Rove used Leopold to divide us

Rove, his lawyer, or one of his aids leaked these stories to Leopold on purpose. Some, just like some on the right, will never see reality through their rose colored glasses.

But, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Leopold was hand fed these leaks for political gain.

Political gain for Rove.

Apologies to Mr Leopold, but it seems kind of "small potatoes"...

please sign our guestbook: www.ThankYouRFK.com

Leopold is a small, small fish.

Thank God not everyone picked it up.

Funny many of those who attacked me for questioning Leopolds story didn't realize that many of our most trusted sources did not run with Leopolds story.

Raw didn't, Kos didn't, C&L didn't.

Why did you?

edit: I still cant believe that Rove would go after a small fry like Leopold. Its not like we were hanging on Leopold's reports before his indictment article.

Think about it. In his world every right wing blog will pick up every story no matter whether or not it's true.

Our world didn't do that.

We should be proud.

Someone in Roves office had been approached by him.

Leopold himself said he had been developing sources close to Rove.

Also, any blog would do. They thought the whole liberal blogosphere would pick it up. Thanks God there are a lot of reality based bloggers.

n/t

They know the tide is turning.

They just want to slow us down so they can enrich themselves a little longer.

No need to be divided. Move on.

There have been dozens of DU members doing nothing but asking for caution for weeks on this.

The gullible ran with it. Those DU members deserve your apologies not your attacks.

everyone should have done?

It takes no leap in faith to acknowledge that there is already ample evidence that Rove knowingly played a role in outing Plame and then tried numerous times to cover it up.

The evidence is on the side of those who believe that Fitzgerald has grounds to indict Rove, not the opposite.

Whether Bush was able to short circuit that process or whether Rove has turned evidence on someone else in exchange for not being indicted remains to be seen.

But no one here owes anyone an apology for supporting the indictment of Rove. There is plenty of evidence to support that POV.

The fact is that it didn't work. Very few liberal blogs picked up the story.

Rove thought they would all pounce. The most important a reliable of our blogs did not jump on the bandwagon.


Raw stayed clean and so did Kos. Others also stayed on the side of caution.

nt

must have missed this 'common knowledge'.

for dozens on MSM reports on the case. It is common knowledge that many of the leaks about the case came from Luskin.

You seem to know an awful lot about this. Do you have some evidence?

Either leopold made it up, or the source he used did.

Leopold claimed his sources were close to Rove. If the sources made up the story....why did they do it?

If he is, then I'd like to see it come in late August/Early September. That would take and wind left out of the GOP's sails.

Rove and his lawyer have been the source for most of these MSM stories for a year now.

The second I saw the Leopold story I thought it was a plant.

C'mon. :eyes: In the grand scheme of the political sphere, TO isn't a blip on anyone's radar outside of the DU neighborhood.

If Rove was going to 'use' someone, it would have been his pals at the Moonie Times or in NYC.

Thank God they were wrong.

But, there has been a lot of damage done anyway.

plus...I don't believe it's done.

http://www.progressiveu.org/100931-rove-roller-coaster-derailed#comment-47791

IMO, Leopold & Truthout did this to themselves.

This is getting silly.

Or you don't believe Rove would try to plant false stories to embarrass liberal bloggers?

...if we think Karl Rove would waste one minute of effort trying to discredit a small-time independent "journalist" on a website that 99.99% of the country has never heard of.

In Roves world every right wing blog picks up every story regardless of whether or not it's true.

and the story about the indictments had been widely circulated after Leopold's story. It was even being hinted at in the MSM.

On the contrary, Truthout was a logical target for Rove and he's accomplished a great deal in dividing Dems, as usual. He knows he can always split us by making us doubt ourselves, we always seem to be especially vulnerable to that.

who Karl Rove is. His manipulating behavior is known only to us and other political junkies.

Anyone who wholeheartedly bought into the Leopold story to begin with, was being a bit silly. Healthy skepticism about stories like Leopold's is a good thing to cultivate.

You'd have to really reach to buy into this premise.

Silly is swift boaters, silly is gay marriage amendments.


Silly is bugging your own office and blaming democrats.

This guy is a bottom feeder.

it works very well for him.

... have "divided" me against my Dem friends or hurt me in any way. I'm still a Democrat. I'm still passionate. I'm still going to work my knuckles off to kick their asses in November.

Rove might be a bottom feeder, but it's just ridiculous to say that this was an attack on the entire liberal blogosphere when most of the liberal blogosphere wasn't buying into the story from the get-go.

This isn't CBS and Dan Rather we're talking about. It's Jason Leopold.

Think if they had what damage that would have caused.

