When I found out that the White House had given an all-access press pass to a
gay hustler to lob softball questions at the President, I have to admit my first
question wasn't "How could this happen?" but "I'll bet it was Rumsfeld." Just look at him. That chiseled jaw, the beady eyes. He's got the steely good looks of the Marlboro Man and the twitchy disposition of the severely repressed.

    Over the years the defense secretary has displayed an uptight, peevish disposition, a fussiness that borders on queeniness. Not to mention the fact that he was a champion wrestler at Princeton. (I'm not saying that all wrestlers buy their loafer lightener in bulk, but the homoerotic undertones can hardly be ignored.) And a man who is past his prime as a wrestler and military man might fetishize it, might be nostalgic for the fleshy press of man-on-man struggle. A man like that could certainly be attracted to the sort of gay hustler who ran and advertised services on websites such as Hotmilitarystud.com and Militaryescorts.com.

    Jeff Gannon/James D. Guckert — whatever this guy's game is, he's good. His recent appearances in the media have shown him to be Clintonian in his ability to prevaricate and obscure the facts. I'm not sure we'll ever know exactly how he got his gig at fake news organization Talon or the full extent of his influence. He had an internet radio show, he might have been involved in the leaking of the Plame Memo, he has helped conservative anti-gay and anti-liberal politicians throughout the country in one way or another.

    But I keep coming back to the fact that someone, somewhere, must have known about his sideline as a gay hustler. Because he wasn't a journalist before he went to work for Talon. He wasn't a journalist before he showed up at the White House. So who is it?

    A few years ago I wrote a story for a gay porn mag called Torso. Without thinking, I let them use my real name in the byline. When the issue with my story came out I was terrified — what if someone I know reads this dirty story? What if some friend of the family or my employer finds out about this? Then, of course, I realized that they'd have to actually buy Torso to know about the article. And if they were buying Torso they were either gay enough to admit it or too deep in the closet to say anything about it.

    The Bush administration is known for its secrecy and its insularity. It sees conspiracy around every corner and views the world — in fact, the entire non-Republican part of the nation — as subversive and calculating. It sees itself as constantly under attack from a "liberal" media. This is a classic closet-case mentality. With so much to hide and so much pressure to keep it hidden, one sees the outside world as being ruled by the same duplicity and secretiveness that the closet demands.

    And there is certainly evidence that there are many closeted Republicans in the Bush administration and beyond. Rumors abound about Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman. And of course there was the recent scandal — leading to the resignation — of Virginia Republican Rep. Edward Schrock, who was recorded on gay sex chat lines. And don't forget the recent suspicions around Republican California Congressman David Dreier, the tenth most-traveled congressman in the house — who seems to take his boyfriend with him on all of his taxpayer-funded trips.

    When we look at the Abu Ghraib scandals, when we look at the recently released videotape of the nineteen-year-old marine in South Carolina getting punched by his commanding officer and choosing to drown rather than be humiliated in front of his peers, even when we look at the recent "chaptering out" of Deanna Allen, the girl soldier who wrestled her fellow soldiers and flashed her boobs, we are looking at the sexual fever dreams of a repressed cultural imagination.

    Someone, somewhere — maybe Rumsfeld, maybe Rove, maybe Bush himself — knew who Jeff Gannon was. Someone, somewhere in the White House is hot for guys and it scares the hell out of him. And they will pass laws against gays and any other "unnatural" sexuality, they will "defend marriage," they will revile Hollywood and the so-called liberal media, they will stop at nothing to protect their own sense of identity and self-righteousness. And as long as they are in the closet, the entire nation is in the closet.

    The strangest thing about coming out is that it really isn't that bad. I mean, it's frightening at first, but then there's nothing to hide. You have no more secrets, and if you don't have secrets you can't be blackmailed, or bullied or held hostage to fear. Which I guess for them is the scariest thing of all.

    Imagine that, an America without fear.
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