Wash Post, Newsweek snookered by "anonymous source"

Huffington Post

"Take the way that both the Washington Post and Newsweek obediently, and ineptly, passed on -- and thus gave credence to -- the Bush party line that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s hesitancy to declare a state of emergency had prevented the feds from responding to the crisis more rapidly.

The Post, citing an anonymous “senior Bush official”, reported on Sunday that, as of Saturday, Sept. 3, Blanco “still had not declared a state of emergency”… when, in fact, the declaration had been made on Friday, August 26 -- over 2 days BEFORE Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. This claim was so demonstrably false that the paper was forced to issue a correction just hours after the original story appeared.

So here are a couple of questions: 1) Had everyone in the WaPo fact checking department gone out of town for the Labor Day weekend? I mean, c’mon, the announcement of a state of emergency isn’t exactly the kind of thing government officials tend to keep a secret. 2) Why were the Post reporters so willing to blindly accept the words of an administration official who obviously had a partisan agenda -- and to grant this official anonymity?"

One guess about who that "senior Bush official" was.

Rove, you say?

Bingo.