Text 8988, 1224 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 12:47:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9485.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
================================
* * * This message was from Josh Hill to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 03:32:06 -0700, "Vorlonagent"
<nojtspam@otfresno.com> wrote:

>My newsreader sometimes refuses to quote properly.  This is one of those
>times.
>
>
>"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:o739h2tadqarqhu08sjn6s4abbb0h8fdek@4ax.com...
>
>>You are leaning very close to insiting on the severity of every issue
>>raised
>>about a republican and dismissing or diminishing every issue reaised ab=
out
>>a
>>democrat.
>
>> Always a risk, and I don't mean to imply that all Democratic
>> allegations have been warranted and Republican not, but I think it's
>> pretty clear that there has been a large disjunction between the
>> behavior of the two national parties in this regard -- hell, at times
>> an extreme disjunction -- Where are the Democratic equivalents of the
>> accusations of rape and murder?
>
>Allegations of criminality are easy: Bush stole both elections and acocr=
ding
>to you, the 2000 primary as well.  Bush is accused of murder (that's the
>whole Iraq =3D viet nam, Bush =3D LBJ angle) every time an american sold=
ier dies
>in Iraq.  Bush is tarred personally with torture allegations and for
>building the "gulag of our time", guantanamo bay.

You've chosen a few extreme views -- the last uttered by /one man/ --
and equated them to organizational conservative persecution that
reached the floor of Congress. You've taken acts which are in some
cases legal and in all cases /not/ criminal -- stealing an election
(and primary), fighting a misbegotten war, mistreating captives -- and
equated them to criminal acts, not just criminal acts, but the two
most heinous criminal acts known. And, of course, you completely
ignore the fact that the charges against Clinton were fabricated,
while the charges against Bush are based on things he actually did.

There is no fairness in this comparison, not a hint of it.

>There's a long list of false-criminal charges so routinely laid at his d=
oor
>it's easy to forget about them.

There is?

>> Of the impeachment affair?
>
>You missed where democrats were promising to impeach Bush if they got
>control of the house and senate?

Yes, of course I did, because the Democratic leadership has said
precisely the opposite:=20

Democrats Won't Try To Impeach President

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 12, 2006; Page A06

'Seeking to choke off a Republican rallying cry, the House's top
Democrat has told colleagues that the party will not seek to impeach
President Bush even if it gains control of the House in November's
elections, her office said last night.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051=
101950.html

A few Democratic legislators have called for impeachment hearings,
but, of course, that's their prerogative: it's highly misleading to
suggest that this is representative of the Party's position.

>> Of the
>> illegal and unpunished Lewinsky taping by a former Nixon operative?
>
>Clinton's perjury went unpunished in a criminal sense.  he did lose his =
law
>license for a few years.

So? Perjury is rarely prosecuted.

>I don't think the Democrats use too many former Nixon operatives.

Which is why I'm a Democrat, thank you.

>The New York times has repoted much that damaged national security in ti=
me
>of war and gotten away with it.

They have that right.

>> Of
>> the Swift Boating?
>
>CBS attempted to swift-boat Bush.

There is no evidence whatsoever of that, and if you thought about it,
you'd realize that the idea is so loony it could have been uttered by
a conspiracy theorist. It's obvious that you have no desire to be
objective here. You're smearing good people -- and the irony is that
you are doing it by claiming unjustly that they have done precisely
what /you/ are doing, fabricating "facts" with political intent.

>The Swift-boat veterans were one organization among a sea of them in
>2004--most of the others were anti-bush.

The difference is that the Swift Vote Veterans was run illegally from
the White House.

>> Of the Gore telephone nonsense? Put them in two
>> columns, and one will be a lot longer than the other.
>
>Your right. The democrats do this stuff way more than republicans.

I won't even bother asking for evidence -- that would be too cruel.

>>>>The MSM did not participate in the attacks on Clinton.  They did not
>>>>research or question why the Clintons kept FBI files on their (the
>>>>Clintons') opponents for so long or why they culdn't accout for the
>>>>files'
>>>>hereabouts until they suddenly materialized on a random table somewhe=
re.
>>>
>>> And you know this how?
>>
>>Memory.  IIRC the story put out y the Clinton White House was that they
>>found the missing files (after several weeks of uproar) on a table
>>(presumably also in the white house).  I use the word "random" because =
I
>>don't believe a word of such a lame explanation.

That's not what I'm asking about. You claim that the responsible press
didn't investigate, and I'm asking you how you know that. Do you know
people in the press who told you? Did you read a respected source who
investigated the press and found they laid off Clinton?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think so. You're either repeating
spin from some partisan spin page or talk show, or you made this up
out of whole cloth. Because you just don't know, any more than I do.

>> I wasn't referring to the missing FBI files, about which I have no
>> opinion, but to the assertion that the press didn't research or
>> question their absence. In fact, I can't imagine that they didn't. But
>> there's only so much they can get if no one is willing to talk -- or
>> if there's no real story to talk /about./
>
>You are assuming.

Yes, I am. But it's a pretty safe assumption, given that the press is
motivated by scoops and reporters inevitably call around and question
their sources when a story like this comes along. More often that not
they get nothing they can use.

