What would it take to convince you that TO's 5/13 story was wrong?

And of course this question is addressed to those who think Marc Ash's "cards" statement today means something real.

Jupiter has a much shorter "day" than we do:

Rotation period 0.413 538 021 d (9 h 55 min 29.685 s)

but the time has still passed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

I know what you were saying, though.;)

...

But when Fitz gives the word, I'll believe Rove is off the hook completely.

sometimes they are right but not normally.

and how many have died as a result.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1415690&mesg_id=1415690

And, you are taking Rove's lawyer's word as some sort of proof?

:rofl:

It's not that they were wrong,,, they are still pretending they have "secret" information.. BS

and hearing from Fitz himself that Rove was never, ever at any time in the past under indictment.

Sorry, but I'm just not ready to accept Rove's attorney's word as gospel.

He's a defense lawyer famed for playing the press. What precisely was it about his statement today that convinced you he was telling the truth about Fitz not indicting Rove?

over anyone else? Do you really think someone who is trying to defend Rove is going to be honest?

Think about your source, here.

in a very public arena, taking the chance that he will be shown to be bluffing and have his credibility utterly ruined. I'm putting my money on Luskin not taking that chance, based on persistent evidence that Ash, who has yet to show any of his strongest cards (if he has them), seems to have nothing but bluff to call on. Luskin has at least this card: he is one of the main players in the drama. Ash is only a bystander, relying, by his own admission, on the stories of "unofficial" sources.

The man makes his living lying for his clients. If he's caught in another lie, who cares -- he's just doing what he gets paid for.

Luskin doesn't NEED credibility for his line of work. A defense attorney should probably NEVER be considered to have credibility when speaking in defense of a paying client. In a trial, the jury isn't supposed to take the defense attorney's word -- they have to provide evidence to back their case up. Like showing us the actual letter from Fitzgerald, for instance.

Hell, Luskin was defending Columbian drug lords for gold coins not too long ago (literally -- he was paid in gold coins) -- how much credibility do you think he has? How much do you give him?

Who would benefit from the lie and how?

Here's a for instance:

Libby's trial isn't going to be until 2007, after the elections. So they're 'safe' there.

Fitzgerald is known for NOT making public statements about his cases -- all anyone ever gets outside the courtroom are the court documents that have been filed. I'd suggest that Luskin realizes that even if he lies, Fitzgerald isn't going to come out to the press and call Luskin on his lies. Perhaps they are just trying to spread the impression that this whole CIA leak case was nothing but hot air until after the midterms.

Don't you recall all the lies Bush was caught in after the 2004 election? People think that Rove is always playing this 'long game'. In reality, I think he's always playing a rather short game -- he's always fixated on the next election. They ALWAYS assume they will be able to avoid any longer term effects somehow in the future.

Not saying that I think this is in fact the case, but if Leopold *was* telling the truth and Rove has been under a sealed indictment, and if Luskin/Rove found out recently that Rove's trial date was after the midterms, I think they'd DEFINITELY lie about it today to help them in November. They'll worry about the future when the future comes. I think their behavior and decisions in every other area has shown this to be their general strategy.

I don't know the truth of the situation, but I'm just saying I have EVERY reason to doubt the word of Robert Luskin.

That can't be proved one way or another without special resources. But claiming "Rove won't be indicted" can easily be contradicted by events as the consequences of an indictment would be played out. It would be very difficult to hide Rove being put on trial.

If Rove has time until after the midterms anyway, why would Luskin have to say anything now? He could just let the left stew over TO all summer long.

...and they knew they would be. They just figured that they'd avoid the heat for it somehow. And for the most part they have. There have been plenty of other similar cases with this administration.

BTW, they wouldn't have to hide Rove being put on trial -- not if any trial would be after November.

Why do this now? Because the last thing they want to do is talk about this issue over the whole summer. They plan on 'changing the dialogue' to concentrate on their own issues, like gay marriage, and the war on terror well before November.

As I said, I honestly don't know what the truth is. I do know, however, that the word of Robert Luskin isn't worth a bucket of warm spit by itself. If he'd released this 'non-indictment letter' to the press, I'd give it more credence. But he didn't, and in fact, refused to comment more on it.

There's no smoking gun to prove that conclusively. It's possible that they a) they gambled on finding any WMD to support their bluff or b) they were just too stupid or ideologically blinded to read the evidence intelligent people read to understand that there were no WMD.

...I'd say they KNEW there was nothing substantial to find. There was no way they constructed that whole case out of wax by accident. Looking for a smoking gun of proof? Heck, you rarely even get something that conclusive in mundane criminal cases, much less the activities of a government trying to start a war.

They just figured they'd deal with the blowback when it happened, and except for this one last thread (Wilson/Plame), they have. They even got their fellow Republicans in Congress to investigate everything about the false WMD claims EXCEPT the White House. They managed to get people thinking it was the CIA's fault, when even I remember reading articles *before the war* stating that people in the CIA did not think Iraq had WMD.

With a track record of avoiding the consequences of lies like that, why wouldn't they stick with a tried and true strategy: Lie now, and avoid dealing with the issue later via denial, distraction and redefinition.

Either Rove is or isn't indicted. The evidence is on the side that he isn't. Whenever anyone talks about the possibility that he is, they always enter the realm of speculation. All I can do is point to the story in today's NY Times and on NBC and the AP. Those seem to be pretty strong evidence that TO got the story wrong.

I'd better stay out of this. :evilgrin:

as well... Who do you trust? Who can you trust? Until Fitz's office publicly clears him or the letter is introduced from Fitz's office.. I will wait...

:yourock:

a bunch of threads in GD insulting my intelligence and basically calling me stupid for ever trusting William Pitt. In addition, many many more threads celebrating the "demise" of truth-out. Even more threads that provide false choices about this flap. Snark always brings people around. :sarcasm:

Look I'm a skeptic, but I know that I don't trust Luskin. Luskin is the source of the current reports. The WP and the NYT cannot agree if Rove was given a letter or if he was contacted "formally." (HUH?) Until I hear from it from Fitzgerald, I'm withholding judgment. NO one knows what happened.

This place has turned into a zoo.

This is one issue today.

story. Either they need to be proved right (VERY unlikely IMHO), or they need to admit Liepold lied, or they need to EXPLAIN WHAT WENT WRONG. Till one of those three things happens, people will not let it go, deservedly, IMHO again...

None.

I am very interested in what happens in Plamegate.

I am not the least bit interested in DU vendettas or who gets to exact their pound of flesh.

I'm not looking for revenge. I'm very interested in why people believe what they believe, how those beliefs are formed and (especially pertinent to this case) how evidence that contradicts their beliefs affects their beliefs.

It's just that some of the posts at DU today are so obviously dripping with venom.

This is how I see it and I have no axe to grind with anyone here: Truthout was very ambitiously trying to make a name for itself in the blogosphere much larger than it had. In order to do so they stuck their necks way out on a limb, believing what they said was true, but then got caught short when it turned out they had barked their way up the wrong tree. Sometimes stuff like that happens in life and sometimes people instinctively know how to react when it happens to them and sometimes they don't. They didn't.

Nevertheless, the large story is Rove and Plamegate and not Truthout or its principals.

I have to admit, it's going to take me a while to forgive Truthout if this is the colossal mistake it looks like. They've made themselves and their faithful look like the most naive gulls in the world.

Fitzgerald almost certainly had Rove on perjury after Rove's testifying 5 times.

I can''t see any real reason for him to make any type of statement re: this.

He seems to comment only in news conferences, and then only to reference the grand jury proceedings.

On a serious note, are there any other things that will do it?

He and his spokesman cannot continue to say "no comment" about everything.

Luskin would have made that statement today had Rove not been cleared. We came, we hoped, we lost. On to the next battle. TO just needs to be a little more careful in the future...

Otherwise they'll have a Judy Miller-style bomb on their hands.

that is not right, the harder it is to admit that you were played for a fool... I think that is what is going on here... I think they were taken be Liepold...

they haven't substantiated their assertion of no indictment any more than TO has that there was one.

With no official corroboration from Fitz, all we have now is speculation from each camp based on partisan sources.

Rove's lawyer isn't a credible source. Are we accepting administration sources' word as truth now, or do they have to show their evidence? Why is Rove's lawyer any more credible than Jason's sources?

I think the end of the investigation will spell it all out. Until then, what purpose does it serve to elevate Rove's lawyer as credible and continue to castigate Jason and his sources?

