Fitz!!!

Krugman!!!

Byron York, all lubed up and reporting for duty.

the wheels on the bus go “roots” and “fitz”

Dainty eyeballs! LOL! You were great yesterday evening Christy– your honesty and intelligence were on full display. Loved your use of Corporate Media as well– twice!

Fitz!

“Hair boy.”
LMAO

moi? roots

(psssst….angie: another one for the medical terminolgy list)

Fitz? Is this the week?

EPU’d: Hartford Courant: Lieberman’s in Trouble.

moi, that was not directed at you . It was my surprise at thinking i was first.

EPU’d OfT: From the WaPo’s online political chat in progress now:
“Minneapolis, Minn.: Your thoughts on Ned Lamont’s unexpectedly strong showing at the Connecticut Democratic Convention?

Dan Balz: Ned Lamont did very well over the weekend, winning about a third of the delegates at the Connecticut convention and easily clearing the bar to force a primary contest with Sen. Joseph Lieberman. There’s clearly a lot of dissatisfaction among Democrats about Lieberman for supporting Bush on the war. Lamont’s showing makes the primary even more interesting.”

Shouldn’t the meme of this story be how one lefty blog made a mistake — bad judgment or simple error, it doesn’t matter — and the other lefty blogs responded with skepticism and then refutation? Policing our own, and all that. Self-correcting.

How many times do Glenn Reynolds and his ilk pass on Drudge garbage without even pausing to think whether it’s believable? They have their own ethic (IMHO, perfectly defensible): If Drudge makes a mistake, Drudge should answer for it. A mere linker like Reynolds is off the hook.

So how is it that the Lefties can all be tarred with one brush but the Righties have to be custom-tarred? Or is that a foolish question?

so cute! the kid made it swimming from Alcatraz!

now, back to important things like getting Rove et al frogmarched to Alcatraz or wherever SuperMax is these days …

Right On Mark…

Let’s meet the silver tongued 24/7 crisis communication spin doctor for Official “A.”

His version: Mark Corallo All-American patriot [link]

Other version: Mark Corallo, liar and right-wing hatchet man [link]

Mark Corallo “quotes” – “We’re confident at the end of this that Fitzgerald is going to find that Karl has been totally truthful and not only has done nothing wrong but has done everything right.” – my personal favorite ;)

http://patrickjfitzgerald.blog…..-mark.html

Kurtz’s take on Joe Klein is even sillier. “Anonymous,” the author of “Primary Colors” is depicted as formerly “in the tank” for Bill Clinton. Hard to top that.

A careful, skeptical person, however,would be leery of turning Murray Waas into a culture hero.

Extreme caution is indicated.

You could see this steaming bowl of Howie crap coming from a mile away. Any excuse to belittle the liberal blogosphere is jumped on like a pack of rats on cheese.

They are grinning now like jackasses eating briars over a barbed wire fence, but this is what I hope- Rove is indicted soon and vindicates everything Leopold has written, (because he is now an underdog, and I am obligated to root for him, after a suitable period of caution),and the faces of Howie and the HairMan are forcibly rubbed in their own fecal matter.

No worries mommygrain, I knew what you meant :-)

fyi – raw story briefly had a headline up stating bush and blair to announce a phased troop withdrawal from iraq. i think it was accidental because they took it down and replaced it with a ‘major iraq announcement’ vague headline.

oops, meant mommybrain lol

EPU’d and OT

Edited on Mon May-22-06 05:52 AM by kpete
Wired News Violates Court Order, leaks FULL AT&T NSA spying documents!

Whistle-Blower’s Evidence, Uncut

02:00 AM May, 22, 2006

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications company, which alleges that AT&T cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic surveillance program.

……………………

Here we present Klein’s statement in its entirety, with inline links to all of the document excerpts where he cited them. You can also download the complete file here (pdf). The full AT&T documents are filed under seal in federal court in San Francisco.

all links to ALL documents here:
http://www.wired.com/news/tech…..944-0.html
http://blog.wired.com/27BStrok….._wired.pdf

Later in that same column, Kurtz praises the New Republic for “sound[ing] off on my favorite issue of late.” That issue? Oversight. TNR is talking about congressional oversight of the executive – a great topic and one that got lots of mention yesterday in the various threads.

Still, given the topic of this post, the notion of Kurtz loving to talk about oversight is just too priceless. The ironic contrast might be worth mentioning, for anyone who contacts him or Deb Howell.

“Oversight? You want to talk about oversight? We got your oversight right here . . .”

Rootz!

O/T – but my inner litigator is aroused

from wired news – publishing 3 page pdf of docs related to EFF suit of AT&T via Whistleblower Mark Klein

general notes:
EFF is presently under gag order & their original docs to court are currently under seal

news orgs are petitioning/suing to have seal removed

fyi- AT&T has claimed they have a “cert” from Ashcroft – something Qwest asked for and was denied in recent story involving telcos

AT&T making broad claims docs are “proprietary in nature – good luck with that

Whistlebower Mark Klein is not under current gag order

linked text

Look, there’s no question that York is one of a handful of reporters of choice for Teams Rove and Libby to go to. But, first, I made the same inference that he did after reading Jeralyn’s post; and, second, there’s nothing wrong at all with Corallo telling York, if he did, that Kurtz was working on a story, evidently for his usual Monday morning column. The point is, there’s no reason to think York was himself a source for Kurtz, and even if he was, so what? Kurtz reports on reporters, among others. Yes, he does a bad job with this story in not noting the pushback from the left on the Truthout report. So yes, inadequate reporting. But no, no joint venture from York and Kurtz.

I’ll just add that I too suspect Kurtz didn’t contact Waas, because I suspect things would have come out even uglier for Truthout in that case.

from the Hartford courant http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0521-23.htm

The darkest omens for Lieberman came near the end of the night when Southbury, nearly the last to vote, announced it was still waiting for a response to a winter invitation to Lieberman to meet. Until he does, Southbury cast five votes for Lamont, three abstentions and zero for Lieberman. One of the night's loudest cheers rang out.

Yeah, for this post! Kurtz will be online at the WP at noon, if anyone would like to ask him a question. :-)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..nav=topnav

Funny how Lil Deb mentions the clickable bylines but Kurtz doesn’t have one.

Guess I’ll mention that, too.

T-

Jethro — I’m not talking about Waas as a cultural hero. I’m talking about his reporting — it’s been thoroughly researched and scrupulously checked and double checked. And spot on. Which is more than I can say for a lot of the corporate media folks (oh, Pool Boi…we need you in steno room one for dictation…)

rat bastahd (#9):

That Hartford Courant article on Lieberman in trouble was great. The page had a bonus too!

There is a link on it to Helen Thomas’ column about religious leaders in America not standing up. A great tribute to William Sloane Coffin concludes it.

Bit by bit……….. heh, heh, heh.

punaise– how in the world did I miss that? perhaps the late hour. brilliant as usual!

John Casper @ 11– great f/u question here:
>>>>>>>>
Groton, Conn.: I don’t understand. Why does the media persist in portraying Democratic dissatisfaction with Lieberman as being solely about his support for the war? The central problem isn’t that Lieberman supported and continues to support the Iraq War. It’s that he supported and continues to support President Bush over his own party. It’s comments like “in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril”. And his aping of administration talking points on Social Security and Terri Schiavo. Etc.

Dan Balz: Thanks for the comments. Quite a lot of interest this morning in the Connecticut race.

And Jeff, I have to disagree. Kurtz’s wife has a relationship with the National Review, and if you follow Kurtz closely – you can see how many times republican memes show up in his work. The problem isn’t that York may have found out about Kurtz column. It’s that Kurtz is consistently advancing republican memes and is highly critical of democratic ones. You just have to look back at how Kurtz covered Clinton to see the difference. At a time when the WP clamors for ‘balance’, and does public hand wringing over Froomkin, it is a good thing to point out the obvious bias of people like Kurtz and VandeHei. Mindless parroting of republican talking points is what got us into this mess in the first place.

