write for food” is pretty much the motto of anyone trying to break into the fiction/screenplay market.

I was going to use this diary to go into details about the necessary specific elements of pure story and how to use them to best advantage in the political realm, but this is already long enough. If there’s any interest, I’ll pursue it in future diaries. If not, I’ll let it die a natural death.

The shameless opportunist exploiting Casey is his own mother, Cindy Sheehan.

One of the oddest accusations to come out of the Sheehan phenomenon is that this mother is “exploiting” her son’s death and her own grief. I’ve thought about this for a couple of days, and the illogic of this argument is not settling down. In fact, it’s becoming more crazy-making the more I think about it.

The logic (if you can call it that) in this “exploitation” argument is thus: If a tragedy befalls an individual and the individual decides to devote every action of her being to ensuring no other human being suffers this same tragedy, she’s … exploiting? Huh?

By this analysis, Christopher Reeves was “exploiting” his injury by advocating for cures for spinal injuries. MADD members are “exploiting” the deaths of their children by pushing for stronger punishments and deterrents of drunk drivers. The Susan G. Komen Foundation is “exploiting” a sister’s death by raising money for breast cancer research through its highly successful Race for the Cure series. And so on. You get the drift.

Conversely, it’s always represented to me the height of maturity and courage to be able to take a private grief and turn it into something public, something bigger, something more heroic and true than a personal, massive sorrow. I know that I simply will not be able to survive the death of one of my children in any sort of shape that will allow me to become a spokesperson for a cause, no matter how righteous that cause is. As it is, I have trouble sustaining discipline and energy for something as straightforward as blogging a couple of times a week. If one of my kids goes, I assure you that I will crawl into a corner of the universe and emotionally die. You will not hear from me again; I know this well because for 16 years I’ve had a child living on the edge of this life-death deal with a congenital heart defect and numerous (mostly unsuccessful) surgical interventions. Sorry, I’ve looked into my soul and I cower in the dark of night. You won’t find me as a poster woman for the American Heart Association any time soon. Just breathing will be considered a victory.

How many of us, if faced with the death of a child, would be able to muster the courage, grace and energy to make public appearances on behalf of other people’s children? And how many of us could do so while being demonized relentlessly and our private lives examined in detail? Sheehan’s words and acts are never going to bring her son back. She knows that. This is by no means a silly woman.

But my God, she’s a heroic one. As surely every thinking parent on this planet knows, deep in their hearts.

[promoted by BooMan. This is the prototype of what Frog-Marching will become. Professional reporting done after a collaborative, online, open-source investigation.]

By Susan Gardner and Todd Johnston
ePluribus Media

January 26, 2005 …

“Yes, sir?” says the President of the United States.

“Jeff Gannon,” four rows from the commander in chief, two years from his first White House press briefing and less than three years from his office job at an auto body repair shop, is one half-minute from blowing it.

Gannon, AKA James Dale Guckert, is about to ask the question that will strip the mask off who and what he is, crash fictitious “news outlet” Talon News and that will kick start demands in Congress for investigations into national security, White House access and definitions of media that are implied by his very presence in that room.

But Wait!

 Before he asks that question … Did we just say … an auto body repair shop?

Yes, it’s true. Guckert’s path to the president reads like a modern-day fairy tale on steroids. In less than twelve months, Guckert was catapulted from the position of office manager of family-owned and operated Karmak, Inc., in West Chester, Pennsylvania, to the White House briefing room, with a quick – but thus far unverified beyond Guckert’s claim – two-day seminar at the Leadership Institute’s Broadcast Journalism School.

Meteoric doesn’t begin to describe such a rise.

Nothing in his professional resume would lead one to predict he’d be rubbing elbows with the cream of the American press corps, with unprecedented exceptions made for press pass qualifications, so that he could – on what must be the longest “day pass” ever – help the president out in a pinch or give predictable oral op/eds disguised as questions at hundreds of press briefings.

Nothing would predict that an avidly partisan website, GOPUSA, run by a couple of well-connected Texas Republicans, would go to the lengths of creating an entire “news” agency – Talon News – simply to justify Guckert’s non-qualified presence at briefings.

Let’s take a look at that resume.