>>>>The exception was the Lewenski affair where the MSM did involve itsel=
f
>>>>directly.  Ratings greed overcame politics at that point.
>>>
>>> The press (I dislike the term "media," which was a cynical Agnewism
>>> calculated to replace a revered term -- "press" -- with a vaguely
>>> sinister one) issued a constant stream of reports on the Clinton
>>> allegations, from rape to stolen ashtrays. When I compare
>>> point-for-point the coverage of the Clinton allegations vs. comparabl=
e
>>> Bush allegations, it becomes clear that as Amy pointed out the former
>>> received much more attention. Compare, for example, two roughly
>>> comparable allegations, Bush's illegal insider stock sale and
>>> Whitewater.
>>
>>You're comparing individual issues.  I am comparing overall treatment.
>>With
>>a noted exception or two, Clinton got a pass.
>
>> I just don't see that. They trashed him for two years. It was only
>> after Gringrich came online that they gave him a pass, Gringrich being
>> much scarier and a much juicier subject.
>
>You already said that.
>
>I already said that Clinton made his own troubles.  The MSM reported
>republican accusations and nothing more.

That is simply untrue. I read numerous investigative stories on
Whitewater and Clinton's background.

>> After Gringrich, Clinton
>> could do no wrong. Which is in keeping with my original assertion --
>> that the bias exhibited by the press is not partisan in nature, except
>> insofar as they are sometimes scared of Republicans or overcompensate
>> in an attempt to be even-handed. To paraphrase what an editor at the
>> Times said a few weeks back, they receive constant criticism from both
>> sides; it seems inconceivable to partisans that some people might
>> simply be interested in reporting the facts.
>
>There was nothing "scary" about Gengrich to a non-partisan.  He was a
>bomb-thrower, yes.  You'd have to be a leftist to be scared of him.

Er, no: the vast majority of people in the country ended up abhorring
him, because, you see, one doesn't have to be Karl Marx to think that
poor children shouldn't be sent to orphanages. That's sick.

It would be more accurate to say that you'd have to be some kind of
radical right winger /not/ to be scared of him.

>Oh that's right.  Newspeple are mostly leftist, aren't they?

Er, no, and I find it interesting that after all this talk about how
Democrats are the more likely to hurl stones you use the freighted and
inaccurate term "leftist," which is generally reserved for extremists
like Noam Chomsky, rather than the correct and accurate ones,
"liberal" or "progressive."

That being said, of course a majority of reporters are liberals:
educated people who care about the public good usually are. And you
might want to ask yourself why reporters, who know more about how
Washington works than just about anybody who doesn't have a finger in
the pie, tend to be Democrats.

>Nobody "overcompensated" against Clinton.  Ever.
>
>>But if you want to talk specifics, what investigation DID the MSM do in=
to
>>whitewater?  IIRC they pretty much took Ms. Clinton's word at face valu=
e.
>
>>I draw a distinction between reporting what someone else says and diggi=
ng
>>for onr's own information.  I don't remember the MSM being very interes=
ted
>>in digging into whitewater.  It was simply something that dogged the
>>clintons and wouldn't go away.
>
>> The press investigated Whitewater to death.
>
>Did they investigate or report the same old stuff?  I don't recall 60
>Minutes or The Times breaking anything new on the subject.  I'm sure the=
re
>was reporting on the digging done by Republicans.  They're the ones what
>kept whitewater alive.

As I said, I remember reading several long investigative articles on
Whitewater -- in the Times, perhaps the New Yorker -- I don't remember
the details at this point, it was a long time ago. And it was clear
that a massive amount of research went into those articles.

News organizations like that routinely investigate stories of that
type and magnitude.

That they didn't find anything isn't surprising, given that the
special prosecutor and FBI didn't find anything after an investigation
far more thorough than anything the press could undertake. To this
day, no one can even say what Clinton was even /supposed/ to have done
in Whitewater. It was a fishing expedition.

>That's the way the MSM  works.
>
>When the issue concerns a democrat, the MSM is a stenographer.  They rep=
ort
>what is said and usually are diligent about reprting which sources invol=
ved
>are conservative.  The story is allowed to continue or not accoridng to =
how
>well it plays.
>
>When the issue concerns a republican, the MSM becomes the investigative
>reporter hot on the heels of the next watergate.  liberal sources are qu=
oted
>as authoritative, often without identifying their political alignment.  =
They
>stay on the story and nourish it to keep it going.
>
>You can bribe the MSM into breaking with its politics, but the only curr=
ency
>accepted is ratings gold.

The only problem is that none of this is true. You seem to be trying
to explain away the fact that the national GOP has become more corrupt
than the national Democratic party. The Dems simply haven't had a
Nixon, or an Iran-Contra. They've had scandals, of course, like the
Clinton fund raising scandal, but they have been fewer and of smaller
magnitude than the scandals that have afflicted the Machiavellian,
thuggish Republicans. Which, really, is the opposite of the way it was
back in the day of the Democratic machines. There are still old-style
good government Republicans -- men and women like McCain, or Giuliani,
or Powell, or Whitman. You'll never see these people smearing their
opponents or breaking the law. Unfortunately, they've lost control to
bottom feeders like DeLay, and even though it's in trouble, the party
doesn't seem to be making any effort to clean itself up.

