When "close enough" isn't quite

Get it first, get it right or just don't get it.

Published May 22, 2006 8:27PM (EDT)

How hard can it be to get things right?

Matt Drudge reported earlier today that Al Gore and his "entourage" took five cars to travel the 500 yards from their hotel in Cannes, France, to the theater where "An Inconvenient Truth" was being screened. As Think Progress reports this afternoon, a Gore spokesman says the former vice president and his associates walked to the screening.

Drudge also reported this morning that the Democratic National Committee "secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the reelection efforts of incumbent Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin." The DNC says the report is "unequivocally and absolutely false," and Drudge now says that he takes DNC chairman Howard Dean and his spokesman "at their word."

In defense of his claim that Karl Rove has already been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to federal investigators, Truthout's Jason Leopold said last week that he had "five sources" to back him up. In its latest defense of the story, Truthout says it "now" has "three independent sources" who confirm what Rove's team denies -- that Rove's lawyers were given a copy of his indictment on May 12 or 13.

Wayne Madsen, who has been running hard with the "Rove indicted" ball, checks out that Friday's daily calendar for the U.S. District Court in Washington and notes one case called "U.S. v. Sealed" and several more called "Sealed v. Sealed." Could one of those involve a Rove indictment kept under seal while Rove and Patrick Fitzgerald work out a plea deal or while the Bush administration intervenes to fight off an indictment? Could be, but maybe it's worth noting that a search of the U.S. District Court's database reveals more than a thousand cases with such "sealed" captions over the past couple of decades.

Finally, the Note raised a tantalizing question this morning. Just what was Karl Rove doing that Friday evening at O'Hare, the airport that serves the city where Patrick Fitzgerald usually works. Wonkette has the not-so-interesting answer: He was headed to a fundraiser for Republicans in a northern Chicago suburb.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

MORE FROM Tim Grieve


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Al Gore Karl Rove Matt Drudge War Room