Monday, May 15, 2006

BRIAN DICKERSON: Rove rumor red meat to blue state audience
Oh crap. Look kids- one important truth about the blogs and Interent news such as truthout is that you had better verify before you start running with their rumors. Sometimes they are right (actually, I've found a lot of the time they are right), but sometimes they are dead wrong. Proceed with caution.

I hope this one is true, but I will believe it when I see the Rove Frog March. Where are you Patrick?

Was it an improbable outside-the-Beltway scoop on the ultimate inside-the-Beltway story? A criminal leak concerning the grand jury investigation of a criminal leak? Or just a red-hot rumor that caught fire in the dry tinder of too many trial attorneys?

Whatever it was, the news that White House adviser Karl Rove had been indicted for perjury electrified the 700 or so lawyers, judges and elected officials (including featured speakers Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.) gathered at the Dearborn Hyatt Regency for Saturday night's annual banquet of the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association.

Until they found out that maybe he hadn't been.

MTLA Vice President Robert Raitt was heading toward the podium to introduce Clinton, the banquet's keynote speaker, when Gerald Acker, a Southfield trial attorney and prominent Democratic fund-raiser, mentioned Rove's indictment.

Raitt didn't question the report. "Gerry is pretty connected," he explained Sunday, "and I thought, well, that'll get this crowd going."

A couple of minutes later, Raitt brought the heavily Democratic audience to its feet with the, um, news.

Among those who declined to join the standing ovation was Michigan Court of Appeals Chief Judge William Whitbeck, one of the few Republican officeholders in attendance. He said it struck him as odd that federal prosecutors had chosen to announce such a significant development on a Saturday night, but he left the banquet convinced that Rove's indictment was a fait accompli.

Twenty-four hours later, that was still in doubt. A few Democrat-friendly Web sites, including www.truthout.org, reported as early as Saturday afternoon that Rove's arrest was imminent. But by Sunday evening no reputable broadcast or print outlet had published the rumor.

This incident has erupted into quite the firestorm on the blogs- all I know is that truthout is on the line here. If they are right, they are heroes. If they are wrong, they will have set the blogosphere's credibility back a thousand yards- and that's not good for anyone who does this, both right and left.