February 17, 2005 by s.z.

Latest Gannon News: BADGEGATE! Daily Kos/Categorically Imperative and AMERICAblog have posted a photo of Gannon at that March 2003 press conference wearing some kind of plastic photo badge around his neck.  There is speculation that this might be a "hard pass" (the kind of press pass granted to members of the White House press corps who have met eligiblity requirements AND passed an FBI background investigation).  Hard passes have the name, news organization, and a photo of the issuee on them .  But Scottie McClellan has said on more than one occasion that Gannon was just issued  daily passes day after day for two years (day passes just say "press" on them in large letters ).  Dana Milbank said on "Countdown" that he had thought he had seen Gannon wearing a hard pass.  However, I believe I heard or read another reporter (possibly somebody appearing on CNN?) say that he thought Gannon had made his own badge so that he would look like the other reporters. So, what is Gannon wearing in this photo?  Well, some reporters wear press badges issued by their own papers as well as their White House press badge. Maybe that's the case here -- however, Gannon wouldn't be wearing a Talon News badge because Talon news didn't exist yet.  And since this is probably only Jeff's first or second press conference, a normal person wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to go out and make his own badge just for this occasion.  (But Jeff might have, of course.) So, maybe he really did have a hard pass, and Scottie lied.  But since Gannon's badge status seems like a thing that would eventually come out, it would be a really stupid thing to lie about.  (Not to say that it rules out this possiblity, of course.) Some posters at Kos and AB have speculated that Jeff had a White House badge, but not a WH hard press pass  -- but  ANY permanent White House ID would require an FBI background check, and it seems unlikely that "Jeff" could pass one. Therefore, my guess is that it's a badge from his military service days. The badge photo is REALLY blurry, but it kind of looks like he's wearing a hat in it.  Plus, Jeff reportedly told the designer who set up his USMCPT website in late 1999 that this stood for "US Marine Corps part time."  So, maybe he had some kind of ID left over from his military service or part-time reserve military service, and he wore that to the White House.  It just seems like the kind of thing he would do. Developing, as they say . . . 2:50:45 PM

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: The Gannon Files, pt. I Today we will try to unravel the the enigma wrapped in a fake name covered only with dog tags and a watch known as JimJeff GukertGannon (whom we will refer to as "Jeff Gannon" for the rest of the article, because it's easier to spell, pronounce, and remember  -- you know, like the name "Kirk Douglas'). Just how did a guy whose only journalism background was working as a male escort get called on regularly by the White House Press Secretary, and even get to question the President of the United States? While there are a lot of theories floating around, let's start by reviewing some of the evidence (which I have gathered, or appropriated, from many of the diaries at Daily Kos, from the ground-breaking info at AMERICAblog, recent news stories, and my own use of Google). and see what makes sense. First, some background:  Jeff, whose background reportedly includes stints as a truck driver, fitness trainer, enterpeneur, teacher, and Marine, began advertising his services as an escort circa September 1999.  Some time after that he began calling himself both "Bulldog" and "Jeff," and started to solicit customers in the D.C. metro area.  He maintained a site advertising his escort services until at least May 2003. (Another extant escort service site still contains one of Jeff's profiles, but he might not have done anything to keep that one current.) Now, some background about GOPUSA: In late 1999 Texas aerospace engineer and Republican activist Bobby Eberle and his college buddy Bill Fairbrother (a "computer science" guy) started a web-design company for Republican candidates. ("We'll help get good candidates on the Web and we'll use our design and technology skills to get out the conservative message!" Bobby explained in an interview.)  They didn't get much business.  So, in September 2000 they relaunched GOPUSA as a conservative opinion/news site, using volunteer reporter/columnists.  