Via email, Dario R. writes:
Your Rovegate title is accurate on more than one level. Even after the announcement Leopold was claiming his sources were correct and that Rove would be indicted. As you read the interview you can actually see Jason Leopold formulating his Rather excuse and that is that Rove really was indicted four weeks ago, just something changed between then and now. So he was indicted before he wasn’t indited. Surprisingly to his credit, Ed Shultz doesn’t let him get away with it. Leopold captained the Titanic and the people in the water are pissed:
JL: No, no, no, I’m not . . . listen Ed, I’m not saying that the indictment is still coming. I’m saying that what I reported four weeks ago, and what has happened since then . . . I don’t know what has happened to change Karl Rove’s status. And I think that if there was was an indictment . . . what if Karl Rove . . . wait, hang on . . . what if Karl Rove cut a deal, decided to cooperate? Could that have had the indictment dismissed? Could it have?
ES: But Jason, you didn’t report that. You didn’t report, there’s an indictment coming but he could be cutting a deal. You didn’t report that. You said there was going to be an indictment and he was going down.
JL: Right. And you know what? I’m not the only one who reported that, and I’m not excusing what I reported, but clearly there’s . . . you know . . .
ES: Alright. I appreciate your time. I think we’ve covered it, and . . .
JL: And look. I’m sorry that my . . .
And of course, TruthOut’s Mark Ash and Larry Johnson are both still trying to wriggle free by putting the onus on Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin to PROVE Rove hasn’t been indicted (easy enough), and that he won’t be indicted (they demand to see his email / letter / blackberry message; evidently, Fitzgerald won’t return their phone calls). Here’s Ash:
In that Mr. Luskin has chosen the commercial press as his oracle – and they have accepted – we call upon those publications to make known the contents of the communiqué which Luskin holds at the center of his assertions. Quoting only those snippets that Mr. Luskin chooses to characterize in his statements is not enough. If Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has chosen to exonerate Mr. Rove, let his words – in their entirety – be made public.
…And here’s Johnson:
Oh. So Karl Rove got a pass? Really? Where’s the letter? Seems none of the mainstream media can get their story straight. Some report there is a letter from Patrick Fitzgerald, but none have seen it. Some say there was a phone call. Really? Let’s see the phone records. Others say there was a fax. Okay, where’s the damn fax.
What is amazing is that Jason Leopold gets vilified and yet, when it comes to the mainstream media, everyone gives these cretins a pass. Sorry. Jason reports there is a sealed indictment. Lufkin claims otherwise. Lufkin claims to have proof but won’t put it on the table.
I’m with Christy Hardin Smith at FireDogLake.com. Until Patrick Fitzgerald calls off the dogs that Porcine Ass called Rove ought to worry about who he might be getting up close and personal with in jail.
”Porcine Ass”? “Ought to worry about who he might be getting up cloe [sic] and personal with in jail”?
Jesus. This guy was an intelligence professional?
Tell me: when was the last time a high-ranking politico was subjected to the prison rape Johnson alludes to after having been indicted for (supposedly) lying to a grand jury about what he may or may not have told a reporter? I mean, even were Rove indicted and subsequently convicted, what’s with this idea that he’d be doing hard time with a bunch of bulked up Aryan prison butches?
Martha Stewart? Okay, that I can see. But that was a different case entirely, and besides, she wasn’t a close personal friend of the President’s. But Rove backing his pasty ass up into some oddly pierced prison meat? Is Johnson serious?
Come now. I thought I’m the one with impotent rage issues…
****
update: Man, do people like Johnson ever say anything original? Here’s John Kerry’s spokesman David Wade yesterday:
“The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison. This porcine political operative can’t cut and run from the truth any longer.â€Â
Did I mention that John Kerry was the Democratic candidate for President in 2004? And that he only lost by 3 million votes, give or take?
Impotent rage indeed. FEEL THE SOOTHING BALM OF HEALING!
(h/t Sundries Shack)
…but, Jeff, there’s this site where some of your opponents have selectively quoted a bunch of things you’ve written using naughty words. Now they’re shrieking like howler monkeys and calling it your evisceration. Doesn’t that make you feel bad, having all that truthiness to power directed at you?
(…well, some of the new trolls are bound to come on this thread and mightily try to link to the SadelyNo, er, UnfortunatelyNegative, er, WeepinglyNon, er, whatever posting. Thought I’d beat them to the punch.)
To paraphrase one of the YearlyKos Plame Panelists, “they deceived themselves, then they deceived others.”
Anyway. That Larry Johnson’s comedy gold, isn’t he?
You just can’t keep your hands off an ass like Martha’s.
Bur Darth Karl? I think Johnson’s got a thing for the Rovemiester!
So, to sum it all up:
Blogger says Rove indicted. No indictment announced. Said “indictee’s” attorney says the Blogger promised to reveal sources if his story was not true. Oh, and it has been a month now since said story of the indictment.
It is up to the person who was reported to have been indicted to prove he wasn’t – not the blogger who made the claim to prove that he has been?
OK, got it. Seems OK to me…in KafkaLand maybe.
Ack – that was supposed to read “Said ‘indictee’s’ attorney says the DA told him he would not be indicted”
Whoo baby…ALSO Larry loves to send private emails full of pleasantries and sugar! So Jeff’s question..
Is fucking scary thought isn’t it?
it’s like a boulder chained to a boulder…which one sinks faster?
