Despite right wing media and blogosphere accusations, Jason Leopold has been a reliable source for some time. For now, I am willing to take it on faith that he has numerous well placed sources that did in fact tell him that Karl Rove had been indicted. As a journalist for Truthout ( http://www.truthout.org ), Jason has broken numerous stories ahead of the rest of the media which up until now have all proven to be true. If his story on the Rove indictment is incorrect, and I want to stress that we do not know either way right now, I have a theory as to what might have happened. Admittedly, like many theories, mine has several assumptions and Â'what ifsÂ' but each reader will have to decide for themselves what they believe. Eventually the truth will come out anyway.
We know that the Bush White House detests leaks perhaps more than any other administration in history. It is a relative certainty that LeopoldÂ's past articles have gotten the attention of many in the administration. Assume for a moment that an internal White House investigation was conducted to ferret out those leaking information to Leopold. Once discovered, these individuals would be an excellent avenue with which to discredit Leopold by providing them false information which would then be transferred to the reporter. Again, I am making assumptions and I want to dutifully make that clear. Now, assuming the White House had accurately identified the leakers. Let us take it one step further. Let us assume the White House sat on that information until an opportune moment presented itself. Such an opportune moment presented itself when it became clear that an embarrassing piece of evidence regarding Vice President Cheney was going to be submitted in a filing by Fitzgerald. The administration could provide a tasty bit of disinformation to LeopoldÂ's sources and the attention of the reporter along with a fair amount of the progressive press would be turned to a story that would turn out to be false. This story and the rapid discovery that it was a hoax would overshadow the embarrassing filing by Prosecutor Fitzgerald. Indeed, it would overshadow the entire CIA Leak-Gate investigation or at least the reporting thereof for some time.
Again, we do not know at this point whether LeopoldÂ's story is accurate or not and it if is not, we do not know why but I want to point out that if it turns out to not be accurate, there are a lot of possibilities. Rushing to a negative judgment of Jason is unfair until all the facts come out.
We know that the Bush White House detests leaks perhaps more than any other administration in history. It is a relative certainty that LeopoldÂ's past articles have gotten the attention of many in the administration. Assume for a moment that an internal White House investigation was conducted to ferret out those leaking information to Leopold. Once discovered, these individuals would be an excellent avenue with which to discredit Leopold by providing them false information which would then be transferred to the reporter. Again, I am making assumptions and I want to dutifully make that clear. Now, assuming the White House had accurately identified the leakers. Let us take it one step further. Let us assume the White House sat on that information until an opportune moment presented itself. Such an opportune moment presented itself when it became clear that an embarrassing piece of evidence regarding Vice President Cheney was going to be submitted in a filing by Fitzgerald. The administration could provide a tasty bit of disinformation to LeopoldÂ's sources and the attention of the reporter along with a fair amount of the progressive press would be turned to a story that would turn out to be false. This story and the rapid discovery that it was a hoax would overshadow the embarrassing filing by Prosecutor Fitzgerald. Indeed, it would overshadow the entire CIA Leak-Gate investigation or at least the reporting thereof for some time.
Again, we do not know at this point whether LeopoldÂ's story is accurate or not and it if is not, we do not know why but I want to point out that if it turns out to not be accurate, there are a lot of possibilities. Rushing to a negative judgment of Jason is unfair until all the facts come out.
