Jason Leopold, Sockpuppet Extraordinaire

By DHinMI

I had hoped Jason Leopold would just go away.  It's clear from his own statements in various places that he's struggled with some substance abuse and mental illness issues.  He has my sympathy for this.  But he's now become a bigger story because he's made such grandiose claims about having deep sources all through the government and somewhere among the investigators or investigated in the Valerie Plame outing.  So it's time to come forward and give you some evidence with which to assess Jason Leopold's credibility.  I'll refrain from making conclusions, but it's worth putting out there for people to assess. 

On January 14, 2006 in an excellent post emptywheel closely examined an article by Leopold in which she demonstrated his claims were not supported by his sources.  Leopold showed up in the thread, and things got interesting.  Leopold called me a pussy.  Some guy named Tom Marconi claiming to be former CIA threatened commenter jonnybutter.  Andy Gumbel, a writer at the Guardian, vouched for Leopold.  And someone named Adam Yorkshire shilled for Leopold's book. 

But here's the problem.  If all these comments came from different people, they appear to have all spent that evening together, because all those comments came from just two ISP addresses.

All eight comments from Jason Leopold came from the same ISP address.  (Typepad allows the administrator of a blog to see the ISP address comments come from, as well as ban by that ISP.)  That ISP was also the address from which we recieved all three comments by Adam Yorkshire.  And so did the second comment from Tom Marconi, the one where he threatened jonnybutter.  But the first comment from Tom Marconi, as well as the comments by Andy Gumbel and Joshua Klein, originated from a different but common ISP address.  Thus, one Marconi comment came from the same ISP address as all the Leopold and Yorkshire comments, and those are connected to the Gumbel and Klein comments by the other Marconi comment. 

One could conclude quite easily that Jason Leopold wrote all those comments himself.  It would not be out of character, for on another thread a few months later Leopold admitted to posting comments on TNH under the moniker Harry Shep.  The ISP address from which Leopold posted his mea culpa was, in fact, the origin of the comments on this thread by HS, and the comments by Harry Shep on these two posts.  But I'll only go as far as we can be sure from the evidence here, and just say that at best it's peculiar that Jason Leopold spent the evening with all these characters, and they posted on emptywheel's thread as if they weren't all together, going so far in one case to claim to have been directed to the thread by Larry Johnson. 

Does this mean Jason Leopold is wrong in his claims regarding the Plame investigation leading to an indictment of Karl Rove?  No.  Does it mean that he's a reliable source, and someone from whom one should expect credibility, integrity, and care with sources?  I think that answer is obvious, but again, I'll let you draw your own conclusion. 

Comments

[Ksh01]

I think excitement about both Leopold's article and his character are premature. If he's lying, his career is over. If he's been mislead, his credibility is at stake and he says he'll out his sources. If he's right, it's all good. I agree he shouldn't have called you a pussy, but you were coming on agressively at him. He apologized. Why can't we just wait to see what happens?

[DemFromCT]

You miss the point, Ksh01. DHinMI could care less about namecalling.

However, posting as multiple people, or putting others up to do so, is grounds for banning on virtually every blog that takes comments. And the hit to your cred is huge. Leopold sells stories based on assumptions about credibility... of sources of facts, etc.

Think about it.

[DHinMI]

Um, what he did or didn't call me is largely irrelevant. The issue here is whether anyone should feel comfortable trusting the veracity of someone prone to such pathological deceptions.

[ck]

Jason Leopold has become the Drudge of the TreasonGate story -- that ought to be worth a seven figure advance from Regnery publishing, or some other hacktacular right wing outfit that pays big bucks to anyone that will smear critics of the preznit and other upstanding . . .

oh, wait . . .

[DHinMI]

You're right that he's right up the alley for the right's favorite propoganda mill. Fortunately for us we don't have an equivalent.

[viget]

Here's what I don't get about JL.

IF he's as unreliable as we are wont to believe (and I will say that his behavior leads one to wonder), then WHY do his editors continue to stick behind him?

And, FWIW, and I know most people probably put Laris Alexandrova in the same category as Leopold too, she says his sources are good on this particular story too.

And supposedly Larry Johnson's heard much the same from Joe Wilson.

So, we've got (supposedly) 3 independent confirmations of the KR about to be indicted story. A lot of people will have egg on their face if this is not true.

I honestly don't know who to believe. If it were just Leopold, I'd probably discount it.... but Joe Wilson too? Makes you wonder.

In any case, if the story bears out, I would not be surprised if it didn't shake down exactly as Leopold described on Friday. If he embellishes, I'm certain that it's mostly with the details, but maybe he gets the big picture right.

[Rayne]

Did you run a WhoIs on the addresses?

[DHinMI]

One was in LA, the other I couldn't find anything out about.

[ab initio]

I'm not sure why the blogs spend much time giving JL so much airplay. I understand the appetite for Treasongate. That's why folks like me frequent TNH. TalkLeft has dug into this "scoop" by actually speaking with some of the actors and all we have are denials. At this stage I would not give this "scoop" much credence. And further more I would take whatever JL dishes with a huge dollop of salt.