Landscaping. A public teacher’s certificate. Office jobs. Two decades of kicking around the liquor distribution business in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and then … leaving a friend’s auto body shop in January 2002, to resurface in November of the same year as “Jeff Gannon,” the “Conservative Guy,” in a short, unpromising commentary on an obscure web site. And less than three months later, he would sit in the White House, Row D, center orchestra. Nice seat.

Some of the stretches of Guckert’s life are still quite sketchy – the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, for one; and the pivotal period of giving notice at Karmak in December 2001 and popping up during the ensuing year as a publicly fictional “conservative guy,” for another. And where his now well-known moonlighting career as a pornography webmaster and advertised escort on the internet intersects with his official resume leads to more suggestive questions than concrete answers.

Part of the oddity of Guckert’s life is not only that his official resume in no way prepared him for the White House, but that he created not just one, but two, diametrically opposed personas in the past few years – “Jeff Gannon,” the conservative guy who fell in line with the “Gods, guns and gays” Rovian talking points and spread them like a virus throughout cyberspace, and “Bulldog” (or “Jeff” or “Lou”), gay escort and pornography webmaster.

A detailed timeline of what is known at this point of Guckert’s varied careers is appended to this piece. The lion’s share of this is based on public records and interviews with former employers. A much smaller portion is based on two anonymous sources – one who knew him during college and immediately thereafter, and one who encountered Guckert when he served as alumni advisor to his old college fraternity.

Let the narrative of the two lives begin, so far as our triple verification process will take us.

The Lives of James D. Guckert and Jeff Gannon

A 1975 graduate of Conneaut Lake High School in Pennsylvania, Guckert attended West Chester University, graduating in 1980 and obtaining an Instructional Level I teaching certificate for Social Studies from the state of Pennsylvania. Whether he actually used his certificate to teach is unclear; a later employer recalls Guckert referring to teaching in the Wilmington, Delaware, area, possibly at high school level, but we have not yet been able to verify this.

During college, he was a member and officer of Tau Kappa Epsilon, MA #248, a Mu Alpha TKE. His fraternity affiliation was important enough to him that two decades later, he played a role in revitalizing West Chester University’s TKE chapter, and his continued connection with the group is well-documented in its alumni association records.

According to one anonymous source, Guckert did indeed fulfill student teaching requirements during his time at West Chester, and in the summer after graduation, he went to work for Herb Plankinton, a landscape architect from a prominent and well-connected family in the Mendenhall, Pennsylvania, area. (Plankinton died in 1992.) It was during this period that Randy McFarland, future owner of Karmak, says that he met Guckert, when the two worked as landscape laborers for Plankinton and struck up the friendship that lasted until Guckert left Karmak for Washington, D.C., in 2002.

McFarland recalls that throughout the mid- to late 1980’s, Guckert and he worked on various landscaping jobs together in Delaware.

In addition to these outdoor odd jobs, Guckert began to work for various liquor distributors in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Because the distribution industry is rife with subsidiaries, split-offs and reformations, it’s not entirely clear where one entity leaves off and another begins, and we hope to clarify with further research. What know for certain that Guckert listed himself in a 1984 TKE directory as operations manager for NKS Distributors in New Castle, Delaware, and that Brenda Hall of Century Wine & Spirits (formerly NKS … see the confusion?) confirmed that he worked there “long ago.” It appears from various public records that he worked for NKS or one of its subsidiaries at least through 1987 and quite possibly beyond.

Whoever his official employer at the time, Guckert began having trouble paying his taxes. For the four years from 1991 to 1994, he failed to pay personal income tax in the state of Delaware, for a total of nearly $9,500 in unpaid taxes. With fines and penalties making his total owed bill a whopping $20,742.40, Delaware filed a lien against him in October 1996.

Documented bad luck continued to dog Guckert. In June of 1997, he was in a car accident that resulted two years later in the filing of a personal injury lawsuit that named him as a defendant along with liquor distributor Diamond State Distributors. While we await the slow process of getting the archived documentation from Delaware, we can verify the basic outlines of the lawsuit through a courthouse source who read the docket information to us over the phone: two plaintiffs, one of whom settled early. and another who, after failed mediation resulted in official lawsuit filing, settled during trial.

And yes, it’s still unclear whether Diamond State is part of another company (NKS denies any relationship) or one in which possibly Guckert was a “partner.”

What is certain is that he was hired as office manager in late 1997 by yet another liquor distributor, Viva Vino of Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Founder Levino Razzi said that Guckert explained he was unemployed because a business in which he was a partner had been sold. Razzi commented that he was never sure whether Guckert was really part owner of the business in question; he wasn’t even certain that it had really been sold, rather than just shutting down.  

