NY Times on the Gannon story

Via Daily Kos :

NY Times gets in on the actby kos Thu Feb 10th, 2005 at 23:02:08
PSTAnd no mention of sex. Just pure substance.

Two Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative.
The Democrats, Representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Louise M. Slaughter from Rochester, wrote yesterday to Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent prosecutor appointed in the Plame case, seeking an investigation into how the reporter, James D. Guckert, who used the name Jeff Gannon, had access to classified
documents that revealed the identity of Ms. Plame.

Bingo.
Remember, Talon News existed a mere couple of days before "Gannon" was given White House press creds. A few months later, he was receiving classified CIA documents and getting to ask questions while other reporters get shut out or outright excluded.

There's something going on.

---
Of course, this will end up being swept under the rug like everything else, but good to know that the mainstream press is finally starting to pay attention and treat this as a real story. This should be a monster story, but it is being belittled by those who cannot justify it. If only there were SOME accountability in this administration!
---
More & more & more:
Via World O'Crap :

Day passes, which are picked up every day at the press office, are intended to provide flexibility for out-of-town journalists who might need to cover the White House for a day or two, or to allow White House reporters to bring in visitors who want to see the press briefings. But the current day-pass system was not set up to give permanent access to reporters who, like Guckert, fail to qualify for a hard pass. [...]
Still, without any hope of Hill credentials, Guckert had no prospect of landing a White House hard pass, so he simply adopted the day-pass system and turned it into his personal revolving door. In doing so, he created his own variation on a now-defunct third category of White House press pass, called the card index, which once allowed journalists to gain access to press briefings for weeks or months a time. But this system is defunct for one simple reason: It's not secure enough. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the Secret Service did away with the card index, according to Martha Kumar, a professor of political science at Towson State University and an expert on White House press operations.

---
hmmm...hard to say that the WH did not know who he was and that he wasn't an exception to the rule, isn't it?! They really are desperate to have someone take their side, aren't they? They really must know that they are full of crap and their policies are completely indefensible!