But they were still trying to make money from fellow conservatives by selling them web site design and other techological services. The Cached version of their 2001 press release says:  GOPUSA is a privately-held corporation based in Houston, TX. The goal of GOPUSA is to spread the conservative message throughout America. [...] GOPUSA is also dedicated to providing the tools which allow others to spread their own conservative message. From web site design and other multi-media services, GOPUSA is making it possible for more conservative voices to be heard. In a later interview, Bobby said that the business was funded by donations from members, plus some revenue obtained from on site advertising.  The GOPUSA Board of Directors consists of Eberle, Fairbrother, and five other individuals active in the Republican party.  None of them seem like billionaires, but most of them presumably make a comfortable living.  Bobby makes his living from GOPUSA and Talon News. Bobby was a delegate to the RNC in 2000, and has been a delegate to Republican state conventions seveal times. Bill Fairbrother, who used to be a performance analyst at IBM, now operates his own computer-related consulting service.  He's also the chairman of the Williamson County, TX Republican Party.  Heclaims that he's only been moderately involved with GOPUSA since the web design efforts faltered, and that he has never met Jeff Gannon. (Hey, Bill has a nice house in the Austin suburbs -- oh, and he says that he's single but "taking applications," so check him out, interested girls and/or guys!)  I suspect that at least a couple of the members of the GOPUSA board of directors (namely Steve Findley, head of Titan Systems, which was bought by Allied Systems in 1992; and Richard Powell, "founder and president of JPX Interactive Technologies," might travel to D.C. from time to time, but there is no indication that any of them would be there very often. So, there are no apparent points of intersection between Eberle (or anyone else from GOPUSA) and Jeff Gannon. Talon News Talon News, which Bobby Eberle also runs, began publishing on 1 April 2003.  Both Jeff Gannon and Bobby have claimed that it's an independent news company. (Per the TN site, "Talon News is committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers.")  Here's more about Talon's commitment to nonbias from a recent Dallas Morning News story: Eberle said he strives to keep his 2-year-old news site "completely separate" from the partisan GOPUSA, and said that if he, as editor, came across a story that was critical of Republicans, "you bet we'd be covering it." "It's important to maintain the line between opinion and news, and I try very hard to do that," he said. "GOPUSA is overtly partisan; it says so in our name. But if you look on the Talon news site, it's just news." Talon News content is carried by GOPUSA and MensNewsDaily (in fact, you usually have to click to one of these sites to read the complete Talon news articles); I don't know if MND pays anything for the TalonNews stories it uses on its site, but Talon News seems to exist mainly to provide some of the content carried by GOPUSA. So, now we can go back to the question of how Jim Guckert became Jeff Gannon, the Talon News Washington Bureau chief. This is what Jeff told Editor and Publisher last week: He began using the Gannon name in 2001, while working in Pennsylvania to help a friend with a start-up business in auto repair, one of several jobs he said he'd had outside of journalism prior to coming to Washington.  "I was projecting out into the future at that time that I was going to be a journalist," he said. "I wanted to have a better name that is not difficult to spell or pronounce. Well, I don't know many people who change their names when they start up auto repair businesses, but since it was about 2001 when he started using the name "Jeff" in his escort service listings, maybe that's what he really meant.  Jeff's "jdg17" AOL homepage (the one with the the "Still Sexy After All These Years" photo had a page called "Where I Work" which linked to "we paint trucks.com."  Maybe he was "Jeff Gannon, sexy auto repair guy/ truck painter" in 2001. He said he had been writing op-ed pieces since 2001, when he was in Pennsylvania, and that he had them submitted to several Web sites and "advocacy groups," including MichNews and Frontiers of Freedom. He said he could not think of any others. "I wrote about 20 or 30, over several years," he said, "on subjects like Trent Lott and other conservative issues." (An E&P search of online archives at MichNews turned up no articles by Gannon, and a Google search turned up no Gannon articles at either MichNews or Frontiers of Freedom.) In 2000 Jeff registed some conservative-sounding sites, but doesn't appear to have done anything with them.  