I think that was Rove's idea here. Other disagree.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I took a quick look around some of the OP's posts, and he sounds like a complete concern troll. Some posts here saying the Democratic Party's problem is that it's identified by the fringe, some posts there saying the Democratic leadership are criminals, etc.

That alone doesn't necessarily mean he's a troll, but then there's this thread that seems perfectly set up so Freepers can say, "Ha, look at what the idiots over at DU are saying!"

Just seems a little troll-ish to me. :shrug:

...

He is a disgraced former writer from an interesting - yet perpetually bankrupt - website (Salon). I doubt anyone in the White House knew his name prior to this.

If you were going to bring down a writer, wouldn't it be, like, Ivins or Krugman?

... a trick which wouldn't work if we were IN TRUTH reality-based (and hence EVIDENCE-based).

If rove did do as the OP claims, that is.

You'd think Rove was some sort of evil genius the way he's talked about here.

He's a fucking dweeb.

Leopold has had a bad reputation for awhile now, and this is just one more example.

Our bloggers have integrity.

Very few ran with this story.

simply because it was coming from Leopold.

I think people were putting WAY too much hope into this story, and now they feel betrayed by it.

Thats why I only stick to what can be verified.

This is why the whole "fitzmas" crap annoys me to death.

I knew it wasn't true.

the way that THEY see things.

Naw, he wouldn't go out of his way to derail that possibility and try to destroy those who advocated for it. Its not in his nature, or his interest. :sarcasm:

The guy was facing an incredibly expensive trial, serious charges and possible prison time.

I'm no Fitz worshipper. And after today, I think he's just another Republican stooge.

Is it just coincidence?

Zarq killed - our response
MSM, Lush et al quoting us on air
Mann Coulter
Rove Indicted/ oops cleared

All preceding and during Progressive meetings in DC. It smells fishy.

If he were we would all be trying to figure out the paper work for our Social Security Private Accounts, the President would have a 58% approval rating, and Harriet Myers would be sitting on the bench.

The fact is that Rove is a small minded, mean spirited, little man who only knows how to play dirty in small minded, mean spirited little tricks.

This is right from the playbook. The same playbook that got Dan Rather.

Rove, MSM, etc. is all doing this during the meetings in DC to make us look like shit.

Why all of a sudden, this week, are they reading blog entries from TO, Kos, DU?????

Multiple events and personas all come together the 2nd week of June 2006 in a coordinated attack on Progressives? This is not planned?

Since I don't trade in political gossip and rumor I figured if Rove were to be indicted I'd hear it on the news when/if it happened. If you don't play, you can't be played.

What is wrong with some people here?

I just don't get how people can delude themselves this badly.

Leopold is a big nothing in the world of journalism. On a scale which could rate journalists a person should take seriously, only absolute cranks like Wayne Madsen rate lower than Leopold. Leopold is an already completely discredited journalist. Most of the country has never heard the guy - and hopefully this remains the case.

If Rove were going to try to use a jounalist to pull off the kind of fantastic conspiracies some people believe - he would NEVER use the likes off Leopold. Rove would chose a real journalist with a good reputation, not some third rate bonehead who's gets fired everywhere he goes for making stuff up.

This Truthout story was always obvious garbage. The sad thing is that a BS journalist like Leopold will probably keep spewing crap from another online "news" source. There are always people that will believe any story if it confirms their world view or tells them what they want to hear.

Some people will believe anything that they want to be true and remain in denial even when faced with facts. My rule of thumb has always been: no confirmation, no credibility.

He fed leopold this story because he thought the entire liberal blogosphere would run with it. Leopold was available, any other reporter with blog connections would have worked out fine too.

The good news is that it didn't happen that way. hardly any bloggers went with the story. The most important stayed the hell away from it.

You keep spouting this crap. Back it up with something, will you?

Leopold claimed sources close to Rove.

Either he made it up, or the sources were lying to him.

It's very simple and very logical. Just think about it for a minute.

The idea that Karl Rove or his attorney got in touch with some unknown and uncredible little reporter to say that Rove had been indicted, all in a plan to discredit the Left (who, mind you, weren't exactly credulous regarding the story), is actually still more believable to some people than that said little unknown reporter got a tip and it was just sooo good that he didn't bother checking out the sources, etc. (ie. doing the real journalistic work), and it later proved to be complete BS.

Leopold got a tip, it was false, but it sounded so good that he ran with it, and then got burned.

No conspiracy, just shitty journalism.

Now, can we move on, please? :banghead:

Leopold was "cultivating" sources close to Rove for months. I read it on Leopold's bio.

They just leaked false information to him in the hopes that the entire liberal blogosphere would pick up the story. Why is that so unbelievable?

