there is distraction, and then there is distraction!

We were hoaxed, okay? Let's deal with it. We can't obsess about something over which we had no control.

Truthout is still bold enough to be a force to be dealt with, regardless of the Rove thing. It even looks like Rove might have leaked information himself all with the expressed desire to discredit one of the more annoying (to them) groups to tell tales on the RW. Either that, or Fitzgerald actually did have Rove on the hook, but had to wait to deliver the goods, and then found out that Rove managed to find a loophole in the end.

The main thing that seems to be of an issue here, right now, is that Truthout AND DU members were made to look like fools. SO what? Aren't we big enough to take care of ourselves? Doesn't this tell you all something, anyhow? That perhaps the RW needed to distract those of us here because our voices have become too loud for the RW?

It's over. No story, no consolation prize--hell, nothing to do but cry in our beer. Let's MOVE ON! This is not the end, this is not a spectacular event, and there is no such thing as the Easter Bunny. If we can't move forward--if we keep obsessing about it endlessly and posting thread after thread on the subject, then we are going to continue to look like fools.

Can you imagine being anywhere near Grover's Mill on October 30, 1938? Can you imagine being duped into believing that we had been invaded by aliens? Can you imagine how red the faces of those who believed the radio broadcast were? THAT, my friends, is a superb example of how realistic a hoax can be, and how many people can not tell a made-up story from reality.

But we should know better. We should not take anything for granted, because we've been duped a few times over the past 5 years. But what we need to do is laugh it off and let the subject be buried in the rubble of conversations forever.

It's like Coulter. Attention is good for these people. The more we appear outraged, the more we rant on and on about something, the easier it is for them to point and say, "Look at those whacked out liberals--they're nuts and they're gullible." But if we have a healthy skepticism and never take anything for certain, we can't play the fool any longer. It's our own partisanship which is at stake here, and with it, our credibility.

Enough already with putting the blame on TO and Leopold. HE was duped, too. He trusted his sources, who all obviously went south over this debacle. His reputation now has a major stain, and we rant about our own culpability. We still have to look at that objectively--whether Jayson Blair, Judith Miller, Robert Novak or any of the other RW media whores sold out and if Leopold believing what amounts to a cold and calculating hoax is in any way similar to them as a result. The answer is a resounding NO--he is not the same.

Let's stop obsessing about it, even if it galls us to the core. If we don't, we have allowed them to win this round, quite simply, and when have we ever been content to let them win at anything?

:kick: