And all the sons of Congressmen! And the two adorable  100 Proof Bush daughters! (Ginna and Tonic)

"As democracy is perfected, the office of  president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H.L. Mencken

Recommended reading

We gather information, on a daily basis, from many websites. There are a number of publications that are well worth viewing for their intelligent reporting of national and international news. All of those sources, listed below, are daily newspapers with the exception of the Asia Times. The latter is a very well written site with in-depth articles that are worth reading.

The New York Times:  www.nytimes.com
The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com
The Christian Science Monitor: www.csmonitor.com
The Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:  www.seattlepi.nwsource.com
Asia Times www.atimes.com

Note: Very little of the information in this edition of TBR news has come from the mainline American media. It is just not there. Most of it has come from foreign sources and the Internet. Most of our sources can be seen on the main page.

The Voice of the White House: Fudgepacking, Pillow Talk  and High Treason

May 4, 2005: “Now that Gannon is back in the news and being laughed at by various media members, perhaps some concrete background information on Mr. Guckert might be in order. There is quite a file on him here in the Fag Palace that was here long before he had to quit when his male prostitution web site was exposed. It is interesting to note that the Secret Service knew all about Gannon yet allowed him free access to the White House on over 200 occasions, at least twelve of which were spent sleeping there. With whom is becoming very evident, and after we study his background, I have some most interesting material for your education and that of the media. However, the readership is not hopeless but the media certainly is.

In the following study, I will not publish Gannon/Guckert’s Social Security number, his bank accounts, his drivers’ license or passport numbers or his various addresses for the last five years. I personally consider this to be an invasion of privacy although the bombastic Gannon thrives on attention. After I have covered Guckert’s actual background, I will then discuss the matter of the greatest breach of U.S. national security since Jonathan Pollard’s escapades in giving a boxcar full of vital secrets to Israel.

James Dale Guckert was born in 1957. He is, as of this writing, 48 years old. He lived in Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, went to high school there, graduated in  1975 and moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where he attended West Chester College.  James Guckert graduated in 1980 with a social sciences degree and a Pennsylvania teaching certificate. While in college, Guckert was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. For the next 20 years, Guckert held down a number of small time jobs as a landscaper and a brief stint as a temporary high school teacher. He operated mostly in the Wilmington, Delaware area and managed several liquor distributing companies.  In late 1997 he came to work for Viva Vino, an Eddytown, Pa. wine importer, telling his new boss Levino Razzi that he had sold off a small distributing business of his own. He already had a substantial tax judgment against him, issued in Delaware the previous year, for over $20,000 and in 1999 he would be named in a lawsuit (with a company called Diamond State Distributors) over a two-year old automobile accident. When he left Viva Vino in 1998, Guckert went to work for Karmack, a West Chester truck body repair company.

From 1998 to 2001, Guckert was employed as an office manager at Karmack. When he resigned his position, he advised his co-workers that he was going to work in the Washington, D.C. area at an unspecified job. While in Pennsylvania, Guckert had also been involved as a team player on a gay Philadelphia softball team.

Although Gannon has often asserted that he had been a member of the U.S. Marines, a thorough check of the Personnel Management Support Branch of the Marine Corps located at Quantico, Virginia, disclosed that neither James Dale Guckert, or his alias, Jeff Gannon, had ever served in the United States Marine Corps. A further check with BUPERS of the United States Navy confirmed that neither Guckert nor Gannon had ever served in the U.S. Navy. Rather than ask if Guckert was in the Marine Corps, given his sexual proclivities, might it not be better to ask if the Marine Corps were ever in Guckert?

After his college years, in the late 1990s, Guckert developed a great interest in building Internet sites, assisting his former fraternity brothers in constructing a site for them. Later, after Guckert had moved to Washington, he obtained professional assistance is setting up a male pornography site. This was operative in October of 1999 and was called ‘USMCPT.com’ which was designed to promote his entirely false background as ‘U.S. Marine Corps/Part Time.’ As noted above, Guckert was never in the Marine Corps but proclaimed his membership repeatedly to his viewers. Using the pen name ‘Bulldog’ (the bulldog is the mascot of the Marine Corps) this was billed as a ‘hot male escort site owned by Bulldog.’ Because Guckert was not particularly conversant with computer techniques and had a very limited income, he was forced to link his pages to another, far more profitable site called malecorps.com. This connection brought him more viewers but the initial USMCCPT.com had little more to offer than 30+ underexposed pictures of Guckert/Bulldog or his genitals. Guckert had been a body builder for some time but was not either overly endowed or well-defined so his business was marginal at best. Guckert later linked his personal porn site to: executivemaleescorts.com, maleescortsdirect.com, and guys4rent.com and added photo information on many other, and younger, models. While Guckert initially was homebased in Philadelphia, he later moved his operations to Washington, D.C.  In his comments, posted on his personal site, Guckert now speaks of all of the sophisticated and powerful men who are his clients and who are, he says often enough, impressed with his insight and intelligence. The nice thing about praising yourself is that you can lay it on so thick and in just the right places.

