Everybody,
this is up on Drudge now, and it is appalling. It purports to
describe how Karl Rove supposedly asked an Alabama woman to take
photos of former Gov. Don Sieglman (D-AL) in an extramarital
affair. As if.
In light of this week's huge focus on media bias and just
slipshod, poorly sourced or validated stories, I warn everybody in
advance against this sleazy piece of tabloid journalism as promised
by the masters of the genre, 60 Minutes.
As an Alabama journalist for eight years, I have been following
from afar (her stories started breaking after I moved back to DC)
this lady's utterly baseless, frankly nutty, string of allegations
involving supposed skullduggery related to the conviction of former
Gov. Don Siegelman. I do not know of a single legitimate journalist
in Alabama who takes seriously a single thing she says. And we're
not talking mere local yokel journalists; we're talking recent
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalists -- who do NOT lean
right, but who, to my personal knowledge, are either center or left
of center in their personal views.
This lady making the allegations actually testified before a
congressional committee last year, and the buzz about all her
allegations suddenly died. Why? Because not even the lefty Dems
found her credible. Question: Why, after all the stories she has
told, including having a chance to testify before the committee,
does she just now suddenly start telling this story about Rove when
it never was part of her narrative before? Repeat: NEVER part of
her story before. (See paragraph three of
this story today.)
And why would any self-respecting journalist (which, I guess, by
definition excludes 60 Minutes) believe that Rove, with all the
other, more sophisticated campaign tools at his disposal, would do
such a thing? And why would Rove ever have reason to believe that
this woman would even be in a position to photograph Seigelman in
flagrante? I mean, this is so ludicrous as to belong in black
helicopter, tinfoil hat territory. PLEASE continue to watch this
space, because I am putting together a major report here refuting
the 60 Minutes slime job, with lots of excellent sourcing. But I
wanted to get this posted now, as it is getting late on a Friday
afternoon.
topics:
Oil
