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.