Smear Job - Horton, Simpson, 60 Minutes - Round Two

[lala_rawraw]

Wow, team Rove is indeed taking their targets on one by one. Here is my latest on this, but for those of you who have not been following the hit-job saga, see these two threads first:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2903087&mesg_id=2903087
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2906401&mesg_id=2906401

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http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12789

"As if the liberal establishment media isn't already embarrassed enough by the bizarrely thin New York Times hatchet job against John McCain, now 60 Minutes comes along to run with an even less documented, and frankly far less believable hatchet job against Karl Rove -- without even asking Rove to respond! The whole story is not just sleazy journalism, it's whatever ranks below "sleazy" on the absolute scale of perfidy.

On Thursday, the 60 Minutes web site began hawking a feature to run on its show. This Sunday, an already discredited Alabama attorney named Dana Jill Simpson will claim that Rove asked her to photograph Democratic former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman in a "compromising, sexual position with one of his aides."

<snip>

"Nothing about her story even begins to stand up to scrutiny; indeed all of it fails every basic test of common sense. A former Democratic Alabama Supreme Court justice (and sometime Siegelman adversary) who represented a co-defendant and close ally of Siegelman's in the trial that convicted Siegelman of federal bribery and obstruction charges, said that the previous versions of the woman's oft-changing allegations "must have been created by a drunk fiction writer."

Quin Hillyer, the author of this smear is about to be shown a bit of what is known as investigative journalism.

Quin uses "sources" to make claims that are patently unsupportable by the evidence he provides. Case in point, Quin points to Eddie Curran's recent hit job on Scott Horton as proof of something - not sure what exactly, but lets take a look.

"THE TRUTH IS that the entire Siegelman investigation stemmed from a series of articles in the Mobile Register (my former newspaper) by ace investigative reporter Eddie Curran, a winner of numerous journalism awards who is anything but a Republican."

Actually the TRUTH is a bit more interesting than this. Mr. Curran - I am told - authored in ghost form some Siegelman prosecution documents. That hardly makes him an ace investigative journalist. Rather, he appears to be nothing more than a hired shill. I suggest Mr. Quin vet his sources better. He might want to ask Mr. Curran about his father's close friendship with Senator Jeff Sessions.

Quin goes on to then use Toby Roth as a source to lie openly about Ms. Simpson's long-time role in Alabama politics. Let's see here:

"Roth's only contact with her came four years later when she faxed him letters demanding that one of her clients be awarded a state contract to clean up a tire dump. The contract went to somebody else, and Roth says her allegations began surfacing only after her client lost the business. "I feel like I'm in the middle of the Duke Lacrosse rape case or something like that," Roth said."

Interesting thing about Quin's little lie here is this. In his smear job, Quin calls Roth an "activist" when everyone knows that Roth is a lobbyist. Now, you might wonder why Roth being a lobbyist is important. Well, you see, he too has a conflict of interest here - namely, to avoid jail time. Someone might wish to ask Roth about his client list.

Quin also points to his "Republican sources" in Alabama who, according to Quin, have never heard of Simpson. I have spent a good deal of time in the deep south investigating this story and every Republican I have spoken with - and I mean real Republican, not Rove-Republican - has a whole other story to tell. I have Republican friends, liberal friends and every conceivable flavor of political opinion. They respect me and I respect them because we all understand that our individual political leanings are less important than the truth, the rule of law, and our country. Republicans should be as outraged as Democrats at what has been happening in Alabama. Anyone who is not outraged is neither a Republican or a Democrat or any other version of American.

But I digress, as I often do.

The rest of Quin's piece is predictably a pathetic attempt to defend Karl Rove, who won't even defend himself by testifying under oath. Ms. Simpson testified under oath and that alone puts her credibility far above that of a man known to be a liar, who uses the press as his personal propaganda tool, and refuses to address each allegation under oath. Until Mr. Rove appears before Congress and addresses each one of these allegations, his credibility problem will continue. And reporters who come to his defense based on his word alone are either incredibly flawed or incredibly paid off. Which is it Mr. Quin? I am curious.

What is clear is that someone is very worried about the 60 Minutes special that is to be aired this Sunday. So worried in fact, they feel the need to attack the reporters on this story as Quin does by flippantly referring to Scott Horton as "a blogger."

I think the public should contact the American Spectator and ask them what relationship Quin has to Mr. Rove. If Quin's sources were vetted by the editors at the American Spectator. And what proof other than the say so of highly questionable "sources" of anything written in that piece. Surely the public has a right to know if the American Spectator is in anyway compromised from reporting the facts, no?

Just because they lean toward the right does not and should not discredit the American Spectator. I for one enjoy reading the American Conservative. Facts don't have a politic position and should not be treated as mere political opinions. The only difference between a credible publication that openly leans toward a political point of view and a publication that does not is in the stories they choose to focus on. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the facts are in order and the evidence is not "fixed around" allegations. The American Spectator, therefor, owes its readers some answers regarding this unacceptable piece of propaganda. Conservatives and liberals alike should contact the publication and demand some answers about this story:

The American Spectator
1611 North Kent Street, Suite 901
Arlington, Virginia 22209

Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Website: www.spectator.org
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http://www.atlargely.com/2008/02/the-smear-job-.html