In June 2002, Jeff registered "jeffgannon.com." and started The Conservative Guy (cached version), which he kept updated until January 2004.  The Conservative Guy.com includes a dozen or pieces by Jeff on such topics as why George Bush is such a great president -- maybe he wrote them in 2001, when he was in PA.  And maybe he submitted these or similar pieces to those advocacy groups, which declined to publish them.  However, In November 2002 the first Jeff Gannon article appears in an online publication (the "Conservative Monitor), and his career appears to have been launced.   He said he came across Talon News while researching and liked its approach. The Texas Republican activist who runs it also manages the site GOPUSA. Um, no. See, on January 15, 2003 the first Jeff Gannon byline appears at at GOPUSA.  And it's not until April 1, 2003 that Talon News is publishing.  So, since Jeff wrote for GOPUSA before there was a Talon News, he would have surely known about the creation of its "news division," Talon, without having to "come across it" while doing research. "I had submitted my writings to Talon and saw they were looking for people to write news, and it was something I was interested in. I moved to Washington after Sept. 11, 2001, because I was so affected by [the attacks]." We could make a crack about D.C.'s desperate post-9/11 need for male escorts, but we won't. Guckert said he first went to work for Talon News in February 2003 after writing several test stories for them, becoming a stringer at first and later a full-time salaried reporter. Okay, even though Jeff obviously didn't just stumble upon Talon News, it's possible that Jeff "came across" GOPUSA while doing online research for wingnut sites that might use his writings, and submitted some opinon pieces to them, which they pubished, and then later he became a  volunteer reporter for Talon News, once it was created in April.  In fact, this is what I think happened -- I don't believe that Jeff had any close ties to anybody on the GOPUSA board (they're in Texas, he's in D.C. and Eberle is the only one who seems to have any real power anyway).  I belive that Jeff  was only hired in the first place because, like the wingnuts at Renew America et. al. he had the right political views, a lot of time on his hands, and was willing to work for free. (However, after he started getting White House access, he was more than just another Judson Cox or Carey Roberts, and became their star reporter, the whole raison d'etre of Talon News.  That's my theory, at least.) But this theory, while plausible (at least, to me), reinforces the point that Talon News is just part of GOPUSA, a partisan opinion site. (In fact, here's a cached version of Jeff's GOPUSA "Directors and Officers" bio, which strengthens this assumption about GOPUSA and Talon being basically the same thing.) However, if it's true that Jeff just stumbled into his job at GOPUSA, then it would mean that the White House Press Office was where something "funny" happened, if something did (which I believe was the case). Oh, and Jeff only started receiving a salary after he applied for a hard press pass, since an eligiblity requirement is that a reporter make his or her living (or at least half of a living, depending on who you talk to ) from his or her sponsoring new organization.  The fact that GOPUSA/Talon News was willing to come up with some dough for him demonstrates that Bobby recognized that the business was getting some benefits from Jeff's continued presence at the briefings, since nobody else on the news/columnist side presumably got anything for their services. But back to Jeff lying about Talon News being a news organization.   Per Editor & Publisher: He [Gannon] would not discuss Talon News's ties to Republican groups. "I write a news story, I post it, and anything having to do with GOPUSA, I don't know about." Well, Jeff obviously knows that Talon News and GOPUSA are just two divisions of the same organization, and that the GOPUSA board of directors have strong ties to the Republican party, but if he wants to pretend that he "knows nuthink, nuthink!" then that's his story, and I guess he's sticking to it (or he was, until he told E&P that he doesn't want to talk to the media anymore.) But here's where his story REALLY breaks down: On March 5, 2003, on a thread at the conservative bulletin board Winds of Change concerning an alleged incident where a teacher in Maine "harassed" the children of servicemen by voicing antiwar views, one Jeff Gannon wrote: "This is a question I asked Ari Fleischer at a White House press briefing on Friday"  He then posted this question from the WH press conference transcript: Q: There have been reports out of Maine that the children of deployed service personnel are being harassed as a result of their elementary school teacher's expression of anti-war views in the classroom. Could you comment on that?"  