>>>>OTOH, the MSM has spearheded and supported the drumbeat of allegation=
s
>>>>agianst the GW Bush Admin.  The Times demanded an investigation into =
who
>>>>leaked Valerie Plame's name.
>>>
>>> The disclosure of a deep cover CIA agent is a very serious act --
>>> don't let Bush Administration propaganda fool you into thinking
>>> otherwise, the CIA was furious -- and in some cases seriously illegal.
>>
>>Not illegal in this case, as Patrick Fitgerald announced quite a while =
ago.
>
>> Yes, but that was not apparent at the time, and the likelihood of
>> illegality made it a proper subject for investigation and coverage.
>> Hell, it would have been even  had it not been illegal.
>
>I disagree.  By the time Amy and I debated the issue here, many facts we=
re
>known.  We already knew that Plame's last covert assignment had been lon=
ger
>ago than could be prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protectio=
n
>Act .  Nobody on the left cared.  They thought they had at the very leas=
t
>Karl Rove's head on a stick (and were looking for Cheney) when all they =
had
>was Rove saying "I heard that."  You did too, as I recall.

Not really. I hoped they'd get Rove of course -- he's one of the
scuzziest people on the face of the planet. The question of legality
and illegality I simply accepted as the details gradually became
public, and expert commentators explained the law -- in that same
mainstream press you vilify. And of course I drew attention to the
fact that the White House was caught lying, and that Bush not only
withheld information from the public but broke his word and refused to
dismiss Rove when the public learned that Rove had leaked Mrs.
Wilson's name.

>There was no reasoning with the left on this.

That's ridiculous.

>There was no illegality or liklihood of illegality.  Anyone who actually
>researched the law would know that.

That's even more ridiculous: the prosecutor and grand juries had to
investigate long and hard to determine that.

>  Either the Times was CBS-grade sloppy
>or, like CBS, they didn't care.  They thought they had the goods n the B=
ush
>admin and went for it.

Dude, they merely reported the news as it happened, except that the
Times had to hold back because of legal jeopardy to its imprisoned
reporter.

>>It was merely a case of Richard Armitage being a gossip and Bob Novak
>>connecting the dots.
>
>I don't believe that. At least two other people in the Adminstration
>disclosed her name -- Libby and Rove.
>
>At worst, Libby confirmed what Novak heard from Armitage.  And in Rove's
>case, *Rove* heard it *from* Novak.

That is simply untrue:

"The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as
confirming my primary source's information. In other words, the
special prosecutor knew the names of my sources."

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=3D15988

>Meanwhile the Left is scremaing "treason" and photoshopping Rove in
>handcuffs.

Why do you make this stuff up?

Why is it so important to you to create a world so at variance with
reality?

I can't imagine basing my opinions on anything other than the facts as
I understand them.

>>I'm sure the CIA was furious.  At least those who allowed a Bush Admin =
foe
>>(Joe Wilson) to go to Niger.
>
>> That, I think, is an unworthy partisan slur.
>
>I don't think so.  I think the CIA agent who sent Joe Wilson to Nigeria =
knew
>exactly what he was doing.  He was putting partisanship ahead of his job.

And your evidence for that is?

>> They are furious because of what the Bushies did to Mrs. Wilson and
>> her contacts.
>
>She had long since been rotated stateside.  I seriously doubt any
>allegations of damage.

This has been explained ad nauseam. The danger -- both to Wilson and
her sources -- was real.

>>> A respected former ambassador claimed that the Administration had
>>> harmed national security and possibly broken the law to gain revenge
>>> against someone who had gone public with information that harmed the
>>> Administration's case to go to war in Iraq -- information that was
>>> absolutely correct. A newspaper that didn't report on that would be
>>> guilty of a gross dereliction of duty.
>>
>>You HAVE been following the news, right?
>>
>>Richard Armitage leaked Plame's name to Bob Novak and Armitage is no Bu=
sh
>>Admin loyalist.  To repeat the tired, old--and refted by evidence--reve=
nge
>>charge is pretty pointless and not worth further discussion.
>
>> Novak's spin on it. The fact that at least two others disclosed the
>> info to just about every reporter in Washington suggests otherwise.
>
>That's Armitage.  The rest is empty conspiracy theory.

The Wilsons, whom I trust a good deal more than this pack of confirmed
serial liars, don't believe so, and have file suit:

'WASHINGTON (AP) =97 Former CIA officer Valerie Plame is suing Vice
President Dick Cheney, presidential adviser Karl Rove and other White
House officials, saying they orchestrated a "whispering campaign" to
destroy her career.

'In a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, Plame and her
husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, said Cheney, Rove
and Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, leaked her CIA
status to reporters to punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush
administration's motives in Iraq.'

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-13-plame-sues_x.htm

I of course can't say who's right, but I do know this: one would have
to be an idiot to trust Rove or anyone else in that pack of frauds.

