Libby: Leftly Leaning - Monday, February 12th

Over at MainWebReport, Lance Dutson battles the urge to purge after watching MSNBC’s tragically incomplete coverage [1] of Russert’s testimony which has so far glossed over or ignored compelling reasons to doubt [1] his account.

Eric Brewer at BTC News chastises the blogosphere for buying into Team Libby’s red herring against Russert noting that, regardless of who is on the stand, defaulting in favor of press freedom [2] is the right thing to do.

John Amato at C&L presents Mary Matalin’s theater of the absurd [3].

As the trial continues to expose the circus of leaks in 2003 [4], Creative Ink’s Wendy Hoke explores how “Big Journalism was talking out of both sides of its collective mouth.”

Jeralyn at TalkLeft explores the debate over whether Andrea Mitchell will testify [5] at the Libby trial.

Parsing two key points the defense plans to make [6], John at AmericaBlog sounds the BS alarm.

Noting GOP assassin Barabra Comstock’s surprise trial guest [7], Digby wonders whether it is “too much to ask that reporters refrain from actually sleeping with the people they are supposed to be covering?”

Atrios weighs in on Russert’s role as White House stenographer [8].

Describing Fitzgerald’s closing witness as two trials in one, Arianna Huffington notes that this is not choosing between two evils – “Scooter Libby lied and lied and lied to Patrick Fitzgerald” and Russert is guilty of journalistic malfeasance. “Two thoughts, both true -- and not remotely mutually exclusive [9].”

Finally, in part five of a continuing series, eriposte explores one of the key unsolved mysteries of the African uranium scandal [10].

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