Man accused of fraud blames Karl Rove

[cynatnite]

NEW YORK - Attorneys for a man accused of fraud say he was charged at the behest of presidential adviser Karl Rove in retaliation for a flood of spam e-mails sent to a campaign Web site. A federal prosecutor says the claim is "absurd."

Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Siegal urged U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain on Monday to reject arguments that Rove caused the criminal investigation that led to charges against Robert McAllister.

Siegal said lawyers for McAllister made the "patently absurd argument that the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District is a shill for Karl Rove and has arrested and indicted their client in some sort of vindictive retaliation."

McAllister's lawyer Gerald L. Shargel said Monday he plans to try to call Rove as a witness, if the court allows it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060912/ap_on_re_us/presidential_spam

[Richard Steele]

1. I notice they don't actually DENY the claim.

They use a lot of adjectives to describe the claim,
but "untrue" is not among them.

Just sayin....

[longship]

2. Ah! The old non-denial denial trick again.

It seems that was used as a benchmark some time in the past...
Like some time in the early 70's...
Like by a certain prominent newspaper senior editor...

You may be on to something here.

[Richard Steele]

3. That old "non-denial denial"...hmm, kinda rings a bell...

Wherever might we have seen this before?

[longship]

4. Ben Bradlee, 1973

WaPo used it as a metric to ignore WH complaints any time they heard "non-denial denials".