Like me, Skimble can't seem to stay retired from blogging. Recently he's been reading Jeff Gannon's brand-new blog. Gannon, the rent boy turned phony reporter, actually posted this on March 2:

Tom Bevan has an [sic] great piece at Real Clear Politics, PLAYING HARDBALL WITH MAUREEN DOWD, in which he makes some good points about this gal who probably needs a bit of the old Jeff Gannon to relieve some of that pent up whatever.

Yikes. Dowd "needs a bit of the old Jeff Gannon"? I assumed Gannon was a Kinsey six, but I guess the door swings both ways. Or maybe he just wants to do to Maureen Dowd what he was trying so hard in the briefing room to do to the Democratic Party, and the country.

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Meanwhile, about a week ago a couple of weeks ago someone named Kristinn returned from a demonstration at the White House in support of Gannon and told her friends at Free Republic what's really going on:

What happened to Gannon was a Clintonista hit. It had nothing to do with his alleged past, but everything to do with insulting Her Heinous in a nationally televised press conference.

Don't laugh -- this woman (who calls Washington "the political gulag") has back-up on this. No, really -- just ask her:

During the course of our hour-long freep outside Monica's Gate in front of where the TV networks do their standups, a hard pass holding member of the White House press corps stopped and spoke with us at length about the situation.

The member of the press corps was familiar with Gannon and what was being done to him for simply asking a question. The member wholeheartedly agreed with our sign that said, "After Gannon, Who's Next?" In response to our comment that this was the Ellen Romesch strategy played out as a warning for any reporter to be careful what they say about Hillary Clinton as she prepares for her probable 2008 presidential run, the member of the press corps said that this went back further: To Filegate....

For those in search of a footnote for "Ellen Rometsch strategy," here's a Salon article from the Lewinsky era that points out the moment when certain right-wingers glommed onto the phrase (Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch subsequently picked up on it):

...George Stephanopoulos, analyzing the then-2-week-old Lewinsky scandal for ABC's "This Week," said White House allies were "starting to whisper about what I'll call the 'Ellen Rometsch' strategy." Stephanopoulos then went on to explain that Rometsch was an East German spy who had slept with President John Kennedy as well as many other congressmen and senators.

"Robert Kennedy was charged with getting her out of the country and also getting [FBI Director] John Edgar Hoover to go to the Congress and say, 'Don't you investigate this, because if you do, we're going to open up everybody's closets," Stephanopoulos said....

So there you have it: In his question to the president, Gannon makes a brief negative reference to Hillary, and she decides he Must Be Destroyed. Through blogs, of course. Left-wing blogs. Because, of course, she's only been a First Lady and a U.S. senator for the past twelve years -- it's not as if she knows any print or TV journalists, right? And you can't blame her for being overly sensitive, because she's gotten such good press over the years -- in fact, this is the first time anyone's ever said anything negative about her in public, isn't it?

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BELATED UPDATE: In comments, I'm told that Kristinn, whom I identified as a woman, is actually the guy on the left here.