BTW, am I to believe that Goldbars Luskin spent his Friday afternoon getting his cat dewormed?

Nothing that happens with this case will surprise me, anymore.

I think Leopold might have been chosen to start the firestorm to unfold. When people are reluctant to head 90 mph down a dead-end street, that complicates matters.

Fitz could lay out a half-dozen different indictments today. Just as plausible as any other scenario.

Crawl on C-Span: Chief Justice Roberts says he would like to see more agreement on controversial SC cases. (not verbatim)

Another great question is taken by Balz!
>>>>>>>>>>>
Atlanta, Ga.: The Wall St Journal has blamed Joe Lieberman’s poor showing against Ned LaMont Friday night on the “out of state, angry-left”. My understanding is that only Conn. residents were allowed to vote, right? Is this going to be the MSM’s standard response when progressive candidates score an upset against D.C. insider candidates? Does the angry left have that much power? Also, what is The Post doing to honestly engage with American progressives?

Dan Balz: Yes, only Connecticut residents can vote in Connecticut race, but Lamont has received help, encouragement, etc., from out-of-staters and anti-mainstream bloggers. As for your last question, we try to report on activities of both progressives and conservatives, particularly as this affects political races and political parties.

>>>>>>>>>>>
anti-mainstream bloggers– LOL!

Oh wait a minute, everyone. The comment by T- about the lack of a link reminded me of how Deb Howell is fond of reminding everyone that post.com and the dead tree WP are two different companies. She doesn’t have anything to do with this, remember? “Media Notes Extra” is a Post.com enterprise, and she only deals with dead tree WP issues.

Silly us. Apparently there’s no accounting for the online Post, in more ways than one.

I’ll be busy during the post.com chat with Kurtz, but someone might want to ask who fills the Ombuds role for post.com, since Deb Howell doesn’t.

Will GW Clusterfuck announce a phased withdrawal of troops? That’s a big gamble- but he’s a big gambler. Best chance he’s got of saving the house. Might work- might not.

moi 19 lol! I have been accused of granola behavior!

Yes, where is Murray Waas? Even more than the frog-march, I wish for one of his columns to explain at least a little of what’s going on behind the currtain.
It’s definitely getting nastier — and that’s usually an indication that we’re getting closer.
There’s more than a little “protesting too much” going on.
Even a sort of funky parallelism between the Jefferson and Leopold stories — as if harvesting the zits on the opposition would mask the moment when the true cancers are revealed.
But then my tin foil hat has been going off for a while.

1,158 DAYS AND THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON AND…

Christy,

In view of the coordinated attack (Rove to York to Kurtz), isn’t it time that Leopold outted his sources. I know that this becomes problematic if basic assertion is true (that Rove is under sealed indictment) but if one of the sources is Rove’s shit-thrower then the rest of the blogosphere ken go after that and try and tie York and Kurtz to this recent head-fake.

It seems to me that the York-Kurtz connection on this can be the breach in the wall to run an army of bloggers through to blow up the Rove-CorporateMedia boiler room.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION…THEY’LL COME SCURRYIN’ OUT ONE AT A TIME!!!

Leopold is at best, mendacious and unstable.

The right is using him to attempt to discredit us all, but it’s a lame attempt. We are, as has been pointed out, producing stars like Waas and pointing out the falsehoods and errors of any who make them, be they Howie Kutz, Deb Howell or Truthnot.

I feel worst for the people whose hopes have been expoited by Ash and Leopold for financial gain.

As the stakes are raised we can only expect the exposure that blogs are getting to attract more and more energy from the attack machines. When we could be labelled/dismissed so readily it simply wasn’t important to throw any swiftboating our way. This is a sign, that MSM/Rove recognize that America is starting to put her Blog ears on and they hear danger knocking at their door. All the more reason to take a page from Fitz’s playbook and continue to exercise the gold standard of verification.

Pach – Agreed – the best sites on the progressive internet, like FDL, strive to serve as engines for truth. When stories like Leopold’s come down the pike, we hold them up to the light and see whether they make sense given what else we know and whether they are properly backed up and sourced, etc. We are appropriately skeptical, but we aren’t afraid of digging deeper on seemingly farfetched claims.

And now that it appears that Leopold has been burned, we can take further action: demand that he reveal his sources as he told us he would do. Hold him and Ash accountable. This is another way to bring down the Rovian anonymous sourced rumors that he uses to try to discredit those who would investigate his web of corruption.

So what the hell IS going on with Rover?

1) Fitz doesn’t have enough to ask for an indictment? low probability

2) Fitz is waiting to get more of the Libby evidentiary stuff decided before opening another can of worms? Moderate probability

3) Fitz is still trying to squeeze a plea deal out of Rover? Low probability

4) Fitz is actually going after a small herd of goopers and wants to get em all at once? Most interesting possibility.

Chance to tell Howie Kurtz how you really feel in his WaPo online Media chat, starting in about three minutes.
Per Christy, I’m going to email Lil Debbie first.

Pach– wrt to your first sentence, you are snarking, right?

i finally got EPU’ed — not a painful as i thought — so i thought i would repost this:

if anyone wants a pdocast (mp3) of RADIO NATION from yesterday w/ REDD on as a guest . . . i can hook you up.

e me: tripp_badger at yahoo dot com . . .

it is a great show . . . REDD is awesome, Jean Sara Rohe — the young patriot that blasted the that greasy war monger mccain at the new school is great, greg palast is as ususl wonderful . . .

i will be glad to share!!

rwcole imho, 5) Rove has already received a sealed indictment, because he flipped on Dead Eye. Fitz and the GJ are moving on Dead Eye.

rwcole –

in response to your question, i believe the answer is that fitz moves at his own deliberate pace as he runs his investigations. A poster the other day pointed out that fitz’s pattern is virtually always to wait until the last minute

Letter to Lil’ Deb

Subject : Clickable bylines

Ms. Howell,
Yeah, well Kurtz doesn’t have one, so I’ll trust you to deliver this feedback for me.

1) Kurtz’s hit piece on Leopold was over the line. Mentioning that Leopold was a drug addict, had mental illnesss and was convicted of grand larceny TWICE, does nothing except attempt character assassination. If Kurtz is so sure that Leopold is in the wrong, why would he undermine the strength of his argument by engaging in such ad hominem attacks?

2) Kurtz’s broad characterizations that the internet and blogs participated in furthering Leopold’s story are misleading at best, or plain wrong. His next article should detail the sites he is referring to. The blog sites that practice a high-degree of jounalistic integrity did nothing of the sort and publicly stated that they had no comment on Leopold’s assertions. Howie would be well-served to incorporate this practice to raise the level of integrity under which he writes.

Thanks,

Trent

John at 47 – That’s what I have been saying!

“Armies of compassion and love your neighbor”…
chimpy’s talking to the Restaurant Assn in Chicago.

His happy meds jest kicked in.. joking bout Jeb eating a lot, don’t thank me for Jeb, I had nothing to do with it– heh heh– thank my mother.

rwcole, don’t forget that Fitz is still busy dealing with the Libby defense. That is taking up some of his time.

“Anti-mainstream bloggers?” (from Balz’s online chat)

wtf?

Just read the Kurtz piece- and must say that it seemed OK to me. He’s reporting an event that hasn’t been covered much and it seems to me he covered it fairly accurately. Didn’t see the giant slam of the blogs in general- just some backhanding of the reporter that can’t be named- who seems to deserve it.

Sweet graphic, looks like something we’d have here at the shop. Definitely named for some of our operators!