Videotape of the conference confirms that this is Jeff.  If you click on Jeff's "Winds of Change" user ID, you are directed to GOP USA.  So, Jeff was covering the White House press conferences before Talon News had been created!  Nice trick, that. He presumably told the White House that he worked for GOPUSA, and was granted a press pass anyway, which should raise a bunch of red flags right there.  While Scottie has said that he and his people don't make judgments about the journalistic merits of those applying to get into press conferences, anybody with 1/4 of a brain would HAVE to realize that a site called GOPUSA wasn't a news service, but was instead some kind of conservative opinion site.  So, why in the world would Jeff have thought he could get into a WH press conference?  How did he get into it?  And however did he get called on by Ari, who presumably wouldn't take questions from the wingnuts from The Rant if they happened to show up at the White House? My guess is that either Jeff knew somebody in the Press Office in 2003, or somebody at GOPUSA knew somebody at the press office, and pulled some strings to get him in.  Or else that the WH Press Office is staffed by total incompetents who allow anybody, including groups of tourists waiting for White House tours, ask questions at press conferences.  (More speculation about this later.) In any case, Jeff got it, and he got his question answered.  And about a month later, Talon News debuted.  Did Bobby Eberle launch a news service just to provide a sponsor for Jeff Ganon, member of the White House press corps?  IMHO, yes.  (Well, Bobby probably saw other benefits to it, but the timing suggests that it was Jeff's success at the White House that caused him to branch out into "news.") But back to the story Jeff told Editor and Publisher: "I asked them if I could go and cover the White House, and they said I could try. Ari Fleischer was the press secretary then, and he went precisely row by row, so I was skipped over many times in the beginning. I don't recall when I finally got to be called on." So, maybe the March 2003 conference wasn't the first one Jeff attended. Yes, if you believe Jeff, he had to have attended many previous ones, where he was skipped over by anal-retentive Ari.  But since Jeff's first GOPUSA story was published in January 2003, I'd say that was the earliest he could have been admitted to Ari's prescence. "McClellan came in and did it differently; he skipped around a lot.” Meaning, I guess, that Jeff got called on more by Scottie than by Ari. He said that when he first joined Talon, “it was a lean organization and I was compensated on a stringer basis." He would not say how much he made as a stringer or a full-time reporter. Did he receive money from other sources? No, he said, he lived off savings during his stringer stretch. "As time went on,” he said, “my salary increased." In other words, he supported himself as an escort while spending his days fulfilling his fantasy of being a real reporter, which he could now do, thanks to the fact that he was admitted to White House press conferences.  Later, his "salary increased" from nothing to "something."  (Since he apparently didn't advertise his escort services after May 2003, maybe by then Talon News was paying him enough that he could give up being a paid companion.  Or perhaps by May he had made enough contacts in D.C  that he didn't need to advertise any longer.) Guckert first attended a presidential press conference in April 2003, he said, just weeks after starting with Talon News. Wow, from writing opinion pieces for GOPUSA to attending presidential press confernces in just four months!   (And Talon News had only been in existance for a few days.)  What a great American success story! He also attended another, for which he cannot recall the date, prior to the late-January conference that brought him to public attention. "I was also once at a Rose Garden briefing after the announcement of the interim government in Iraq,” he said. “It was impromptu. I thought [Bush] had pointed at me, but he was really pointing at someone else. But I shouted out a question, and he answered it." Indeed he did.  In fact, people were always answering Jeff's questions.  But they weren't softball questions -- no, they were what the public wanted to know!  