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Down In The Bowels

    by Daniel Rubin
    Published 

Been trying since a week ago Saturday to find a way/reason to write about Jason Leopold's solo walk on a limb - the one where he reported in Truthout.org that Karl Rove had been secretly indicted. Looked into the story and its author and decided to pass for the moment.

But now comes this, the lede of the day as we say in the biz. From Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post:

Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, says he spent most of the day on May 12 taking his cat to the veterinarian and having a technician fix his computer at home.

He was stunned, therefore, when journalists started calling to ask about an online report that he had spent half the day at his law office, negotiating with Patrick Fitzgerald -- and that the special prosecutor had secretly obtained an indictment of Rove.

The cat's medical tests, Luskin says, found that "the stools were free of harmful parasites, which is more than I can say for this case."

Puck
Posted 05/22/2006 11:38:44 AM
The TruthOut.com Rove indictment story came from a source Leopold would likely have considered to be friendly to the prosecution (as liberals generally are when the the federal government prosecutes individuals).  He attributes it to "high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting."

But it is likely that Leopold's source was really a phoney; friendly to Rove and just wanting to make TruthOut.com look bad.  

A glance at Truthout.com shows a website clearly pre-disposed to believe in a Rove Indictment.  They didn't vet the source  throughly because their source was telling them what they wanted to hear.
Mr. Smith
Posted 05/22/2006 11:43:15 AM
Leopold got the scoop that Luskin's cat got indigestion.  What he thought he heard was that Luskin's Cat got Indicted.

Close enough to print it!
molly
Posted 05/23/2006 03:21:32 AM
Maybe if you actually did some real journalism instead of writing about the reporter you would find out what really happened with rove. Hopefully when you checked out leopold you found out that he broke many enron stories and energy stories in addition to the dirt you allude to. I am so disgusted to see how you all fail to do your job and attack someone who actually does. Ill take a jason leopold anyday because he at least tries to get to the truth over a columnist who simply talks about it
Puck
Posted 05/23/2006 08:52:08 AM
I don't know Molly.  Certainly the leftist media has no bigger critic than me.  But really, if a blogger publishes everything that comes his way, then a lot will come his way - and some of it will be bogus.  And he never suffers any consequences.

A reporter who must answer to his editor cannot get away with this.  Bloggers, like Leopold (or Drudge) can, and they do - tell people what they want to hear.

Can you honestly tell me that you think Leopold is great reporter, or is it really that you just like his political orientation?
jay lassiter
Posted 05/23/2006 11:36:15 AM
Until we catch Karl Rove in bed with an underage transexual hooker, he will probably not get indicted. (I agree with Puck that this is a case where reported hears what he wants and stopps digging.)

Leopold screwed the pooch, it seems like, on this one.  But it also seems like Karl Rove outed a CIA agent to further his goofy right wing agenda.

Just a thought.
Matt
Posted 05/23/2006 05:28:29 PM
Luskin sure has a lot of class.

Have you read this Salon piece on Leopold?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/16/rovereporting/index.html