For some reason, totally unknown to me, there appears to be some great public need for me to weigh in on the issue of Jeff Gannon/Jeff Gurkhet/Alfonso Von Yamamoto. Presumably the question at hand is whether or not my presumed opposition to homosexual prostitution (a business to which Gannon was tied in some fashion, though his exact level of penetration of that profession remains a controversial matter) will take precedence over my slavish loyalty to the Bush Administration or whether or not it will be the other way around.

Well, as those who know me can well attest, nothing takes precedence over my devotion to the Holy Father. Thus, I’m forced to attempt a defense.

Frankly, there’s a regrettable tendency (on both the left and right) to attribute to malicious conspiracy what can more easily be attributed to simple incompetence. That’s my general feeling on the story of “Mr.” Gannon.

Let’s review the basic facts of the matter. Which is more believable? That Mr. Gannon managed to gain access to the White House press room as a result of a (Lavender?) conspiracy and was subsequently used as a tool to plant pro-Bush questions? Or is it more likely that Mr. Gannon, the employee of an admittedly obscure news service, simply didn’t attract any real attention from anyone until certain elements of the left decided, because of their dislike of his perceived ideological slant, to subject him to a liberal anal exam?

It’s not like we have laws requiring people to (assuming, for a moment, that the accusations are true), once they’ve entered the profession, walk around with T-Shirts labeled “gay prostitute.” It’s not like the sort of cursory background check normally done would come up with the names of the web domains that the guy once registered or what the Google caches for those sites held.

Truthfully, it’s a little counter-intuitive to think that the evil and cunning Karl Rove would, in moving forward with his plan for Global Domination, solicit the services of a former gay prostitute for the purpose of having the man work for an obscure news site in order to have him plant questions at press conference. The Bush people may or may not be in league with the Devil, but no one thinks they’re stupid (except for the people whose political knowledge is drawn exclusively from the collected works of Michael Moore, who understand that Republicans are both stupid and capable of masterminding secret global conspiracies so brilliant that only the equally magnificently intelligent Michael Moore is capable of unraveling the Machiavellian threads).

The left, as is predictable, is demanding all sorts of investigations. I don’t blame them. If this happened in a Democratic White House, I’d surely be demanding the same. But that doesn’t make them right, nor would it make me right. This entire thing is, to sum it up in a word, stupid.