Well, Jeff's public. From Jeff's Wolf Blitzer interview: BLITZER: I was going to say, were you there in the White House briefing room on a daily basis to try to change the subject, if you will, send softball questions to Scott McClellan, the press secretary? Or were you there as a real journalist trying to get the story? GANNON: Well, Talon News is a legitimate conservative online news service.  Just like General Hospital is a real health care provider. But still, Jeff was there every day, with his day pass and his fake name and his wingnutty questions. And my questions are things that my readers, 700,000 daily subscribed readers, want the answer to. And those are my questions. If TalonNews/GOPUSA/MensNewsDaily has 700,000 daily subscribed readers, it's only because, like Bart Simpson once exclaimed, "Oh my God ... the dead have risen and they're voting Republican! But it's common ownership. That's all. Talon News is a separate, independent news division. I work for Talon News. I write articles for Talon News. And that's it. Just like the Oscar Meyer weiner manufacturing division is completely separate and independent from Oscar Meyer's marketing divison. I created the questions. Nobody fed questions to me. Scott McClellan certainly never knew what was coming. Oooh, sorry Jeff, that's not what you told your FreeRepublic fans!  Here's Jeff's post that started the thread where he explained what Scottie could expect from him: Kerry's Anti-War Record Discussed at White House Briefing 2/10/2004 | Jeff Gannon Posted on 02/10/2004 2:56:29 PM PST by Jeff Gannon This was the exchange at today's White House press briefing, much of which focused on George W. Bush's service records with the National Guard. JEFF GANNON (Talon News): Since there have been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting? What was he doing after he was honorably discharged? MR. McCLELLAN: We've already commented on some of his views relating back to that period the other day. And, obviously, this was a time period also when he was going to get his MBA at Harvard. But the President was certainly proud to serve in the National Guard. "And didn't Mr. Kerry kill puppies, use heroin, and canibalize children at the behest of Satan, at the time when President Bush was keeping our heartland safe from Nazi submarines?" Anyway, after Jeff posts the above item about his heroic grilling of Scottie in pursuit of truth, he got a couple hundred "you sure told the libs!" and various other "attaboys" from his fellow Freepers.  And then he bragged about being on Sean Hannity's radio show (again) to tell Sean all about it.  And then somebody posted this: Kerry's Anti-War Record Discussed at White House Briefing To: Jeff Gannon; [...] I haven't been watching the WHPB often since Ari left, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more of your killer questions. I think Scott appreciated it too from the smirk he was trying to hold back. ;-) 256 posted on 02/10/2004 7:11:14 PM PST by StriperSniper   And Jeff replied: Posted by Jeff Gannon to StriperSniper 02/10/2004 7:13:03 PM PST · 259 of 346 It's hard to say with Scott but he usually knows what he's going to get from me. Yeah, it certainly does look like Scott usually knows what he's going to get if he asks Jeff a question (softballs). Anyway, from what we've looked at so far, here are my theories: Jeff Gannon, a middle-aged guy with no backround in journalism but with an interest in punditing, did as so many others before him have done and sent out some of his conservative columns to the various amateur, lowrent wingnut sites on the net.  And like many others wingnuts, his work was "published" by GOPUSA.  It's only after that that things go surreal.  Somehow, between January 2003, when his first piece appeared at GOPUSA, and March 2003, when he had a wingnut-oriented question answered in a White House press conference, he started getting admitted to WH press conferences.  So, to me, these are the possibilities that come to mind: A.  Perhaps Gannon had a contact or contacts (probably low- to mid-level) in the WH press office who could help him get daily press passes, and maybe help him get a seat in the briefings.  (Did he make this contact through his work as an escort? And what is the name of this contact?  Is al-Qaeda involved?  Inquiring minds would want to know!) Once he got into the briefings and got called on once or twice, Ari and Scottie soon learned what kind of questions he asked, and began to call on him on a regular basis.  And so, because they liked his questions, nobody had any desire to look too closely at why Gannon was being admitted for years on a daily pass, which wasn't in keeping with the post 9/11 Secret Service regulations for WH admittance since it meant that he never got any security processing beyond (probably) a check to see if he was wanted by the FBI for murder or by Homeland Security for being Cat Stevens. (Okay, this is my favorite theory.) B.  