Pach, 40, well stated, as per usual.
“Truthnot”
LMAO.

I believe Rove has been cooperating all along except that he does not provide ALL info Fitz wanted. This is an effort by Rove to string this thing along past the election then of course Bush will pardon all crooks.

What we don’t know is who Fitz’s real target is? Is the shooter it?

Peterr at 35
Deb can play “hide the peanut” all she wants with post.com vs. wp.com but nobody but her gives a shit about who reports to whom around there.

xyz

When IS the last minute? Would that be the last minute of the Clusterfuck administration? Or the day after?

rw, prior to Salon firing Leopold, the WSJ fired him. According to Howie today, the “Dow Jones” fired Leopold.

This is apparently the offending paragraph in the Kurtz piece. It is, I believe, absolutely true:

“While no other news organization touched the report, word spread through blogs and Internet sites. According to the Detroit Free Press, the keynote speaker at a banquet of Michigan trial lawyers announced the indictment, bringing the heavily Democratic audience to its feet.”

anon – Maybe Kurtz leans a little to the right (though who he’s married to is not very telling here), but you way overstate the case. Yes, criticize him for specific reporting failures, such as, today, the failure to take note of the widespread criticism from the left blogosphere of the Truthout report that accompanied the widespread embrace of it. But it’s completely circular to say, “There he goes again, aping Republican memes like he always does.”

Something similar goes for Vandehei. Almost all reporters are better sources in some forces and factions than others, and it’s good to know about that. Vandehei is clearly better sourced in the administration, and particularly in the White House, than elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean he’s mindlessly parroting Republican talking points. In fact, if you look at some of his recent stories, he makes pretty clear where the story is coming from and how well it could be confirmed from elsewhere.

Again, doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. But the criticisms should specify the problems.

This is apparently the offending paragraph in the Kurtz piece. It is, I believe, absolutely true:

“While no other news organization touched the report, word spread through blogs and Internet sites. According to the Detroit Free Press, the keynote speaker at a banquet of Michigan trial lawyers announced the indictment, bringing the heavily Democratic audience to its feet.”

Am I correct that an indictment precedes a charge, and that any deal would have to be made before the charges are filed?

I can see an indictment under seal, if, as Christy has explained, there are others who may also be in jeopardy, and the government does not want to give potential indictees any heads-up via the existing indictment.

But…

We’ve all heard that a GJ would indict a ham sandwich, so I doubt that Luskin would be surprised if Fitzgerald told him an indictment was on the horizon. My perception of Fitzgerald is that if he can bring everyone to justice, he will, but I just don’t see him letting Rove off the hook just to get Cheney. And I don’t see him letting this much time go by without making good on any threats he may have made to indict. There’s no pressure in giving someone weeks to make a decision about whether they will cooperate, and if you can give them that much time, I’m guessing Rove’s lawyers will figure Fitzgerald’s case is weak and they may as well take their chances in court.

The interesting thing I found in the Kurtz piece was Luskin’s claim that he spent May 12th at the vet with his cat. I used to live in that world, as many of you still do. What high powered lawyer at Patton Boggs, who probably bills at $750 per hour or more, spends a business day at the vet with his cat? Not in a million years. It’s still possible Luskin didn’t meet with Fitz that day, but it’s laughable to think he spent the day with his cat.

This is apparently the offending paragraph in the Kurtz piece. It is, I believe, absolutely true:

“While no other news organization touched the report, word spread through blogs and Internet sites. According to the Detroit Free Press, the keynote speaker at a banquet of Michigan trial lawyers announced the indictment, bringing the heavily Democratic audience to its feet.”

Eric Alterman always refers to him as Howie “Mr Conflict of Interest” Kurtz.

Jason Leopold is a lefty Drudge wannabe — and there is nothing wrong with that. Take his work with a pound of salt. The only problem is that TruthOut and TalkLeft did not exercise sufficient skepticism.

Typical republican drivel – armies of compassion hitched up with love thy neighbor. You can’t criticize “love thy neighbor” by itself. But armies of compassion is like a thousand points of light – pure republican horse doody. What it all means is “pick yourself up by the (army) bootstraps, cuz you are on your own”.

That Jeb – what a chubby fun luvin’, food luvin’ card he is! Hmm…that alone should qualify him for president, by golly! Another fun and funny Bush man you wanna have a beer with.

well, I’ll be… thanks, Pach for your response.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald:

Could you please change your name? It is confusing to the new people and it bothers the shit out of me.

Sorry if this is rude. I have asked before. Other’s have asked, too.

By all means, skip over to that libertarian outpost, the Cato Institute, and download their White Paper against Bush’s unrestrained “Power Surge” as they call it. The article hits a lot of points that you could almost imagine make up a bill of impeachment . You don’t have to agree with all of it I don’t) to find it a compelling criticism of Bush. And be assured, they include Cheney in their critique.

And, oh yes, they do utter the dreaded “I” word.

http://cato.org/homepage_item.php?id=261

Or, you can directly download the article, not available in its entirety on the site.

http://cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/….._lynch.pdf

PJF-Foe Blog, that theory has been circulating around from emptywheel, Jeff, and others for some time. IMHO, Leopold might have picked up on it as a fall back position for his unnuanced “Rove’s been indicted.” IMHO, Leopold invents anonymous sources to avoid having to admit that he is just reprinting without attribution, what he reads (and doesn’t always comprehend) at FDL, tnh, Kos, …. Again, imho, he then sprinkles in these fabricated “details” such as Fitz was at Luskin’s office and poof, he tells the world that he has a scoop.

Christy,

I do not know whether someone else mentioned it in comments but Jeralyn had told us all yesterday that Kurtz was going to write a story today. She heard it from Rove’s PR guy.

Steve

OT:

Seymour Hersh

NATIONAL SECURITY DEPT.
LISTENING IN

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/…..talk_hersh

62, 64, 67 – hey rw – which paragraph do you think they’re complaining about??

But seriously though – I think it’s a mischaracterization to say it spread like wildfire. It was completely ignored by this site, Emptywheel, HuffPo, RawStory, Josh Marshall, etc. etc. TalkLeft mentioned it, but with adequate caveats.

Now I’m not one for tin foil hats and conspiracy theories.
You might want to reexamine your certainty, please take a look:
http://rigorousintuition.blogs…..es_22.html

If the moral of the story is that blogs provide a place for stories that are even less well researched and verified than the mainstream press- and that readers should be a little careful in running with stuff they read there- well- OK- that’s probably about right. Drudge, for expample, is right about 35% of the time.

ck 68- …pound…salt….

I thought the phrase was “go pound sand” :~)

rwcole – is there a reason you have posted that so many times? As pointed out in the post, nowhere in Kurtz column did he point out the skeptical reaction of most liberal blogs. He is painting them all with the same brush, just as the National Review is.

I think this falls into that category of what Arsenio Hall used to call things that make you go “Hmmmmm….”

And what is it with L’il Debbie and her virgin eyes? A few words on a computer screen make her collapse into a heap of petticoats, but deep-throating some shriveled up Republican meat is okey-dokey? Maybe that’s why she talks so dirty.

Some people have weird priorities. Or maybe this is proof of disconnects in the brain. Tough call.

Didn’t Leopold’s editors also speak with his sources?

Obsessed- I didn’t see the word “wildfire” in the story.

Anon- Sorry for the multiple posts- the comment posting seems to be getting stuck- and I get impatient and hit the thing again.

Every time anything critical of Leopold appears on this site, it slows down and seems to come under DOS attack. I wonder why that is?

colleenmiltarymom 70

Patrick J. Fitzgerald:

Could you please change your name?

I agree. It’s annoying, and disingenuous at best.

Rice protested at BC Commencement ceremony!

