Quote of the Day – From Christopher Hitchens commenting on the Plame/Wilson nonsense: “When one thinks of the oceans of ink and acres of paper that have been wasted on this mother of all nonstories, one wants to weep for the journalistic profession as well as for the trees.” (HT: Decision 08)
12 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Yes, yes, it's always a "non-story" to learn how a sitting administration surreptitiously deals with its enemies.
I'll certainly ponder Leakgate's awesome lack of significance the next time I rewind my "Best of the Swift Boat Ads" tape, or thumb through my GWB-signed copy of the midnight Terri Schiavo emergency legislation.
The prosecutor investigated this alleged crime for three years, and has not indicted anybody for outing anyone. He never will.
The crime is purely a figment of your imagination. You have no proof that it ever took place, only repeated earnest assertions, but no evidence or proof.
The rest of your snarky post is a non sequitur, and I would be misappropriating valuable electrons if I replied to it.
It's been a laugh and a half to see the loyal red army defend the Plame case by parsing language. Bush, knowing the facts, told the country "I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts," and vowed that "if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." The catch being that since Bush himself had declassified the information, it was no longer a "crime." But he didn't know "all" the facts. All we need is Bubba's waggling finger to make the picture complete.
How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
Bush didn't declassify Plame's identity (you're thinking of a different made-up scandal), and your representation of his public comments is placed in quotation marks, but is not accurate.
Here's some good commentary on the civil complaint: http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/7/13/191450/260
The comments have some good legal analysis and case background.
Long story short: her identity was widely known and publically available ("Who's Who in America", for example); the manner in which her name became known to Novak was entirely innocent; she had not been working covertly for almost a decade, so mentioning her name was not a security risk to anyone or any country.
BTW, why doesn't their complaint make mention of IIPA, the specific law which was supposedly violated? Because they know they don't have a case based on the facts of the law.
Special pleading isn't pretty. The only way that the outing of Plame can be defended is on the theory that the President and his people are above the law.
Forget the "lawsuit." It's just a way of keeping the story before the media to create attention and discomfort, like the garbage case that was filed by Paula Jones' advocates. The suit will evaporate sometime after the November elections.
Let's boil it down: was the Bush administration right to authorize the leak, or wrong?
Let's assume Joe Wilson was 100% as compromised and unethical as his detractors say. Was funneling negative information a good way to demonstrate one's ethical superiority, or a poor way of doing so?
Did Bush publicly promise to fire those involved, or did he not?
Was Bush being honest when he said he didn't have the facts, or was he not?
Was the declassification a legitimate, moral exercise of power, or was it not?
All this other junk is "sexual relations" and "is" and "didn't inhale" territory. It's the exact kind of dissembling that the 2000 Bush candidacy promised to clean up.
It's embarrassing for the party of values to have to cling to legalities and vetted phraseology like a life raft.
And so the question remains unanswered: How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
was the Bush administration right to authorize the leak, or wrong
Are you referring to the declassification of certain details from the National Intelligence Estimate report on WMDs in Iraq? Presidents (all of them) do have that authority. That isn't the same thing as "leaking" Plame's name (you appear to be conflating the two).
Did Bush publicly promise to fire those involved, or did he not?
Yes, he did, but tell me who has been proven guilty, or even been indicted, for that matter? Nobody. Hence, no firings.
...cling to legalities and vetted phraseology
In America, we try not to throw people into jail unless they actually did something wrong. Being a Republican isn't technically a reason to put someone in jail. You still have not proven anybody's guilt, or even supplied evidence.
And so the question remains unanswered: How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
Reasonably well (and in the case of this manufactured scandal, almost perfectly).
And you appear to be conflating unethical behavior with hardcore prison sentences, as if the two can't possibly be separated.
Your lessons on what we try not to do "in America" are self-serving, and duck the basic questions of right and wrong that I asked. Doing wrong while evading punishment is not exactly unknown "in America."
Bush initially promised to fire "anyone" involved, a P.R. statement he probably regretted. Bush quickly retreated to legalistic loopholes that would permit him to fire no one. That's the operative legalese here, not a nonexistent proposal to waive rules of evidence to put Republicans in jail.
It's not about putting Karl Rove onto the rockpile at Alcatraz by all means necessary. It's about the righteous implication that Karl Rove did nothing wrong. It's about Bush publicly pretending not to "know the facts" about a case he and Cheney had overseen.
If you think that's Bush doing "reasonably well" in the honor department, and "almost perfectly" re Plame, that's a moral standard I'm happily unfamiliar with. I guess it all depends on what your definition of "beyond shame" is.
Scott McClellan, characterizing the "highest standards of conduct" demanded by Bush: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
That was three years ago.
Q: "Do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have . . . leaked her name?" Bush: "Yes."
That was two years ago.
Bush said anyone. Either the President's word has meaning or it doesn't.
I know, but who do you want Bush to fire? If your answer is Karl Rove, then wouldn't it be appropriate for guilt to first be established (or for him to be indicted, at least)?
I know that you want Rove's head on a platter, but at this point your whole case is built on the accusation itself. You don't have evidence that Rove is guilty. If you do, tell me specifically what it is.
