TPM picks up on this revealing gem from the House Oversight Committee's report (.pdf) on Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman: Karl Rove exchanged e-mails
July 14, 2008

TPM picks up on this revealing gem from the House Oversight Committee's report (.pdf) on Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

Although immediate requests for comment from Fournier, who is now the AP's acting Washington D.C. bureau chief, were not returned, a later AP article on the matter gets him on the record:

"I was an AP political reporter at the time of the 2004 e-mail exchange, and was interacting with a source, a top aide to the president, in the course of following an important and compelling story. I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."

It would be interesting to go back to the time this email was written to see just how (un)critically Fournier's reporting of the Iraq War was. If anyone comes across something, by all means feel free to leave comments.

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