Hmmm… Remember the last time a convicted felon got a big scoop damaging to Bush?

The only thing I can’t figure is how Leopold’s story helps Rove if he’s actually indicted.

I emailed Lil’Deb. I asked her if Howie and Byron were also connected at the roots, you know like the aspens Scooter and Judy. LOL

Howie just answered my question at the WaPo chat:

Minneapolis, Minn.: Your column today takes the blogosphere to task for running with a sketchy online report by Jason Leopold alleging that Rove has already been indicted in the Plame case — and yet you failed to note that almost every major liberal blog either (a) ignored Leopold, (b) presented his report with skepticism, or (c) actively debunked it. Why did you decide to leave that part of the story out?

Howard Kurtz: But my column didn’t take the blogosphere to task. What I was explaining was how three dozen reporters for major news organizations had to chase a Rove indictment report on a single Internet site, a report that, shall we say, remains unconfirmed. The reporters were doing their jobs, and no one went with it. But it’s still a highly unusual situation.

Maybe dodged it is more like it. Wish I’d asked it a little smarter.

JFisk #81. Leopolds editors said they spoke to 3 or 4 of Leopolds sources. Plus they spoke to 3 MSM media reporters who had one source each with the same info.

Drudge reported yesterday that Howard Dean personally ran an effort to unseat Nagin in NO. Now the DNC is threatening with lawyers- and Drudge is backtracking- blaming the story on “sources”.

This is typical internet blogger stuff- and we all know it. Let’s not get so defensive that we can’t deal with the truth. This site has a great track record for being careful with the truth- but it isn’t a “news” site- it doesn’t break stories. Those that do have a spotty track record at best.

FYI,
Conn. Convention: I’m curious as to why the Post hasn’t given very much coverage to Lieberman being embarrassed in Fri’s Dem Convention. Not only did the Lamont campaign force a primary, but exceeded even the Lieberman team’s “expectation management” estimates.
Seems a sitting three term Senator being snubbed by his own homestate party organization would be news.

Howard Kurtz: I agree. We handled it as an item in the Sunday politics column. Given Lieberman’s prominence as the 2000 veep nominee and a presidential candidate last time — and the fact that so much of the Democratic dissatisfaction with him is directly tied to the Iraq war — I think we badly underplayed the story. (emphasis mine)

I’m not one for tinfoil hats and conspiracy theories either but this one certainly smells like Rovian special. Was Karl trying to get the “stars” of the liberal blogosphere to take the bait and run with the Leopold story in order to later discredit them with a coordinated Byron York/Kurtz/Drudge counteroffensive?

Without going down the Rathergate rabbit hole, it wouldn’t be the first time Rove planted negative stories about his client in order to discredit the opposition. In Joshua Green’s excellent “Atlantic Monthly” profile he recounts the following:

“A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove’s client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign’s progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking See and his family. “We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people,” the staffer says. “You’d roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, ‘Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you’re with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn’t have your tags.’ So I borrowed a buddy’s car [and drove] down the middle of the street … I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I’d cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees.” The ploy left Rove’s opponent at a loss. Ingram’s staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order “to create a backlash against the Democrat,” as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. “They just beat you down to your knees,” Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove’s attacks. See won the race.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green

w0551

Kurtz’s response seems to me to be consistent with the story he ran. It wasn’t about blogs.

colleenmilitarymom at 70
punaise at 85
I agree.

LJ/Aquaria (#80):

Imagine what her breath smells like……

rwcole -

I agree, that’s why I wish I’d framed the question differently. I do think it would have been responsible to note the responsible practice of most liberal blogs while he was celebrating the due diligence of all those “news organizations.” But he’s right in that he wasn’t exactly taking the blogosphere to task.

I find it ironic that the MSM is criticizing the blogosphere for running with unsubstantiated rumors. The lefty blogosphere has done far better with the Leopold-Rove thing than the MSM did at the Sago mine disaster, when not a single major news outlet bothered to verify reports that the miners had all been found alive.

I didn’t see the word “wildfire” in the story.

oopos – I exaggerated his exaggeration.

colleenmilitarymom at 70
punaise at 85
John Casper at 93
I agree.
me too, please stop, drives me nuts

Nice interview on Radio Nation, Christy!!! Bravo!

That’s a great radio program, but usually I don’t have time to listen, except when I’m driving (not too often). Anyway, you complement Laura’s format, topics and guests so well, I imagine you’ll be back soon. At the end of this edition, did Laura say you’d be back next week?

T- @ 58: I agree about the “who cares” difference between post.com and dead tree Post. Maybe I need to turn up my snark a bit more. . .

Fahrender:

Ha. Reminds me of an old joke that you probably know, too, but we won’t mention it here. L’il Debbie might be watching.

I’ve always liked the word “shill,” Christie.

It should be used more often, like when describing Byron York.

I like “tool” also.

I asked this twice already, but here goes again. We now know for certain Libby knew Plame’s ID was classified information the day after the Novak column ran. Did Scooter or any other member of the leak team leak her ID after that date, because if they did they’re bang to rights under the Intelligence Identities Act.

w0551

It wouldn’t have hurt, I suppose, to put something in there about how many blogs backed off the story- but that wasn’t really his point. He was just reporting a fact about how the story circulated- and even if the bloggers themselves decide not to repeat a story- inevitably it gets linked in the comments section- so the word gets out quickly and is passed on.

It’s one of the facts about the blogs.

colleen (370), punaise (#85):

we’ve been civil with that guy/gal/creature. it just keeps on going. i think we should petition Redd and Jane to ban it. it got really cheeky with Redd yesterday. i think it’s a 17 year old repub lite.

w0551 89
What’s critical to me is that you asked the question and that Howie chose to respond. Howie’s selection of your question suggests that Howie understands that Post readership losses have been immense to the liberal blogs. This in turn would suggest that Howie and the Post are beginning to understand that if the Post wants more readers, they are going to have to shill less obviously for the neocons and wingnuts.
Well done imo.

alls I can say is that howie’s column was funny -the line about the cat’s stool was a hoot.

(OT – Re: Wired publication of AT&T docs… )

First, thanks to “hang a left” and “Stephen Parrish, CPA” for posting the relevant links in the previous thread. It is a crtically important story.

What AT&T has done amounts to a declaration of all out war on the America people. No wonder AT&T fought so hard to keep these documents secret. They show that the company is culpable in a crime of staggering proportions.

In a nutshell: AT&T cannot be trusted to perform the job that we’ve hired them to do. This outrage must be stopped and those responsible must be held accountable. As Greenwald clearly explains in “How Would A Patriot Act”, we are indeed at a crossroads in this country. Do we turn the channel back to American Idol and keep snoozing or do we finally say: enough is enough?

Consider this: There are literally hundreds of employees at telcos across the country that have direct knowledge of these systems. They are an untapped resource. While access is limited as much as possible, such systems cannot be implemented without substantial documentation and defined protocols. To get to the bottom of this, we need others with direct knowledge and access to documents to speak out. Bright sunshine is the ONLY way to put a stop to this.

These kinds of abuses are exactly what led to the creation of FISA in the first place. But we now have a president who claims he is not required to comply with FISA. How convenient. Under what authority does the president violate the law? Under what authority does he authorize AT&T to do so?

It is one thing to monitor communications where there is probable cause. But unrestricted access — with no warrant, no emergency and no probable cause — to the nation’s entire communication infrastructure is something entirely different. It is indeed Orwellian. It is the most vulgar of obscenities. And Greenwald is 100% on target when he says this is not an issue of Democrat vs. Republican. It is a dispicable attempt by the executive branch to deny the checks and balances that form the very core of the American government.

It is also becoming quite clear the that Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a miserable failure. They have failed utterly in their oversight responsibility — both Democrats and Republicans on this committee should be ashamed of their incompetence. No solution will be forthcoming until true oversight is restored.

