Jonah, as a one-time White House correspondent that asked clearly conservative (but tough) questions in the briefing room, I can only say I’m glad I got out before the left-wing bloggers exposed my unnatural attraction to sugared kiddie cereals. Can we start at square one and agree that these very personal attacks on Jeff Gannon are creepy coming from the libertine left?

That said, there are several myths swimming around in “Gannongate,” as the lefties called it. First is the notion that Gannon was a White House “plant,” someone they counted on to save briefer Scott McClellan from tough lines of questioning. It’s awfully hard to accuse someone of being favored by the White House when they don’t even have a “hard pass” from Team Bush, which grants much easier media access to briefings than the day-pass, which forces you to stand around in the cold or heat for 20 or 30 minutes, waiting for an approving word from indoors. I had a month or two of that discomfort before getting the better credentials.

It’s also a myth that Gannon “saved” McClellan by not asking the 23rd question about Abu Ghraib, or whatever the daily liberal obsession is. A few years ago, liberals pounded a Pakistani reporter for the same offense, since he always asked about India and Pakistan and not Enron. The White House press corps is not supposed to be a gang beating. It’s supposed to present White House comment on the news of the day. Are the people really served by seventeen phrasings of the same attack question? Are they harmed by one question on a topic conservatives are interested in?

Most importantly, it’s a myth that the White House press corps are uniformly tough on presidents, that everyone in the briefing room except Gannon has a reputation for objectivity and tough questioning. While ABC’s Terry Moran is uniformly harsh and liberal, eight years ago, ABC reporter John Donvan began the second Clinton term by asking the re-elected president how it seemed mean and partisan for the Republicans to bring up the topic of Clinton taking contributions from foreigners with ties to communist China. The “Question Authority” buttons come off the liberal media lapels in Democratic administrations.