"Since when did Isikoff turn Newsweek into the f*cking White House fax ...

[understandinglife]

... machine?

<clip>

That's right. The rest of the world is lauding Fitzgerald's press conference performance on Friday, while Isikoff gives Turdy a free pass by saying Fitzgerald is a White House operative who violated his principles and his mandate to please the President.

Isikoff reports:

Fitzgerald made another visit early Friday morning —shortly before the grand jury voted to indict Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby —to the office of James Sharp, President George W. Bush's own lawyer in the case, to tell him the president's closest aide would not be charged.

That is just a remarkable claim. Listen to Digby:

Can someone tell me why Fitzgerald would go to President Bush's personal lawyer on Friday to tell him that Bush's "closest aide wouldn't be charged?" Is it in any possible sense ethical for the prosecutor to be telling the president's lawyer information that isn't available to the public about members of the president's staff in the middle of an investigation?

If this is true, I think Mr Fitzgerald has some splainin' to do, otherwise it might look like he's got some back channel communication with the White House about a case that directly affects it. This would not seem in character for Mr Fitzgerald, who is by all accounts a very ethical prosecutor. If this is true, it's a bomb shell. Fitzgerald has no business discussing Karl Rove with anyone but Karl Rove and Karl Rove's lawyer.

I think it was Maureen Dowd who said that investigative reporting is not just stenography. Since when did Isikoff turn Newsweek into the fucking White House fax machine? Can he not be bothered to pick up a phone and call an impartial attorney and figure out this action on the part of Fitzgerald, if true, is totally, utterly and completely illegal?

But let's not interrupt Mikey, he's on quite a roll:

<clip>

Much more at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/lets-tell-mikey-hell-print-anything.html

From Let's Tell Mikey, He'll Print Anything by Jane Hamsher on October 30, 2005

Jane Hamsher and her colleagues at firedoglake are well worth checking in on every hour or so!


Peace.

[rocktivity]

1. Since that Newsweek story about the Koran desecration at Abu Grahib

that was retracted because the source developed a memory problem when riots ensued in Afghanistan.

:headbang:
rocknation

[cantstandbush]

2. DUers, you all need to get a grip and understand who the neocons are.

The neocon-PNAC agenda trumps everything you ever thought you knew about the people you trusted and thought well of. It makes truth a lie and lies the truth. It makes right wrong and wrong right. It makes true heroes appear to be cowards and real cowards appear to be heroes. It makes cannon fodder of our children and house servants of American workers. It makes us all second-class citizens with little or no rights of privacy or freedom of expression. It takes away our vote and makes a mockery of our democracy. Service and compassion for our fellow citizens in need a crime and makes Capitalism a god.

We are all now subjects of it as at least two branches of our government are completely controlled by those who uphold it and third branch of our government about to be turned into the its final linchpin. Alas, woe is we.

[fooj]

3. I fully understand what we are up against.

IMO, we have two choices. We can rise up against these evil, maniacal madmen or we can accept the neocon/PNAC agenda and lose our beloved country and its ideals, values and principles forever.

Peace.

[cantstandbush]

9. You said it so much better than I. Thanks. n/t

[Inland]

4. Now, where do you think this dope on a private conf with Fitz came from?

Who do you think is the source for the story?

Not Fitz.

Huh. I guess it would be the attorney who would love to tell you that, for some reason, Fitzgerald had, off the record, cleared his client of all wrongdoing. And of course, if asked Fitzgeralds' office will have no comment to contradict anything.

Why do people fucking follow every idiot rumor planted? What are you, fax machines?

[understandinglife]

5. The idiot at the fax machine, in this case, is Isikoff. And, the guy ...

... spewing is Rove, for obvious reasons.

They're all going down and they know it; but they'll pull all kinds of stunts and, I sorta think Mr. Fitzgerald is the last person on the planet they should be gaming.


Peace.

[stepnw1f]

6. Yes They Are...

and may not be aware of it. It's how rumor gets spread. In other words, I agree with you.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Well, since American journalism has been reduced to rumor mongering...

...among war profiteering corporate news monopolies, we don't have much choice but to try to read the entrails of these rumors for what this fascist junta is doing to our country.

I pay attention to junta statements because, whatever they accuse others of, I figure they are doing or have done. It's a pretty reliable rule of them, and helps me keep track of their activities.

This rule applies in part to the war profiteering news monopolies themselves. With some of them, whatever they are asserting about the junta, you know the opposite is true. But the rule gets tricky sometimes, for instance, with planted information, especially in a situation like this in which junta members ratting on each other, or serving their own personal interests in some way, may be paramount. Then you're not getting the straight junta line, but some skewed line that may point to, or away, from a certain crime/criminal, if you can read it correctly.

If we had a free press, on a national level with our 'newsapers of record,' we wouldn't have to spend so much time on rumors. We would know what our government was doing.

[DemReadingDU]

8. So it's a rumor?

that Fitzgerald went to Bush's lawyer Sharp?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. How about Fitz telling Herr Busch's lawyer that Herr Busch is now....

...under investigation? That's all part of due process, and was probably a result of Rove's last-second offering of information that saved him...this time...from being indicted.

Additionally, Fitz DOES NOT SERVE Busch in his current capacity as what amounts to an independent counsel.

[No Exit]

11. Hamsher makes an excellent rebuttal to Isikoff's Rove-directed spin!

Bravo, firedoglake!!!!