Kudos to Mark Klein, the EFF, and Wired.

kitty -

…yes, but that cat stool line was either stolen from TalkLeft without attribution or it’s a canned line that Luskin has been repeating verbatim to everyone.

I add my kudos w0551 89. It was a very well framed but respectful question, which is why it was chosen. I ask question on those chats all the time, but mine rarely get picked. Perhaps I should not start my questions with “Why are you such an idiot?”

I kid, of course.

Moderator: My apologies for the accidental double post. Could you please delete one? Thanks.

John (#106):

They’re probably being subsidized to not worry about the circulation. WaPoo’s mandate is to stay on message and screw the rest.

Whew! Quite a morning.
rwcole: Phased withdrawal? Of course! Brilliant. He doesn’t have to actually DO it, just announce it, and repeat his wisdom and cock-crow about the win over and over. Highlight some “withdrawing” troops, how Iraq is now governed by a freely democratic government…meanwhile, cheat and lie just like always. Rename the troops “peacekeeping forces” or some such, hire a bunch of mercenary security workers…

marinsailset @41; aggressive marketing against you is the best indicator that you are having a painful impact on your competitor. They will ignore you until you have done significant damage to their marketshare—but if they don’t have a better response (new product or positioning), all they can do is attack and use all the dirty tricks they know. As Pach would say, it’s publishing the truth that fries their asses.

And TeddySanFran @ 53? Of course anti-mainstream! Attempted marginalization. Ain’t it cool?

#70
#85
#93
#98
#105
Redd Jumped his ass already. Doesn’t seem to be real quick on the uptake. I also have to agree w/ #105.

omg– just saw a Censure Jimmy Carter ad on CNN… the wingnuts’ wheels are coming off!

btw, I don’t know if people had noted that the story about Iran physically identifying religious minorities has been debunked… Juan Cole did a nice job on it on the 20th and 21st and TPM talks about it this morning.

Now that WAS a damaging bit of propaganda, imho.

The trouble with the truthout.com reporting is that all we “know” about it comes from two principal sources:

1. truthout itself – Leopold/Ash/Pitt; and
2. Rove’s camp – Luskin/Corallo denying everthing

So there are no leaks from anybody about anything at Patton-Boggs. Nobody from the network TV crews supposedly camped out has confirmed that they were there. Nobody’s visited the building housing Patton-Boggs’ offices to see if the “fourth floor lockdown” was possible or feasible, and we still don’t have the results of Leopold’s promised telephone canvassing of “veteranarians within a 20-mile radius” of Luskin’s home.

So there’s plenty of media interest in this story, but nobody’s doing any investigation, at least that’s being reported? Jeff Gannon drew orders of magnitude more effort from what became ePluribus Media.

I’m sorry, there seem to be more pieces missing from this puzzle than we have to work with. Could some journamalist in DC please follow up a lead or two? Or is that too much to ask?

obsessed #75:
But seriously though – I think it’s a mischaracterization to say it spread like wildfire. It was completely ignored by this site, Emptywheel, HuffPo, RawStory, Josh Marshall, etc. etc. TalkLeft mentioned it, but with adequate caveats.

It did spread like wildfire in the comments, though — the threads here were full of “Have you seen this?!!!” from people who apparently were too intent on providing us with a “scoop” to notice that the six people had already posted it, even nearly a week later.

That doesn’t mean I agree with the characterization, but I do see it as lazy rather than malicious. For those who don’t participate, the distinction between carefully written posts and free-for-all comments can get lost.

unindicted co-coinky-dinksteror

what’s annoying about pseudo patrick j fitz is that the person doing it has no sense of humor

hey, enjoying y’all’s comments with the new Dixie Chicks in background courtesy Atrios

DixieChicks

Real Texas Women !!!

jinny,33:”Crawl on C-Span: Chief Justice Roberts says he would like to see more agreement on controversial SC cases. (not verbatim)”

Based on what I read this morning, your quote is accurate but only partial. What Roberts said was that he would like to achieve more consensus on the SC by seeking agreement on narrower issues.

I find this bothersome because Roberts is putting the cart before the horse. Whether or not the court can find consensus on a narrow issue should emerge from the case itself, not on a predetermined strategy to find consensus by narrowing the issues.

Let me use an analogy: If movie critics find the DaVinci Code to be a good movie by a 5-to-4 vote, that is not consensus. We have a divided court here.

But if 9 out of 9 say the costume design in The DaVinci Code is great, we have achieved consensus on a narrower issue than one of the total movie, but how useful is that to someone who wants a decision on the total movie?

So here we have gained consensus at the cost of losing an overarching decision on the whole issue. As a judicial philsophy, to me (not an attorney) this does not make much sense.

With a touch of paranoia I have a feeling that Roberts is looking to his legacy. Just months after joining the court, he wants to put a stamp on this court as a “Roberts court,” and the more consensus he can get, the more likley that he will gain that legacy.

That may be an unfair reading, but a it makes as much sense as a quest for consensus for its own sake. By all means lets have dissension on the court. That is the best way to vet all sides an on issue and thereby serve the people.

If the founding fathers wanted consensus from the SC, they would have stipulated having just one judge.

So Kurtz is really complaining about “how three dozen reporters for major news organizations had to chase a Rove indictment report on a single Internet site.”

Isn’t this their job? I don’t mean to be flip about this, but rumors existed before the Internet. And has it come to this? Reporters are so lazy now that it’s a big deal if they spend time investigating something that isn’t a foregone conclusion? He’s just proving Stephen Colbert’s point.

Eric Alterman — Gore/Obama 2008 –

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12915283/#060522

In truth, I don’t think Gore was planning to run, but now I think he’s thinking about it. He’s run what turns out to be a perfect non-campaign-campaign. And after all, he’d clearly like the job. He’s prepared for it his entire life. And lots of people are telling him only he can save the country from the disaster of yet another Republican—possibly even another Bush—presidency. Raising money and fielding an organization would be no problem. And say what you will about Gore, the man’s a patriot. And if Al starts losing weight, instead of wolfing down ice-cream sundaes, we’ll know he’s in.

cbl, great catch, tight band. I really like their new one, “Not ready to make nice.”
Dixie Chicks got beaten up (in a record buying kind of way) something awful when their lead singer, criticized Bush a few years ago. A lot of Country stations won’t play them anymore. If anyone knows their label, maybe you could ask them to advertise their new album at FDL?

Um, it looks like the WaPo got around to looking at Fitz’s filing:

Libby Prosecutor Focuses on CIA Officer’s Status
Filings Say Ex-Cheney Aide Knew That Plame Was Classified, Giving Him Reason to Lie to Grand Jury
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 22, 2006; Page A04

The classified status of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame will be a key element in any trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame’s employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News’s Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01024.html

MariaSquared #124:

But they don’t appear to have chased it.

Da Vichy Code: Oh Putz Day

Meanwhile- Raw Story is busy “developing”.

Kurtz and York launch Swiftboating of the Rove TreasonGate story — Internets push back . . .

Developing . . .

And let’s dare not mention the GOP recipe of rumor churning:

Step 1 – Story leaked to Drudge Report as a “RUMOR”
Step 2 – Radio hate-mongers start talking about the “RUMOR”
Step 3 – Conservative (but respectable!!!) print MSM picks up a story on the “RUMOR”
Step 4 – Entire print MSM reports that another MSM source is running a story on the RUMOR
Step 5 – Conservative TV talking head #1’s analysis “I’m not saying this RUMOR is true, and I’m not saying it’s false but it needs to be looked at and discussed and repeated and repeated”
Step 6 – Conservative talking head #2 has a segment, maybe a roundtable on the RUMOR
Step 7 – MSM TV reports/discusses it

remember Kerry’s affair with the woman RUMORED to be his ‘intern’

(also published at daoureport)

Forgive me if this has been pointed out already…

But, try to refrain from clicking on Howie’s columns. Every reader of his online column gets, credits him, regardless of whether you agree with him or not. The WaPost values the writers that bring the most “clicks” because of ad revenue. I know Froomkin is in the top 5.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Howie would write deliberately controversial columns just to get people to link to him.