[jonnybutter]

That was the weirdest night I've ever had in the 'sphere. It was an object lesson - what holds in regular 'analog' life also holds in the 'sphere: never argue with someone who's feeling crazy, because it's bound to make YOU crazy, too. I, too, have no ill will for the guy, but I'm not believing anything he says until it's confirmed elsewhere.

[Robbie]

Progressive blogs and the community of readers and commenters associated with them have been falsely painted as being rude, untrustworthy, politically immature and a dire threat to reasonable dialog and the responsible distribution of information by pro pundits and others who are threatened by this countervailing balance to the monopoly on political analysis and commentary the corporate media has long enjoyed and abused. The truth is that blogs like TNH, DKos, FDL, and others have been most responsible and this post is a fine case in point. We need to keep a critical eye on the MSM and on those closer to home as well.
Maybe Leopold is on to something. But there is reason to be skeptical. Thanks DHinMI for putting this information on the table for us to consider.

[SharonW]

I don't want to argue anyone's side of the case, but I clicked through to the thread where the argument went down and was very surprised to see Leopold say this:

So, after being advised that the NSA was spying on Americans after 9/11, Bush allowed the NSA to continue doing what it had been doing and he went a step further, according to MY sources, and told the NSA to keep the names handy.

The agency, by law, is supposed to black out the names of Americans but it didn't. It kept those names in the system and provided it to certain members of the administration. That was done before 9/11 and Russ Tice will agree to that.

Considering just today I saw this on the ABC's "Bush is Spying on the Press" site:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/

May 15, 2006 9:47 AM

NSA Whistleblower To Allege Unlawful Acts, Name Hayden
Vic Walter Reports:

NSA whistleblower Russ Tice says he will tell Congress Wednesday of probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts involving the agency's former director, Gen. Michael Hayden

Sounds like he had a pretty damn good source to me. It also sounds like maybe we'll find out for certain. Clearly, it has already been proven that this thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Maybe it was just getting too big to properly explain as it got leaked in bits and pieces.

[falcone1204]

Thanks for filling us in, DHinMI. I think it's good to have this on the record (although I think the term that will eclipse 'on the record' soon is 'googlable'.)

And to the commenter who said he wouldn't be surprised to see it play out just as Leopold said, he is already off his timeline. The "business hours" thing was just a desperate grasp for lifeline when his original 24 hours had played out. Notice that people were already asking questions soon after the story ran, but he didn't make his change until Sunday, after it was clear that his original meaning, 24 hours, had been proven false.

Just for the record, I'm less alarmed by people who post under more than one alias than by people who post under more than one alias in the same thread, pretending to back "each other" up and eliminate dissent. I had at some point posted things that might have alarmed my employer, and begin posting elsewhere under a different name, and now the two names are established, and I haven't seen much point in getting rid of them.

So for the record, and for anyone who wants a little amusement to cut the tension of the Leopold saga, here's a link to a piece by my sockpuppet, ne plus ultra.:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/15/0449/77448

[falcone]

I think I just figured out the strategy behind Leopold's commitment to burn his sources on the Rove indictment if they're wrong.

He'll announce that his sources were former CIA agent Tom Marconi, Andy Gumbel of the Guardian, and Adam Yorkshire.

[marky]

Remember, when Rove wanted to destroy the Bush cocaine story, he leaked to a very weak person, who could not stand up to an attack. It would make perfect sense to leak disinformation to Leopold, since he is apparently mentally unstable.

[Jim E.]

viget,
When you write that Larissa Alexandrova says Leopold's sources are good for this particular story, by "story," do you mean Plamegate generally, or his specific report on ROve's supposed indictment on Saturday? Because RawStory hasn't linked to Leopold's Saturday story. I know he no longer writes for RawStory, but they've been linking to his truthout stuff. Well, except for this last story, which I find suspicious.

Also, the idea that Joe Wilson knows anything about what supposedly happened on Friday strains belief. Why would Joe Wilson be privvy to a particular Luskin-Rove-Fitz conversation? He wouldn't. Throwing his name into the mix doesn't bolster Leopold's report in the least.

Finally, I find DHinMI's post to be rather illuminating. While I was vaguely aware of Leopold's previous aliases, I didn't realize he had a Mary Rosh thing going (a la John Lott). Ouch. And of course there's his Tom White/Krugman disaster from a few years ago. Maybe he figures any publicity--even bad--is good now that he has a new book to push. I'm hoping Leopold's correct, but it looks like I'll have to find another reason to open my bottle cheap champagne.

[SharonW]

Just to throw another monkey wrench into the mix, this from David Corn:

I've been trying not to be drawn into the rumor vortex. (A friend emailed to say that a lawyer involved in the leak case speculated that Rove would be indicted this coming Friday.)

http://www.davidcorn.com/

Now, Corn didn't write an entire article about it, and even he admits this to being rumor. Nonetheless, which lawyer could this be? And certainly, nobody would trash Corn's veracity.

[falcone]

Jim E.

