Is It Parody? I Can’t Tell

Yesterday’s New York Times included what purports to be an interview of Jeff Gannon by Deborah Solomon. I think it’s for real, but it reads more like a parody of a shrill, hysterical liberal asking “questions” of, say, Scott McClellan. Solomon denounces Gannon for asking a question at a White House briefing, in the course of which he characterized Senate Democrats as seemingly having lost touch with reality. Solomon proceeds to show Gannon how a “real journalist” asks fair, unbiased questions:

A. My Amex card still comes in the name of James Guckert, but I want to be called Jeff Gannon. That is who I am.
Q. Or rather it is the pseudonym under which you gained access to White House press briefings for two years, until your identity was revealed. Why do you think they let you in?
Q. Are you suggesting that Bobby Eberle, the Republican operative who hired you to shill for his Gopusa under the guise of his Talon News service, has special access at the White House?
Q. Scott McClellan, the press secretary to President Bush, called on you and allowed you to ask questions on a nearly daily basis. What, exactly, is your relationship with him?
Q. What are we supposed to make of the fact that before reporting for Talon News, you had never had a job in journalism and apparently earned your living running a gay escort service?
Q. Do you find it hard to be a gay conservative in this country in light of the right-wing hostility to gay rights?

You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

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