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TRUTHOUT STANDSDOWN

TruthOut.org promised to take a wait-and-see approach after getting a little ahead of the news cycle by reporting that Karl Rove had been charged with perjury. Now we discover what “wait-and-see” means:

Truthout of course published an article on May 13 which reported that Karl Rove had in fact already been indicted. Obviously there is a major contradiction between our version of the story and what was reported yesterday. As such, we are going to stand down on the Rove matter at this time. We defer instead to the nation’s leading publications.

Stand down? Stand down? What the hell is that about?

UPDATE. Some background on TruthOut star reporter Jason Leopold.

Posted by Tim B. on 06/17/2006 at 11:09 AM
  1. “Stand down? Stand down? What the hell is that about?”

    Trans: We fucked up.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 06 17 at 11:20 AM • permalink

  2. “Stand down” is lefty-speak for a warrant-less attack ceasefire.

    Posted by Dorian on 2006 06 17 at 11:22 AM • permalink

  3. Change their name to Lieout?

    Posted by Patricia on 2006 06 17 at 11:22 AM • permalink

  4. Truthout will stand down from their soapbox, and hope that people, given a little time, forget that Truthout are a bunch of idiots.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 17 at 11:32 AM • permalink

  5. You “stand down” after you “stand to” ...

    Posted by Stevo on 2006 06 17 at 11:34 AM • permalink

  6. Out, damned truth!

    What it means is that the paranoia platoons will be standing by to pounce again, because, in their minds, it is inevitable that Rove will be indicted someday for something.

    Posted by paco on 2006 06 17 at 11:42 AM • permalink

  7. And when are they going to reveal their (three?) inside sources as they promised to do if the story didn’t pan out?

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 17 at 11:52 AM • permalink

  8. Andycanuck, only they can see their 3 imaginary friends.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 06 17 at 11:53 AM • permalink

  9. I say we demand a special prosecutor to find out what they know and *when they knew it*.....

    Posted by NewSisyphus on 2006 06 17 at 12:01 PM • permalink

  10. ``Stand down’’ is a military term.  They are no longer in a state of readiness for action reporting tomorrow’s enemy news, concerning the enemy Rove.

    I would not be surprised if a fort and a parapet are involved.

    Stand down, men.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 06 17 at 12:05 PM • permalink

  11. I guess in Leftyspeak, “stand down” means “admit we were wrong.”  Sort of like how “moral victory” means “defeat.”

    Posted by DocMike on 2006 06 17 at 12:38 PM • permalink

  12. What it means is: “We lied and got caught.  We have no sources we didn’t pull out of our own ass.  We laid our limited reputations on the line for Jason Leopold and Joe Wilson and Wilson proceeded to shit on us from a great height at Yearly KOS.

    So now we’re gonna work on a brand-new lie to trout out once we’ve stayed quiet long enough to hope people forget out last screw-up, because, really, how long do things hang around on the Internet?”

    Not that their own readers are going to let them, apparently. This was posted Friday night in their comments.

    “New breaking story Friday night, June 16
    I don’t know if it’s authoritative, but it’s interesting: Cloak and Dagger reports Rove’s indictments were expunged by a federal magistrate.

    The story reads:

      BREAKING NEWS

      Lawyers and staff tied to the Fitzgerald Investigation are now in revolt. They are reporting that Karl Rove was indicted by the Grand Jury in Washington, D.C. for perjury and obstruction of justice and the indictments were recorded and handed to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

      It can now be reported that a Federal Magistrate (a Republican hack) expunged the indictments without objection from the Special Counsel in charge.

    There are no further links.”

    TrouthOut is learning that the problem with trying to sculpt bullshit is letting go of it once you’re done.  Tends to cling…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 17 at 01:05 PM • permalink

  13. We defer instead to the nation’s leading publications.

    This is the sentence I find even more astonishing.  As in:  “If the nation’s leading publications insist on reporting the actual facts, I suppose we’ll defer to them.”

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 06 17 at 01:07 PM • permalink

  14. Sort of a fake but accurate indictment. Fucking plastic turkeys.

    Posted by Latino on 2006 06 17 at 01:14 PM • permalink

  15. Time to give this phenomena a name, how about Rovomania.

    I have this theory about leftys, we are all born with original sin , but leftys seem to have original hate, and they need to focus it on someone or something , of course they are appalling physical and moral cowards too so liberal democracy is the perfect target, but in order to cover up the cowardice at least from themselves they call everyone a nazi so they can posture as the super brave fighters for freedom there not.

