BLODGET TIME

Forget Miller. It's Mr. Henry Mckelvey Blodget time.

Now we have the CEO/Editor of Business Insider, an internet business news and analysis site, and a known lefty and Barrack Obama supporter, Henry Blodget, jumping into the Woodward brouhaha.

Writing a piece for his own site, "Oh, Please, The White House
Didn't 'Threaten' Bob Woodward," Blodget tries to play down Woodward's claim that senior officials at the White House threatened him when he apparently asked the wrong questions.

Blodget, who admitted in his blog that he hadn't seen the video where Woodward reportedly made his claim, did his best to minimize whatever Woodward said, resorting to a wad of PR and journalistic gobble-gook. Otherwise known as journalistic BS. Just what one would expect from a former Yalie who previously portrayed himself as a tech stock expert now apparently views himself as an expert on the cannons of journalism.

It was the usual trite and true, warmed-over attempt to discredit anyone who questions this administration. But here's what you need to know about Mr. Blodget, all a part of the public record.

After college and working as a free lance reporter and later as an editor at Harper's, Blodget found his way to Wall Street where he toiled as a security analyst specializing in tech stocks.

After a few intermediary stops Blodget wound up at Merrill Lynch at the height of the dot.com bubble as a sell-side analyst hawking dot.com stocks to any and all foolish enough to listen. When that bubble finally burst and the blood was running thick in the streets, the now obligatory investigation asking the usual question they always ask, What The Hell Happened? began.

One of the things that happened was computer files about dot.com stocks Blodget was blatantly pushing on the public out of one side of his mouth he was labeling POSs to insiders on his e-mails. His actions hurt a lot of people, make no mistake about that. Of course, like most of these cases, we know he's now sufficiently contrite.

But Blodget did what many of his Wall Street brethren do once the Attorney General of New York came calling: He bought his way out of jail. In 2003 he was charged with securities fraud by the SEC. True to the Wall Street code he agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry and coughed up a $2 million fine and another $2 million disgorgement, legalese for when one is forced by law to give up profits obtained by unethical, illegal acts.

But it gets better.  Blodget's first writing job after the air cleared was for the left wing rag, Slate, covering the Martha Stewart insider trading trial. But Martha didn't fare quite as well as Henry. She went off to camp in West Virginia for a brief stay.

Meanwhile, you got to hand it to Slate for giving the assignment to Blodget. They obviously recognized a universal truth: It takes one to know one.

One of the things you should also note is throughout this entire blog we never called Mr. Blodget a former crook.