So what is a story, Howard?

Howard Kurt was on CNN today with their “blog reporter” Jacki Schechner:

SCHECHNER: This is so fast. So absolutely quick. The other one we wanted to talk about was the Jeff Gannon story. Something that you're very familiar with. Now, he had originally -- let me show you first the trend. Let's look at that. You can see here it's the yellow line. Now there's a spike today and the reason why is because he had told you that some of these sort of racier sites that he had allegedly been a part of didn't exist.

KURTZ: He had registered the addresses, he said the sites never actually went up.

SCHECHNER: Well, we found it. Or actually, one of the bloggers found it. We found it through the blog Americablog.com [sic - it's. org] which is a liberal site found it. Now we would show you that but the pictures on that site are actually kind of racey. So we didn't want to go there but Wonkette.com has it as well. And you can read about that story.

KURTZ: She has the PG version?

SCHECHNER: She has the PG version and then she has a link to the sort of X-rated version.

KURTZ: So just like in primetime television sex apparently sells based on these pictures.

SCHECHNER: They were and actually they were pretty graphically displayed. And then we went back and they were covered over.

KURTZ: Although what this has to do with Jeff Gannon's job at the White House -- whether was criticized on the substance is debatable.

With all due respect, are you joking Howard? What relevance does it have that a prostitute (let's just assume for a moment that he is) who has currently live Web sites soliciting clients, is in the West Wing getting called on by the president? That he claims to have received classified CIA information? That he has defaulted on a court judgment in which he owes $20,000 to the state of Delaware? That by all accounts, all of this makes him a massive walking ball of security risk? What possible relevance does this have to anything? Are you totally freaking out of your mind?

I can't tell if it's homophobia, misogyny or what that makes a gay hooker suddenly something that must not be named. But if it was a female prostitute it would be the talk of the town.

This is a White House that is more worried about bronze breasts in the Justice Department than a hooker in the West Wing. And the media, and increasingly it looks like the Democrats as well, are planning on being complicit.