Well, if you’re going to be im-pote-int, you might as well look im-pote-int.
Maj. John rightly notes the attempted inversion of the burden of proof, but I think he skimps a little in describing Leopold as a blogger. It would be more accurate to describe him as a former MSM reporter who seems increasingly limited to writing for sites further and further on the Left fringe after Salon could not verify his attack on Bush administration official Thomas White and accused him of plagarism in other instances. This is the person we are supposed to believe in the absence of any evidence.
There’s not a lot of worthy-of-the-slur “Aryans” in prison, Jeff. The historically plowed-under Scots-Irish are your Whitey of choice there. As ever. And there’s not a lot of those, either. And they’re not the “butches.” Easy typo to make.
Anywayâ€â€
The rhetoric’s no surprise, Johnson’s profession regardless. Making a top-of-the-head list of American lefty tropes, I’d put prison-rape fantasies in the first handfulâ€â€above even projections of penile anxieties and mass diagnoses of genetic unfitness (though the latter are surging in popularity…again). Good people.
French porn is surprisingly lame.
Look cut the guy a little slack, he got out in front of the news cycle on this one. I’ve been doing it all my life. Like once when I was in 4th grade I attempted to make an F in handwriting into an A by drawing a line down the right side of the F. Apparently I did a pretty shitty job of it and my parents got pretty upset. But what if 4 weeks earlier I had actually bothered to do my homework? What if I did the homework and my dog ate it. The fact is that I had an A at some point and I don’t see how if something happened in the last month of the semester to change that to an F that makes me wrong. Luckily for me I wasn’t aware of this kind of radical cutting edge thinking back then because I’m pretty sure if tried that on my Dad he would have beat my ass even harder than he did anyway.
Of course you have impotent rage issues, Jeff; it’s just that some men’s impotent rage is, well, heftier than others.
This story is locked up tighter than a ‘68 Buick’s lug nuts. Kenneth is getting me some info over the next few days. I want to break this story.
Wait….
Get yer’ friggin hands off me!!
I’m a God Damn anchor!! Who the hell’s in my office??
I AM THE MEDIA!!!
verifyer: Off the WALL
It’s kind of like a poker game, only weird.
“I’ve laid my cards out on the table, let’s see yours. And when I say ‘I’ve laid my cards out on the table’, I mean to say that you can take my word I’m sure I have a royal flush, and should you not lay out your cards I’ll walk off with the pot.”
As far as the claim that Luskin is BSing that is totally ridiculous. First of all if he was lying I can’t imagine that Fitzgerald would not correct the record. Also, if he was lying and Fitzgerald didn’t correct the record wouldn’t it be really stupid to piss off Fitzgerald by putting words in his mouth.
Why would he do it anyway? Why falsely report your client is cleared when Fitzgerald could easily out you as a liar, it’s not like he could use it as leverage against Fitzy, he’s a special prosecuter this investigation could go on forever. The public doesn’t give two shits about this, why risk looking like a fool for nothing?
Short answer? BDS and RDS make you really stupid.
There is probably a very good reason why Mr. Johnson is no longer an intelligence professional. I think we just read it.
What’s the Democrats main theme about Republicans and the Bush administration? How dishonest they supposedly are. And how do they establish this meme? By endlessly repeating the howling of people who have been discredited as fabulists and liars.
Back and to the left…..
Back and to the left….
Back and to the left…..
By the way, I just went over to SadlyNo and saw the Napoleon picture of you.
I thought it looked pretty good. If it was me, I’d probably have it framed and put it up in my living room. Then, when people came over, I can point to it and say, “Yeah, I served my country. I don’t really like to talk about it though.”
Sadly, I don’t think that’s what they were trying to say …
Well, that’s clearly not my chin.
But your idea does have a kind of Jesse Macbeth irony to it.
“Back and to the left….. “
I prefer “Forward and to the right”…
What’s really sad is that Johnson’s quote isn’t even really his own. Here’s John Kerry’s spokesman, David Wade, several hours before Johnson’s post yesterday:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/426464p-359774c.html
BoZ,
That might also explain the lefties’ bizarre obsession with Jeff Gannon. For such self-proclaimed “tolerant and accepting” types, they sure display an awful lot of barely-disguised homophobia.
Bebeaux —
Amazingly, as you were posting that in the comments, I was posting it as an update.
Syncronicity, baby.
Aw Jeff, first the Napolean gig,and now stuffed animals? Oh my aching eyes…….
By the way, talk about obsessing….
When I get that feelin’
I need sexual healin’
Come on, Come on, Come on
Let’s make love tonight.
tw: movement, no shit!
Jeff,
A connecting principle
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Or something.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means, Sicilian…
The lefts stable hero…Larry C. Johnson, classy guy…from his latest..I kid you not.
Jesus, topsecret9, that’s frightening. I can’t imagine the low-quality intelligence work that kind of mind produced.
He’s an embarrassment and so I think when the left harp on Jeff as the devil incarnate they ought start paying attention to their own butts.
Larry needs to be called to mat on this, instead of all the fucking air kisses and hero worshipping the likes of Hamsher and Thers and Sadly No heap on…and um, stop lecturing others including US serviceman on vitriol and sensitivity.
Don’t you think? That one sentence of Larry’s seems to erase SadlyNo’s entire 26,000 word nonsense.
Yeah, well, I understand he “thought better of it.” Too bad about those internets.