>>> That being said, how could the /news pages/ demand an investigation?
>>> The editorialists possibly did, but editorials are not supposed to be
>>> unbiased -- they're opinion pieces.
>>
>>Did I *say* the Times news page demanded anything?  I don't recall bein=
g
>>specific.
>>
>>That said, the Times' news page made a good deal out of what has turned=
 out
>>to be nothing, devoting many headlines to every turn of the case.  You =
want
>>a case of investigative reporting with nothing to show for it, look no
>>further.  Rove, Cheney and Bush are in the clear because they always we=
re.
>>The times though they had the goods.
>
>> You seem to hold them to different standards in the Whitewater case.
>> That investigation yielded less than the Plame leak did -- absolutely
>> nothing -- yet it was reported and investigated exhaustively, much
>> more extensively than the Plame case.
>
>Hardly.  I know exactly what to expect from the Times.  Little investiga=
tion
>into a democrat, and much investigation into a republican.  The fact tha=
t
>the Times found nothing interesting in Whitewater and literally made a
>federal case out of Plame is perfectly in keeping with my expectations.

"I couldn't find any elephants on 42nd Street."

"Well, then, obviously you didn't /want/ to find elephants on 42nd
Street."

The fact that the nutcase Republican special prosecutor and 100 FBI
agents found nothing in Whitewater either doesn't mean anything to
you?

>> It is the job of reporters to investigate and report. They would not
>> be doing their job if they did not do so. And a story that involves
>> the disclosure of a deep-cover CIA agent by at least three high
>> government officials, the incarceration of two prominent reporters, a
>> criminal investigation, the deposition of a president, the indictment
>> and resignation of the Vice President's chief of staff, the President
>> being caught in a lie and his administration being caught in many, at
>> least three in the Bush Administration disclosing classified
>> information to the press, a respected former ambassador making (still)
>> credible claims of retaliation -- such a story is to say the least big
>> news and can hardly be ignored.
>
>And yet for all that work, the Times ignored the fact that there was not=
hing
>there.
>
>The agent wasn't deep-cover and hadn't been for a long time.
>
>The agent's identity was disclosed after the first government official
>leaked it and the information was confirmed only in followup on the orig=
inal
>story.
>
>The VP's chief of staff was not indicted for outing plame but for impedi=
ng
>an investigation that wasn't needed to begin with.  Patrick Fitzgerald k=
new
>Armitage was the original leak within days of starting his investigation.
>he went fishing an only caught the official who freaked out and didn't w=
ant
>to be honest.
>
>You make it sound so gravely serious but it falls apart on close
>examination.

To the extent they are true, all of these things were reported by the
Times and other responsible news organizations as they became public.
I fail to see what your issue is, doubly so since the press was
howling for the facts -- I think we all saw some of those news
conferences -- and the Administration was stonewalling and lying
through its teeth. Indeed, IIRC, the Times and other news
organizations whose reporters were being bullied by Fitzgerald sued to
obtain information about what was going on.

>>>>They revealed the names of countries ading the
>>>>US by allowing  us to hold important detainees.
>>>
>>> So?
>>
>>It's a direct attempt to undermine the Bush Admin's conduct of the war =
on
>>terror.  It's information nobody needs to know, except that it makes th=
e
>>Bush admin appear bad.
>
>> It's just the news -- information that's of use to the voting public.
>
>It's the sort of thing that makes the war on terror harder and thus gets
>people killed.

A. It doesn't have shit effect on the war on terror

B. It is the duty of the press to expose information regarding
illegalities or that should be known but has been classified to keep
the public from knowing what its employees in Washington are doing

C. I find it interesting that you blame the Times for getting people
killed by making public information that could have no such effect
while at the same time excusing the government's outing of a deep
cover CIA officer -- a situation that according to everything I've
read /does/ seriously endanger national security and the lives of the
agent and the agent's contacts and co-workers

D. They are /very/ careful to withhold classified information unless
there is a compelling public reason to release it. For example, they
withheld information on Bush's illegal wiretapping program for
something like a year until they were told by some in the government
that it was illegal.

>>>>CBS presented false memoes
>>>>pretaining to Bush's national guard service in the midst of a
>>>>presidential
>>>>election.
>>>
>>> CBS made an error. When it was shown to be an error, they retracted i=
t
>>> and their anchor resigned in disgrace. So?
>>
>>They tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election by repor=
ting
>>a gross falshood as fact.
>
>> What you've done here and above is to invent nefarious motives and
>> accusations when you have no evidence whatsoever that the people
>> involved had such motives. This is precisely the sort of Republican
>> behavior of which I've been complaining.
>
>They brought this out.
>
>In an election year.
>
>Gave it prime time play on 60 Minutes.
>
>They didn't take the time to properly authenticate the documents, didn't=
 pay
>attention when many of their experts shied away from endoursing the memo=
s.
>
>They went ahead amid warning signs aplenty.
>
>That's enough for me.

Even if that were an accurate description, it doesn't begin to justify
your accusation -- a mistake is not an attempt to influence the
outcome of a presidential election.

>> I know some of these people, some of the people in the press, at the
>> Times, at CBS. They are honest and they are dedicated to their craft
>> and they know damn well that if for some crazy reason they make things
>> up they will eventually get caught and their careers will be ruined.
>> Which is to say that they are not in the least like the lying
>> sleazeballs in the White House.
>
>That's just what I expect from a Democrat.  Can't say five sentences wit=
hout
>tossing out a personal attack on the Bush Admin.

And it hasn't occurred to you that this has something to do with the
Bush Administration itself, which is the least competent and most
contemptuous of truth of any administration in living memory?

