It is a brilliant strategy. When the Bush administration isn't using taxpayers' money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post discovered that even at an inaugural ball he was assigned "minders" - attractive women who wouldn't give him their full names - to let the revelers know that Big Brother was watching should they be tempted to say anything remotely off message.

As to the Valerie Plame investigation:

Mr. Guckert has at times implied that he either saw or possessed a classified memo identifying Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative. Might that memo have come from the same officials who looked after "Jeff Gannon's" press credentials? Did Mr. Guckert have any connection with CNN's own Robert Novak, whose publication of Ms. Plame's name started this investigation in the first place?

There is something to investigate here, but it's the White House, not Jeff Gannon's sexcapades, legal or illegal. If it turns out Gannon got his press pass or information in the Valerie Plame case from a White House official he was intimitely involved with, then fine, that's a story. But again, the focus should be on the White House.

I also like the comparison Rich draws between Eason Jordan and Jeff Gannon:

Is the banishment of a real newsman for behaving foolishly at a bloviation conference in Switzerland a more pressing story than that of a fake newsman gaining years of access to the White House (and network TV cameras) under mysterious circumstances?

Update: Maureen Dowd covers Gannon today too, and should appeal to readers who are into the miltitary stud aspect of the story.

Update: So does Sidney Blumenthal with Midnight Cowboy in the Garden of Bush and Evil.