Jason Leopold has shocked the progressive blogosphere with the
relevation yesterday that Karl Rove has
already been indicted by Fitzgerald in the Plamegate affair. No one else in the media has this explosive story, and that lack of corroboration has led to ongoing analysis in the comments sections of various diaries as to whether Jason Leopold is a credible reporter who can be trusted.
Since we're clearly not going to get any new news on Karl Rove tonight, I thought, as a substitute, we can look at Jason Leopold. Is Jason Leopold simply a scalawag with a sketchy past filled with journalistic errors who should not be trusted? Or is he a reformed offender who has turned his life around and is on his way to grabbing a Pulitzer for aggressive reporting?
I have no idea. I certainly hope it's the latter, since I have an abiding belief in the ability of people to learn from their mistakes, especially when they examine them openly and honestly. In any event,
here is a good article on Leopold, with background for those of you who are wondering how much stock to put in this story of Rove's impending indictment:
In late August 2002 Salon reported a major scoop: An e-mail linked then Army secretary Thomas White, a former executive at Enron, to an effort to cover the massive losses at the energy giant. White's supposed message instructed a subordinate: "Close a bigger deal. Hide the loss before the 1Q [first-quarter report]."
By early October, the scoop was scrapped: Salon retracted the story, saying it was "unable to independently confirm the authenticity" of the e-mail. What looked like a direct link between the Bush administration and the Enron debacle was shredded, and the career of Jason Leopold--the author of the piece--was destroyed.
Now Leopold has written a book that casts that episode as just one drama in a tumultuous life that includes years of drug addiction, a felony conviction Leopold hid from his employers, getting fired from a Los Angeles Times community paper for threatening a reporter, and leaving Dow Jones Energy Service after an inaccurate story got Leopold pulled from the Enron beat.
"This is stuff that I've really hidden my whole life," Leopold tells the Voice, adding that the book "really allowed me to purge all those feelings. I want to make sure I come across as totally, 100 percent honest."
I hope Leopold is being totally, 100 percent honest now, and that his report on Karl Rove is vindicted this week. We shall see.