Tucker Carlson Unfiltered - Jeff Gannon, cool and collected

Here is the transcript from last night's "Tucker Carlson Unfiltered" on PBS --->
http://www.pbs.org/tuckercarlson/thisweek/plus2_transcripts.html

[ --> which sounds perfectly credible sans Valerie Plame, GOP USA and John Thune, Mr. Daschel's replacement --> and so, you may ask, will someone on a blog like this be asking is Tucker gay, and does it really matter? For goodness sake, the liberal move*it*on*over-type bloggers are making Tucker out to want a date with this guy. Gannon got most of this right. They are more tolerant than most unless someone is in their crosshairs...but to be fair, Sean O'Hannity is like that, too.--Kilroy2005, a Roosevelt Democrat, because that is how I was raised]

Carlson: Jeff Gannon was outed in every possible way. He hasn't been back to the are briefing room since. He joins us now. Jeff Gannon, thanks a lot.

Gannon: Good to be here.

Carlson: This is the first thing that occurred to me when I saw the famous clip of you asking the president that question, how can you work with these people. Why would you waste one of your opportunities to ask the president a question on a sort of nonquestion, even you sympathize with the president. You're a conservative. So am I. Good for you. Wouldn't you want to ask him a tougher, harder question because it's more interesting?

Gannon: I think the question was valid. There's a lot of people that want the answer to that question. How do you expect to work with people who have expressed no desire to work with you? As a matter of fact, they have said that they're going to oppose you at every turn. And his answer was a good answer. I'm going to go directly to the American people. Meaning that he's going to bypass the Democrats and he's also going to bypass the mainstream media in getting his message about his agenda through to the American people.

Carlson: There have been allegations -- there are allegations floating around the internet that that question, as you know, was a setup. People have said that you were attempting to give the president breathing room, an easy question so he could collect his thoughts. Is there any truth to that at all?

Gannon: That's an insult to the president. He certainly doesn't need me to do that. He did a briefing without me yesterday and I think he did just fine. My question was my question. If you look at the 2004 map election, not the state map but the county map, all that red space out there, those are the people that want to hear the answers to the questions I ask. My colleagues have the blue areas along the two coasts covered pretty completely. But there are people that like the questions I ask.

Carlson: You spent a couple of years sitting in the back -- for people who haven't been in the White House briefing room. There are rows of theater seats and a lot of them have names of news organizations and the same people sitting in the same seats every day. You were sitting at the back. What did you think of your colleagues up front?

Gannon: I felt that their questions were sometimes tilted in one direction. But they had every right to ask them. All I wanted was my chance to ask my question my way. And I got that.
Carlson: Jeff Gannon.com your website is owned by the same person or company that owns a couple of websites with pornographic sounding nargese military stud.com or whatever got a lot of press. I'm not going to ask about those sites beyond what they apparently are. Here's my question. Isn't it obvious to you that that's sort of discrediting in the eyes of a lot of other people? Why would you have any tie at all, if you want to be a mainstream journalist or -- regardless, a legitimate journalist, to websites with names like that?

Gannon: First of all, people misunderstand what those names represented. They're just website names, domain names. Years ago I was doing website development and these names were reserved for a private client. They were never hosted. Nothing was ever on them. And as we know on the internet, things never disappear. These are all things that are from a long time ago that people have dug up just to destroy my credibility and damage my reputation.

Carlson: You've got a quote in your website that struck me. You said for decades gay difficultists have insisted that government stay out of the bedroom. Now we know they didn't want anyone in their way when they invaded the bedroom. To them, it's a one way street and a principles to -- principle to be easily abandoned when it doesn't suit your agenda. I understand people -- the implications, because may be gay, that you shouldn't have access to the White House.

Gannon: The hypocrisy is stunning. If I were -- hypocrisy is stunning. Because I'm a conservative, it seems to be that there are no rules and we can -- those people can leave their principles behind about personal privacy and sex doesn't matter and diversity and inclusion. They can leave all those things behind if it's useful to attack a conservative.

Carlson: Has anybody in the left stood up for you?

Gannon: Well, actually, David Corn from "The Nation" wrote a great article that took a look at this. Of course, he has disagreements with -- obviously, with some of my political beliefs, but pretty much stood up for my right to practice them.

Carlson: Good for David Corn. What about on the right? Presumably a lot of your friends are conservatives. You have a lot of ties to conservative establishment in Washington, some, anyway.

Gannon: Uh-huh.

Carlson: Yet you're -- and so you're essentially outed in public, at least somebody who owns these racy sounding, gay sounding domain names. Did you have any gay friends who said we're not talking to you anymore?

Gannon: Actually, the reaction has been fairly supportive. I've had messages of support. I don't ask anybody to be responsible for -- for my past, for personal issues, anything that I've done prior to this. And I wouldn't ask anybody to defend those things. That's my responsibility. I will do that at some point in time when I'm able to clear the air and counter some -- some of this very inaccurate information that's out. There. I think -- that's out there. You're seeing more tolerance on the right than you are the left. The left is -- loves diversity except for people that don't agree with them.

Carlson: What do you do now?

Gannon: I think there's plenty of opportunity here for me. I'm still writing. I think I have a great story to tell. I've continued to write these things. I've kept a journal for several years about my coverage of the White House. I'm going to continue to do that. Who knows what that will turn into? But -- look. I was a legitimate journalist, still. I'm going to go back to practicing journalism at some point in the very near future. And there's no reason that I shouldn't do that.

Carlson: Jeff Gannon, thank you very much.

Gannon: It was great to be with you. Thanks so much.