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Yesterday we discussed the left side of the blogosphere's "Rove has been indicted" campaign, in which rumors initially flew Friday that Rove told the White House he was going to be indicted, and later that the indictments had come down on Saturday. These rumors were sparked by nothing more than two "articles" by Jason Leopold at the extreme left site TruthOut.org (here and here). I've become fond of calling them TruthOutOnALimb.org, because they've really gone out there on this one, and if they're wrong they've lost any credibility they may have had. I mean, these weren't some ambiguous articles that said "rumors are swirling in the beltway that Rove has been indicted"... The articles flat out stated it as fact, citing (you guessed it) unnamed "high level sources".

Well, as I mentioned later yesterday, Rove was in the news speaking confidently about the the upcoming 2006 midterm elections, but there was no news of these indictments. I noted in that post (via a hat tip from Hot Air) that other bloggers have all but debunked TruthOut's claims. I just checked that post out again and see AllahPundit has made a few updates, including a link to Johnny Dollar's Place, where you can listen to audio of Matt Drudge from Sunday's Drudge Radio, tearing Jason Leopold a new one.

Drudge partly takes it personally because breaking news on the internet is his life, and Jason Leopold is essentially hurting what is arguably an "industry" now, but flat out lying. And if he's not lying, the Vast Righ Wing Conspiracy strike again, by leaking false information just to make this guy look like the tool he is. I don't like having to eat my words though, so I'm still not going to go out on the limb and say that this guy is lying. As much as that seems like the case, he would have to be a complete idiot to run with this story, without any confirmation. Perhaps he is just that big of an idiot, but I'm just not willing to go that far just yet. As I said before, I give him the rest of the week to deliver.

Michelle Malkin is now weighing in on all of this, and points first to this New York Sun article. Rove's spokesman denies the rumors, and I could be wrong, but I think it would be stupid to lie about this if it were going to come out in a couple days:

A spokesman for a top White House aide under scrutiny in a criminal leak probe, Karl Rove, yesterday vigorously denied an Internet report that the political adviser to President Bush was told that he had been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

"The story is a complete fabrication," the spokesman for Mr. Rove, Mark Corallo, told The New York Sun. "It is both malicious and disgraceful."

Michelle also directs our attention to this piece from the Detroit Free Press about how this internet rumor made it to the top of the Democratic party. Can you believe these clowns?

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.

Sunday, an embarrassed Acker told me he'd passed along the report of Rove's indictment after hearing it from Mark J. Bernstein, an Ann Arbor lawyer whose resume includes a stint in the Bill Clinton White House.

Bernstein told me he was meeting with Hillary Clinton and several members of her staff in a Hyatt Regency reception room early Saturday evening when "everybody began reaching for their BlackBerrys at roughly the same time."

He insisted that simultaneous e-mails reporting Rove's indictment were based on Internet speculation, not unauthorized disclosures of grand jury proceedings.

"Did anyone speak to the special prosecutor? No. Would I have published the report? No," Bernstein said Sunday. He learned the rumor had been disseminated only when his father, prominent personal injury lawyer Sam Bernstein, phoned from the banquet hall downstairs with an excited bulletin: "Karl Rove has just been indicted!"

Even if it had been true, look at how excited these weasels were! Failure and controversy by Republicans is the only way Democrats see victory. They know that the country doesn't agree with their ideas, so they just have to hammer Republicans through their media and hope to win by default. This is nothing new, and I say it all the time. But the image of all of these giddy Democrats drooling on their BlackBerrys with ear to ear grins just sickens me. I wish the Democrats took half as much pride, and put in half as much energy in to doing what is right for the country as they put in to attacking President Bush and the GOP.

Today's Vent with Michelle Malkin at HotAir.com, focuses on what has now been deemd "Rovemania". This is definitely the best "Vent" yet, make sure you check it out. Equally hilarious is Move On and Shut Up's sarcastic live blogging of the Rove indictment.

Others:
Seixon 1, Seixon 2, Seixon 3, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Stop the ACLU, Decision '08, Outside the Beltway, SuperFun PowerHour, Protein Wisdom, IMAO, The Sandbox, Suitably Flip, The Moderate Conservative, Freedom Watch, RightWing NutHouse, Expose the Left

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