Where is the solid proof that Jason's account was incorrect? Not speculation, logic, and all the rest of the constructions that folks have presented. Where's the proof to back up the assertion that Jason's report was incorrect?

Where's the proof that Rove's lawyer's account is true?

the story and stop arguing over it.

But wishing it were true is not the same as proving or knowing it's true. At a certain point, you have to look at all the evidence and decide if it's worth believing something. I don't understand why it's worth believing this if there's only the flimsiest of evidence for it.

Rove got a pass on a certain indictment. His lawyer got some flimsy statement that he won't reveal in it's totality for scrutiny. A weak statement that Fitz "doesn't anticipate" an indictment. The lawyer rushes the weak, momentary 'exoneration' to the press to force Fitz's hand. But, Fitz is silent. Don't think Fitz doesn't still want Rove's ass. Plenty of evidence he lied, maybe not enough to convince Fitz he has a case . . . yet.

Why is this the moment that we put a nail in the story and cast Jason's account aside? Why are some so willing to make that step, jump, at the prompting of Rove's lawyer?

And TO hasn't exactly given us any more reason to believe it.

Not just that it's unlikely, against the prosecutor's/Rove's interests, or that such things "never" happen.

I'm not inclined to believe the Leopold story (stories), mind you, but I would like to know what grain of truth, if any, it (they) contained. I want to know the pathology. Was the original story completely made up? Was Leopold hoaxed? Did he manage to get to a bit of the truth?

24 business hours came and went with no indictment puts the burden of proof on Liepold... if one makes an outrageous claim with no proof, the default is not belief in the claim, it is up to the claimant to prove it true... in this case, Liepold needs to prove that he did not just make this whole story up, as he has with stories in the past...

pan out, it is not the problem of my critics to find my proof for me, it is my problem...

Every interest in presenting the liars in the WH in the worst light that I'm able.

Are Jason's claims so outrageous? Any more outrageous than one from Rove's lawyer that a snippet of a uncorroborated statement from Fitz exonerates Rove?

Outrageous? Not initially, but when they did not pan out... at what point do we admit we were lied to? Another month? A year? Never?

Okay, I'd have to see a video of him singing "Pee On You," two forms of government ID, a police officer there to verify the whole thing, four or five of my buddies and Neal taking notes, and R. Kelly's grandma to confirm his identity.

:)

"I'll pay you to call it for Bush now!"

:(

But I will withhold assessments until it is known whether this WAS TRUTH at the time. Leopold has serious problems with his credibility but once all the facts, i.e. sources are known, it could be this was a manipulation by either side in a poker game to obtain greater cooperation or to fry a bigger fish.

that TO got the story mostly right?

:hi:

If the story is Rove WILL be indicted on _date...obviously that is wrong ...if the story is an indictment was pending based on certain sources...it is quite possible that that was the truth at the time. I'll wait and see...some of this shit doesn't get flushed out for years.

TO seems to have done what they DID have a responsibility to do which is to research those sources...not putting money on anything just yet

I certainly wouldn't wager all my wealth (so to speak ;-) ) on Rove's not being indicted, either.

I would only add that the story on 5/13 was "Rove has been indicted." If that had been the story in the NY Times and only the NY Times on 5/13 and they took Marc Ash's tack of standing by it, I doubt there would be quite as much enthusiasm and patience for the story on DU. But I could be wrong about that, as well.

assclowns, miscreants or the like...so I will give the NYT that much. They certainly never have apologized sufficiently for Judy Miller though :D

Though maybe Friedman used it to refer to anti-globalists. ;)

I have seen Rove's lawyer saying Rove did nothing and is not under investigation, but that is by no means the same.

This whole mess has had more twists and turns than an ant farm. Either Leopold lies, his sources lied, or his sources were purposefully fed bogus information.

I'm past the TO story being real. I just hope they'll get on with and and try to find out why and how they were all snowed.

and nothing will dissuade them. They will always believe that Leopold was "Rathered."

Idiots abound.

by Leopold...it will be interesting to see what Ed Schultz does to him

good think so many smart folks are on hand to spell things out for us 'idiots'

The one filled with acrimony for anyone who does not believe what they do, and feels the need to insult and ridicule.

:rofl:

No I'm kidding, even if they got this story wrong I will still go and read articles on TO. Does that piss you off in some way?

Because if Karl walks, then that means that Cheney has shredded the Constitution in the basement of the White House.