Judging Crediility of the Foreign Press

Open Left has a post, from Kos and The Scotsman, that Former President Jimmy Carter and former V.P. Al Gore will approach Senator Clinton about dropping out of the primary race.

As you remember, The Scotsman is the paper that interviewed Samantha Power where the later called Clinton "A Monster" for election tactics in Ohio, though that story broke through an interview while this developed through reporting. This suggests the paper carries some credibility as it would not allow Powers to recant her statements and ran the story. But, the switch to a interview to a report carries different standards.

If you read Ihe Scotsman article, the information comes from "s source close to Carter" and "insiders say," which may be right up there with "some might say." The editors allowed the report to go through, which means there is a source and editors believe that the source does have close connections to Carter. Yet, still, there is no source named in the entire article.

As for evidence, it suggests that Gore and Carter want to protect the party and the damage done to the party's chances for the general election against McCain. Of course, neither Carter nor Gore are particular warm to the Clinton (which is a very generous statement) and they point to conflicts of interest with the Clintons (donations to the library, Mark Penn, not paying for campaign events, credibility w/anecdotes).

Of course, you can take this information either way as the information in the article seems plausible, however, the bias of Gore and Carter may cause further problems.

It will be interesting to see if this story gains attention this week because it is a foreign source and the credibility of the article seems undetermined at best. With nine days to go to Pennsylvania, if this catches on this may be a way to influence the vote, if there are any undecideds left, as it would show the long term prospects for a Victory for her would not be possible. Of course, with a big win in Pennsylvania, this conversation would die down for a week until the run up to North Carolina.