Is Palast A Bullshit Artist? Takes Years Old Info, Repackages It, Claims HE Found It?

Amended thread title to reflect what Marekjed said. See their post below in bold.

The following is apparently from an interview with Palast where he makes it sound like he PERSONALLY got some Rove emails regarding vote theft by the GOP.

The FACT is, georgewbush.org is a website with which he has no affiliation with.

And the emails sent to that site were posted here on Democratic Underground YEARS ago.

And yet Palast makes it sound like he's privy to some inside info that noone else has.

It's great Palast takes information and digests it into books.

But I find his following quote intentionally misleading.

This, along with his occasional attempts over the years to trash Democrats using innuendo and guilt by association, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

.................................................................

Dollars & Sense: In the new edition of your book, ARMED MADHOUSE, you report on the theft of the 2008 election. How do you know what they’re doing? Any way to stop them?

Palast: I know because I have Karl Rove’s emails. No kidding. He and his team aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. They sent copies of their plans to GeorgeWBush.ORG instead of GeorgeWBush.COM addresses — and, heh heh, they ended up in my in-box. Who says this job ain’t fun?

.............................................................
Putting this in opening post. I don't know if it's true or I buy it, but seems best way to be honest.

Posted by marekjed

"They ended up in my inbox" is a kind of

Palast's trademark phrase. You'll often find it, or variations of it, in his books. He basically means someone forwarded the stuff to him, but he's not revealing the source. He often receives internal documents that way, from people who want to blow the whistle without going public themselves.

So in this particular case Palast is not the only one with the emails, so what? Give the man some credit, because he's doing and has done a lot of important work.

he says where they came from. is it misleading because he didn't mention the DU? maybe you should focus your energies elsewhere or get a hobby.

And this after his attempted hatchet job on Hillary (whom is not my favorite by a long shot).

Georgewbush.com forwarded them to him (or someone reading georgewbush.com emailed him to tip him off and he arranged to obtain them from the website)....

I don't get the issue, here...:shrug:

I can provide links (yes, the post below about DU'ers screaming for links was funny) to legit, solid-Left sites of people having to "debunk" Palast's work.

Palast makes stuff up about Korea getting Nuke:
http://www.storiesthatmatter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=49


Palast makes stuff up about Mexico election:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/38468/

Palast doesn't claim to have found the e-mails by himself. He tells the truth. He HAS the e-mails. Someone sent them to him. I heard him in a radio interview with Thom Hartmann and he said essentially the same thing. Even though I already knew about the e-mails from DU, I didn't expect him to go through a lengthy explanation on a radio interview with very limited time.

had already read?

If he was pressed for time why even mention his freaking inbox?

Just like people send things to Olberman all the time. They wanted him to cover it. And that's what he is doing.

If you look at the http://2004.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/index.asp page, Palast's BBC Newsnight report is the first one listed - broadcast Tuesday Oct 26, 2004. And by the time the Newsnight page was posted (1706 GMT) they already had quotes from Republicans, Democrats and election supervisors - indicating they had been working on the story for some time. It looks very likely that someone from georgewbush.org did forward the emails and lists to Palast, before they hit the net - the earliest mention of them on DU was Monday 25th, 2007 GMT.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

see post #32 for links.

Palast's trademark phrase. You'll often find it, or variations of it, in his books. He basically means someone forwarded the stuff to him, but he's not revealing the source. He often receives internal documents that way, from people who want to blow the whistle without going public themselves.

So in this particular case Palast is not the only one with the emails, so what? Give the man some credit, because he's doing and has done a lot of important work.

and ties everything together.

When someone is giving a radio interview, I don't what a bunch of screaming DUers in the background shouting "link!?" over and over, like that's some how evidence of intelligent thought.

re: "I don't what a bunch of screaming DUers in the background shouting "link!?" over and over, like that's some how evidence of intelligent thought." :rofl:

Is there a prize for the person who does the best job of exposing the evils of the bush administration?

