I'm back, was at a screening of "Gunner Palace"

Got done with Court TV and went to a pre-screen of a new movie, Gunner Palace. It's good. Kind of a documentary about daily life with the soldiers in Iraq. The director was clearly not in favor of the war, so don't worry, the movie won't tick you off. It could have used a bit of editing, feels a bit long, and very occasionally a bit hokey, but it really was quite interesting, and funny at parts too. It's worth a see.

As for Court TV. I found out 20 seconds before we started that I was apparently debating someone else. That was a bit of a surprise. Catherine Crier was amazing, as you've probably already seen. She gets it. As for that other guy. I'm not sure if he knew what side he was arguing. This case raises serious issues, he tells us, but also shows how bad the word of the liberal bloggers is. Why? He never tells us.

He does inform us, rather pedantically at that, that Gannon's day-pass security clearance was different from the security clearance he and I had to get for our top secret clearances. No shit Sherlock. That's my point. To get daily access to the White House for 2 years you HAVE to get a hard pass. To get the hard pass you have to get an FBI background check that takes 3-4 months, and involves filling out scary as shit paperwork about your life for the past 10+ years. When I got my security clearance while working on the Hill, they talked to my relatives in Greece. They grilled me about my student loans, even though I was paying them just fine. Gannon, on the other hand, didn't have to get the kind of background check we got, simply because he skirted the system. He operated under a daily pass while having a de facto hard pass. And had he gotten the FBI background check he should have had for such regular access, there is no chance in a million years a hooker $20,000 in debt to the state, and in default, would get that clearance. So anyone who tries to say these facts aren't relevant, when it's these very facts that, had they been known, would have excluded Gannon from the White House, is smoking something.

Of course, there's an easy way to resolve if everything the blogosphere has discovered is much-ado-about-nothing. Simply ask the White House if, knowing what they know now, they would extend Gannon another daily pass. Then tell me with a straight face that what we've uncovered is irrelevant.