Once he got settled inside the Beltway, Guckert changed his name to Jeff Gannon and became involved in the DC gay scene. Washington is filled with gays, many of them important political leaders, lobbyists, congressmen and their aides, members of the media and high-level bureaucrats.

Guckert then began his move into the conservative, Republican gay circles and on January 25, 2002, he set up the domain “theconservativeguy.com” Guckert registered his new persona under the name of a non-existent ‘J. Daniels’ and gave the address of a mail drop in Delaware only a few blocks from his former duplex.

Dressing up in the clothing of an arch conservative, the new Jeff Gannon paraded his views, and his body, in front of the Washington gay crowd to some effect. His list of clients in his early hustling days is well known and will be the subject of a later study but suffice it to say, he became their protégé and was pushed forward with avidity. Gannon then was groomed at the so-called ‘Leadership Institute’s School of Broadcast Journalism.’ The Leadership Institute, whose publicly stated mission is “to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative public policy leaders,” was started in 1979 by longtime Republican Party faithful, Morton C. Blackwell. The institute currently claims to have trained more than 40,000 students in its quarter-century history, putting it at the center of a large network of right-wing activists, politicians, journalists and intellectuals. The Broadcast School, so-called, is merely a weekend seminar with a $50 registration fee: but the Institute sponsors training programs, and provides a variety of fellowships and paid, residential internships to its aspiring arch-conservative leaders.

It was through this organization that Gannon was brought to the attention of Eberle’s GOPUSA through the good services of a certain “Free Republic” group which ran a very conservative radio group called “Free Radio Network.” This was initially funded by Robert Johnson, controller of the Domino’s Pizza Company. In August of 2002, the Leadership Institute, in conjunction with the Free Republic held a conference in Las Vegas and a number of Eberle’s “TalonNews” acolytes were in attendance. Subsequently, Gannon was allowed to host a “Radio Free Republic” webcast with one Chuck Muth who was listed as a Republican Party political consultant and a very prominent member of the Leadership Institute’s directorship. On November 12 of 2002, Gannon made his debut on the lower rungs of the Republican propaganda machine with a series of Internet based op-ed pieces under the “Conservative Guy” (not Gay) byline.

Eberle had put on Gannon as a staffer, flew to DC for a breakfast meeting with Gannon and his supporters and Gannon was then put forward, and eagerly accepted by the White House Press Secretary, as the TalonNews representative to the White House press corps. The buff, “ex-Marine-right-wing –intellectual-writer” asked his first question at a White House press conference on February 28, 2002 and two years later, after many interesting adventures in the Fag Palace, was sacked, forever, because his seamy alter ego, The Bulldog, was exposed on the Internet.

Gannon, whom one can see from his current website, is certainly not an accomplished writer, was in constant attendance at the White House, easily given a Secret Service clearance and a very large number of Day Passes. He was known to the President and to many of his top aides and a disillusioned Secret Service man commented bitterly to me about the motivations clearly evident in the quick acceptance of the very shady Gannon into the inner circles of the White House. One of this agent’s comments, quoting a fictive Gannon personal remark to Bush, has a delightful implication and will be repeated:  “Look, Mr. President, we need to get something straight between us.”

Having covered the legitimate, if somewhat pathetic, background of James Guckert, aka ‘Jeff Gannon’, let us proceed to the much more serious matter of stolen top secret information.

Every day, in the late morning, the President receives what is known as the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB). Until recently, this was given to him personally, at least while he was in Washington, by the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence.) This is a top secret paper that was initiated by the CIA in 1964 although it had produced private briefings for the President since Harry Truman set up the CIA in 1948 to keep him supplied with the intelligence input he felt he was systematically being denied to him by the Army.