    I recall Jillian Becker writing about the Baader Mienhof gang, that they read a lot of books about the anti nazi resistance, such as it was but none about or by the nazis.

    Posted by phillip on 2006 06 17 at 01:42 PM • permalink

  16. “Stand down” and “defer” is the closest they’ll ever come to admitting being wrong.  They can’t bring themselves to admit that their story was a complete falsehood, even though that’s apparent to everyone, much like Dan Rather and Mary Mapes still can’t admit the TANG documents were bogus.  It evidences a serious character flaw in their persons and much worse in their professional ethics.

    Posted by Lawrence on 2006 06 17 at 01:54 PM • permalink

  17. Well, even more astonishing would be finding a “national publication” that did just report the facts.  Anybody find one of those lately?

    Posted by yojimbo on 2006 06 17 at 01:58 PM • permalink

  18. Richard McEnroe:  “So now we’re gonna work on a brand-new lie to trout out”

    Smacking these clowns with a flounder would be a lot of fun, I think.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 06 17 at 02:07 PM • permalink

  19. Ushie — Just a small SO to our New Zealand friends, who miss their fish-flinging Xena reruns…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 17 at 02:13 PM • permalink

  20. Stand down? Stand down? What the hell is that about?

    It’s a mea culpa without the culpa part

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 06 17 at 02:54 PM • permalink

  21. genericrazedlefty: Despite what we said, Rove was found to be not guilty. However, the fact that we think it’s plausible he might be guilty highlights a wider truth about the man, and Bush, and the evil American empire in general.

    ***
    We need to understand the higher logic at work here and use it to our advantage - see how you can be right even when you’re wrong?

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 06 17 at 03:15 PM • permalink

  22. TruthOut: That’s Where We Keep It

    Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 06 17 at 03:55 PM • permalink

  23. TruthOut/LiesIn

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 06 17 at 04:31 PM • permalink

  24. Grand Juries in the US don’t decide guilt or innocence. They decide whether there is enough evidence to bother having a trial.

    Posted by mojo on 2006 06 17 at 04:45 PM • permalink

  25. Maybe it means “we’re too embarrassed to admit how badly we were played by the Dark Master’s henchmen”.

    Fuel to the fire of their fevered little minds:

    TO’s Original Assessment Was Right at the Time. .
    . . .Until now I have been reluctant to involve or put myself on the line in this matter.  I am not now a professional reporter (or, at least have not been for many years- still, I consider myself a citizen reporter, not that that will make any difference to our new police state).  With the wide latitude of prosecutorial ‘discretion’ allowed and/or more properly insisted upon, enforced and exercised these days, being intimidated into silence is a reality I feel and sadly fear, unfortunately. Still, here goes:

    I happen to have ‘heard’ confidentially that, indeed, there was an indictment pending against Karl Rove in May, but that after it was presented to Rove and his attorneys, albeit being threatened with it, Rove apparently gave up some interesting info against Libby, and will be a major witness during the trial against him.  Thus, in lieu of this the pending indictment was ‘not filed’, for now.

    So, I don’t believe TO was really taken for a fool in this matter, just perhaps the ultimate outcome was not made aware to the writer.  Coming out too far in front of the story is probably the best explanation for the insuing inconsistency with the present facts.

    Blog On
    PLANET REVOLUTION
    by planetpatriot (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) on Fri Jun 16th, 2006 at 04:58:54 PM EDT

    Now look, Wronwright and the rest of you, you have to stop screwing with minds that already are on the ragged edge of complete psychotic break. Or, at minimum, stop using the ridiculous screen names:

    I’d like to add that I asked my lawyer about this nebulous letter and was told if Fitzgerald had extended the unbelievable courtesy of sending a “nonindictment” letter to Luskin, it might be the first time ever such a thing has happened. Also, this would make a public record in what’s been a sealed grand jury investigation. Did that really happen? It’s extremely unlikely. If Fitzgerald has rolled over for the Bush administration, this story has gone from huge to gigantic.

