The 60 Minutes piece on Karl Rove is straight from the Times-on-McCain school of slipshod journalism. Quin Hillyer asks the unasked questions:
But as a journalistic sin, the prominent attention given to [former Arizona AG Grant] Woods is child’s play compared to the airing of the utterly bizarre allegation by ditzy-sounding Alabama attorney (and supposed one-time Republican “operative”) Dana Jill Simpson that Karl Rove “approached” her at a 2001 “meeting” and asked her to try to photograph Siegelman in sexual acts with an aide. On air at least, though, 60 Minutes did not even bother to ask her the most obvious of follow-up questions to test her story. Such as: Exactly where did this supposed meeting take place? Exactly when in 2001? Was anybody else present? What was the meeting about? Why did Rove have any reason to think she, of all people, could find Siegelman in flagrante, much less photograph him? Did Rove ever follow-up with her to find out if she had been successful? Did she tell anybody else at the time about Rove’s supposed request? And so on….