Razzi’s uncertainty about Guckert’s situation prior to his arrival at Viva Vino is an example of a recurring theme with those who knew Guckert. As with many of Guckert’s explanations – evidenced by his biography on conservativeguy.com – information seems specific until you start looking hard for verifiable details, and often only after people try to remember specifics about the man do they realize how vague he was about the details of his life.

Whatever the real story of how Guckert came to be unemployed, Razzi was never anything but pleased with the decision to hire him; he characterizes Guckert as an exemplary employee. When contacted last week, Razzi seemed genuinely shocked by the revelations surfacing about Guckert’s internet double life, finding it completely at odds with the man he thought he knew. He even remarked that Guckert more than once brought a woman to the occasional office party. He was always polite, efficient, well-spoken and he never hit on anyone in the office, according to Razzi.

During his two-year tenure at Viva Vino, Guckert reconnected with TKE, his fraternity at West Chester. The Mu Alpha chapter lost its charter in 1989, but in 1996 it gained status as a colony, becoming a fully chartered chapter in 1998, at which point former TKE Mu Alpha members stepped in. Alumni meeting newsletters and official minutes show Guckert taking leading roles in revitalizing the group, helping the chapter set up a website and even – at the same time the tax lien hung over his head – donating hundreds of dollars to the group while serving as alumni advisor to current undergraduates. At one point, Guckert served as mentor to the TKE equivalent of a chaplain, a position he’d also held as an undergrad.

A former TKE member who wishes to remain anonymous was a student at the time and knew Guckert during this advisory period, which ended only with Guckert’s departure for the nation’s capital. His recollections of Guckert follow:

Interesting, yes, that bolded portion of our source’s email correspondence? While we continue to pursue this lead, keep in mind that Guckert has a pretty well-documented history of vague and exaggerated (and often only implied) claims in several arenas, from journalism credentials to … well, personal attributes.

Back on the job front, Guckert gave notice at Viva Vino in March 1999, and Razzi said it came with the explanation that he was tired of office work and wanted a change – odd in light of the fact that Guckert promptly became Karmak’s office manager, but diplomatically understandable given that Randy and Amy McFarland, longtime friends, asked for help getting their new auto body repair venture off the ground. (Razzi says he and his former employee continued something of an informal business arrangement “for about a year or so,” as Guckert continued to service accounts that had been “his” at Viva Vino.)

And so began Guckert’s final official career position before showing up as “Jeff Gannon” at the White House.

When the McFarlands decided to launch Karmak in April 1999, they felt themselves fortunate to be able to bring in an old and trusted friend to manage the office. They say he more than fulfilled their expectations of him, overseeing the accounting and scheduling aspects of the fledgling business. During the two-and-a-half years that he worked with the couple, they report, Guckert’s personal life and politics were never discussed. They say they Guckert didn’t tell them of his future employment or plans when he gave notice in December 2001, and say that they have had no contact with him since he left Karmak for Washington, D.C., in January 2002.

Bedrock Corporation

Guckert’s Bedrock Corporation, founded in April 1997, is something of a mysterious entity on several levels. It fits into Guckert’s life arc in the period right before the Diamond State Distributor car accident and about half a year before he arrived at Vina Vivo. (Much of this becomes clearer on the appended timeline.)

Bedrock appears in several locations on the internet and in several different manifestations: as a court reporting service, a factoring agent, a secretarial agency and a resume-writing service. Yet we’ve been unable to obtain evidence – any evidence at all – that Bedrock ever actually provided these services. Calls made to practicing court reporters in the Wilmington area turn up no one familiar with Guckert or Bedrock, and no one can verify any sort of factoring activity undertaken by it. (For those unfamiliar with factoring, a layman’s explanation: a factoring agent purchases a company’s accounts receivables at discount in order to collect at full price, pocketing the difference as profit.)

The corporation appears to have remained dormant until August 1999, when Guckert began paying a web designer through Bedrock to create internet escort sites, as documented at Americablog last month. Ironically, the corporation also is the official domain registrant for Guckert’s primary right-wing political web sites. So the conservativeguy.com (created October 2000) and jeffgannon.com (created June 2002) slept in the same web bed as hotmilitarystuds.com.