12 comments:
Yes, yes, it's always a "non-story" to learn how a sitting administration surreptitiously deals with its enemies.
I'll certainly ponder Leakgate's awesome lack of significance the next time I rewind my "Best of the Swift Boat Ads" tape, or thumb through my GWB-signed copy of the midnight Terri Schiavo emergency legislation.
The prosecutor investigated this alleged crime for three years, and has not indicted anybody for outing anyone. He never will.
The crime is purely a figment of your imagination. You have no proof that it ever took place, only repeated earnest assertions, but no evidence or proof.
The rest of your snarky post is a non sequitur, and I would be misappropriating valuable electrons if I replied to it.
It's been a laugh and a half to see the loyal red army defend the Plame case by parsing language. Bush, knowing the facts, told the country "I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts," and vowed that "if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." The catch being that since Bush himself had declassified the information, it was no longer a "crime." But he didn't know "all" the facts. All we need is Bubba's waggling finger to make the picture complete.
How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
Bush didn't declassify Plame's identity (you're thinking of a different made-up scandal), and your representation of his public comments is placed in quotation marks, but is not accurate.
Here's some good commentary on the civil complaint: http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/7/13/191450/260
The comments have some good legal analysis and case background.
Long story short: her identity was widely known and publically available ("Who's Who in America", for example); the manner in which her name became known to Novak was entirely innocent; she had not been working covertly for almost a decade, so mentioning her name was not a security risk to anyone or any country.
BTW, why doesn't their complaint make mention of IIPA, the specific law which was supposedly violated? Because they know they don't have a case based on the facts of the law.
Special pleading isn't pretty. The only way that the outing of Plame can be defended is on the theory that the President and his people are above the law.
O, sorry, you guys believe that.
Forget the "lawsuit." It's just a way of keeping the story before the media to create attention and discomfort, like the garbage case that was filed by Paula Jones' advocates. The suit will evaporate sometime after the November elections.
Let's boil it down: was the Bush administration right to authorize the leak, or wrong?
Let's assume Joe Wilson was 100% as compromised and unethical as his detractors say. Was funneling negative information a good way to demonstrate one's ethical superiority, or a poor way of doing so?
Did Bush publicly promise to fire those involved, or did he not?
Was Bush being honest when he said he didn't have the facts, or was he not?
Was the declassification a legitimate, moral exercise of power, or was it not?
All this other junk is "sexual relations" and "is" and "didn't inhale" territory. It's the exact kind of dissembling that the 2000 Bush candidacy promised to clean up.
It's embarrassing for the party of values to have to cling to legalities and vetted phraseology like a life raft.
And so the question remains unanswered: How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
was the Bush administration right to authorize the leak, or wrong
Are you referring to the declassification of certain details from the National Intelligence Estimate report on WMDs in Iraq? Presidents (all of them) do have that authority. That isn't the same thing as "leaking" Plame's name (you appear to be conflating the two).
Did Bush publicly promise to fire those involved, or did he not?
Yes, he did, but tell me who has been proven guilty, or even been indicted, for that matter? Nobody. Hence, no firings.
...cling to legalities and vetted phraseology
In America, we try not to throw people into jail unless they actually did something wrong. Being a Republican isn't technically a reason to put someone in jail. You still have not proven anybody's guilt, or even supplied evidence.
And so the question remains unanswered: How's that whole "restoring honor to the Oval Office" thing working out?
Reasonably well (and in the case of this manufactured scandal, almost perfectly).
And you appear to be conflating unethical behavior with hardcore prison sentences, as if the two can't possibly be separated.
Your lessons on what we try not to do "in America" are self-serving, and duck the basic questions of right and wrong that I asked. Doing wrong while evading punishment is not exactly unknown "in America."
Bush initially promised to fire "anyone" involved, a P.R. statement he probably regretted. Bush quickly retreated to legalistic loopholes that would permit him to fire no one. That's the operative legalese here, not a nonexistent proposal to waive rules of evidence to put Republicans in jail.
It's not about putting Karl Rove onto the rockpile at Alcatraz by all means necessary. It's about the righteous implication that Karl Rove did nothing wrong. It's about Bush publicly pretending not to "know the facts" about a case he and Cheney had overseen.
If you think that's Bush doing "reasonably well" in the honor department, and "almost perfectly" re Plame, that's a moral standard I'm happily unfamiliar with. I guess it all depends on what your definition of "beyond shame" is.
Who do you want Bush to fire?
Scott McClellan, characterizing the "highest standards of conduct" demanded by Bush:
"If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
That was three years ago.
Q: "Do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have . . . leaked her name?"
Bush: "Yes."
That was two years ago.
Bush said anyone. Either the President's word has meaning or it doesn't.
I know, but who do you want Bush to fire? If your answer is Karl Rove, then wouldn't it be appropriate for guilt to first be established (or for him to be indicted, at least)?
I know that you want Rove's head on a platter, but at this point your whole case is built on the accusation itself. You don't have evidence that Rove is guilty. If you do, tell me specifically what it is.
That's what I thought. You have no evidence that Rove did anything wrong. Anything.
And Bush is also bad, too, because he doesn't fire an innocent man.
Sigh...
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