Kurtz: The Truth Is Out

After announcing that Karl Rove had been indicted, Jason Leopold at TruthOut has insisted that the story is true even after a week has passed since he claimed the indictment would be announced. As the details of Leopold’s story fail to connect, Leopold has increasingly relied on a blame-Fitzgerald approach, stating that the prosecutor has no obligation to publicize the indictment — although no one can figure out any benefit for keeping it secret. Howard Kurtz takes a look at Leopold’s credibility and finds more reasons to dismiss his predictions:

The claim that President Bush’s top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny. That didn’t stop more than 35 reporters — from all the major newspapers, networks and newsmagazines — from calling Luskin or Rove’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, to check it out.
The reports appeared on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, run by Marc Ash, a former advertising man and fashion photographer in California. Jason Leopold, the author of the stories, directed inquiries to Ash, who says that “we stand by the story. We have multiple points of independent confirmation of what we originally reported. Our problem is, the prosecutor’s office is under no obligation to go public.”
Leopold acknowledges in a new book, “News Junkie,” that he is a past liar, convicted felon and former alcoholic and cocaine addict. An earlier version of the book was canceled by publisher Rowman & Littlefield last year.
Salon retracted a 2002 piece by Leopold involving Thomas White, then secretary of the Army. The online magazine apologized, saying it had been unable to confirm the authenticity of an e-mail that Leopold attributed to White. Leopold, a onetime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones, accused the online magazine of being “wimpy” and caving to pressure.

Leopold could still be telling the truth, in that sources may have told him everything that he has claimed. However, as it appears at the moment, someone lied, and the one person with that kind of track record is Leopold. Kurtz makes a pretty good case that Leopold is not only untrustworthy but not particularly stable, either.
Thanks to Leopold and less particular mainstream reporters, Rove’s lawyer has busied himself with issuing sharp denials for the past week. Luskin has told reporters over and over that no meeting between his team and Fitzgerald’s ever took place, and that even the reporters have begun to be embarrassed by their calls on this subject. Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo believes that Leopold has attempted to impersonate reporters in order to get a statement, specifically Joe Lauria of the Sunday Times. The Daily Kos has already outed Leopold for some sock-puppetry, and it doesn’t take much imagination to think that Leopold would not have shied from misrepresenting himself.
The problem for Leopold and the rest of the fringe Left is their obsession with Fitzmas. It hasn’t delivered, turning from a political Santa Claus to a Great Pumpkin right before their eyes. Instead of waiting for the Fitzgerald inquiry to end, Leopold apparently either felt compelled to make stuff up or fell prey to those that did. This should serve as a cautionary tale for partisans who feel that their cause is worth more than their own credibility. Once that decision is made, neither cause nor credibility can ever be easily retrieved.