Or, perhaps the WH press office was so eager to get friendly questions that they purposefully admitted some rube who proudly said that he was a reporter from GOPUSA..  And then, when saw the cut of his gib (wingnutty), they invited him to come back as often as he wanted. C.  Or perhaps GOPUSA, a group owned and operated by Texas Republicans, was given special privileges by somebody in the WH press office, either because somebody owned one or more of these Texas Republicans a favor, or because he wanted to help out some fellow travelers (hey, Texan Republicans must stick together). D.  Or maybe somebody at the WH gave GOPUSA special privileges both to help out some fellow travelers AND to have somebody in place to throw softballs when things got tense. E.  Or maybe somebody at the White House got Jeff his job with GOPUSA so that he could be used to lob softballs at officials in press conferences, and also leak info from fake memos about Valerie Plame.  (This one seems beyond the realm of possibility to me, because if the WH wanted to get themselves a shill, surely they could have found a more competent, less skanky one.  And if he was blackmailing somebody at the WH for a job, wouldn't he have demanded something better than GOPUSA?) F.  Or maybe any random prostitute can wander into the White House and start asking Scottie and the President questions (which they are compelled to answer). I believe that one of these has to be the case.  If I am right, then somebody should be taking a really close look at the WH press office's operations.  You know, for the sake of the children.  (Hey, those kids who were spared seeing two moms and maple sugar in Vermont were forced to see a gay person question our President about the nature of reality on national TV, and that HAS to be damaging to their innocent little world views.)   In any case, it's seems obvious that GOPUSA was doing their bit to keep their "inside source" in his favored position, going as far as to pay him a salary when they learned that this was a requirement to get a hard pass.  But I don't think there's any evidence that he knew anybody at GOPUSA before being picked up as one of their unpaid wingnutty columnists.  However, through his residence in the DC area and some combination of other circumstances involving the White House press office, he began to be admitted to press conferences.  And then Jeff was GOPUSA's fair-haired boy. And they basked in his glow -- until it came out that he might be gay, when then quickly cut all ties with him, and removed all his content from their sites. But to end things on a happier note, here are a few more posts from Jeff's glory day, the one where he hit a homerun for Freeperdom by sniping at Kerry's war record and lauding Bush's during a press conference.  The first one is by Bobby Eberle himself: ... GOPUSA features new Talon News stories week day, and we send out an e-mail news update each morning so you know what's up. Please sign up. As you can see, my DC reporter is right on top of things. You can trust that Jeff will do the digging where no one else will. We're also planning to do more activities with FR as time goes along. I'm really looking forward to working with all of you! Bobby Robert R. Eberle, Ph.D. President and CEO, GOPUSA Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Talon News Web: http://www.gopusa.com Yes, having Jeff in the WH was a good publicity tool for GOPUSA, helping to increase traffic to their site -- and, through Jeff's radio show for FreeRepublic, giving them the start at a cut-rate, wingnutty media empire.  Too bad that the male escort stuff had to spoil it all! And speaking of that male escort stuff, there's this post: To: Jeff Gannon Just saw you on Cspan. You are very good looking and physically you exude strength. And then with the questions you asked, well, Jeff, you were simply awesome.!! Keep up the good work. ...Now, don't lose your press pass. 269 posted on 02/10/2004 7:19:04 PM PST by olliemb And that poster who was so impressed by Jeff's manly strength and awesome presence was ... Ollie North.  Now you know the REST of the story.  Okay, maybe it was some other Ollie -- in any case, Bobby doesn't think this kind of thing is good for business. To: olliemb Very good looking??? I'm afraid we need to draw the line somewhere and that is it! :) Jeff... please disregard those comments.  