Guckergate and the Death of Deep Throat

By Matthew Reiss
with Kurt Opprecht


Not since Watergate has the press held so deftly between its fingers the fate of an administration. With the same ferocity that the media pounced when Lewinsky threatened our way of life, America’s press corps is lying in wait for the precise moment to expose how right wing, gay escort service poster boy James Guckert was planted in the White House press corps. Rumblings behind newsroom doors conceal a scandal so foul it could land the Bush administration somewhere between Crawford and the Rio Grande. Could there be a better send off to dying Watergate whistleblower, “Deep Throat?”

Guckert was trained by Karl Rove’s mentor, paid by the firm of a Texas GOP delegate and made privy to a secret report that outed CIA operative Valerie Palme. Wearing phony press credentials issued by the White House, the ex-Marine tossed Bush-league softball questions at GOP press flacks, deflecting the nation’s attention away from real issues for over two years.

Early indications rate Guckert’s political connections as top shelf, forcing the nation’s political columnists to put off their vacation plans, pack an extra suitcase and await the call to hearings at the capital rotunda. The Washington Hilton, say sources familiar with hotel operations, is taking no reservations. “Guckergate” will achieve World Series of Scandal status within a few hours of the announcement.

Scandals are ugly. But when the fallout splashes up and sullies the media, the baying of bloodhounds turns shrill. No news team that was ignored while Guckert basked in national attention can ignore a chink this wide in White House armor. Rove’s media mastery will wilt when archival video of warm smiles between Guckert and Bush start streaming across CNN like Monica fawning at President Bill.

The apparent calm before the storm seems to suggest an overflow of political correctness over Guckert’s same-sex marketing preference,(not that there’s anything wrong with marketing). Don’t be fooled. In reality, the delay signifies that the learned heads of the news business are laying in wait until there’s an open shot at the jugular.

It belies a precedent in journalistic muscle flexing that ended a similarly potent political phenomenon during the Cold War. Joseph McCarthy tore relentlessly through America’s democratic institutions until the specter of homosexuality was skillfully raised against his Senate Investigations Committee counsel, Roy Cohn.

Cohn had taken it personally when the Army ordered his attractive young protégé, Private David Schien, to ship off to Europe. Called to defend the Army’s actions, attorney Joseph Welsh, took advantage. Welsh asked McCarthy about the origins of a controversial piece of evidence, used against his client: “If it didn't come from Private Schien,” asked Welsh, “where did it come from? The pixies?” McCarthy took the bait. “Pixie, what's a pixie?” he answered. “A pixie is a close relation to a fairy,” answered Welch, a reference to the then-closeted Mr. Cohn.

The brief unclenching of McCarthy’s grip on public opinion allowed reporters weary of McCarthy’s record of ruination a chance to strike back. For the first time, articles critical of the senator and his counsel made news. McCarthyism never recovered. Will Bush?

The post-Watergate press rarely pulled a punch in the years that followed Nixon’s undoing. That is, until Rove made the broadsheets beg and the networks dance on their hind legs. But bloodied so early in its second term, nothing can weaken the media’s resolve to rumble on the administration’s thin ice. Surely the industry’s fear of losing access to precious sound bytes in reprisal for running critical reports, will dissolve in the face of so glaring--and potentially saleable--a scandal as this.

Stories about misleading motives behind the declaration of war on Iraq, about torture or election irregularities are one thing. But when the President snubs newsmen on national TV and calls on some hombre’s boy toy (not that there’s anything wrong with prostitution), newsmen get crazy for a smoking gun. Moralizing talk-radio hosts, who came to prominence when the giant Lewinski scandal shook the Earth, are already looking for a new king of kings.

More pertinent to Guckergate’s prospects than what Deep Throat told Woodward, however, is Carl Bernstein’s 1977 Rolling Stone article, “The CIA and the Media.” In it he outed the agency’s use of American news media for recruiting spies, for information gathering and dissemination, and revealed that the program was successfully covered-up by former CIA director George H.W. Bush. Recent reports that the Bush II administration is secretly paying off journalists to promote White House programs, calls into question whether the practice was stopped after Watergate. At risk is the very integrity of America’s free press.

Whether Bernstein’s report foreshadowed the networks’ downplaying of computer vote hacking investigations, exit poll incongruities and slow-counting Ohio, is so last year. Photographs of Gluckert’s White House smile—-one atop his spread-eagle body, another in nothing but briefs and dog tags--are already steaming up the internet. On one web site he literally advertised himself as a “talkative . . . top” and rented himself out by the hour.

So dust off your wide-screen TV and get current on your cable bill. Karl Rove’s lapdog is pumped up on steroids and digging dirt like a pit bull. Rest dear Deep Throat. Rest in peace.


© New York Gang, 2005.