When it comes to news reporting and journalism, good intentions are not good enough. Throughout the three years of this site's existence, one of the main premises of this site is that the media has been too compliant towards the Bush administration and that they tend to downplay or ignore facts that do not reflect well on the Bush administration. Therefore, if we wish to present a credible alternative to the mainstream media, we have to hold our own people to the fire when they botch up a major news story like the false claim that Rove was indicted.
To fail to do so would be to become just like Boromir. Boromir rationalized that in order to defeat the Dark Lord, we had to take up the One Ring ourselves. But the problem is that not only would it succeed, you would also replace the Dark Lord yourself. What good will it do us to embrace Jason Leopold, ride him to victory in the next two elections, only to become no better than the people we pretend not to like?
Instead of doing the responsible thing and admitting they were wrong, Truthout refuses to admit they were wrong even when they know they were wrong. They claim that they were operating with the best of intentions and that they had multiple people fact-check their story. But the problem is that they did not do a good job of it. The problem is that they wanted the story to be true, so they ignored warning signs that suggested that they were being played. And the reason many of us on the left thought Rove was about to be indicted was because we believed Leopold because he was reporting what we wanted to hear - not what was actually the truth.
If Truthout was played and they want to earn back any kind of respect, then they need to do the responsible thing and burn their sources of information. The fact that they have failed to do so means that they have become on a par with people like Wayne Madsen and Lyndon LaRouche when it comes to reliable news. They have simply become a gossip column rather than a true source of news, meaning that we should look elsewhere for our sources of information.
Some people may suggest that there may be more to it than what we already know. But the problem is that this is an elitist argument which plays into the hands of Rove. That means that Truthout thinks we are too stupid to process this information for ourselves and make up our own minds about this case. Truthout is showing the same kind of secrecy and lack of openness that they pretend to hate when the Bush administration does it. But the problem is that after the lies of the Bush administration over Iraq, I have a hard time accepting anybody as reliable or honest when they demand that we give them the kind of trust that the Bush administration demands of us. If there is really more to it than what we have been told, then let Truthout tell us what we don't know and let us decide for ourselves. But the fact that they don't means that they have become like the very people that they claimed to be fighting against.
Some people may claim that Truthout and Leopold is not that important and that we should be focusing on stuff like war, poverty, and corruption. I didn't particularly want to write about Leopold. But the fact that too many people seem to be rationalizing bad behavior when our side does it means that they talked me into focusing on Leopold for now. So, they accomplished the exact opposite of what they intended to accomplish. If we want to persuade people to focus on war, poverty, and corruption and we rely on a dishonest reporter like Leopold, then people will focus on Leopold - not war, poverty, and corruption. People will mock us and laugh at us when we try to get the focus on war, poverty, and corruption when we rely on dishonest reporters like Leopold to bring them the information. Next thing you know, people will be going back to Rush, the 5:30 news, and the local rag, who tell you that everything's fine and dandy.
People may say that defending our country is more important. But this is just like the army - this is all about who you want to be in a foxhole with. The fact that Leopold refuses to say what this extra info that we are missing is means that he is hiding something and that he is being dishonest about the whole affair. Whenever someone becomes obsessed with secrecy - whether it be the Bush administration or Leopold - that tells me right there that they are being dishonest and that they have something to hide. And I would not get into a foxhole to defend my country with anybody who I cannot trust to be honest about what they are doing.
Some people may complain that we are exercising mob mentality. But that is the typical battle cry of trolls, junior high kids who get sent to the principal, and people who are doing something wrong. Right now, I have more trust in the guy who crashed into ct's house than I would Leopold for a simple reason - he admitted that what he did was wrong. Leopold will not.
Others may say that we should let the right-wingers do this sort of thing. But they are doing the work of Rove for him. The problem with that is that this would give right-wing outlets like the National Review and the guy who outed Armando's personal private information a lot more credibility than they need or deserve. This is a cop-out similar to the way the media copped out on reporting the Downing Street Memo. After all, it was old news in their books, so let the leftie blogs report this. If we claim not to like the media and how they report things, then we need to report the news ourselves and not wait for the right-wingers to do it for us.
Some people would present a false choice between Armageddon and defending a dishonest reporter. Turning on Jason Leopold would be like Rove turning on the Swift Boat Liars. But all I can say is that would have been the most honorable thing Rove ever could have done. Sometimes, there are things more important than winning a popularity contest, and telling the truth and reporting the news as accurately as possible is one of them. After all, Russ Feingold did not vote against the Patriot Act with any thought that it would win him the next election; he did it because it was the right thing to do.
This is the kind of logic Boromir used when he demanded that he be allowed to take up the ring to defeat Sauron with. But that is not how liberalism operates. We don't have to accept that there is no other choice than the ones being presented. It is our job to find ways that do not involve either resigning ourselves to Armageddon or allowing dishonest reporters like Leopold to lead the charge. To fail to do so would be a copout of all we claim to believe in.