Plame Lawsuit - Fox News lets Novak spin

Summary: In announcing that Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame had filed a lawsuit against Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Karl Rove, Fox News host Shepard Smith uncritically stated that Robert Novak "was on this network yesterday saying there was no concerted campaign to out Plame as a way of punishing her husband." But Smith omitted special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's findings that a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" had been intended to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson.

As Fox News host Shepard Smith announced that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, ex-CIA officer Valerie Plame, have filed a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and White House senior adviser Karl Rove, Smith uncritically stated that Fox News analyst and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak "was on this network yesterday saying there was no concerted campaign to out Plame as a way of punishing her husband." Smith made the statement on the July 13 edition of Fox News' Studio B with Shepard Smith. In the lawsuit, Wilson and Plame accuse Cheney, Rove, and Libby of leaking Plame's identity as a CIA operative and effectively ending her career. Wilson and Plame contend that the three were retaliating against Wilson for criticizing the administration's justifications for invading Iraq. But Smith did not report that -- contrary to Novak's assertion that there was no "concerted campaign to out Plame as a way of punishing her husband" -- special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has, in court filings, asserted the existence of a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson, as Media Matters has noted.

From the July 13 edition of Fox News' Studio B with Shepard Smith:

SMITH: There is breaking news now on Fox News Channel. And the former CIA officer whose identity was linked [sic: leaked] to reporters has just filed a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, along with his former top aide, Scooter Libby, and the presidential adviser Karl Rove. She is accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. It's a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, are accusing Cheney, Rove, and Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity and seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq. Columnist Bob Novak, who is a Fox News contributor, was on this network yesterday saying there was no concerted campaign to out Plame as a way of punishing her husband, Joe Wilson, but that is the news, as it is breaking now. Valerie Plame suing the vice president of the United States in addition to his top adviser and Karl Rove.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200607130010

New York Post Confirms Ann Coulter Is A Plagiarist

An article in yesterday's New York Post confirms what we have been reporting here (via Raw Story and Rude Pundit) for several weeks: that Ann Coulter plagiarized sections of her new book. In fact, the Post article also found "patterns of cribbing" in Coulter's Universal Press columns over the past 12 months.

In addition to being a plagiarist, Ann Coulter is currently facing a legal investigation for voter fraud in Palm Beach, Florida. Coulter may have lied about her address on her voter registration there. Yet, she recently announced on Hannity & Colmes that she lives in New York. As Brad Blog has noted, that may open her up to charges of tax fraud, as well.

Story here

Coulter Affirms Prevous Statement About Bombing 'NYT' Office

In a letter to E&P earlier this week, Lee Salem, the new president of Universal Syndicate, responded to a critical column about his client, Ann Coulter, by E&P's Dave Astor. Salem suggested that Coulter was a brilliant satirist who does not mean it when she periodically wishes violence or even death on liberals and other "traitors."

The next day, in a New York weekly, Coulter refuted the notion that she is only joking, and on Thursday night the subject came up again when she appeared on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes."

Allan Colmes mentioned Salem's claim, and asked her if she wanted to take back an earlier statement that Timothy McVeigh should have bombed The New York Times office, especially if the reporters were inside.

"No, I think the Timothy McVeigh line was merely prescient after The New York Times has leapt beyond -- beyond nonsense straight into treason, last week," Coulter replied.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002765267

Rush Limbaugh distorts: "We now have a treaty with Al-Qaeda!"

On his June 30th radio show, impotent recovering drug addict and right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh discussed the recent Supreme Court decision Hamdan v. Rumsfeld with this summary:

"[T]his decision to impose by judicial fiat essentially a treaty that no politically accountable official would dare even propose is precisely what's happened here. We now have a treaty with Al-Qaeda, the US Supreme Court's established one. We're working here on an Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights."

http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=7055

Yep. According to Rush upholding the Geneva Conventions is making a treaty with the terrorists.

All the Supreme Court ruling did was allow for TRIALS to happen. Bush did say something about bringing justice to these terrorists, right? If we are truly better than the terrorists (which I think we are), then we can give them a fair trial, right?