Additionally, there’s the tangential mystery of Bedrock’s official registered agent/incorporator, one “Regina Cephas,” who, according to an article in the Augusta Chronicle, was sued by the Salt Lake Olympics Committee for cybersquatting on Olympic domain names and – hold on to your hats here – turned out to be a fictitious individual in her own right, another pseudonym in this tangle.

There’s so much left to be explored, it makes our collective ePluribus Media head hurt. This is but one example.

Back to 2002

So in December 2001, Guckert shows up for work at Karmak one day with the announcement that he’s moving to Washington, D.C., to pursue his interest in politics. No job is mentioned that awaits him, according to the McFarlands. No plans are discussed.

He moves and creates so little trace of himself – at least as J.D. Guckert; there’s more than enough of “Jeff Gannon” all over the internet – that even now, three years later, no residential address turns up for him in D.C.

Hmmm.

Logic would dictate that some crucial encounter or intersection of interests converged in the latter half of 2001 that spurred Guckert’s career-changing (and name-changing) move, but at this point, we may only speculate. So we move on to the little that we do know about the crucial year of 2002, before he emerged from his chrysalis to become a White House correspondent for GOPUSA.

Keeping in mind that from 1999 up until a month ago, Guckert was actively advertising himself as a gay escort, it’s possible that a portion of his life in 2002 was spent … well … escorting – especially given the fact that not one other visible trace of employment during this period can be located.

But what about his “Jeff Gannon” life? What was happening there?

In January, he registered theconservativeguy.com and in March he established an attached Paypal account. In June, jeffgannon.com was registered, and a month later, at a rally promoting the Pledge of Allegiance, he claimed on conservativeguy.com to have been filmed reciting the pledge (exciting stuff, that). Then nothing until November, when things began to pick up.

November 12 was a busy day. “Jeff Gannon” published the earliest commentary we have yet to find, a flat, short, not exactly promising piece at the Conservative Monitor, and he also received a customer testimonial describing his $200/rate and penis size. Then eight days later, another “Jeff Gannon” piece appeared, this one on opinionseditorials.com. A “Conservative Guy” article was run on the intellectualconservative.com website on Dec. 18, 2002, and then five days later, Jeff Gannon aired his first webcast on theconservativeguy.com.

Merry Christmas.

Two weeks later, in January 2003, Jeff Gannon showed up at his first State Department press conference, and a month later – wearing a GOPUSA identification tag around his neck – he can be spotted sitting in the briefing room at the White House, live and in color thanks to [CSPAN 31:53 on CSPAN RealVideo archive]. On March 29, 2003, Talon News registers its domain name and on April 1, it goes live.

… January 26, 2005

Fast forward through hundreds of day passes and scores of partisan “Gannon” queries to the fateful day of the infamous question. You know, the one where he strafes the Democratic leadership and President Bush succumbs to a snicker. First, a long preamble, jumbled in with a made-up stolen quote from Rush Limbaugh, and then the final, jarring phrase that brought a firestorm of scrutiny down upon him, his “news” agency and White House vetting standards:

“Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there’s no crisis there. How are you going to work — you said you’re going to reach out to these people — how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?”

Mr. “Gannon,” take a deep breath. You’re about to get “googled.”

Where Do We Go from Here?

We dig some more. We try and come up with the “close encounter” from 2001 that led to change of residency and name. We try and find his D.C. address. We try and find out if/when he attended the Leadership Institute. We interview anyone and everyone who knew him at any point in the past thirty years.

One of the challenges of investigating a key player in an issue such as this, is that it is easy to lose sight of the individual at the heart of it. The thrill of the chase – of turning up information that was clearly meant to be hidden, of teasing out the detail that begins to make sense of a surfeit of leads – can dull empathy for the real, breathing human being on the receiving end. As remedy, we’d also like to focus in the future on who Guckert is as a person, on Guckert as a friend, colleague, relative (and if he’d grant us an interview or answer our questions, how he sees himself).

Admittedly, few of us could withstand this, such targeted scrutiny, and come up clean. To handle such an onslaught with grace or dignity would be a trial to anyone.

But there’s no disregarding that he’s also a symbol, a symbol that represents some things gone seriously awry in this country in the past few years. He also is a process, as a person who was plucked from relative obscurity to sit in the White House, to blur the ever more smudged line between partisan propraganda and true fact-gathering and reporting. Getting the carefully crafted message out has become more important than making sure the message is true or complete.