The PDB ostensibly is to provide the President with current international intelligence data considered to be of specific interest that requires his attention and possible action.  The PDB is put together by CIA specialists and very senior analysts every evening. They utilize data from the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence staff. The initial preparation is completed late in the evening and then the next morning, prior to its delivery to the President, this preliminary report is supplemented by new operational material, often electronic intercepts, imagery or reports from human agents that come in each day. The draft is then taken to the Branch Chief, who then suggests possible “stories” that could or should be written. The Branch Chief in turn carries the proposal up the line where the potential stories are discussed and prioritized. Once the article is written, edited and approved by at least three other levels of managers, the piece is taken (or sent electronically) to the PDB staff.  By 9:30am, no later, the analyst  who is preparing the final document incorporates all of the agreed upon material and prepares his final draft prior to its submission to the President by the DCI.

It ought to be noted that the PDB is an information brief, the CIA's equivalent of Headline News, not deliberative or pre-decisional or legal advice. Most of the time, Presidents really do not have much more or better substantive information than the rest of us about national security, and when they think they do, they're often wrong. CIA's Presidential Daily Briefings were "selling intelligence in order to keep its customers, or at least the First Customer, interested." Richard A. Clarke, the very effective security specialist at the White House (and later forced out because of his honesty and competence)  has delivered a scathing assessment of Bush administration policy and personnel in his book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." Clarke portrays the president and his top aides as arrogant, insular and uninformed. A more accurate, or cogent, assessment could not have been made, especially to those who have to put up with the blind stupidity and fanaticism of the top levels of the current Bush administration.

The DCI has always viewed the PDB as of major importance in controlling the President’s views of intelligence matters and the CIA’s views upon it. However, when it became obvious to more than the Beltway trolls that Bush and his friends had deliberately lied about the WMD issue, like moral bankrupts, they turned on the CIA for not supplying them with accurate information. This is, of course, typical political fecal matter because the CIA had indeed given Bush accurate information. Unfortunately for George Tenet, the DCI, this information ran counter to Bush’s schemes and so not only was Tenet removed and replaced with a dimbulb hack, Porter Goss, many of the top CIA personnel were subsequently sacked for having dared to express opinions counter to the Imperial Will. The PDB preparation and presentation was abruptly taken away from the CIA and turned over to the more obedient and trustworthy John Negroponte. It seems that the PDB was not subject to any other agency including the  Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or the National Security Agency.

Now, having filled you in on the PDB and Brother Gannon the Fudgepacker, lets look at what comes next on the menu. It seems that foreign informants told the CIA early in March of 2005, that very sensitive information had been, and was being,  passed by an American to certain countries who were not friendly to the United States. Among these countries were North Korea and Pakistan. Although the President of Pakistan is ostensibly friendly to us, his intelligence agencies are not. They are far more sympathetic to the Muslim fundamentalists that infest their northern provinces than to the self-centered desires of Washington. Musharraf is living on borrowed time and if he falls from power, Pakistan, neighbor of Afghanistan and enemy of India, will most certainly go fundamentalist. Any chance the US might have of interdicting and destroying al Queda will go down the drain and there is a very strong probability that Pakistan will launch a nuclear war against their bitter rival India, probably over control of Kashmir.

At any rate, our CIA discovered, given its incompetence probably quite by accident, that not only these two unpleasant and potentially very dangerous entities have been getting top level inside US intelligence material, but others have as well. The PDB was quickly identified as the source of the information  because some of the contrived, or tarted up, news contained in it was included in the intercepts. Since the circulation of the PDB is very limited, it was relatively easy to ascertain the dates from which the stolen information was lifted. The investigation was basically twofold. The person, or persons, who were supplying our enemies with very sensitive material had to be located and then the source of this information had to be pinpointed.

It did not take a great deal of serious effort to discover that the man passing top secret American intelligence analysis to hostile countries was a man named Edward Joseph von Kloberg, III, 63, a political lobbyist from Washington, D.C. Von Kloberg, of Baltic German extraction, added the ‘von’ to impress his clients some of whom included Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, the Burmese junta, Liberia's Samuel Doe, and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. He also later represented the latter's successor in the renamed Democratic Republic of Congo, Laurent Kabila, and Idi Amin. Further, and more important, von Kloberg had connections with the leadership of Pakistan and later, he was in close contact Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, to whom he wrote in 2001, praising North Korea's efforts to "reunite with the South" and "recognizing North Korea's rightful seat among the community of nations."