>I can sling stereotypes too if that's the way you want to play.  It gets=
 us
>nowhere.
>
>I'm sure most newspeople are genuine and earnest.  That doesn't change m=
y
>opinion of Rathergate one iota.  It was a poorly-done hatchet job that
>Rather and his people swallowed because they wanted it to be true.

No, they swallowed it because it came from a seemingly unimpeachable
source and someone way down in the staff didn't do a good job of fact
checking. This happens even to the best reporters. Woodward and
Bernstein, for example, famously had to retract one of their Watergate
columns. I don't think I've never seen a news article about an event
with which I was familiar that didn't contain some inaccuracies.

>It's like that doctored photo of the aftermath of an israeli attack (in
>Beirut) that Reuters happily passed on as genuine despite the lousy
>photoshop work that went into it.

Same thing. Short deadlines and not every editor has an eagle eye.
Someone notices a mistake, a retraction is made. And of course one can
point to just as many inaccuracies in articles that benefit
conservatives. How about Gore saying he invented the Internet? Only
problem, of course, is that he never said it.

>> I am so tired of this crap, of the excuses made for people who have
>> been shown to have lied again and again and again, and the attacks on
>> those who ferret out the truth. It's grotesque.
>
>Rather should have stuck to the news than try to finesse politics.  If h=
is
>actions put a black mark on the profession, or worse illuminate an
>institutional failing of the profession, the fault lies with Rather in t=
he
>first case and the institution in the second.  Responsibility for action=
s
>comes home to roost as it always does sooner or later.

Mistakes are made constantly. CBS is in fact one of the better
organizations. What about the notorious news calls that may have
influenced the Bush-Gore elections? The skulduggery that night at Fox
News -- an organization which, incidentally, does /not/ have the
journalistic standards of the "mainstream media"?

>>>>Beause they aren't life or body threatening.  The people in the cold =
room
>>>>aren't freezing fingers or toes off.  Nor are the waterboarded people
>>>>actually suffocating.  They are being made very, very uncomfortable.
>>>
>>> The definition of "torture" is not "life threatening." Indeed, it is
>>> not in the interest of the torturer to kill his victim if he wants
>>> information.
>>
>>"Life-threateneing" was only part of my reply.
>
>> No, you also called torture "very, very uncomfortable." And I think
>> that whitewash speaks volumes.
>
>How it is a whitewash?
>
>You believe it is torture, I don't.

It's universally considered torture: if these "techniques" had been
practiced by the KGB or some Latin American government or on an
American prisoner of war we'd be up in arms.

>>>>This contrasts with being whipped, beaten, red-hot pokers, pulling ou=
t
>>>>people's fingernails...
>>>
>>> And that is torture too.
>>
>>Damage, often permant damage is being inflicted on people.  There is a
>>difference.
>
>A DEADLY INTERROGATION
>Can the C.I.A. legally kill a prisoner?
>by JANE MAYER
>
>> 'Two years ago, at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, an Iraqi
>> prisoner in [CIA operative] Swanner's custody, Manadel al-Jamadi, died
>> during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag,
>> and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his
>> ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have
>> examined the case, he asphyxiated. In a subsequent internal
>> investigation, United States government authorities classified
>> Jamadi's death as a "homicide," meaning that it resulted from
>> unnatural causes. Swanner has not been charged with a crime and
>> continues to work for the agency.'
>
>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051114fa_fact
>
>> I suppose you'll now say that the fellow who died was merely very,
>> very indisposed, and that death by hot poker is deader than death by
>> asphyxiation, and that the New Yorker should not have investigated
>> because they're aiding and abetting our enemies.
>
>The Time is aiding and abetting our enemies.
>
>No, I'd ask you for proof that this man's methods were sanctioned.  We
>already know Abu ghraib was out of control.  Note how scnction is implie=
d
>but not stated.
>
>For the record, the interragator should have been charged with crimes an=
d
>tried for them.

The fact that he was not rather strongly suggests that it is being
sanctioned, does it not?

>>>>If we caught Osma bin laden tomorrow, I'd sign the order to waterboar=
d
>>>>him
>>>>if I had the authority and the experts concluded it was the proper
>>>>technique.
>>>>
>>>>There would be a temptation to waterboard him just because he's Osama=
 and
>>>>that would still be wrong.
>>>
>>> If we caught Osama Bin Laden tomorrow, I would give him a fair trial,
>>> confident in my belief that in doing so we would do far more good for
>>> our country, and achieve a far greater victory, than we would by
>>> obtaining questionable confessions through the utilization of morally
>>> repugnant techniques associated with tyrants, thugs, and dictators.
>>
>>...and by asking with nothing more aggressive than "pretty please with
>>sugar
>>on top" you'll get nothing actionable, and the open-court trial will en=
sure
>>that the intelligence methods used to capture him will be useless in th=
e
>>future, with the alternative being releasing bin laden for lack of evid=
ence
>>should your administration want to keep methods that work secret.
>>
>>This is a war, not a criminal matter.  Harsher rules apply.  Trying bin
>>laden is not a tenth as important as taking his organization apart.  Yo=
u
>>place too much important on the tiral and too little on what's needed t=
o
>>win.
>
>> Even war has rules. The Bush Administration has merely chosen to
>> ignore them. I'll let an eminent Republican and military man say the
>> rest:
>
>> Dear Senator McCain,
>
>> I just returned to town and learned about the debate taking place in
>> Congress to redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. I do
>> not support such a step and believe it would be inconsistent with the
>> McCain amendment on torture which I supported last year.
>
>> I have read the powerful and eloquent letter sent to you by one my
>> [sic] distinguished predecessors as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
>> Staff, General Jack Vessey. I fully endorse in tone and tint his
>> powerful argument. The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of
>> our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to
>> those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.
>
>> I am as familiar with The Armed Forces Officer as is Jack Vessey. It
>> was written after all the horrors of World War II and General George
>> C. Marshall, then Secretary of Defense, used it to tell the world and
>> to remind our soldiers of our moral obligations with respect to those
>> in our custody.
>
>> Sincerely,
>
>> Colin Powell
>
>The world always "doubted" the Bush Admin.  There is no "beginning" to=20
>doubt.  Bush is guilty (of whatever) until proven innocent.  That's the =
way=20
>it's always been.