We are a country that’s been stretched to the breaking point with lies. With omission of facts. With government-funded fake news reports. With paid pundits. With people who are not who or what they say they are. With motives that are rarely straightforward and with end runs around legal processes, whether they be Florida judicial decisions or the Geneva Conventions.

James Dale Guckert is part of something much bigger than perhaps even he imagined. Getting to the bottom of who he really is, how he got preferential treatment and why in particular he was chosen is vital, we believe, to begin the shearing of the wool that’s been pulled over the eyes of our democracy.

The Absolutely Essential J.D. Guckert Timeline

June 1975: Graduates from Conneaut Lake High School.

1975-June 1980: Attends West Chester College (now West Chester University) and joins TKE fraternity. He is given #248 on the chapter member scroll.

August 1, 1980: Is awarded Instruction I teaching certficate in social studies by PA (PA Department of Education).

1980-mid-1980’s: Works for landscape architect Herb Plankinton, meets Randy McFarland, future owner of Karmak.

1984: Lists “N.K.S. Distributors” as his employer in the TKE alumni directory.

1986-1987: Plays for a bar’s team in the City of Brotherly Love Softball League (Philadelphia Gay News)

1991-1994: Earns income, fails to pay Delaware state income taxes.

October 18, 1996: Tax judgment filed for failure to pay Delaware state income tax over a multi-year period.

April 10, 1997:Bedrock Corp. incorporates in Delaware.

June 26, 1997: Car accident occurs that will result in lawsuit two years later, with Guckert and Diamond State Distributors listed as defendants. (Case No. 99C-06-215).

Late 1997: Viva Vino Imports hires Guckert as office manager.

March 1999: Gives notice at Viva Vino, continues working with old accounts there for a year or so.

April 1999: Starts working for Karmak as office manager.

August 31, 1999: First invoice for porn site. Name used is “Jeff.” (Warning: link not work safe.)

September 27, 1999: GOPUSA.com registered (whois)

November 10, 1999: Guckert listed as “new” on a Philadelpha escort service, using the pseudonym “Lou”.

February 23, 2000: Guckert’s underwear photo uploaded to personal page at AOL.

March 30, 2000: Last of invoices for porn site design. (Warning: link not work-safe.)

May 11, 2000: Guckert’s militaryescortsm4m.com domain registered (whois).

August 9, 2001: BEDROCKcorp@aol.com PayPal account created. Two verified buyers since then. (PayPal).

August 25, 2001: Date on customer review with nude photo. (Warning: Link not work-safe.)

October 31, 2001: usmcpt.com first recorded as live. One photo is named “jeff.jpg” (Warning: link not work safe.)

December 2001: Guckert gives notice at Karmak, says he’s moving to Washington, D.C., to pursue political interests.

January 2002: Quitting Karmak, Mr. Guckert goes to Washington.

January 25, 2002: theconservativeguy.com domain registered (whois).

March 11, 2002: Paypal account for conservativeguy.com  created (Paypal).

May 11, 2002: studfiles.com profile last modified.

May 11, 2002: workingboys.net profile last modified. (WARNING: link not work-safe.)

June 17, 2002: jeffgannon.com domain registered (whois).

July 16, 2002: Posts page about attending Pledge of Allegiance rally.

July 19, 2002: jdg17@aol.com paypal account registered (paypal).

November 12, 2002: Customer testimonial posted describing $200/hour rate and penis size.

November 12, 2002: Opinion piece by “Jeff Gannon” published in the Conservative Monitor.

November 20, 2002: “Jeff Gannon” article  posted to opinioneditorials.com.

December 18, 2002: Article published under moniker “The Conservative Guy.”

December 18, 2002: First posts to Boot To the Skull as “Jeff Gannon” but uses “theconservativeguy” as a file name. Note that this link will give you a page from the wrong date half the time.)  

December 23, 2002: Guckert makes first webcast.

January 13, 2003: Guckert attends State Dept. briefing.

Jan 15, 2003: Byline “Jeff Gannon” first appears on gopusa.com web site (site since scrubbed).

February 2003: Guckert on CSPAN in White House.

February 2003-January 2005: Lots of documented over-the-top biased questions; hundreds of crappy “Talon News” articles posted.

January 26, 2005: The Question. The beginning of the end.