I think it's 100% true that if some fly-by-night lefty website had gotten a reporter in the Clinton WH and that reporter was found to have a very unsavory past there would be literally hundreds of messages on FR crowing about it and digging into every nook and cranny of that person's life.
I agree that the plant stories are very far-fetched. I think a more important question is whether or not he was fully checked out by the SS. He doesn't appear to have had a hard pass, but he did attend press briefings on a regular basis and had close access to the President.
Crowing and digging into every corner of their life because they attended press briefings?
No, it would not have garnered that much interest.
We actually have a close analogy. Bob Beckel. And others have mentioned the business that was run out of Frank's home years ago.
That didn't garner that many threads or that many responses. Yes, of course there was crowing and comments continue to this day. But "digging into his life"? Nope.
Sorry.
And they are much more prominent and closer to (dem) Presidents and dem officials than a reporter at a briefing.
BTW, attending four Presidential news conferences over two years is not "close access to the President", and I'm not sure what threat you are trying to say he posed--that he would strip?
LOL