    Truthout need neither defer nor stand down to any news organization, and I told Marc Ash that in an e-mail this morning. In a few hours, Truthout has become the leading, big league news reporter in the world. The story belongs to Truthout, and not other reporters, editors or outlets who haven’t had the basic courage and forthrightness to write it. I suggest justice has been subverted, and it is the proper right and duty of responsible journalists and patriots to ask why.

    The public discourse of this issue has been stripped from the hands of the inadequate and unwilling, and placed in the able care of Ash and Leopold, and rightly so. Truthout and only Truthout has done what’s right, and henceforth I won’t pay attention to anything anyone else has to say, not even our president. You guys deserve this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

    by Uranus on Thu Jun 15th, 2006 at 08:02:04 AM EDT

    After all, they won’t even get the joke.

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 17 at 04:53 PM • permalink

  26. “So now we’re gonna work on a brand-new lie to trout out ...”

    They could check in with the master of “speeking trout to powar”...

    Posted by PW on 2006 06 17 at 06:43 PM • permalink

  27. If these people are capable of stripping the public discourse of an issue from someone’s hands, I suppose anything is possible.  I still think people this out of touch ought to receive therapy to help them reconnect to the real world, however.  I mean, bless their little pinched hearts, this is just pathetic!

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 06 17 at 07:56 PM • permalink

  28. How about “Fake But Should be True” as a variation of the lunatic left “Fake but True” excuse.

    Posted by JerryS on 2006 06 17 at 09:06 PM • permalink

  29. It’d be a good idea for reporters to report things after they happen.

    Still, that announcement of ‘no indictment’ was extremely odd. Prosecutors I deal with NEVER do that, on the theory that even if they haven’t found evidence of wrongdoing, that doesn’t mean wrong wasn’t done.

    Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 06 17 at 11:08 PM • permalink

  30. I thought the “no indictment” statement odd too. Is Fitzgerald going to announce all the people he won’t be seeking indictment against? What about Kerry? Should there be a “no indictment” announcement about him? Pelosi?

    Posted by JerryS on 2006 06 17 at 11:36 PM • permalink

  31. Harry — Most investigations don’t have a loud cheerleading section chanting “Hang him! Hang him!” from the sidelines.  Fitz was, probably rightly, and definitely belatedly, as a political partisan, when he has enough to worry about as a prosecutor overstepping his authority.

    Remember, at this point the claim was being put out that Fitz had already taken the action of indicting Rove, and it was a done deal, and these claims were being justified on the basis of ‘anonymous sources’ who would have had to be on his staff to be able to provide that information.

    The public statement was as much a self-defense for Fitz as a vindication for Rove.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 17 at 11:50 PM • permalink

  32. Stand down means Truthout won’t continue discussing the issue.  But neither will they admit they were wrong on the facts or wrong in claiming Karl was indicted before they actually knew that was the case.  In taking this tack, they’ve forfeited any credibility they had.

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 06 17 at 11:55 PM • permalink

  33. “In taking this tack, they’ve forfeited any credibility THEY HAD.”


          #&$^)&!@$&^$#_)^&$%(*+!$&$#@)*

    Posted by yojimbo on 2006 06 18 at 12:17 AM • permalink

  34. The public discourse of this issue has been stripped from the hands of the inadequate and unwilling…

    From my cold, dead hands!

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 18 at 11:27 AM • permalink

  35. Maybe so, Richard, but I recall an exactly similar situation (except of purely local interest) in which the prosecutor twisted himself into a pretzel in order to NOT say he would not prosecute, as well as delivering a lengthy lecture to a local commission (but entirely for my benefit as the news reporter) about why legal ethics debarred him from declaring anybody innocent.

    You or I might not agree with that interpretation—we are not lawyers—but that’s how lawyers tend to think.

    So you may have it sussed but it’s too complicated for a country boy like me.

    Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 06 18 at 04:27 PM • permalink

  36. At least they were good enough to admit they made a mistake. 

    What would you have suggested?  Stay the course?

    Posted by Addamo on 2006 06 18 at 08:27 PM • permalink

  37. Fitz was, probably rightly, and definitely belatedly, as a political partisan, when he has enough to worry about as a prosecutor overstepping his authority.

    And that inspired piece of early-morning gibberish should have read…

    Fitz was, probably rightly, and definitely belatedly, about being tagged as a political partisan, when he has enough to worry about as a prosecutor overstepping his authority.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 18 at 09:48 PM • permalink

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