The following quote from the OP is most telling: "This, along with his occasional attempts over the years to trash Democrats using innuendo and guilt by association, leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Palast has recently stirred the ire of Hillary supporters by doing some serious digging into Hillary's past business dealings, among other things<http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0705/S00143.htm> There was a big blowup about this a couple of weeks ago, with the requisite denunciation of Palast by the Hillary faithful.

In addition, Palast, in his previous book, exposed the '00 Gore campaign for the corporate driven campaign that it was, and in the process debunked the myth that Nader cost Gore the election in Florida. This is heresy to many, many Democrats, but sadly, it is also the truth.

Thus we see a love/hate relationship that has developed between many Democrats and Palast. They love him when he turns his acute insight and investigative ability on to the Bush administration, but hate it when he also goes after the Dems exposing their corruption and hypocrisy. Thus he is praised and denounced in turns. I think that this OP is simply more of the same.

:rofl:

Gee what a revelation!!

I was simply trying to answer your question:shrug: Is there something that I'm missing here? Or did I unwittingly hit a nerve?

If that means Hillary comes out looking less than stellar, so be it.

But I really don't get why it matters whether Palast exposes these criminals or someone else does. The point is to get them exposed.

As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. From DU.
Sorry for the Glengarry Glen Ross reference.:hi:

This article was repeated about a brazillion times; many DUers were not amused.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=279597

Is that what you are implying?

well you cant.. he is a courageous HERO and a Patriot.. it is your intension's i question.

it takes years to investigate these stories..

You may not like what he digs up, but he's one of the few who does his job.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7357

Greg Palast: The Last Muckraker?
by Randolph T Holhut | May 9 2007


DUMMERSTON, Vt. — Bill Moyers’ documentary, "Buying the War," shown last month on PBS, painstakingly showed how most of the press willingly bought into the lies of the Bush administration and supported the worst foreign policy blunder this nation has ever committed — the invasion of Iraq.

I say most of the press, because there were a few honorable exceptions.

The Knight Ridder News Service produced the most accurate reporting, but its work was ignored because the chain didn't have a paper in New York or Washington. Journalists from beyond the Beltway — reporters such as Seymour Hersh, Robert Parry and James Bamford, independent thinkers such as Lewis Lapham and Michael Massing, columnists such as the late Molly Ivins and James Carroll — they sussed out the case that the White House was making for war early on and saw it was all lies.

The information debunking the Bush administration's case for war was out there. Unfortunately, it wasn't in The New York Times or The Washington Post, which put the pro-war stories out front and buried the skeptical stories inside. It wasn't on the network evening news or on any of the cable TV shoutfests. It wasn't in Time or Newsweek. You had to read it in The New Yorker or in little publications such as The Nation, The Progressive, Harpers or The New York Review of Books. You had to hear it on Pacifica's "Democracy Now!" or read it on Web sites such as Common Dreams, AlterNet or Truthout.

The truth was out there, but as usually is the case, it was not in a place where most Americans could see it.

That's the handicap that investigative reporter Greg Palast labors under.

His 2006 book, "Armed Madhouse," now out in a paperback edition, is a worthy sequel to his 2002 book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His credentials as one of the best in his field are unchallenged. His writing is a cross between Seymour Hersh and Mickey Spillane. He is as tenacious as they come. Yet his work languishes in the shadows because no major American media outlet has the courage to hire him.

more...

On Peak Oil:
http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/171

On Korea's Nukes:
http://www.storiesthatmatter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=49

On Mexico's past election:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/38468/

Here's Palast claiming carbon credits are bad and insinuates Gore is a fake environmentalist:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:TkStqq1B42cJ:www.gregpalast.com/fill-your-lungs-its-only-borrowed-grime/+greg+palast+borrowed+grime&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Then there's Palast recent slamming Hillary for being on Walmart board while neglecting to report Walmart was a different company under Sam Walton WHEN HILLARY WAS INVOLVED.

to crucify a guy who is on our side and is right more often than not.

You might also read one of Palast's books.

such an important figure in this country. I couldn't agree with him more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00zf8gfBGI&mode=related&search=

like any other journalist,

a hero when everything he says is good press for the Democratic Party,

and a goat when what he says casts the party or a party member into an unfavorable light.