Bush has given the world every reason to hate him. I never thought I
would live to see the day when my country was trying to justify
torture, internment without trial, capital trials in which the
defendant could not see the evidence against him. It's a betrayal of
everything we stand for, and it is the most effective tool for which
Osama Bin Laden could possibly ask.

>Redefining Article 3 or leaving it as-is (undoubtably the most expansive=
=20
>reading possible) will not change the presumption of guilt.  It's just=20
>another talking point, more or less.

IOW, if people presume from the start that Jeff is guilty, it lets him
off the hook when he robs a bank?

>And irrelevant.  Congress has defined coercive methods that the Bush Adm=
in=20
>can use.  Since anything above "pretty please" is torture to you, the Bu=
sh=20
>admin  has some methods of torture (by your definition of torture) open =
to=20
>it at this time.

Sorry, but waterboarding is not just above pretty please. Being forced
to stand chained and naked in a fifty degree room for forty hours
while being doused with water is not just above pretty please. Being
restrained with a plastic bag on your head until you die of
suffocation is not pretty please.

Your attempt to redefine torture and wave away the likes of Abu Ghraib
is just the sort of contemptuous-of-truth redefinition of the facts
that the Bush Administration has engaged in from Day 1.

You can't just talk about freedom. You can't just talk about the rule
of law. You have to practice these things. We faced down Hitler, we
faced down Stalin without resorting to torture. That was our strength.
What a weak man Bush must be to abandon our values in the face of a
few scraggly terrorists.

>>>>> As to Iraq, there's no clear Democratic solution because there's no
>>>>> good solution. Bush has bequeathed the Administration a mess from
>>>>> which there's no nice exit, no good solution. As in Vietnam, the be=
st
>>>>> we can hope to do is minimize the damage in the face of the
>>>>> understandable reluctance of our allies to take on directly the
>>>>> burdens of a mess we made for ourselves, despite their opposition i=
n
>>>>> the face of Bush's bullying. (They have been helping us out, but th=
e
>>>>> help has been subtler, e.g., by helping in Afghanistan and taking o=
n
>>>>> the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.)
>>>>
>>>>I am unimpressed by 100 (200?) engineers France volunteered for Leban=
on.
>>>
>>> So was everybody. They upped it to 2000.
>>
>>2000 engineers or combat troops?  If it's engineers, I'm still unimpres=
sed.
>>
>>Has anybody else signed on?
>
>> Yes.
>
>Is the total number anywhere close to the 15,000 promised?

I don't know. What difference does it make? I'm not an apologist for
Chirac, whose behavior in this case struck me as atrocious. I was
merely pointing out that our allies have been helping us out, despite
our having ignored their objections and our ham-handed attempts to
bully them.

>>>>The Democrats have ever stuck to the simplication of Iraq =3D Viet Na=
m
>>>>because
>>>>they wanted Bush =3D LBJ.
>>>
>>> That sounds like a tendentious fantasy to me. To the extent that some
>>> Dems have made that comparison it's because it's the obvious one to
>>> make. In the beginning, it seemed to me overblown. Now it does not.
>>
>>I admit some parallels now and still consider it overblown and conviene=
nt.
>>
>>But then I knew this would be a tough slog from day 1 and wouldn't have
>>expected the job to be done by now anyway.
>
>> Then perhaps you should have been president rather than Dubya, who
>> announced that victory had been achieved and supported Rumsfeld's
>> decision to commit an inadequate number of troops.
>
>The former is a distortion, admittedly one Bush encouraged with that stu=
pid=20
>"Mission Accomplished" banner.
>
>The latter is a judgement call, which itself may or may not be accurate.

Problem is, the Army's chief of staff at the time, Gen. Shinsekei,
said publicly before the war that we would need several hundred
thousand troops for the occupation. And he based that figure on a
historical study of successful and unsuccessful occupations, on the
minimum troop to population ratio that worked. It was exactly what one
would expect a professional military planner to do.

/And the White House publicly ridiculed him,/ and put him out to
pasture.

And that isn't an isolated incident. It's no accident that a bunch of
retired generals called, in a virtually unprecedented move, for
Rumsfeld's resignation. He's an arrogant fool.

