When I saw the Drudge headline that a reporter had been dragged kicking and screaming for wanting to give President Obama a letter, naturally my curiosity was aroused.

The picture links this story:

A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday.

Airport security officers carried the woman away by the feet and arms as she protested her removal.

She later identified herself as Brenda Lee, a writer for the Georgia Informer in Macon and said she has White House press credentials. The newspaper's Web site says it is a monthly publication, and a Brenda Lee column is posted on it.

Calls to the newspaper and the White House press office were not immediately returned.

Lee said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that she wanted to hand Obama a letter urging him "to take a stand for traditional marriage."

She said she asked a Secret Service agent to give the president her letter, but he refused and referred her to a White House staffer. Lee said she refused to give the staffer the letter.

"I said, 'I'll take my chances if (the president) comes by here,'" said Lee, who identified herself as a Roman Catholic priestess who lives in Anaheim, Calif. "He became annoyed that I wouldn't give him the letter."

Lee, who was wearing what she described as a cassock, said she protested when she was asked to leave.

But sure enough, this woman does appear to be a reporter (she's also described as a "journalist"), although the style of her journalism is a bit odd, even by media standards. The story links her latest column, which is a diatribe against gays and gay marriage.

But I noticed a non-sequitur, thrown right into the middle of her discussion of homosexuality:

Several months ago, the practice of priests sleeping with Protestant virgins before their marriage to Catholic males surfaced. A Catholic male and his would be bride went to speak to the priest concerning their marriage. The priest stated that he would have to try her out before the marriage. The girl told her mother. The marriage took place some months later.

However, I did learn that this "journalist" (or should that be in quotes?) has made other amazing claims. In 2007, in a Georgia Informer editorial, no less -- she complained to the Justice Department and vowed to complain to President Bush about.... plucked emails, tapped phone lines, and dental torture accomplished by ray guns:

Emails are plucked from yahoo; phones lines are tapped and threats continue. One rejects all shots including Novocain at the dentist when one has been poisoned and one's life has been threatened. Last week a dentist used a ray gun to dry a filling; it sent shockwaves through the body. Now there are headaches and pains that shoot from one side of the head to the other from time to time. It is the hope of some cowardly person or persons that these things will bring about a retreat. Not so! Another call is made to the Justice Department and a formal complaint will be written to President Bush asking for an investigation into the abuse by powerful people who have the means to make these things happen.

This "priestess" cannot be an ordinary reporter.

If she is, it would appear that something is not right in the world of journalism.

UPDATE: The Orange County Register has spoken with "Reverend" Lee and has more on this story. As I suspected, she is not a priestess:

In a phone interview, Lee said that she is a Catholic priestess "with St. Juliana's in Fullerton," and that there are 60 other Catholic priestesses worldwide.

Father Paul Gins of St. Juliana's said that Lee is a member of the parish and a "well-meaning person," but that "she does not represent the church. We do not recognize women priests, and haven't for 2,000 years."

Lee said that her duties as a minister involve consecrating the host, and ministering to the disabled and elderly in convalescent homes.

She called the White House to request credentials for Obama's arrival, citing her involvement with the Georgia Informer, an independent black newspaper in Macon, Georgia.

At LAX this morning, Lee asked a Secret Service agent to take her letter to President Obama after learning that the president wasn't scheduled to take any questions at the appearance.

The staffer came and asked to see the letter. "He said his name was Worly but I doubt that was his real name," Lee said.

After "Worly" gave Lee the letter back, another staffer asked to see it, Lee said. Lee said that she'd rather give it to Obama herself when he walked by.

"'I assure you, he's not going to come by here,'" Lee recounted the man saying. "'I don't want you to yell his name. I don't want you to do anything disruptive.'"

When Lee refused to surrender the letter, the man had security remove her, Lee said.

Lee said she yelled at reporters for not sticking up for her, saying "...you did nothing. What kind of reporting is this?"

Lee said she thinks she was being discriminated against for being a priestess, and that a priest wouldn't have received the same treatment.

She said she was discriminated against because her stand for traditional marriage offended the staffer.

"The person who came to get the letter was, in my opinion, gay," Lee said. That's why he acted that way, she said, because, "why would a person jeopardize his job for craziness."

Outside the terminal, a police officer chided Lee for making a scene, she said.

"'This could've been much worse,'" she said the officer told her. "We could have cuffed you, put you in a black-and-white, and held you for 72 hours.'"

Lee - whose sister worked in a mental hospital, she said - understood the reference to the holding period for mental illness cases.

As she tearfully recounted this afternoon, she had one thing to tell the officer: "Are you trying to imply that there's something mentally wrong with me?"

Well, from a legal standpoint, her claim that she is being discriminated against for being a priestess appears meritless-- for the simple reason that she is not a priestess!

I'm trying to take this seriously, but I think she's lucky they didn't threaten to use the ray gun on her.

MORE: According to this account, the woman did have a press credential, and police say she was not kicking and screaming:

The staffers offered to deliver Lee's letter to Obama, but she refused and insisted on handing it to the president herself, said Sgt. Jim Holcomb, a spokesman for LAX's police department.

"There was a concern and airport police made a decision that she was being uncooperative and asked her to leave," Holcomb said.

Instead, Lee sat down and refused to cooperate with airport police, he said.

"We decided that we could not put up with her conduct in a restricted area," Holcomb said. "We picked her up and carried her out of the press area. She raised her voice, but there was no kicking and screaming."

Lee, who said she lived in Anaheim, voluntarily boarded a bus driven by LAX public relations officials, Holcomb said. She was driven away from the tarmac and allowed to leave the airport on her own.

Lee had a press credential and was part of the media pool that had gathered when Obama arrived at LAX on Wednesday, but caused no problems at that time, he said.

"She was never considered a threat," Holcomb said. "It was just plain bad behavior. This was not the time and place to hand-deliver a letter to the president."

Sorry, but she gave every appearance of being either a demonstrator or a nut.

(I certainly wouldn't expect to act that way in a press area and get away with it. Unless I'd been a Code Pink demonstrator being passed off as a reporter during the carefree days of Bush fascism...)