:eyes:

I don't think a very simple thing like planting false stories in the liberal blogosphere is beyond reason here.

In fact, if I were him (you know, a small minded, mean spirited little man), I would do it just because I could.

be a little more circumspect about info like that, especially given the frenzy surrounding the story? I guess what I'm trying to say is, shouldn't a good investigative journalist question, and dig, and prod, and poke until they're 1000% sure that the information is sound and publish-able? Given the story, it seems to me he'd want to be EXTRA careful with any info that found its way to his desk.

I dunno, I haven't been following this story very closely so forgive my ignorance, it just seems like he could or should have dug (and dug and dug and dug) to make sure the info was good before publishing it. :shrug:

BY THE END OF THE WEEK.

ANYONE?

..and perhaps they will.

But that doesn't make the claim any better than the story.

Leopold is a lousy journalist with a reputation for making stuff up. No one should put much stock in anything he says.

Truthout took a chance on him, they got burned. Truthout should have retracted the story and fired Leopold a long time ago. They didn't and now they will pay the price.

I really hope Truthout doesn't start peddling stupid "Karl Rove tricked us" conspiracy theories in an attempt to dig out of this hole they've dug for themselves.

Truthout should just get rid of Leopold and come clean. Maybe dissolve Truthout competely and start over again with a new name, and a pledge to hire only serious journalists who use real sources and write factual stories.

Just humor me for one second.

Leopold claimed his sources were close to Rove. That's fact...leopold claimed that.

The story that the sources gave him was false. That's fact...Rove has not been indicted.

Why did the sources give leopold the story?

That's the problem. You really can't trust anything Leopold claims. He has a track record of shoddy journalism to start. If this were someone with an umblemished record of journalistic integrity, I might would see the point of exploring why a source burned him this badly. The problem is, Leopold already has a sketchy track record at best.

If Rove wanted to pull off some massive conspiracy aimed at making a laughing stock of the left of center net community, there are just too many real journalist out there he could have chosen to target.

I don't believe Leopold has any source close to Rove. There is simply no reason we should even believe Leopold about who he claims his sources are.

Why would anyone close to Rove pay any mind to the likes of Leopold? Do you really believe a Rove insider would want anything to do with a smallfry like Leopold when they could peddle their inside information to any media personality they chose?

I just think Leopold is a bullshitter. I don't think there is much more to it than that.

Of being a shody journalist. There was only one incident I found.

Can you be more specific please? What are you refering to exactly.

from the Los Angeles Times, was fired - or quit just before he could be fired from Dow Jones Newswires, fired from Salon, was convicted of grand larceny....

I think I've read more but I'd have to go look it up again.

His Target Letter and Indictment stories at Truthout are obvious garbage.

I just don't see the need to give Leopold the benefit of the doubt on anything. The guy is a crank.

In the end, I think this may have a been a good thing for DU. Maybe more people will cast a critical eye at these types of stories from questionable sources before believing them.

I now believe he simply made it up in the hopes it would be true and he would be able to salvage his reputation.

This guy is a joke.


Now the former Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones reporter has written a book, "Off the Record," that criticizes journalists as lazy. Oh, and by the way, Leopold says he engaged in "lying, cheating and backstabbing," is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life.
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But the book's publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, has canceled "Off the Record" days before it was to go to press, despite having sent out news releases and listed the book on Amazon.com. The publisher acted after receiving a warning letter from one subject's lawyer.

"I'm devastated," Leopold said yesterday. "I worked really hard these past two years to restore my credibility after the Salon fiasco. . . . I have a checkered past, and I was hoping that by coming clean about my own past, it would allow me to move forward."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18624-2005Mar8.html


Salon and Leopold have an unhappy history. Salon took down a piece Leopold wrote for the site in 2002 after the editors concluded that some of it had been copied from the Financial Times and weren't able to substantiate a key piece of Leopold's reporting. Leopold stands by his story and says Salon did wrong by him. Both he and Salon's editors have aired their sides in public.

We have no firsthand knowledge of that episode, having arrived on Salon's staff long after it happened. But we've been skeptical of Leopold's Plamegate reporting anyway.

Some of our skepticism stems from Leopold's reports of his own troubled past. Leopold has told us, "Just because I have a past or made a mistake does not mean I am unable to cultivate sources or continue reporting."

Some of our skepticism comes from what seems like a too-good-to-be-true quality in Leopold's reporting: As Daou asks, "How is Leopold the only reporter in America with access" to the sources he claims to have? Leopold has told us that he has "really, really good sources" who have been "dead on" when it comes to Plamegate news.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/05/rove_indictment_watch_update.html