Usually I just read the excerpts copied by others, which is usually more than enough of Howie.

Mariasquared 124; I thought the same thing wrt the whine “The cumulative weight of all this malicious speculation is really disruptive”…Disruptive to what? Taking the cat to the vet?
Defending Karl Rove; It’s Hard Work!

orangejumpsuit @ 123 – the crawl definitely did not say what you have read, it was just a flash before the European Parliament began.

I agree with your comments. From my non legal point of view I think that its dangerous to even state that consensus on any issues would be preferred. Sends shivers down my spine.

>>Patrick J. Fitzgerald: Could you please change your name?

>I agree. It’s annoying, and disingenuous at best

I third the motion

LOVE the Dixie Chicks. They are FAR too good for the mainstream dilettante-patriot “country music” market.

Bart #132

Step 8 Cheney holds up copy of WaPo or NYT citing a headline he helped plant. “It’s not just me, the WaPo/NYT says . . .

Lol, speaking of the Dixie Chicks, this little blurb in the paper this morning.

The Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines aplogised for disrespecting president Bush during a concert in London in 2003. But now she is taking it back.” I don’t feel that way any more”, she told Time magazine for its issue due out today. ” I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever”.

Afternoon. Well…hmmm. Frankly, I’m not seeing much wrong with the Kurtz article. It seems pretty accurate…and I did NOT see any sort of general attack on progressive blogs. Kurtz seemed to keep his story on Leopold. Am I missing something?
And, as to York and Kurtz maybe talking to each other…not that a big deal to me. Folks in the same profession do that all the time.
I’m just not seeing any sort of general attack on progressive blogs over the Leopold story…the reporting seems to focus on Leopold himself, and his claims…as it should be.
Ghostman

PS: chuckle…frankly, I think it’s kind of funny to see the handle Patrick Fitzgerald. I always get a laugh. Kinda like when whomever appears as
Kate O’Biern’s teeth” or some such. I say, let PJF continue. No-one in their right mind actually thinks it’s THE Fitz. Just having some fun.

oceanbreeze, 133, thank you very much. Good advice.

punaise

“It’s annoying, and disingenuous at best”

I lost a copy of Voltaire’s Ingénu in a sausage shop which is how I became disingenuous at worst.

Ghostman–Ditto!

John Casper says: “If anyone knows their label, maybe you could ask them to advertise their new album at FDL?”
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:20 am

It’s Sony.

J Casper,

I initially dismissed Dixie Chicks as one more fomulaic piece of fluff I had to buy for my kids (old music snobs never learn) – until one day when I came out of the back of the house to see who was playing such great fiddle in the living room – wow !

I love that Natalie has retracted her apology!

They are currently #1 @ Amazon – don’t get why the label (Sony) has put the entire CD out here like this.

crap – server just crashed %$&!*^! bloggers !

Nice catch Busted.
“Radical Chicks”
Dixie Chicks on the Cover of TIME

Speaking of Cobert ( @ 124), this can’t be good news for those Republicans pursuing the youth vote…

http://news.aol.com/entertainm…..2809990001

This server problem- or whatever it is- is making it painful to take part in the excellent discussion. Hope it gets fixed soon so that the best website on the internet doesn’t disolve because of a technical issue.

So what the Hell does Jason Leopold have to say about this? Not that I ever believed him- that story was so obviously made up from whole cloth-but I’d at least like to hear what he has to say to defend himself. Maybe he’s been admitted to the hospital and put back on his meds.

And Patrick J. Fitzgerald- I’m with you 100%. Don’t change your name- most of us get the joke. Love your website.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12916803/
NBC and wire service reports:

WASHINGTON – A computer disk with personal information of about 26.5 million U.S. veterans was stolen from the home of a senior Veterans Affairs official, the federal department said Monday.

Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson said the stolen data included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and numerical disability ratings. However, he said that no medical records or financial information had been compromised.

James Nicholson–yet another crony political hack appointed by Bush. Heckuva job, Georgie. You’ve just about tantrum-destructed the entire country now. Not enough you sent soldiers “naked” to Iraq without sufficient body armor, now the veterans are stripped of their privacy and at risk for identity theft. What the hell was that information doing outside, anyway?

How can we trust this administration on national security when they can’t even keep veterans records secure?

rwcole 148 –

Compose in another window (email, wordpad, etc) — copy/paste here.

It works much better when Word Press has the slows.

From Howie’s online chat:
Howard Kurtz: “But my column didn’t take the blogosphere to task. What I was explaining was how three dozen reporters for major news organizations had to chase a Rove indictment report on a single Internet site, a report that, shall we say, remains unconfirmed. The reporters were doing their jobs, and no one went with it. But it’s still a highly unusual situation.”

Oh Please. How many times have these guys had to run down a report on Drudge? Anybody remember the Kerry intern story? Just TODAY there is an inaccurate Drudge report on the DLC supporting Nagin’s opponent. Yet, it went right from Drudge to Fox News this morning. Is anyone causing a fuss about this? Heavens, Fox is repeating an unreliable internet report! Anyone see a hue and cry? The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

It’s worth noting amongst all this yadda yadda yadda that Truthout is still standing by the story, and they aren’t giving an inch. With every day that goes by it seems more and more implausible, but there you are. Either they really have something, or they are suicidal.

Very strange business. But I agree with earlier commenters, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out where Fitzgerald was May 12, whether network trucks were or were not staking out the grand jury on that date, etc., or whether Luskin even owns a cat. If the story is total bunk, it ought to be completely debunkable without a huge amount of effort. On the other hand, I can’t imagine why of all the journalistic gin joints in all the world, this story would walk into Leopold’s — and then the dog wouldn’t bark. Just doesn’t add up.

I am not sure what Leopold has to apologize about.

First, I don’t remember seeing one article or comment here at FDL in which the source (Leopold) of the info wasn’t taken with a grain of salt (if not a salt mine).

More importantly, how is his reporting any different from the stenography by WaPoo and other CM reporters of Rove’s position vis a vis indictment, his dealing with Fitz, his numerous GJ appearances?

I don’t see a difference. If the WaPoo and other CM repeat whatever source’s (i.e. Luskin’s) claim that “they gave Fitz pause,” or Rover “escaped a bullet,” how is that any different (for better or worse) than Leopold’s sources telling him Rover has been indicted and Leopold printing that. Last time I checked the WaPoo and other CM have correction pages.

To begin with, everything written about Plame, other than what has been stated by Fitz, is “speculation.” Some reporters may have better track records than others, but unless and until Rover’s denouement is announced by the only person who matters, Fitz, it can’t be any other way (and I am not holding my breath for Rover or any other member of TEAM LOSER to grow a conscious, spill their guts and ask for forgiveness outside of a plea agreement).

Is Leopold’s behavior irresponsible? I don’t see how his behavior is any different from the stenography that the WaPoo (less Waas and Froomkin) prints regarding Rover or anything else TEAM LOSER related for the part.

And it is certainly not any where near as egregious (apologies to “Egregious”) as the lies printed by the NY Times under Judith Miller’s byline, which at best can be characterized as “mistakes” and at worst knowing collaberation.

The issue isn’t that Kurtz is using Leopold to seek to defame the whole anti TEAM LOSER blogosphere. What is new or different about that? Not much.