Von Kloberg’s public relations “consultancy” thus served a client list which included most of the world’s mass murderers and worst dictators, including many bitter enemies of the United States. He was intensely hated by the U.S. intelligence community.

Edward Joseph Kloberg III was born in New York on Jan. 9, 1942. He attended Princeton University and graduated from Rider College in 1965. He had a master's degree in history from American University, which later hired him to be a fund-raiser and then an administrator until 1982, when he entered public relations. His firm became the public relations outfit of choice for many leaders who were on their way to becoming outlaws.

Mr. von Kloberg ran an organization called Washington World Group and earned huge fees from the assorted potentates and pariahs he represented, allowing him to live extravagantly, with frequent lavish parties and travel, for which he packed one or more steamer trunks.

He was known to be well informed on the substance of foreign policy and was often up to date on the intrigue at foreign embassies and the State Department, in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Von Kloberg was a staunch Republican, like Gannon, and a support of Republican causes, A frequent host of elegant, intimate and very formal dinners, he relished mixing political figures with Washington reporters. He dressed elegantly, frequented the most exclusive Washington clubs and loved to wear full formal attire laden with enameled orders and decorations he pried out of his more nefarious clients.  He had stretch limousines at his disposal and was known to wear black satin opera cloaks to formal functions. During his career, von Kloberg had come to know, some intimately, most of Washington’s major movers and shakers. Von Kloberg was also very gay and an active member of the Beltway’s gay communities. So, it might be pointed out, was Jeff Gannon but Gannon was the moon to the sun of von Kloberg.

The extremely wealthy and well-connected Kloberg was like catnip to Jeff Gannon, who suffers from an insatiable need to burnish his self-image by basking in the reflected glory of powerful men- exactly like Monica Lewinsky. Her historic role in trashing an American presidency seems about to be repeated by Mr. Gannon.

After the PDB leaks were reported to the CIA by someone inside Pakistan, a frantic internal investigation into the appalling, high-level leakage could not find any provable connection  between von Kloberg and anyone inside the CIA with access to the preparation of the PDBs. A parallel investigation was able to pinpoint the dates of the leaked PDBs and the focus shifted to White House personnel who might have had access to these documents. No links could be established, until an astute, and bitter, Secret Service agent attached to the White House detail suggested that one might check the dates on which certain outsiders were in the White House. It was then found that the dates of one outsider coincided exactly with the dates of the leaked top level intelligence.

The investigators, very carefully and with much secrecy, checked to see if there was any connection between this individual and von Kloberg and there was. This individual whom I shall not name, but whose identity is well known, no longer had access to the top leadership of the country, most especially to the President who received these papers, but he was, and currently is, viewed by many in official Washington as a present and future menace to national security.  It was plausibly postulated that this individual had passed whispered pillow talk on to the notorious von Kloberg in an attempt to impress the latter with both his knowledge and connections. Von Kloberg, in turn, was passing this knowledge on to his clients in exchange for money and political influence.

Von Kloberg had been considered a major thorn in the side of the Administration and, at the very least, the Department of State in the past, and now the various intelligence agencies had him in their sights.

When, and by whom, the decision was made to terminate the flamboyant lobbyist and political manipulator has not yet surfaced (be not afraid, children, it will) but it is well known inside the Beltway that it was made.

On Sunday, May 1, 2005 Edward von Kloberg jumped, fell or was pushed from a hundred foot high wall of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, once the tomb of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Among items found on his body was an American magazine cover with a picture of him meeting the first President George Bush.

Italian newspapers said he had been depressed after a failed attempt at reconciliation with his Lithuanian homosexual lover, Darius Monkevicius of Rome.

His suicide note was reported to include the words: "The last years have been the darkest of my life. Thinking about what was and what is now no longer. The fact that [the lover] has spoken ill of our affair(s) with others has made me suffer a great deal." Hardly the words we would have expected from one of the world’s most successful power lobbyists.

Mr. von Kloberg lived in Washington, was not married and had no children. Among his survivors are his companion, Darius Monkevicius of Rome, and a sister, Carol van Kloberg of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

I hope this has been an instructive walk down the Beltway’s Primrose Path and I could be much, much more specific but then I do not particularly want to mimic the escapades of the late von Kloberg and do a full gainer off the top of the Washington Monument in “a moment of depression over the untimely death” of my son’s pet hamster. The thought that someone might find a nice color picture of the President, with a halo over his head, in my pocket is too awful to contemplate.”