Commentary
Foley�s folly -- or the closet can be a dark, dark place
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Oct 10, 2006, 00:18

Well, we�ve got another Republican stepping out of office and the closet, Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida, this one sending hot emails to a 16-year old congressional page. Well, the meek are always game for predators, especially the ones who sanctimoniously preach against gay marriage and such. Like our president, Karl Rove, even George Bush Sr. Yet a hard look will reveal there�s a history of Brokeback Mountain and more in this administration and party.

Before we nail Foley to the cross for his folly, does anyone remember Jeff Gannon ne James Guckert ne Johnny Gosch. Under the name of Jeff Gannon, Guckert billed himself as a reporter, having published for an online organization, Talon, in March 2003. In February 2003, when Guckert claimed to be a White House Correspondent for Talon, it did not yet exist, though it enjoyed close ties to GOPUSA.com, and was not deemed a legitimate, independent news outlet. In fact, his clearance came with nothing more than a two-day $50 training course at the Leadership Institute School of Journalism, financed by right-wing foundations.

That, in and of itself should have rung bells in the White House, but no; for nearly two years it allowed Guckert to bypass the Hard Pass system by using a day pass whenever he needed White House access. By the way, you remember that James Guckert/Jeff Gannon was a male prostitute with his own site, on which he posed in the buff, and offered his services for $1,200 a weekend. His specialty was military personnel, though I�m sure he�d make exceptions if necessary.

So what was Guckert/Gannon doing in the White House besides lobbing soft questions at press conferences to the president? Your guess is as good as mine. By the way, besides his full frontal Internet pictures, he had a tax evasion problem. But nevertheless, when Ari Fleischer jumped ship as presidential press secretary, Scott McClellan who replaced him said he�d renew Guckert/Gannon�s pass, that is, after a background check that would go on for several months.

So, what with the War on Terror going on, and people tippy-toeing around prospective landmines, here was a stud-muffin double G-man sauntering into the West Wing everyday. In fact, a FOIA search requested by members of Congress exposed the fact that Gannon/Guckert/Gosch visited the White House 196 times -- 39 of them when there were no press briefings. Who could be he visiting? Karl Rove? The president? Scotty McClellan? The Easter Bunny?

As with Mark Foley, there was awareness of what was going on, but nobody wanted to make a ruckus. The New York Times points out that GOP Aids Knew in Late �05 of E-Mail, that is, an �overfriendly� e-mail to the 16-year old page. Yet GOP aids kept it secret and allowed Foley, ironically, to remain head of a congressional caucus on children�s issues. Yet the issue was finally raised with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert by Thomas Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, among others. Hastert did nothing and subsequently did not recall the discussions.

It wasn�t until the more sexually explicit emails surfaced that the truth finally hit the fan. Now, the president is trying to make nice for Hastert, et al, telling us he�s a good family man, loves his kids, and was a coach, a �wrassling� coach by the way. Now he�s wrestling to keep his job, another anti-gay marriage soldier in the army of holier-than-thous, all of whom seem to be trying to keep the door shut on that dark closet of their GOP power and goings on behind the doors.

Now the former Representative Foley tells us that, between the ages of 13 and 15, he was molested by a clergyman, though his attorney David Roth says �Foley never had sexual contact with a minor and any assertion that Foley is a pedophile is patently false.� Okay. Foley does admit, thank god, he is gay. Cue the thunder and crack of lightening bolt. But don�t worry he�s going for behavioral and alcohol treatment. It was that devil rum again.

Back to the third G for Gosch or Gosh!

As I wrote in an Online Journal article, Keeping Hunter Thompson�s death alive, �The 12-year old Johnny Gosch was delivering Sunday morning papers in Des Moines Iowa on September 5, 1982, when two men approached and abducted him for the purposes of enslavement in a military-based pedophilia ring, according to testimony reported by another abused pre-teen, Paul Bonacci, in John DeCamp�s 1992 book, The Franklin Cover-Up�Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska, pages 230-34.�

I also wrote, �Ironically, Gosch�s identity has been linked to James Guckert which has been linked to Jeff Gannon, male prostitute . . . In fact, the former editor of the Des Moines Register for whom Gosch worked tried to discredit the identity link. Ironically, his name was James Gannon, conceivably a clue from the disappeared Gosch linking the three identities. Gosch�s mother, Noreen, asked then editor James Gannon of the Des Moines Register to get community leaders to pressure the police to cooperate with her private detectives in order to solve her missing son�s case. Instead, Mrs. Gosch�s private letter was printed on the front page of the paper, and the police were encouraged to publicly reject and ridicule her claims. Perhaps James Gannon was involved himself.�

Recently, I received an email from a person claiming to be an acquaintance of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert. This person also claims the doubles are indeed the triple, boy now man, Johnny Gosch. All three linked by the same initials. The acquaintance tells me Gannon suffers from a multiple personality disorder (no surprise there) and that he is in denial about his Gosch background. Understandable.

Gosch factors in another Online Journal story I wrote, �Another look at Hunter Thompson�s death,� which curiously seems to have disappeared from the net. In that article I wrote about another incident from DeCamp�s book, from interviews with the young adult, Paul Bonacci, who was involved in the kidnapping of Gosch. �Bonacci claimed he was the first person to molest Gosch and to initiate him into the sex slavery pedophile ring that he�d been abducted into. This ring was run by Larry King (not the TV personality), but the head of Franklin Credit Union in Nebraska. The ring serviced high-level clients in business and government.�

I wrote, too, that �Bonacci described horrifying tales of being forced into sex both with adults and other kids. He claimed he�d been flown to Nevada with another boy not known to him. At some point, they took on a third boy, younger, and headed to a hidden location where Bonacci claimed he was forced into sex with him. The young boy was also forced into sex with adult males, who eventually shot and killed the boy. Bonacci claims he was forced to have sex then with the corpse.�

Egads. �Necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality, the story is beyond strange and sprawling in details and reach. Just as strange was Bonacci�s claim that he recalled the name of the passenger they took on in Nevada who filmed the whole thing: Hunter Thompson.� Whether or not that�s true is up for debate. But stay with me. The bigger picture plays back to current events and the GOP.

I wrote, �The author John Decamp, who uncovered the scandal, was a successful state senator in Nebraska for 16 years and a decorated Vietnam War veteran. He practices law in Lincoln, is married and the father or four. His book shut down Omaha�s Franklin Community Federal Credit Union and its manager, Lawrence E. King, Jr., the Republican activist who rose to notoriety and riches from associations with power figures from Nebraska politics and business to Washington D.C.

�The story broke in June 1989 on the front page of the Washington Times, headlines blaring: �Homosexual prostitution inquiry ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush� and �Call boys took midnight tours of the White House.�� Bonacci said he was one of those boys, the same one who turned Gosch to his new life. In fact, as the DeCamp book claims, �Bonacci was able to draw the setup of the inner bedroom of George H.W. Bush, not publicly known information, to justify his claim that he and other boys had relations with Bush Senior.� I rest my case and memory.

Interestingly, in a Spanish translation of my story �Keeping the death of Hunter Thompson alive,� there are visuals of Gannon�s site. Click above and you will also see the homosexual satan-worshipping Bohemian Grove where Republican and business elites gather annually in northern California, and where a ritual effigy of a child is sacrificed to a giant stone owl. Also, there is a photo of the Washington Times headline. Also, there are photos of George Jr., sharing a Gannon hug; lastly holding hands, strolling, and sharing a few pecks with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. Those of you who read Spanish should enjoy the text of the article. If not, one picture may be worth a thousand words to you.

By the way, the �Cremation of Care Ritual� at Bohemian Grove was, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, �the chief feature of Moloch�s worship among the ancients [and] seems to have been the sacrifice of children. The usual expression for describing that sacrifice was �to pass through the fire,� a rite carried out after the victims had been put to death.� That doesn�t sound like fun. But hey, one man�s meat is another�s poison.

Lastly, Hunter�s gated compound in Woody Creek, Colorado, was called the �Owl Farm,� and it was just a few miles away from one of Prince Bandar�s mansions in Aspen, Colorado. So, what goes around perhaps comes around. And dredging a little history perhaps sheds some light on the present and the Grand Old Party of good-fellows. And, as the saying goes, politics makes for strange bed-fellows, no stranger today than yesterday or tomorrow. Yet somehow one wishes the Grand Old Party and all its Grand Old Sanctimonious Moral Hypocrisy would go away for good.