To me, there are two factors that drive Kurtz, the WaPoo and the CM on this. One is that the WaPoo and other CM are as guilty of “speculation” (and outright lies) as Leopold, and are using the issue to not only defame the anti TEAM LOSER blogosphere, but to deflect similar on target criticism of their own reporting by the responsible blogosphere. It is classic misdirection (something they no doubt learned from their TEAM LOSER masters).

The second is fear. The blogosphere scares the shit out of the CM, particularly newspapers, in two, related, ways: (a)Influence/Importance, which in turn has a direct effect on (b), profitability (if not existence, although if that is true it is many years off). Thus, they seek to marginalize the blogosphere any chance they get, without regard to facts (hey, it’s similar to their reporting methodology).

Not that FDL and other responsible commentators shouldn’t attack Kurtz on the guilt by association accusations, but that is only half (if it is that much) of the real issue that needs exposing.

Kurtz has now succeeded in having the anti TEAM LOSER blogosphere use its resources to defend itself and its methods. That is a victory for Kurtz and his masters.

If someone picks a fight with you, it isn’t written that you have to fight back on their terms, and often it is more effective not to. I would attack Kurtz et al. where its hurts most, that in Leopold they are looking at themselves, and it not only hurts, it scares them.

Have at it.

Although like most I have a jaundiced eye for reports that rely entirely on unnamed sources, I am not unconvinced that Ash and Leopold have the basic story right. Perhaps rather than indicted the Rove camp were delivered some sort of intent letter that has caused them to turn State’s evidence against Libby or others. Seems an awful lot of smoke for no fire.

150, prairie sunshine: well, I go from laughter over the Patrick Fitzgerald flap….to much anger over your comment. Oh….NOT angry at you…but at the news story. How in the hell could some idiot leave personal ID on 26 million vets sitting around his house?
That sort of thing pisses me off. Sadly, it does seem pretty typical for this administration.
Ghostman

So all of this hullaboloo can be summed up as:

“Why won’t the MSM publish the left’s lies when they will do so with the right?”

So you got hosed by the echo chamber, BFD.

Yummie:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/da…..ks0520.jpg

Chicks with, uh, ” “.

Prairie Sunshine @ 150: Being covered by CNN now. Makes one wonder whether there still are actually any individuals in the US whose info has not been stolen.

Bart:

You can blame DeLay for the “intern” rumor. He had an aide who happened to be a good friend of Alexandra Polier, the intern who wasn’t an intern. The friend had mentioned Polier’s connections to Kerry to her boss.

Needless to say, that “friend” working for DeLay is no longer a friend of Alexandra Polier’s. The saddest part of the whole story is how someone betrayed a friendship, for political gain.

But what could one really expect from anybody who would work for the Bugman?

George W. Bush’s job approval ratings are unchanged from April as concerns over the state of the national economy grow according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 32% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 61% disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 29% approve and 65% disapprove. Among Americans registered to vote, 32% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 61% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 29% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 65% disapprove.

A total of 75% of Americans rate the national economy as bad, very bad, or terrible, up from 67% in April, while 59% say the national economy is getting worse and 60% say the national economy will be worse a year from now.

51 angie says:

chimpy’s talking to the Restaurant Assn in Chicago.

jesus-h-motherf… Does this guy ever work?

At this point, I’m not asking rhetorically.

Prarie Sunshine, thanks for the link !

please everyone remember the field day the M$M had when Clinton’s CIA Director Deutsch got caught taking his laptop to his unsecure home – rightfully so, but I better see some ink stained flames on this crony’s ass !

That PJF is such a whore.
He/she spams like mad…

In the first 10 pages of google hits on the URL, he’s been hitting the big blogs, I found posts, mostly just one line and the URL at: thinkprogress, huffpo, TWN, thetalentshow, bradblog, WaPoBlogs, WSJBlogs, blogforamerica, DU, news.com, Kos, Political Animal, MLW, truthout, Hotline, JustOneMinute, Attytood, and (amusingly) RedState… and a few blogs I don’t know: underneaththeirrobes, blogebrity, legalreader, mikesnoise.

More disturbingly, there were many blogs where people mistake this guy for the real thing, including right-wingers, lots of foreign blogs, forums on Lyme Disease and Harry Potter blogs, and then ther’s one post where Wonkette cites his blog for Bush-Abramoff pictures

(puts on EPU hat)

A bit OT but relevant to the MSM’s distortions, this piece on Colbert’s speech, buried in today’s NYTimes Business section:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05…..ref=slogin

The money quote (no pun intended):
“Mr. Colbert’s speech has also become a cause célèbre among many commentators, writing online and off, who charged that the mainstream press ignored his performance because it was so mocking of the president and of the Washington media.

Last week, the public editor of The New York Times, Byron Calame, writing on his Web journal about the paper’s lack of initial reporting on Mr. Colbert’s speech, printed a statement from Richard Stevenson, a deputy bureau chief for The Times in Washington.

Mr. Calame said he agreed with Mr. Stevenson that there should have been “a separate story that anticipated the reaction the routine generated and explained its political significance, rather than waiting to capture it after the fact.”

Stock market continues it’s slide- “inflation fears” cited. Seems to me that there may be a bit more to it- but there isn’t much coverage. Someone needs to find out WHO is doin the selling.

A bit OT but relevant to the Kurtz/MSM discussion, this piece on Colbert’s speech, buried in today’s NYTimes Business section:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05…..ref=slogin

The money quote (no pun intended):

“Mr. Colbert’s speech has also become a cause célèbre among many commentators, writing online and off, who charged that the mainstream press ignored his performance because it was so mocking of the president and of the Washington media.

Last week, the public editor of The New York Times, Byron Calame, writing on his Web journal about the paper’s lack of initial reporting on Mr. Colbert’s speech, printed a statement from Richard Stevenson, a deputy bureau chief for The Times in Washington.

Mr. Calame said he agreed with Mr. Stevenson that there should have been “a separate story that anticipated the reaction the routine generated and explained its political significance, rather than waiting to capture it after the fact.”

angie#117
btw, I don’t know if people had noted that the story about Iran physically identifying religious minorities has been debunked… Juan Cole did a nice job on it on the 20th and 21st and TPM talks about it this morning.

Now that WAS a damaging bit of propaganda, imho.

But yet, with all of that debunking, The NY Post repeated the fake story again as though it were true. Shameless shill bastards. The same game as Iraq/Curveball/Chalbi.
NYPost

Primordial Ooze – What kind of hat?

kitt- saw that; a lot of damage was done and they continue to parrot the lie just to be sure they don’t miss any potential gullible targets…

But cbl and Prairie Sunshine, the theft occurred sometime this month (who knows when) and this is the CYA for the crony:

>>>>>

Nicholson identified the employee only as a male career department worker, not a political appointee. He said the employee “took home a considerable amount of electronic data from the VA which he was not authorized to do. It was in violation of our rules and regulations and policies.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..eterans_dc

EPU,
1. IMO, Leopold doesn’t have any sources. He is simply stealing (the work) insights, theories from FDL, tnh, TalkLeft, Kos, …. and then hiding behind “anonymous sources.”
2. I think it’s a naked attempted to steal traffic from the same blogs he’s stealing content from.
3. Jason’s drawing “oxygen” that we desperately need for other stories. The Iraqi middle class in Baghdad is fleeing to Sryia! That’s news and Jason’s managing to attract attention to himself. Kurtz, Byron (The Hair) York and other wingnuts would much prefer to write about Leopold being wrong, than just about anything else available to them.

Hugh 142
“It’s annoying, and disingenuous at best”

I lost a copy of Voltaire’s Ingénu in a sausage shop which is how I became disingenuous at worst.

well, not to knock it, but you don’t have to be a brat about it. :~)

To add to the confusion, ABC’s “The Note” is reporting that Karl Rove was ssen at O’Hare airport (which is only a good brisk walking distance from the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago) this past Friday at 6pm.

