Rove Indictment: Keep Watching The Skies…

I attended a very entertaining L.A. Press Club event this evening, featuring Allan MacDonell (author of the new book Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine) and Jason Leopold (author of the new book News Junkie), with moderation and some tough questioning from Evan Wright, another ex-Hustler hand and author of Generation Kill (and source of the revelation, delivered personally to our editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie, that Our Troops Need Reason).

Leopold, for those following somewhat under-the-radar scuttlebutt, got tongues a-wagging Internet wide (yet essentially nowhere in any major mainstream media) with his claim last week at Truthout.org that Karl Rove had been indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case. Said indictment, you all might have noticed, has not yet been publicly announced by anyone other than Leopold and those echoing him.

Leopold insists that he's right, and has some confidence it will be made public today (Friday). He admits he'll seem a little foolish if it doesn't. He also granted, in response to an audience question, that often indictments remain sealed for a long time and there is some chance he jumped the gun in insisting in his report that "an announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week." Since the theme of his new memoir is his troubled past as journalist and human being, including some past spectacular misjudgements and flameouts, moderator Wright suggested, with some humor and some venom, that his therapist might owe him his money back.

Leopold's original report. National Review chimes in skeptically. Daily Kos compares and contrasts.

Comments

[jason leopold]

Brian:
Jeez. You'd think you would have had the decency to at least introduce yourself to me and say hello and perhaps ask me a few questions about this issue. Unbelievable. Proves exactly what I said about the media failing to do its job.

Jason Leopold

[jason leopold]

Brian:
Jeez. You'd think you would have had the decency to at least introduce yourself to me and say hello and perhaps ask me a few questions about this issue. Unbelievable.

Jason Leopold

[duckandfover]

Cool...jason leopold answered here....my intuition is telling me
leopold is right on this...i'm leaning that way on the esp meter...
but madsen?? former nsa?? and a bunch of goofy other stuff
on his website ...and some other reprints that have been surfacing on other blogs from the past....
seems like a ufoologist type....
and we all know what that means
and if you don't welllllllllll....
we all know what that means

[duckandfover]

Cool...jason leopold answered here....my intuition is telling me
leopold is right on this...i'm leaning that way on the esp meter...
but madsen?? former nsa?? and a bunch of goofy other stuff
on his website ...and some other reprints that have been surfacing on other blogs from the past....
seems like a ufoologist type....
and we all know what that means
and if you don't welllllllllll....
we all know what that means

[jason leopold]

I'm an idiot. And I have to admit it. I met Brian at the event and did not realize he worked for Reason. So that comment I made above is a perfect example of me "jumping the gun." I apologize to Brian. After seeing his photo in the staff directory page I recall that we met.

[Brian Doherty]

Hi Jason. Sorry if I offended you by not saying hello. Given that this is a blog entry whose purpose and intent is pretty obvious on the surface--an account of something of some news interest I heard in a public forum--and not an attempt to launch a journalistic investigation on my part into the question of the Rove indictment (an investigation I'd need to do an enormous amount of backup work to be up to speed on---I hadn't even read your original report until after hearing you talk about it tonight) and since I assumed you wouldn't have any special secret information you'd only share with me and not with a) your readers on Truthout or b) the whole audience tonight when you were asked you what was up with the Rove indictment, I didn't realize it was so important. But if we're talking now and you have extra info that only my questions can drag out of you: why are you so sure that the indictment of Rove exists and is likely to be made public this week?

[jason leopold]

Brian
Please don't apologize.

I believe the stamp on indictment will reflect that the grand jury handed it up last week. I don't know, however, why an announcement hasn't been made yet.

[duckandfover]

when, when, when???????
Yeah my hunch is that jason is RIGHT...
but that madsen guy and his silly suggestion, on the same
page as his comments on this story,
that there was some sort of 'israeli art student' posing group and the ukrainian/russian mafia and 9/11 cocaine money financing..
welllllll......who put the crack in crackpot??

[stranger in the street]

I am hoping that Jason Leopold will read this. Jason, as you know, "the lonliness at the top is often times trying". I know you have the courage of your convictions and this will see you through. Put yourself in Joe Wilson's shoes for a moment and you will see that others, like yourself, have gone "out on a limb" only to be rewarded by the truth that is now unfolding all around us.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I hear the Warren Commission has some new information about Mafia links to Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Maybe you could run those down, Jason.

[PoliticalCritic]

For better or worse, the reputation of the blogosphere is on the line today. If Jason is wrong and Rove hasn't been indicted yet, this story will always be pointed to when the MSM rips the blogs. I just hope he's right and that it is announced today.

[John]

Leopold seems like a sane guy and seems utterly convinced that Rove is going to be indicted. Absent his own word, however, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it being true. If Rove is not indicted, I am afraid that the only way to explain Leopold's vehemence and apparent sincerity is that he is probably insane, which is really sad.

[Floyd]

For better or worse, the reputation of the blogosphere is on the line today.

I don't know that I've seen people on any other site engage in as much hyperbole as they do here.

[Brian Doherty]

Floyd---I agree---there is more hyperbole on this site than on any gathering of human beings, anywhere, ever....

[johnl]

Bryan and Floyd, yout last two posts are the most hyperbolic ever.

[johnl]

Bryan and Floyd, yout last two posts are the most hyperbolic ever.

[Floyd]

Okay, fine, I set myself up for that. But it is true that people use a lot of hyperbole here. Whatever. I could not be sorrier!

[rob]

Floyd,

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

[rob]

Floyd,

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

[rob]

Floyd,

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

[Kurt]

Eight more business hours, in the books.

[jason leopold]

Stranger...

Thank you for saying that. I truly appreciate it. I got an email from the very person who is affected by this case saying "it's no surprise the liars will lie to the bitter end." I believe in the truth and I know it will vindicate me. I can't control when a public announcement will be made by Fitzgerald. And I know that I look less than credible now. But the people close to this case that matter know this is the truth. And the fact that my editor did his own independent confirmation of this makes me feel good. But the personal attacks take a toll and make me feel like crap.

[Stevo Darkly]

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

Despite some of the folks I've argued with on HNR, I have to say that this forum actually seem much less prone to crazed exaggeration than on other locations around the "blogosphere."

On the downside, this blog has THE WORST SERVERS IN THE WORLD! EVER! THAT COULD EVER BE POSSIBLY IMAGINED!

[kmw]

Parsing text isn't really that hard for a server, so I'm wondering what's going on here.

500 comments a day seems more or less the average, which really isn't taxing on a database. So what, are those Pentium Pros still "going strong" so why upgrade?

[stranger in the street]

Yesterday I placed a comment in this blog in support of Jason Leopold who continues to show he has the courage of his convictions and will continue to express them even when others, like many of you who are reading my words, take petty pot shots at him as someone who is ?putting the reputation of the blogosphere on the line? ? when in reality he has shown the kind of pioneering spirit that will make the blog not break the blog.

In order to retain the freedoms we have and to regain the ones we are losing as each day passes, we must not apologize for speaking the truth or for doing what is right. We each owe ourselves no less than that. It's this brand of concrete, nitty-gritty courage when confronted with immediate opposition that reveals the true defenders and heroes of the principles upon which the United States was founded.

Unfortunately, this fight can be a lonely one. I dedicate the following to the Jason?s, the Joe Wilson?s and all the rest of you bloggers who have the courage of your own convictions and are willing to put your asses on the line regardless of what others may say.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling