Guest blogged by DES…
Just thought we would take a moment to applaud the stellar work of Josh Marshall and his reporters over at Talking Points Memo and sister site TPM Muckraker, for their dogged pursuit of the truth underlying the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys — a story that has led to serious questions over the prosecutorial independence of the U.S. Department of Justice. (This isn’t Marshall’s first time at the rodeo — the “Duke” Cunningham and Jack Abramoff scandals also sprung from Marshall’s keyboard, among others back when the MSM didn’t find them worth much of their time.)
Saturday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times gives credit where credit is due, acknowledging Marshall & Company’s stellar work — in a huge feature story on the front page, no less!
The bloggers used the usual tools of good journalists everywhere “” determination, insight, ingenuity “” plus a powerful new force that was not available to reporters until blogging came along: the ability to communicate almost instantaneously with readers via the Internet and to deputize those readers as editorial researchers, in effect multiplying the reporting power by an order of magnitude.
In December, Josh Marshall, who owns and runs TPM , posted a short item linking to a news report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the firing of the U.S. attorney for that state. Marshall later followed up, adding that several U.S. attorneys were apparently being replaced and asked his 100,000 or so daily readers to write in if they knew anything about U.S. attorneys being fired in their areas.
For the two months that followed, Talking Points Memo and one of its sister sites, TPM Muckraker, accumulated evidence from around the country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be behind the firings.
Hopefully Mainstream Corporate Media denizens will take a cue from the LA Times and cite the blogs they use as sources. Give credit where it is due. It’s really not that hard. Maybe now the MSM can all move on from the ridiculous old vs. new journalism feud-mentality and get on with the pursuit of the truth.
Congratulations to Talking Points Memo and TPM Muckraker. You guys rock.
(Photo credit: Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times)
I have been listening to Feinstein (D-Cal) presenting S. 214 to restore Senate consent and advise as to the appointing of US Attorneys.
The most astounding thing I heard, so far, is that the law allowing the Attorney General to appoint new US Attorneys without Senate approval was fraudulently placed into the bill wihout the Senate being aware of it.
In other words after the real law had been agreed to by both Senate and House, a few republicans rewrote the law and/or added the provision without the House or the Senate knowing about it.
This has got to be a blockbuster in itself!
Congrats to TPM and Josh.
I wanted to clear up one thing in this weeks scandal list, the US Attorney firings, and why crimes were committed. I want to show that it was not simple “political exercises” that were done.
There are many facets to the notion of obstruction of justice, but lets focus on this one:
(18 U.S.C. 1503(a), emphasis added). Since any US Attorney is an “officer of the court” under the criminal statute above, any attempt to influence or steer them in a direction away from a prosecution in the pursuit of justice is a felony.
We know that Senator Dominici (R-NM) made such threats, and that at least three other US Attorneys that were fired received illegal influences that tried to get them to stop prosecuting republicans and instead prosecute democrats.
That is a crime pure and simple.
WOW! This is huge. Big brother over at Tribune Co. must be pissed. Just shows the difficulties involved in managing from afar. Whether it be Iraq from D.C. or L.A. from Chicago or Jerusalem from Rome – it just doesn’t work.
Speaking of not working, how do these articles continue to harp on the language used by bloggers. Has no one listened to conservative talk radio or watched Fox News lately. I guess it’s okay to be nasty, racist, homophobic, 24/7 hate-monger as long as you don’t, god forbid, use the word fuck.
Nice to see TPM get recognized. In a perfect world, Brad is next. Oh, and Jonah Goldberg gets fired, and Robert Scheer gets his column back.
I’ll bet Josh Marshall has to work on a shoestring budget too.