What’s up with that?

I can’t link, maybe someone else can put it up in another comment

jayt @ 162 – I think he likes giving a little talkie each day in front of a chosen crowd with planted questions. Makes him feel the love; then he goes for a little ridey on his bikey. He’s probably keeping a map and colours in the various States where he’s biked.

New thread!

new thread to root for

new thread

For everybody dealing with the fake PJF site and it’s non-responsive author, here’s some history.

The commentariat first started dealing with him way back in November. IIRC suntzu first complained. I seconded suntzu here. Read into the thread to see how hard he was hit.

He has proxies who also comment with some frequency. Or perhaps they’re his disassociated personalities filling in as proxies, who knows?

Just what are the blog equivalents of hot tar, baskets of feathers, rope, and a rail? I dunno.

–

Another classic from Jonah Goldberg – posted on the Corner, National Review Online. Here is the start of his post …

Monday, May 22, 2006

Da Vinci Code [Jonah Goldberg]

I’m lacking in some qualifications here in that I haven’t read the book or seen the movie …

Of course, Jonah follows that with a long incoherent post on the cultural significance of the movie. Now remember kids, this is where the MSM goes to get the leading thinking for the right. Sheesh.

noblejoanie @ 167

nothing to see here, move along………..

“The after-dinner speech that refuses to go away has scored another distinction: top of the charts.

An audio version of the roast of President George W. Bush by Stephen Colbert of the Comedy Central cable channel rose to the rank of No. 1 album at Apple’s iTunes store Saturday, three weeks from the night of the White House correspondents’ dinner at which it was delivered. Also in the Top 10 were new releases by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Paul Simon.”

1,158 DAYS AND THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON AND…

Evil Parallel Universe,

You, as usual, nailed the whole Jason Leopold-Truthout flap…the anonomously sourced, speculative stories are certainly no different from the distortions or outright lies bein’ stenoed by the corporate shills. In addition, I asked way upstream why it wouldn’t elevate this whole thing if Leopold jest outted his sources and if any of ‘em show up in the Rove-Libby team, then the blogosphere could blow the whole Rove-corporatemedia assembly line inta next week.

We need ta hear more from you EPU…

KEEP THE FAITH AND SHOOT STRAIGHT…YA DON’T GET THE BOUNTY IF YA DON’T HAVE BOTH EARS!!!

EPU,

Your hat, you left it on the floor of my cosmos lat time you were over here.

Could it be possible that Robert Luskin is related to Donald Luskin, the columnist for the National Review Online?

“The claim that President Bush’s top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny.”

Oh look, folks… it’s the Karl Rove “J.H. Hatfield Rat Fuck”!

Now, of course, Mr. Leopold will have go off in disgrace and commit suicide.

I’ve been in a few rooms where there is it either on or off. There is no natural justice to being axed. No right of reply or appeal. This seems a little fascist to me so I would like us to be the change that we wish to see and institute a warning and suspension process. Not just for the fake Patrick but also the loopy astrologer.
It could work something like this.
1) A quorum of 12 netizens in good standing issue a cease and desist adressed c/o site mod’s but also published to the board.
2) Subject is formally warned of a suspension possibility and a response is requested. Should one not be forthcoming or the complainants not satisfied then the transgressor may then be suspended to a term of at least one week and no more than one month.
3) Subject may be cautioned that further offences may lead to longer suspensions.
This is just a rough draft of a possible self-cleaning system run on a combination of consensus and constitutional rights consecrtated by time and hallowed by usage.
Yr sausage may vary. Have mercy on the criminal spammer for they know not whateth they doeth.

Didn’t Jason Leopold say he would “out” his sources if the indictments weren’t made public last week, by Thursday at the latest? So, where are the names of these sources? What reason would he have for not disclosing?

Re the possible Rove mindfuck scenario. Well they don’t call him Rovesputin for nothing do they!
The slippery bugger is very hard to kill.
An if he is using Goldbar’s tent to piss out of then that might explain the cat AND the computer. Roves spies tell him cats are big in the interzone and so is paranoia.
So if he can plant a mind virus, a meme that plays on subliminal fears of peoples computers being bugged then blow up any resulting outbreak of conspiracy theories as wildly speculating tinfoilhattery it’s just another day in the office for this Turd. He is the Ratfuckers ratfucker after all – the swiftboaters swiftboater and the slamdunkers slam dunker. Bagging this turd will take a bulldozer…or a bulldog. A junkyard dog.

FiredogLakers—

A question about audience… and a suggestion.

I’m a reasonably intelligent guy (earned Ph.D. in English from Duke University for cred), and I spend, like, 2-6 hours a day reading progressive blogs. Nevertheless, I frankly admit that your insider nicknames and allusions are beginning to lose me. Blogging is not my “day job.” (That job is college teacher.) Frankly, it’s no fun and not particularly instructive to read stuff where you can’t tell the real names of the players, and wouldn’t recognize their significance even if you could decipher the nickname code.

From your point of view, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. Using special jargon and coded references is a shorthand way of communicating a lot in just a few words. That’s the whole point of using allusions of any kind, right? And, of course, using jargon and coded nicknames is also a way of making the hermetic knowledge of the “illuminati” safe from the uninitiated, who cannot be trusted either to comprehend or to protect the knowledge from being “outed.” So I understand the value of what’s happening.

The benefits of jargon and hermetic coding are manifest, then, but so are the costs. Specifically, these practices severely restrict the potential audience for your posts. You end up speaking with admirable efficiency and “Oh, I get it” gratification to a more and more restricted circle of insiders—and less and less to a much wider circle of caring but uninitiated progressive readers. I’m not saying which emphasis is best. You pays your money and makes your choice. I’m just saying you ought to make your choice with full awareness of the consequences, both positive and negative.

I promised a suggestion, and here it is: a compromise. How about continuing your jargon, nicknames, and other allusions—but providing a permanent link to a glossary, updated at reasonable intervals? You know, “Tweetie (or Tweety?) = Chris Matthews. Matthews is ….” Or “snip,” “snark,” “wanker,” “troll,” or whatever = …. In writing, you should enjoy the benefits of jargon, nicknames, and common allusions. But there’s no reason for you arbitrarily and unnecessarily to restrict your potential audience—and especially not to close out potential recruits to the cause, who might be intelligent, passionate, but “newby” clueless. (You see? I said, “newby,” using insider jargon as a shorthand.) Providing a glossary and a “list of cast members” would allow you to do both. And, collateral benefit, writing the entries for the glossary and list of cast members could be a whole lot of fun.

—wayne

Scarabus 188 – fair enough.

I’ve lobbied for a reader-managed wikipediesque glossary – our hosts are too swamped to take on that task. See the archives for the Late Nite thread from March 10, 2006 for the beginning of a glossary comment thread; it didn’t get very far. Can’t seem to insert a link to that, sorry. If you ever see comments from J i O, you can pose the question of whether there is a more current version somewhere.

For anything acronym based, try this. You’ll also find that folks are fairly indulgent in explaining a reference if you ask. There are plenty I don’t know but guess at from context.

Scarabus – Try this link

Nice picture. “Putzen” in Austria means “to clean” – usually with chemicals. The Putzenmeister machine , therefore is a chemical cleaning machine of some sort. A clothes cleaning establishmnshment is called a “Putzerei.” While Austria’s language is German, it has its own style–and even Vienna has its own terminology- called “Wienerisch.”

“Phased withdrawal” is a FUCKING LIE. Right at the start of this travesty Lucian K. Truscott IV (who was there before the attack began and has been in and out several times since) told me what was being built in Iraq by our military. It’s PERMANENT Baby!

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