HuffPo Heavyweight Asked To Retract Report on Slain Rove IT Guru "Conspiracy Theories"

updated by editor-in-chief Rob Kall at 2:00 PM EST 12/26/2008. Make sure you read the update. It's very good news. 

The "intriguing" death of top GOP IT guru Mike Connell was covered today by Political Editor Thomas Edsall on Huffington Post.

Unlike the CBSNews website treatment which balanced pertinent facts and analysis, Edsall lists the sites who literally broke the story: Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, Velvet Revolution, ePluribus Media and others, but then dismisses them all as "conspiracy theorists on the web".

If you click through the links, you'll see some pretty shocking revelations - proof that suggests official 2004 election night reporting was tampered with between midnight and 2AM when Kerry's lead turned into a Bush lead after the flow of data was intercepted from official state servers to servers in Connell's Chatanooga, TN office.

Edsall also leaves out that Connell was running the Bush campaign website and Swift Boat Vets smear-job website as he was hired to create a reporting system for the State of Ohio's election results. This glaring conflict-of-interest should be a huge headline here and and is "substantiated" by Connell's firm being listed as the administrative and technical contacts for the domain registration.

New in Edsall's post are comments obtained from Connell's wife Heather who seems to believe Connell was squeaky clean and skeptics are mistaken that there was tampering with the 2004 Ohio vote.

Larisa Alexandrovna, however, feels Mrs. Connell was "out of the loop" despite being listed as part or full owner of many of Connell's companies. (We wonder if Mrs. Connell might be turning over all Connells data backups to Connell's "old friends" or destroying them rather then turning them over to the courts.)

Edsall neglects the crucial claim by Alexandrovna that Connell and his wife were "worried" and had agreed to help her present the unfolding scandal, meeting with her at their home.

After poring through the reporting done at Velvet Revolution, BradBlog and ePluribus Media I see a sober, restrained treatment of the facts and analysis making a strong case for further investigation. Blackwell is named in the current suit ahead of Rove when tipsters came to Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck's team accusing Rove of intimidation.

After the July 17 news conference announcing Connell was a witness concerning Rove, Jeff Averbeck, President of Connell's firm SmarTech informed prosecutors that Rove conveyed Connell would not recieve a pardon and that his wife would be prosecuted for fraud unless Connell "took the fall".

As Connell's Nov. 3 deposition date neared, Arnebeck was told Connell was "in danger" according to a high placed "credible" source within the 2008 McCain campaign.

Arnebeck then filed a brief to AG Mukasey claiming Connell had been threatened by Rove, requesting witness protection. Connell's lawyers requested testimony of threats against Connell be sealed. Additional witnesses spoke of Connell canceling flights, concerned with rumors of sabotage, as reported on Ohio's WOIO TV News.

Did Edsall debunk these accounts or just feel they were not worth mention?

Lastly, Edsall neglects mention of the startling lack of coverage of the story. HuffPo had it immediately, but it was days later before CBSNews became the first and only network to mention it, in part mirroring the information on the watchdog blogs - does that make CBSNews a conspiracy theorist site?

CNN's Lou Dobbs filmed a segment with Cliff Arnebeck but it hasn't aired as CNN is "still working on it".

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