Get out your brooms, because I am issuing a Formal Declaration of "Shenanigans" on truthout.org, Jason Leopold, William Rivers Pitt, and Marc Ash. Truthout, I'm sure most know, is the organization which last Saturday put out a story
claiming that Karl Rove was indicted one week ago, after a secret 15-hour meeting in which Rove was told he had 24 hours to get his affairs in order.
From the May 13 article:
During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
Shenanigans are formerly declared upon "journalist" Jason Leopold for not only penning this fictitious article, but for saying that criticsism of his article (and the "facts" contained within it not coming true) in the blogosphere was fueled by hatred, while at the same time admitting he "looked wrong."
Upon William Rivers Pitt, a Formal Declaration of "Shenanigans" for not only not retracting this story after it was obvious after 24 hours it wasn't true, but for coming out with the ludicrous revisionist version of Leopold's tale, saying he meant 24 "business" hours instead of 24 "normal" hours. This irresponsible bit of languaging caused more than one ridiculous round of discussion in the DailyKos comment area about what, exactly, a "business hour" was, and how one went about measuring 24 of them. I issue a further Formal Declaration of Shenanigans upon Pitt for calling members of the Democratic Underground discussion boards "cretins" for daring to question truthout's credibility, when it was truthout that posted a false story as "truth," not the Democratic Underground discussion boards.
Upon Marc Ash, also of truthout.org, also a Formal Declaration of "Shenanigans." For when even 24 hours had passed, even 24 business hours, by any measure--railed against anybody who dared question "truth"out's integrity:
For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility, and we have fought hard to defend our reputation. In addition, we have worked around the clock to provide additional information to our readership. People want to know more about this, and our job is to keep them informed. We take that responsibility seriously.
Marc made a further Ash of himself by further retracting the "24 hour thing":
THE 24 HOUR THING
We reported that Patrick Fitzgerald had, "instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order...." That does not mean that at the end of that 24-hour period, Fitzgerald is obliged to hold a press conference and make an announcement. It just means that he has given Rove a 24-hour formal notification. Fitzgerald is not obliged to make an announcement at any point; he does so at his own discretion, and not if it compromises his case. So we're all stuck waiting here. Grab some coffee.
I've had plenty of coffee since then, Mr. Ash. So much, in fact, that I haven't slept in almost a week. The story still has not panned out. The "non-stop attacks" on your credibility were caused by your organization printing a bogus story. You attacked your own credibility by standing by the false story.
And now I'm issuing a Formal Declaration of "Shenanigans" upon you.
I know, there will be commenters who say "wait and see, Leopold will be proven right." That is ridiculous. We waited the first 24 hours. We waited the first 24 business hours. We waited the "modified" 24 business hours where they are calculated in 8-hour shifts. We grabbed our cups of coffee and still Rove was not indicted last Friday. It is past time for Truthout to retract the story, admit they published a bogus story, apologize for insulting those calling them on their BS, and learn from this mistake.
UPDATE: Truthout has posted a semi-apology. Thanks dannyinla for pointing it out!