As always, the good people leave this administration while the
time-servers and nuts stay on. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a
job." (The Dept. of Homeland Security is so dysfunctional that they
couldn't find any disaster response experts willing to take Brownie's
position as head of FEMA -- a position that would ordinarily be the
most prestigious in the profession.)

>>>>> For some reason, they haven't done a very good job of getting a
>>>>> platform out. It's there -- Pelosi for one has spoken about it -- b=
ut
>>>>> they do need a Democratic version of the Contract, particularly sin=
ce
>>>>> if as seems likely they gain control of the house the GOP will atte=
mpt
>>>>> to blame them for the failings of the next two years -- a strategy
>>>>> which hasn't been working for them lately because most voters can s=
ee
>>>>> that the Dems currently have no power.
>>>>
>>>>When any senator can put a "hold" on legislation he doesn't like, tha=
t's
>>>>an
>>>>over simplification.
>>>
>>> In what significant way has the Bush Administration's agenda been
>>> blocked by the Dems? They've won victories only when the Adminstratio=
n
>>> proposed something so outlandish that Republicans crossed the aisle,
>>> e.g., the dead out of the cradle Social Security proposal, or they
>>> threatened a filibuster. But that's not much. The pres has gotten mos=
t
>>> of what he wanted, more than most presidents have. And the results
>>> speak for themselves.
>>
>>Bush hasn't asked for much.  The fact is that most of his domestic agen=
da
>>has been shot down.
>
>> That's not true. He got just about everything he asked for -- No
>> School Left Unpunished, tax cuts for the rich, more tax cuts for the
>> rich, the Bar Seniors From Buying Cheap Drugs in Canada Act. Didn't
>> get the Social Security plan, but that was so unworkable even his own
>> party wouldn't go for it.
>
>Not all that much, really.
>
>I take from your needleslly derogatory tone you don't want a serious=20
>discussion so I'll not bother any further with it.

It's derogatory because his proposals are so in-your-face cynical and
outrageous. I mean, banning seniors from buying Canadian drugs for
less money? Banning insurers and the government from negotiating with
drug companies to get better prices? Designing the plan so that after
you've received several thousand dollars worse of drugs /your benefits
are cut off,/ making it look to those who don't reach the cutoff like
the plan is more generous than it actually is? How cynical is that?

I read not long ago that they've assigned all these customs agents to
seize thousands of packages of drugs from Canada, leaving elderly
people without the only drugs they can afford -- in some cases,
without lifesaving drugs and with no money to replace them.

So they can't afford to assign inspectors to look for terrorists and
nuclear weapons in container ships, but they /can/ afford to block
drugs from Canada?

You keep implying that people criticize Bush for no reason, when in
fact his administration is so incompetent, dishonest, and corrupt its
grotesque. Like a gargoyle presidency. I've never seen the like. I
mean, Nixon was dishonest and Carter was a failure, but at least Nixon
was competent and Carter was honest.

>>Up until recently he was untouchable in foreign
>>affairs, but all he's asked for is money to continue the War on terror.
>>
>>My point isn't that the democrats have a lot of power, but to say that =
they
>>aren't completely impotent as you suggest they are.  Just as the pre-19=
94
>>minority Republicans weren't completely impotent.
>
>> I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the argument that the
>> country's failures are the Dems responsibility, with the possible
>> exception of Iraq, for which many of them did vote (trusted Bush, and
>> now look where it's got them).
>
>I never suggested that the Democrats are responsible.  The Democrats hav=
e=20
>limited power and they have used it to obstruct, not to advance a distin=
ctly=20
>different policy.    When you sayd that anyone can see the democrats hav=
e no=20
>power, this is an error.  they have some power.

But that's inaccurate. The Dems propose amendments all the time. They
just routinely get shot down in committee or on the floor or through
leadership maneuvering (since the leadership doesn't want popular
measures they oppose to come to a vote, either because they would win
or because the public would see that they opposed them). The only way
they can get anything approved is if enough Republicans sign on, or
the GOP decides for one reason or another to go with the flow, as when
they decided in an election year to finally pass the perennial
Democratic proposal to increase the minimum wage. Even then, the
leadership attempted to attach a cynical poison pill to it -- a huge
tax cut for the hereditary super rich. (Believe that got removed from
the package when it got into the press and proved to embarrassing, but
I may be wrong.)

>>>>> The Gringrich strategy -- less the bellicosity, extremism, posturin=
g,
>>>>> corruption, callousness, and so forth -- could serve them well: pas=
s a
>>>>> laundry list of major democratic initiatives -- energy impendence,
>>>>> protection for the American worker, border security, health care,
>>>>> fiscal responsibility, defense against terror, honesty in governmen=
t,
>>>>> what have you -- and then let the Republicans reject them as they
>>>>> surely would. That would show the public clearly where the Dems sta=
nd
>>>>> and defuse the no doubt Karl Rovian nonsense about the Dems not
>>>>> standing for anything (What do you do when your party has fucked
>>>>> things up royally? Claim that the other side can't do better.)
>>>>
>>>>And when the other side is preoccupied with hatred nstead of policy, =
it
>>>>plays in Peoria.
>>>
>>> More Roveian rubbish. There is much more bellicosity from the
>>> Republican side, and has been for years. Or can you show me Democrati=
c
>>> legislators accusing President Bush of rape?
>>
>>That's because "appetite" is Cinton's fatal flaw and isn't Bush's.
>
>> Awe, c'mon. Bush was a druggie. Where are the Democratic allegations
>> that as governor he sold crack to schoolchildren? That would be about
>> the equivalent of the Clinton rape rubbish.
>
>Bush appears to have put his worst personal foibles behind him.  I am so=
rry=20
>that Clinton cannot say the same.  That opens Clinton up to charges that=
=20
>Bush's lifestyle does not open him to.