Good points, and I'd just add, if Joe Wilson, who famously said he'd like to see Rove "frogmarched", giving us the quote we so gleefully repeat ... if Joe Wilson heard what Leopold heard, and considered it credible -- the Joe Wilson of the Times piece and the Esquire profile -- you think he'd be confirming it by telling some former CIA agent "you can say I heard that too."

He'll be inviting the entire left blogosphere to his house for celebratory drinks. He'll be kissing emptywheel on the lips. He'll be lighting a bonfire in his backyard with scripts from NSA wiretaps, and setting off fireworks smuggled in for al-Qaeda but intercepted by enterprising amateurs because the Bush intelligence services were too busy settling political scores.

When Joe Wilson hears Rove has already been secretly indicted, we won't learn about it through some obscure source. Believe me.

[DHinMI]

Falcone ne plus ultra:
I think I implied the distincition your distinction, but thanks for making it overt. I have no big issue with more than one identity, my issue is what you spell out, the multiple identities playing off of each other on the same thread, or even not being on the same thread but presenting themselves as if they were more than one person and speaking of each other in the third person.

[DHinMI]

Sharon,

That makes me think of when Raw Story was breaking the story about the Popes death. Everyone knew he was on his deathbed, so at a certain point it was almost informed guesswork, and if you were wrong at that moment, just wait a few hours and he was going to die anyway.

[orionATL]

i have followed and greatly enjoyed talk left's trail of tribulation trying to get to the bottom of leopold's "rove was indicted" story.

whether leopold's account is true or not,

talk left's experience running it to ground provides a great blow-by-blow account of how an "inquiring mind" goes about checking on who said what to whom and when.

talk left, probably from deep experience, was appropriately cautious about putting too much credence in leopold's story.

but it was a big story, if true, and talk left followed thru to see if there might be merit to it.

taken together, the set of two (or three) talk left posts is an educational read - and fun too.

as for leopold's story, i don't know if he is right or wrong.

from my personal point of view there is no,

repeat no,

news story that is not suspect until the info is "replicated" more than once by other news sources.

it is very helpful and, for me, very informative, for the next hurrah to describe its experiences with jason leopold.

it serves as useful background to evaluate his work.

recently i saw a set of similar comments on another much maligned source, capitol hill blue.

this site too is, apparently, not much trusted based on prior experience with its material.

nonetheless,

no reader knows who is using whom at any one moment. nor who is in possession of truth, whether by brilliant analysis or lucky contrivance.

it's more a matter of letting a lot of things play out.

so let leopold and domenach write and publish.

with an enormous river of information constantly flowing to us,

and information exchange occurring at a rapid pace via weblogs,

in time we can sort out the accurate from the inaccurate.

the problem for this society is not with individuals like leopold or domenech, who may manufacture fact to meet personal need,

it is from the carefully planned deceptions like those behind (lying behind, maybe?)

the iraq invasion deception,

the net neutrality deception,

the attack on contraception deception,

the global not-warming deception,

that present information puzzles that are difficult and time consuming for posters, commmenters, and readers to solve.

[John Casper]

Sharon, what Leopold misleading labels "sources," are emptywheel, viget, TM, Jeff, PollyUSA, PLuk, Jane Hamsher, ReddHedd, aka Christy, and many other fine Plameologists at tnh, FDL, DKos, and around the web. That"s why the broad edges of his stuff survive.
Please review again those threads DHinMI linked to. Jason isn"t simply commenting randomly as someone other than himself. He is pretending to be someone who is neutral, in support of himself. I could comment again here under a different name, praising my own, original comment to illustrate it what he does, but I won"t.
Leopold stated in a radio interview yesterday? that if his sources are not confirmed by tomorrow or Wednesday, that he will "out" them. Since he does not have any sources, other than the one"s he reads on the blogs, I suspect he will "out" people in Luskin"s office, for example, who have never met him, but who would have knowledge of this information, if it existed. IMO these people will then scream that Leopold is a damned liar, to which Jason, will respond, that they are making stuff up, because they are embarrassed.
Meanwhile, Leopold is drawing oxygen away from other stories that need to be told, credit away from those who deserve it, and helping promote the "fever swamp" label that the wingnuts want to hang on the really great progressive blogs, such as tnh.
emptywheel, I hope people in charge of the Kos panel have securtiy with his picture to insure that he does not have access to anything.
I applaud you for this fine post DHinMI. It helps imo if the liberal blogs can identify Jason"s pattern of manipulation. I thought your example on the pope"s death reporting was a perfect example.
OT, I like marky"s comment, the guy needs professional help.

[John Casper]

sorry first sentence should be "misleadingly labels".

[coloradobl]

falcone/ne plus ultra -- The diary you posted on dKos last night (jason leopold, will pitt,and the dozen eyes) is hysterical -- even more so tonight than last night. I hope it gets lots of attention.

For those who need a chance to laugh until they cry, I recommend a little visit to http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/15/0449/77448

[DHinMI]

Sheesh, coloradobl, I read your comment, looked away, and then I couldn't remember who wrote it, and I wondered if Falcone was complimenting ne plus ultra.

This stuff is getting oh so confusing...