Bobby Yeah, quit flirting and get back to spreading those stories about Kerry having an affair with an intern! But now somebody else weighs in: To: Bobby Eberle Very good looking??? I'm afraid we need to draw the line somewhere and that is it! :) LOL! Pay no attention to the boss, Jeff! What a day you've had! Way to go! 305 posted on 02/10/2004 8:29:43 PM PST by Terri GOPUSA The Freeper telling Jeff what a day he's had would be Terri Hillhouse, a relatively recent addition to the GOPUSA Board. ("She believes that the Internet is the best way to spread the grassroots conservative message.")  And FreeRepublic WAS the wave of the future, until Sean Hannity dissed it yesterday.  Anyway, that's more than enough discussion of Jeff Gannon for now.  Later we'll talk about his involvement in the Plame case. But here's one last item from TheConservativeGuy, which you have to love for its retrospective irony: Taking on liberals 24/7/365   I'M CALLING YOU OUT, TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT! You know, if you're a male escort using a fake name while asking the President wingnutty questions, it's probably not wise to issue these kinds of challenges. 4:09:01 AM

Closer to the Truth? So, the NYT's Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper have to answer the grand jury's questions in connection with the Plame case, or go to jail for contempt.  Good.   But where are we in the Plame investigation?  It's been so long that I admit I can't even remember the issues anymore (something about yellowcake and mint tea, as I recall).   However, based on the Wash Post's "White House Briefing" feature, by Dan Froomkin, I think I have a few answers. Froomkin excerpts from Carol D. Leonnig's Wash Post story: Leonnig notes: "According to the appellate court's opinion, Fitzgerald knows the identity of the person with whom Miller spoke and wants to question her about her contact with that 'specified government official' on or about July 6, 2003. Miller never wrote a story on the subject. A bit later Froomkin references Adam Liptak's New York Times story, which quotes Ms Miller as saying, "This is scary.  I risk going to jail for a story I didn't write, for reasons a court won't explain." Um, Judy, maybe you should read the Wash Post -- they seem to know why you risk going to jail. (And since the crime the court is investigating is the leaking of information, not the publication of information, it doesn't really matter if you ever used the information, now does it?) Anyway, here's what I found especially interesting: Cooper told Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday: "Well, it's a very complicated case, Wolf. I'm in the middle of it for a better part of a year and have trouble keeping track of it. "You know, I, in fact, did go in and give testimony to the prosecutor after he was interested in one source of mine, the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. That source, Lewis Libby, gave me a nonambiguous waiver, telling me to feel free to go ahead and testify. I did. Then the prosecutor came at back at me with a much broader subpoena. And that is proving very difficult me to comply with as a journalist, because it really makes it hard for me to do my job."  Here's more about this from the Philadelphia Inquirer: Cooper is a White House correspondent for Time who has reported on the Plame case. He agreed in August to provide limited testimony about a conversation he had with Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, after Libby released Cooper from his promise of confidentiality. Fitzgerald then issued a second, broader subpoena seeking the names of other sources. So, if I read all this right, Scooter Libby gave Cooper information about Valerie Plame's CIA employment after the Novak story came out, as part of the Office of the Vice President's effort to slime Wilson.  Cooper testified about that.  Now Cooper has been called back, possibly to answer questions about whom Libby said he got the info from, or maybe to testify about whether he was also called by John Hannah, Libby's chief deputy.  Or maybe to be questioned about whether Libby said, "Dick Cheney says hi" when he passed along the information about Plame.  I guess Hannah and Cheney haven't given releases, which is why Cooper feels conflicted.  However, I suspect that Cooper will find a way to comply with the subpoena and also do his job as a journalist (which doesn't, as far as I know, involve breaking the law by helping to cover for sources who leaked information as part of a plot to hurt somebody who provided information that the public had a right to know).  And hey, if Judy chooses to go to jail to protect the VP's office, it's not like she doesn't deserve to go there anyway for crappy reporting in war time. 3:01:14 AM