What do Clinton's foibles, which AFAIK consisted of nothing more than
foreplay with Monica Lewinsky, have to do with phony allegations of
rape and murder or even stealing ash trays?

And how do we know what Bush's lifestyle is? There are rumors of an
affair, but even if Laura Bush moved out for other reasons, he sure
seemed drunk at that conference where he goosed the German chancellor
and otherwise made a mess of himself.

We probably won't know until the end of his term, because the Dems
don't have a dumpy former CREEP operative making illegal tape
recordings of Bush's friends.

No, it goes way beyond that. The Lewinsky scandal, yes. The travel
office investigation, sure, even though it ultimately vindicated the
Administration. The missing FBI files and the fund raising scandal,
sure. These things were either consequences of the President's
behavior or Administartion wrongdoing or simply looked suspicious and
as such warranted investigation. But it's a far cry from that to what
actually happened, to accusations of rape and murder.

>>And the Republican claim that the other side can't do better IS effecti=
ve.
>
>> Yes. It merely isn't true. Kind of a familiar pattern here.
>
>The actual pattern is the democrats shooting themselves in the foot by=20
>having no agenda past anti-bush.  They played into that Republican asser=
tion=20
>and made it true by their own actions.  A defintiely familar pattern.
>
>
>>It is effective because the democrats have limited themselves to carpin=
g
>>and
>>complaining, obstructing and undermining.  Now a genuine opportunity to
>>reverse their fortunes comes along and they can't exploit it, because
>>exploiting it would require substance that they haven't been putting ou=
t
>>there.
>
>> Bull fucking shit:
>
>Truth hurts.

You wouldn't know truth if it bit you. See forex the Pelosi article
below.

>
>> 'In a speech to the Communications Workers of America on Tuesday,
>> Pelosi mentioned Democrats' opposition to outsourcing. She said
>> Democrats will end tax subsidies for companies that send jobs
>>overseas.
>
>> 'She also said Democrats support the "right of all Americans to
>> organize," a sentiment that goes over well with labor unions such as
>> the CWA.
>
>> 'To protect workers who want to join unions, Pelosi said Democrats are
>> "fighting" to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, sponsored by Rep.
>> George Miller (D-Calif.) in the House and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.)
>> in the Senate. "The bill will guarantee that when a majority of
>> workers in a company want a union, they will get a union," Pelosi
>> said.
>
>It's nice to know they can still cater to their non-60's interest groups.
>
>This isn't a platform, it's an attempt to keep the union base mobilized.

>> 'Democrats also support an increase in the minimum wage. Pelosi,
>> describing the income of corporate American CEOs as "immoral," used
>> Wal-Mart to make her point:
>
>> ' "I was told that an entry level person at Wal-Mart, who works his or
>> her entire career at Wal-Mart, would make as much as the CEO makes in
>> two weeks. A lifetime of work versus two weeks in the executive suite
>> -- this is not America, this is not fairness, this is not the basis of
>> a strong middle class that is essential for our democracy. We must
>> change that in our country," she said.
>
>What democrat demostic plicy would be compelte without a shot at the=20
>corporate demon-du jour, Walmart?
>
>That's hackneyed stuff at this point.  Not particularly original or=20
>creative.  Just standard class-warfare stuff.
>
>
>> 'Pelosi also mentioned the Democrats' "Innovation Agenda" to maintain
>> America's leadership role in the global economy.
>
>[. . . ]
>
>> 'Democrats support "energy independence" within ten years; health care
>> for all American within five years; and "dignified retirement" (no
>> privatization of Social Security) through an "AmeriSave" plan.'
>
>It's nice to be for all these neat things.  It's another thing to have a=
=20
>concrete idea of how to do it and say so.
>
>
>> The claim that the Democrats have no agenda or positive proposals is
>> just another example of the Republican's "lie enough and half the
>> country will come to believe you" philosophy.
>
>It's a vague mishmash of the same tired, old positions, rocks cast at th=
e=20
>usual scapegoats and easy-to-say, hard-to-do pie in the sky.  If this is=
=20
>what you call an "agenda", then I guess the only modification I need mak=
e is=20
>to say they don't have a serious agenda.  What you've shown me is an ad=20
>campaign.

You claimed the Dems didn't have positive proposals. I quoted an
entire speech full of positive proposals. The appropriate step at that
point would have been for you to admit that you had been wrong and
retract your assertion, which is, after all, just a rehash of Rove's
lying spin. But you didn't do that, did you. Says an awful lot.

>>Most of the elements of the 1994 Contract with America were out there w=
ell
>>before the election.  So with the democrat  bile and ire against Bush a=
nd
>>republicans.
>
>> Clinton was accused of /Rape and murder/ and you accuse the Dems of
>> bile and ire against Bush and the Republicans? