What do you do when your heavily hyped book plummets from number 6 on the New York Times bestseller list to a mere 299 on Amazon.com in just a matter of a few weeks? If you're Valerie Plame, you turn to discredited "journalist" Jason Leopold for self-hype help as you can see in this video. Howard Kurtz has written of Leopold's dubious background in a March 9, 2005 Washington Post article:

Jason Leopold got a journalistic black eye three years ago when Salon retracted a story the freelancer had written about a Bush administration official, saying it could not authenticate the piece.

Now the former Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones reporter has written a book, "Off the Record," that criticizes journalists as lazy. Oh, and by the way, Leopold says he engaged in "lying, cheating and backstabbing," is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life.

With the announcement of Karl Rove resigning his position from the White House, it is time to revisit that infamous report by MSNBC's David Shuster who on Keith Olbermann's Countdown show on May 8, 2006 flatly stated:

I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted.

When a month later it was announced that Rove would not be indicted, a sheepish Shuster came up with several lame excuses for his monumental misreporting as chronicled by NewsBusters editor Brent Baker in his June 13, 2006 post. Under questioning by Countdown substitute host, Brian Unger, Shuster began by blaming the defense lawyers for his embarrassing error:

Two media tidbits today. Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports: "Count Larry King among Katie Couric’s fans. The venerable CNN host watches the new anchor of the CBS Evening News and thinks her ratings struggles have more to do with gender than with journalism. "It might still be hard for a woman to anchor the evening news," King says. "And that’s sad."

King also said it may take a major news event to help the former Today host shed her perky image: "Hurricane Katrina made Anderson Cooper. It could happen to Katie that way." (Larry slammed O'Reilly and Nancy Grace here.)

On Howard Kurtz's chat at washingtonpost.com, Kurtz was asked about the MSNBC v. Fox fight, specifically mentioning that O'Reilly has some liberals on his show (as foils, usually, he claimed), and Olbermann doesn't generally have conservatives on his show. A questioner asked:

Leopold (left) and Johnson.

The Jason Leopold sock puppet scandal continues to expand as Seixon, the blogger at the center of the scandal has received a death threat and a threatening email telling him to stop exposing the nutjobs pushing the Valerie Plame scandal.

Since I last updated NB readers on this story (you really need the post to understand this one), Leopold or a minion posted more of Sexion's personal information as well as his parents' address and his mother's name late night on his blog and at Ace of Spades, ensuring it would remain overnight.

Sexion then received an email apparently from Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and state department guy who now seems to spend his time peddling conspiracy theories and promoting Jason Leopold and Joe Wilson. After divulging more of Seixon's personal information, Johnson all but threatened the blogger to stop his reporting

Jason Leopold

If there ever were a contest for the most deranged left-wing journalist, the guy with the biggest head start would have to be Jason Leopold, the fabulist most recently embarrassed for his phony report that White House aide Karl Rove had been indicted May 12. Since his journalism was exposed as fraudulent, he's been on a tear lashing out at anyone daring to question him.

But Leopold hasn't stopped there. Most recently, he's been involved in complicated sock puppet scandal, posting comments defending himself under pseudonyms on various blogs, disclosing others' private information, and hurling around accusations of forgery and pedophilia. Instead of being alone in his deranged quest, however, Leopold seems to have a few others helping him in his quest for truth, including Larry Johnson, an obsessed former CIA employee who has become known as one of the most quoted defenders of Bush-hater Joe Wilson. Leopold's retinue also seems to include his former colleague at the leftist news site RawStory, Larisa Alexandrovna.

The whole affair was uncovered by the Seixon blog (here and here), run by a formerly anonymous American blogger living in Norway whose identity was exposed by Leopold's monkeys.

The story begins where any tale of leftist idiocy should begin, at the Daily Kos, where Leopold's false reports had finally begun to attract suspicion from the community.

I'd like to revisit the comedic styling of one Jason Leopold. Now, maybe you haven't heard of Leopold, or maybe all that comes to mind is the Bugs Bunny cartoon ("Leopold, LEOPOLD, leopold") but Jason is a hero to journalists. He writes the stories that other journalists won't touch, for websites other journalists won't admit to reading, like CounterPunch, Common Dream, Truthout.org, you know, your typical moonbat hangouts. Sure he's had some anti-Bush stories retracted by Salon.com, he may have dabbled in plagiarism, and he has the average liberal reporter's issues with drug addition, mental illness, suicide, and lying to employers, but he's still a journalist's journalist.

Let's take a moment to look back and enjoy the journalism excellence of Jason Leopold.

Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted
By Jason Leopold
Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent.