Jailing Reporters

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
The conspiracy thing is interesting, but by definition a conspiracy requires an underlying crime.

And this, if one believes it, definitely subverts the notion that there was any crime by anyone who confirmed or even originally identified Plame:

Excerpt:

[i]A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an “undercover agent,” saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency’s headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.

"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.

“Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren’t minding the store here. … The agency never changed her cover status.”

Mr. Rustmann, who spent 20 of his 24 years in the agency under "nonofficial cover" -- also known as a NOC, the same status as the wife of Mr. Wilson -- also said that she worked under extremely light cover. 

In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn't been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday. 

The distinction matters because a law that forbids disclosing the name of undercover CIA operatives applies to agents that had been on overseas assignment "within the last five years." 

"She was home for such a long time, she went to work every day at Langley, she was in an analytical type job, she was married to a high-profile diplomat with two kids," Mr. Rustmann said. "Most people who knew Valerie and her husband, I think, would have thought that she was an overt CIA employee." [/i]

This is contended by Wilson and at least one of her neighbors, but if she wasn’t covert, no crime. This is completely different from the “knowledge” issue.
[/quote]

I respect the Moonie Times about as much as I respect The Nation.

182

Here’s a nice, link-filled summary of the history of l’affaire de Plame, compiled by a blogger with a right-of-center perspective:

http://fatsteve.blogspot.com/2005/07/linkfest-plamewilson-spins_112148930159092049.html

183

Facts that are part of public record:

  • Wilson rehashed old news regarding Niger in the Op-Ed he wrote. Both the CIA and the State Department admitted the Niger documents were false. Not to mention Ari Fleischer appologized that the ‘16 words’ were even used.

  • The CIA (partisan if you asked BB and others on this board…irrelevant deflection) requested this investigation because secrets were compromised.

  • The investigation by Fitzgerald would have been started with interviews with top brass at the CIA to find out if secrets were truely compromised. Either Fitzgerald is partisan and/or everyone at the CIA he spoke to is partisan and/or secrets were truly compromised.(just ask yourself how things would have gone down if the tables were reversed if you care about being intellectually honest)

  • Luskin has gone on the record with the MSM regarding Rove’s discussion of Plame with Cooper.

  • Rove himself through a NY Times journalist column has confirmed he spoke to Novak.

  • Every person that gave a deposition in this grand jury can talk about the questions they were asked and their answers. The only time people are quiet about their grand jury testimony is when they have something to hide.

The first question is who read the memo regarding Wilson and Plame?

The second question is who really leaked the information?

Fitzgerald is seriously considering trying to convict Miller on federal obstruction as she is not protection herself and she is not protection a whistle blower. The only way Rove can be considered a whistle blower is if he is trying to expose a conspiracy at the CIA regarding the Niger. No conspiracy = no chance of being a whistle blower.

Miller’s career is deader than a door nail as she was the biggest cheerleader at the NY Times in the run up to the Iraq war. Her informant was Chalabi and we all know what a lier that guy is.

What better way to resurect your career then making yourself a martyr and writing a book about your jail time. The speaking fees alone must have her salivating.

A perfect example of this is Martha Stewart. She lies to the FBI and only serves 7 months. Thats BS!!!

I don’t know about anyone else but I would never confirm the identity of a someone at the CIA without first researching the information first.

The bottom line is…arrogance comes before a fall.

184

Cooper wrote in just released Time article:

“Under federal law grand jurors and prosecutors are sworn to secrecy but those who testify, like me, are under no such obligation”

snip

"So here’s what happened last Wednesday.

Before going into the grand jury room at 9:30 a.m., my lawyers and I met briefly with Fitzgerald, a couple of his attorneys and the lead FBI agent in the case. It was, to say the least, unsettling sitting there in the federal courthouse in Washington with the man who, for months, had tried to get me to testify or he would put me in jail. Fitzgerald counseled me that he wanted me to answer completely but didn’t want to force any answers on me or have me act as if I remembered things more clearly than I did. “If I show you a picture of your kindergarten teacher and it really refreshes your memory, say so,” he said. “If it doesn’t, don’t say yes just because I show you a photo of you and her sitting together.”"

snip

"A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can’t find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don’t recall doing so.

So did Rove leak Plame’s name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the “agency” on “WMD”? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don’t know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I’m as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has."

FYI-
I found Valerie Plame’s name by using a free search engine on the Internet and Lexis Nexis by starting with Joseph Wilson’s name.

It took 3 searches and a total of 15 minutes.

ZabaSearch.com for Joseph C. Wilson on Washington D.C.

Lexis Nexis (office tool) with Wilson’s street address turns up - “Spouse name: Wilson, Valerie E.”

Another Lexis Nexis search with Valerie E. Wilson’s name in Washington D.C. turns up - “Former name: Plame, Valerie E.”

If I can do this anyone can.

185

marmadogg,

I must admit that I’m puzzled as to your line of argument with the above?

We already know what Rove told the reporter – the keys are: 1) whether Plame was an undercover CIA operative under the definition of the law; 2) whether Rove knew she was an undercover CIA operative under the definition of the law; and 3) whether, if Rove did know and she was an undercover operative, whether he knowingly disclosed her identity.

Politically speaking, the key is whether the information was already out there before Rove had his conversation with the reporter – and it looks as if it was.

Of course, that begs the question of who put it out there. But I have to think that if Wilson was already getting questioned on how he came to be appointed for the mission, and the information was as easy to find as is being implied, some enterprising reporter doing a background check on Wilson might have discovered his wife’s employer without anyone actually leaking it. I do think reporters were quite interested in Wilson and his background when he was appointed for the Niger mission.

Also, a little side note on Lexis-Nexis – it’s only relevant if the information on Plame was that easily available PRIOR to Novak’s column being written. Of course it’s that easy to find now, after all this hullabulloo.

186

I always like Mark Steyn’s writing, and this is an interesting take on who will look bad once all the dust settles in this situation:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn17.html

Plame security breach? It just ain’t so, Joe

July 17, 2005

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Karl Rove? Please. I couldn’t care less. This week finds me thousands of miles from the Beltway in what I believe the ABC World News Tonight map designates as the Rest Of The Planet, an obscure beat the media can’t seem to spare a correspondent for. But even if I was with the rest of the navel-gazers inside the Beltway I wouldn’t be interested in who ‘‘leaked’’ the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame to the press. As her weirdly self-obsesssed husband Joseph C. Wilson IV conceded on CNN the other day, she wasn’t a ‘‘clandestine officer’’ and, indeed, hadn’t been one for six years. So one can only ‘‘leak’’ her name in the sense that one can ‘‘leak’’ the name of the checkout clerk at Home Depot.

Back when Woodrow Wilson was running for president, he had a campaign song called ‘‘Wilson, That’s All.’’ If only. With Joe Wilson, it’s never all. He keeps coming back like a song. But in the real world there’s only one scandal in this whole wretched business – that the CIA, as part of its institutional obstruction of the administration, set up a pathetic ‘‘fact-finding mission’’ that would be considered a joke by any serious intelligence agency and compounded it by sending, at the behest of his wife, a shrill politically motivated poseur who, for the sake of 15 minutes’ celebrity on the cable gabfest circuit, misled the nation about what he found.

This controversy began, you’ll recall, because Wilson objected to a line in the president’s State of the Union speech that British intelligence had discovered that Iraq had been trying to acquire ‘‘yellowcake’’ – i.e., weaponized uranium – from Africa. This assertion made Bush, in Wilson’s incisive analysis, a ‘‘liar’’ and Cheney a ‘‘lying sonofabitch.’’

In fact, the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe. Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don’t take my word for it; it’s the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler’s report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services – and, come to that, the original CIA report based on Joe Wilson’s own briefing to them. Why Yellowcake Joe then wrote an article for the New York Times misrepresenting what he’d been told by senior figures from Major Wanke’s regime in Niger is known only to him.

As I wrote in this space a year ago, an ambassador, in Sir Henry Wootton’s famous dictum, is a good man sent abroad to lie for his country; this ambassador came home to lie to his. What we have here is, in effect, the old standby plot of lame Hollywood conspiracy thrillers: rogue elements within the CIA attempting to destabilize the elected government. If the left’s view of the world is now so insanely upside-down that that’s the side they want to be on, good for them. But ‘‘leaking’’ the name of Wilson’s wife and promoter within the CIA didn’t ‘‘endanger her life’’ or ‘‘compromise her mission.’’ Au contraire, exposing the nature of this fraudulent, compromised mission might conceivably prevent the American people having their lives endangered.

Here’s the thing: They’re still pulling body parts from London’s Tube tunnels. Too far away for you? No local angle? OK, how about this? Magdy el-Nashar. He’s a 33-year old Egyptian arrested Friday morning in Cairo, and thought to be what they call a ‘‘little emir’’ – i.e., the head honcho in the local terrorist cell, the one who fires up the suicide bombers. Until his timely disappearance, he was a biochemist studying at Leeds University and it’s in his apartment the London bombs were made. Previously he was at North Carolina State University.

So this time round he blew up London rather than Washington. Next time, who knows? Who cares? Here’s another fellow you don’t read much about in America: Kamel Bourgass. He had a plan to unleash ricin in London. Fortunately, the cops got wind of that one and three months ago he was convicted and jailed. Just suppose, instead of the British police raiding Bourgass’ apartment but missing el-Nashar’s, it had been the other way around, and ricin had been released in aerosol form on the Tube.

Kamel Bourgass and Magdy el-Nashar are real people, not phantoms conjured by those lyin’ sonsofbitches Bush and Cheney. And to those who say, “but that’s why Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror,” sorry, it doesn’t work like that. It’s not either/or; it’s a string of connections: unlimited Saudi money, Westernized Islamist fanatics, supportive terrorist states, proliferating nuclear technology. One day it all comes together and there goes the neighborhood. Here’s another story you may have missed this week:

‘‘Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Tuesday.’’

Got that? If you don’t let us go nuclear, we’ll go nuclear. Negotiate that, John Kerry. As with Bourgass and el-Nashar, Hossein Moussavian and Cyrus Nasseri are real Iranian negotiators, not merely the deranged war fantasies of Bush and Cheney.

The British suicide bombers and the Iranian nuke demands are genuine crises. The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook’s drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook’s wife to some reporter, then you’ve departed the real world and you’re frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.

What’s this really about? It’s not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it’s all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it’s not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a ‘‘distraction’’ from Afghanistan – and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger’s a distraction from Valerie Plame’s next photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

The police have found the suicide bomber’s head in the rubble of the London bus, and Iran is enriching uranium. The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture.

187

Here’s a good post on this whole thing from an anti-Iraq-War and anti-Bush-administration blogger:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view370.html#Saturday

EXCERPT:

There are a lot of sticks to beat the administration with. The war was not a good idea. But most of the Democrats who want to beat up the administration over the war voted to authorize it, so an honest analysis of the war decision factors won’t work. So, we have this imbecile investigation taking up time. No one is going to show that anyone knowingly and intentionally identified a covert CIA employee. One can make up a lot of plausible scenarios about what happened, including the simplest, that it was common knowledge and no one even thought about her being a covert employee of the Agency. There may even have been someone who did knowingly and intentionally identify her, but you won’t find it out at this range, because whoever did that would have been careful to tell the story to others in a way that masks his identity. He was just passing along gossip. But in fact, it was probable that it was just passing along gossip.

188

And one more, from liberal blogger Mickey Kaus:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2122431/&#millertheory

Heard It Through the Grapevine: When John Podhoretz floated the idea that jailed journalist Judith Miller was a source ( http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_10_corner-archive.asp#069334 ), rather than the recipient, of the Bush White House’s knowledge of Valerie Plame’s CIA job, I was skeptical. True, I’d “heard that too,” as Karl Rove might say. And the notion was entirely plausible, for three reasons: 1) Reporters tell officials information all the time. Why? Because officials tend to take the calls of reporters from whom they learn things! And because reporters and officials are often tacit partners in an idealistic conspiracy–to reform welfare, for example, or to avoid reforming welfare, or to encourage the administration to go to war with Serbia, or with Iraq; 2) Judith Miller is a logical candidate to have been a tacit partner of Bush administration hawks in pursuit of that last goal; 3) Miller had written about WMDs ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684871599/qid=1121454815/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7364322-7723133?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 ) and might well have run into Plame (a WMD expert) in the course of her reporting.

The problem with the Judy-as-source speculation, it has always seemed to me, is that it doesn’t explain anything that can’t be explained by other, less exotic theories. Why isn’t Miller’s case just like Matt Cooper’s–she’s someone whom an official said he (or she) spoke with, or who turned up on a phone log, and from whom the special prosecutor wants the other side of the conversation? Why wasn’t Miller’s refusal to cut a deal with the prosecutor exactly what she said it was–an act of conscience and a refusal to betray a source–or exactly what the cynics said it was–a First Amendment martyrdom too eagerly pursued? And if, say, Karl Rove or Lewis “Scooter” Libby first learned of Plame’s CIA status from a reporter, why didn’t they just say that and exculpate themselves?

Well, now both Rove and Libby have done exactly that, as reported in an anonymously-sourced scoop that the New York Times inexplicably treats as hurting the administration ( Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer - The New York Times ). According to the NYT’s source, Rove says that when Robert Novak called him he heard Plame’s name from Novak, and “had heard parts of the story from other journalists.” [Emph. added] As for Libby, Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post already reported back in late 2004 that Libby ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13258-2004Nov25_2.html )

has told the prosecutor he heard about Wilson’s wife’s employment from someone in the media, according to lawyers involved in the case. [Emph. added]

What’s more, according to Schmidt, Time’s Matt Cooper backed Libby up on that question:

Time reporter Matthew Cooper has told prosecutors that he talked to Libby on July 12 and mentioned that he had heard that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, a source knowledgeable about his testimony said. Cooper testified that Libby said he had heard the same thing from the media. [Emph. added] [Update (7/17): Cooper’s Time article apparently denies that Libby told him he’d heard about Plame from other journalists - http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1083878,00.html ]

This reported testimony of Libby and Rove–even though the latter could be coming from a pro-Rove leaker, like his weaselly lawyer–surely makes it more plausible rather than less that “the media did it.” And it’s prompted the estimable Tom Maguire to join those broaching the Judy-as-source theory ( http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/novak_talked_to.html ).

I’m still skeptical. It’s been argued to me that the Judy-as-source theory–or, perhaps more precisely, the Judy-Told-the-White-House Theory–explains why Fitzgerald would pursue her testimony with such ferocity. Perhaps. If Fitzgerald believes Rove when Rove says he heard it from journalists, and if Miller is one of the journalists suspected of telling him, Fitzgerald could be trying to discover where Milller, in turn, got the info that she then passed on. If Fitzgerald disbelieves Rove, he could be trying to catch him out. Still, maybe Fitzgerald is pursuing Miller simply because he pursues everyone listed on a phone log with ferocity.

Likewise, it’s possible Miller is protecting the source who originally told her rather than protecting any White House sources such as Rove or Libby. And it’s possible she’s foolishly trying to prevent what she assumes would be an embarrassing disclosure of her own actions–specifically, perhaps, her adoption og the press’ common non-passive, idealistic role in the great conspiratorial Washington scoop-swap. But maybe she’s just protecting a White House source after all.

I’m sure I could be missing something, but unless Libby or Rove has named Miller,** or she cracks, I don’t see a way to disprove or prove the Judy-told-the-White-House theory. I do know, however, that this theory is what many MSM journalists, who know more about the case than I do, are worried about. …

**–Of course, if Rove is in fact Miller’s ally, and Miller was his source, he might conveniently not recall who his journalist source was.

Update: WaPo reports ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071500036.html ) that “Rove has said he does not recall who the journalist was.” … P.S.: The Post’s account is sourced to a “lawyer [who] who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors,” which certainly sounds like Rove’s lawyer. [Links via JustOneMinute- http://justoneminute.typepad.com/ ] … 2:57 A.M.

189

http://www.billpress.com/columns.html

I hopet this Link is correct. The title of the article is ‘Turd Blossom’ in Full Flower Traitor in the White House.

It pretty much sums up clearly my feelings on the whole matter. Nothing will happen to good ol Karl of course. This administration reminds me very much of the Teflon Don, John Gotti.

No matter how inept, dishonest, or outright crooked, they are they march right through it. Hopefully like John Gotti they will one day have to face some kind of justice.

And, yes I know Bill Press is a left leaning writer. If BB can post right leaning articles as proof of his position the same can be done by me.

190

BB-

If you are explaining you are losing.

Cheers!

191

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
This administration reminds me very much of the Teflon Don, John Gotti.[/quote]

Please elaborate on this.

192

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
This administration reminds me very much of the Teflon Don, John Gotti.

Please elaborate on this.

[/quote]

I feel the elaboration on the original post was clear enough. If you can’t see what I mean from the comparison I made then your blind.

But, I feel you know well know this Zeb, and want me to elaborate more in the hopes I will say something you can latch onto and play the whole “See how hostile the liberals are they can’t do anything without casting insults” game.

I stated my honest opinion that is all.

193

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
This administration reminds me very much of the Teflon Don, John Gotti.

Please elaborate on this.

I feel the elaboration on the original post was clear enough. If you can’t see what I mean from the comparison I made then your blind.
[/quote]

How am I “blind”? I simply want you to make your case for comparing the leader of the free world to a Mafia thug.

If you actually have proof of this then I think impeachment proceedings should be brought! If you don’t have any proof you are indeed just another bitter liberal.

Which is it?

194

I do not believe it is accurate to compare Bush to a mafia thug.

Clinton abused his power just as each and every president had done.

I would say politicans suck but they are not evey that good.

195

My comparison has to do with Gotti getting off many indictments of charges that were more then likely accurate hence the term ‘Teflon Don’.

To me the comparison has to do with the Bush administration getting called upon numerous in my opinion dishonest actions and using their spin machine or smear tactics to deflect it or get out of it.

Do I think Karl Rove committed a willful act with an other then honorable and possibly illegal outcome? You bet I do. Do I think he will suffer any consequences for his action? Not for one instant, the repub machine will do everything in their power to protect him.

Marmadogg, you as always are certainly entitled to your opinion. By the by, I don’t think Clinton or anyone else in politics or the world is perfect. I don’t think the dishonesties of any recent president or administration compare to this current administration.

Zeb, thanks for the prompting I am in the process of securing a plane ticket so I can go to D.C. and get impeachment proceedings started.

Why don’t cool it with the asinine requests. You know as well as I do there are things that are true, but do to a variety of factors may never get proven. This could apply to any administration dem or repub or any opposing groups period.

If it makes you feel better to call me an angry liberal or any other term feel free anything to help a friend. :slight_smile:

196

Zeb, how does this not qualify as some type of personal attack?

The use of the word “if” doesn’t cut it, because of course we all know that none of us schleps around here will every have anything like first hand proof.

So, you call someone a bitter liberal and assume it isn’t an attack. You characterize liberals as bitter and assume it isn’t an attack. You characterize people’s beliefs however you see fit and pretend it isn’t an attack.

You are one of the vocal people clamoring for a reduction in attacks, at least by those that oppose your viewpoint, but you continue to go on using them yourself.

How do you justify that?

197

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
marmadogg,

I must admit that I’m puzzled as to your line of argument with the above?

We already know what Rove told the reporter – the keys are: 1) whether Plame was an undercover CIA operative under the definition of the law; 2) whether Rove knew she was an undercover CIA operative under the definition of the law; and 3) whether, if Rove did know and she was an undercover operative, whether he knowingly disclosed her identity.

Politically speaking, the key is whether the information was already out there before Rove had his conversation with the reporter – and it looks as if it was.

Of course, that begs the question of who put it out there. But I have to think that if Wilson was already getting questioned on how he came to be appointed for the mission, and the information was as easy to find as is being implied, some enterprising reporter doing a background check on Wilson might have discovered his wife’s employer without anyone actually leaking it. I do think reporters were quite interested in Wilson and his background when he was appointed for the Niger mission.

Also, a little side note on Lexis-Nexis – it’s only relevant if the information on Plame was that easily available PRIOR to Novak’s column being written. Of course it’s that easy to find now, after all this hullabulloo.[/quote]

Also a big legal sidenote was–

from where did Rove learn the information? From my ‘limited’ understanding of the law on this issue, if he didn’t learn about it in a classified manner he is free to repeat it. If he actually learned of her identity and position from say a reporter and just regurgitated the infor no law was broken.

That does not mean I agree with his actions–I don’t. i think it was skullduggery in the highest form. But in terms of lawful–I guess it falls under that.

Elk

Gotti? Please, that is absurd. I know you have strong feelings about the war and our participation and the circumstances of our entering into action–and I respect that, but that is a poor analogy. And to suggest that this administration is out of line even compared to previous ones is weak.

Your answer to ZEB’s question was along the lines of “you know they did things wrong, even though there’s no proof. There are things we don’t know about.”

I mean, come on. Back a statement up like that wiyth proof, not opinion and conjecture from the political foes of the administration.

I have reason to doubt our reported intentions and with what lead us into Iran. But other than that I see no major illegal activity going on in or around this administration

198

[quote]vroom wrote:
If you actually have proof of this then I think impeachment proceedings should be brought! If you don’t have any proof you are indeed just another bitter liberal.

Zeb, how does this not qualify as some type of personal attack?

The use of the word “if” doesn’t cut it, because of course we all know that none of us schleps around here will every have anything like first hand proof.

So, you call someone a bitter liberal and assume it isn’t an attack. You characterize liberals as bitter and assume it isn’t an attack. You characterize people’s beliefs however you see fit and pretend it isn’t an attack.

You are one of the vocal people clamoring for a reduction in attacks, at least by those that oppose your viewpoint, but you continue to go on using them yourself.

How do you justify that?[/quote]

The question for me Vroom is whether or not Zeb is aware of his tactics? He wants to define the method of communication so it always benefits his argument or makes it easy for him to throw accusations at people or blame them for things he does in a more covert manner.

Zeb is a sly old fox so, I truly wonder if he knows what he is doing when he plays that game or if he is so blinded by his partisan anger that he isn’t aware of it.

The upheaval we had on the other thread where we were referred to as trolls and compared to a six year old girl made me think back to past behaviors by others.

I can recall Lumpy who I hardly ever, if ever remember him insulting anyone, and you can transfer that to 100meters, Justthefacts, roybatty, guys who pretty much just laid down info that they believed in.

As I can recall, and I would be happy to do a search if anyone thinks I am exaggerating, were treated by many of the conservative war supporters here in an extremely hostile and derogatory manner through language in their posts. But, of course we didn’t hear many members getting to emotional over it.

Zeb, you don’t like the comparisons I make and that is your right, but again, I wouldn’t make that comparison if I didn’t feel it was accurate and it is my right to share it if the mods allow it in this forum.

You don’t care at times for the way I express myself…

Realize, I don’t like may of the tactics you use and even though they are not as in the open as my can be with some or direct, yours are not always honorable and at times can be at best childish at worst insidious.

199

[quote]Elk

Gotti? Please, that is absurd. I know you have strong feelings about the war and our participation and the circumstances of our entering into action–and I respect that, but that is a poor analogy. And to suggest that this administration is out of line even compared to previous ones is weak.

Your answer to ZEB’s question was along the lines of “you know they did things wrong, even though there’s no proof. There are things we don’t know about.”

I mean, come on. Back a statement up like that wiyth proof, not opinion and conjecture from the political foes of the administration.

I have reason to doubt our reported intentions and with what lead us into Iran. But other than that I see no major illegal activity going on in or around this administration[/quote]

It was a small anology but what you choose to focus on. Do I think that Bush and company have been dishonest and dishonorable? Yes, yes, I do.

Do I think that they have up to this point gotten away with any kind of accountability for their actions? Yes, I most definitely do!

Do I think it is an acceptable anology to compare this to a criminal who repeatedely got away with crimes because of good spinning by his lawyer? Why the answer is yet again a big resounding Yes!

Do any one of us have proof? All you can do to trot out proof are post articles from conservative writers who espouse your view.

So, don’t act like you have any more angle on truth or proof then I do.

200

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_17_corner-archive.asp#069855

NADAGATE GOALPOSTS [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Most of the press says that Bush has lowered his ethical standards: he had said that he would fire anyone who had leaked classified information, or involved in leaking it, but is now saying he will fire only those guilty of criminal wrongdoing. Tom Maguire says it’s the press that has moved the goalposts ( http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/moving_the_goal.html ). I think you can make a case either way, but that the ambiguity in this situation tells in the president’s favor.

Maguire provides links to Bush’s statements, which is handy. Let’s review.

Sept. 2003: Bush says, “[I]f there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. . . . If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action.”

June 2004: Bush is asked, “[D]o you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name? . . . [A]nd do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?” Bush answered, “Yes.”

Today, Bush said, “If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.”

Here’s how Maguire reads it: Bush originally said he would fire anyone who committed a crime in leaking Plame’s identity. Bush was then asked a question with a false premise: that he had said he would fire anyone who had leaked Plame’s name. He said that he stood by his earlier pledge, but unwittingly seemed to accept the reporter’s unwitting modification of it. He is now restating the original pledge.

It seems to me that the original comment was ambiguous: If you read “leak classified information” to include non-criminal leaking of classified information, and read “take the appropriate action” as a euphemism for firing, you can say that Bush was pledging to fire the leaker even if no crime occurred. The June 2004 question could then have been a question designed to reduce the ambiguity in the original statement.

So my tentative conclusion is that the press’s version of the president’s words and Maguire’s version are both a bit too definite. But the ambiguity is tougher for the press’s version, since it tries to portray the president as breaking a pledge.