Posted on 03/03/2005 8:06:06 PM PST by kingattax
Democrats are very, very concerned about security at the Bush White House.
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) appeared recently on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” to demand an investigation of the controversy surrounding Jeff Gannon, the discredited Talon News reporter whose ties to gay escort websites were revealed by left-wing bloggers after Gannon asked President Bush a famously softball question at a Jan. 26 news conference.
“Why isn’t every major network in the country investigating a security breach?” Biden asked during a discussion with the unlikely quartet of Maher, Robin Williams, Lesley Stahl and Tommy Thompson.
Biden continued: “How could the FBI — for 17 years, I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member; I read more FBI reports than I ever wanted to know — how could that happen, and no one had any idea who this guy was? Forget everything else. Assume he went in there and he was a saint. How could that be? We should know that. There should be — the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary Committee should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated.”
In the House, Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) share Biden’s deep concerns about Bush White House security.
“We have recently become aware that a Republican activist, with a potential criminal past, gained access to the White House press briefing room and presidential press conferences and was allowed to work under an assumed name,” the two lawmakers wrote last month in a letter to the Secret Service. (That “activist” with the “potential” criminal past — and who doesn’t have a “potential” criminal past? — is Gannon.)
Slaughter and Conyers also wrote to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and the Government Accountability Office, asking for investigations of Gannon’s presence at White House press briefings.
In the Gannon affair, Democratic lawmakers are displaying a more aggressive spirit than 12 years ago, when they were in the majority on Capitol Hill and a new Democratic administration was taking office.
You may remember that, at least in 1993 and 1994, the Clinton administration simply could not get its act together when it came to running the White House.
And one area in which they were particularly inept — or perhaps worse — was the issue of access to the White House.
Long after Bill Clinton’s inauguration in January 1993, many White House staffers did not have permanent White House passes. And some non-staffers did have such passes.
For example, when the Travelgate scandal broke, the administration’s in-house investigation, known as the White House Management Review, revealed that Clinton crony Harry Thomason and Thomason crony Darnell Martens had White House passes — although neither held a job in the White House.
The pass issue came to light on Capitol Hill when White House administrator Patsy Thomasson testified before a House subcommittee and a Republican staffer noticed that she was wearing a temporary pass.
Why was that? Republicans wondered. Some of it was the Clinton White House’s general inability to handle routine paperwork. But there were other, more serious, problems, too.
As it turned out, several White House staffers had records of what investigators referred to as “recent or extensive” drug use, and, for that reason, the Secret Service refused to grant them permanent clearance into the building.
Eventually, the White House had to set up a special drug-testing program for those staffers — there were about 10 to 15 of them — to satisfy Secret Service concerns.
The story didn’t come to light until 1996, when The Washington Post published a front-page article, “Drug Use Worried Secret Service; Special Program to Test Some White House Staff Met Agency Concerns.”
“The Secret Service in 1993 balked at granting permanent passes to about a dozen people in the Clinton White House because of concerns about recent use of illegal drugs that in some instances included crack cocaine or hallucinogens, according to statements special agents gave Congress,” the paper reported.
It was all kind of amazing. These were people actually hired by the White House, not let in to a daily press briefing. And yet, beyond the Post’s story, which was published years after the problem, the Clinton White House drug issue never became the media cause célèbre that Gannongate has become now.
Why?
For one thing, the Clinton problem happened before the advent of the blogosphere. But Democrats such as Biden, Conyers and Slaughter were around then, and they could have begun a public crusade about it, had they wished — even before the story appeared in The Washington Post.
After all, they were just as concerned about White House security back then as they are today — weren’t they?
hey biden.......SHUT UP
"“We have recently become aware that a Republican activist, with a potential criminal past,..."
Let's see, potential (in the future) criminal past (in the past). What the hell sense does that make? Prime and classic definition of ex Post Facto!
Great catch. Plus a terrorist, a killer of JEWS, was the most frequent GUEST of the Clinton's...Arafat.
Hey Biden...Shut Up and PLAGARIZE!
democRATS take a secret oath to make no sense and not let facts supercede their self-serving distortions of reality.
The operative words here are "Republican activist".
Does anyone believe that all of this furor would come to light if the "activist" had been a liberal?
How was it a security breach? The fact is that everybody that enters the White House press room almost certainly goes through a metal detector. What are they afraid of, that Gannon might have yelled something hurtful??? President Bush was never in any danger and these deceiful democrats know that. This is a patently dishonest display of fake concern. And the issue of the "assumed name" is a big red herring as well. The real fact is that Gannon applied for his "daily" press pass (a good for one day only pass, apparently not as hard to get as the democrats are acting) using his real name. He did not try to fool anybody at any time about his identity. He uses the name "Jeff Gannon" when he writes his column, as sort of a pen name. He is by no means the first journalist to use a pen name. Can you say Jerry Rivers (Geraldo Rivera)?
Hmmm .. what was that bouncer's name again???
bttt
I remember Gary Aldritch's book in whih he described clearances being waved for current drug users and people with criminals backgrounds.
It is easy to have outrage for all possible positions when you have no moral foundation.
Rats are hypocrites with selective memories.
Let me get this right
pro abortion
dont ask dont tell
anti death penalty for violent offenders
but a reporter has to tell his sexual preference but not the former president
stoppp!!!
You see, that's what I don't get, how it was a security breach. They had to go through some sort of search to get in. Colmes even asked Ari Fleischer about this on H&C tonight, and Ari kept saying Gannon had a press pass and was not felt to be a security risk.
Wish the dems would have felt that way when the Code Pink "ladies" got into front row seats at the inauguration. What if someone who meant harm to President Bush "accidentally" got one of the tickets?
What sticks in their craws is that Gannon supposedly asked a "soft" question - oh, like most of Clinton's questions weren't softballs?
Lots of the WH staffers during Clinton's time couldn't pass an FBI check and refused to be drug tested.
But now, of course, the Democrats are in high drungeon about national security. RIiiiight.
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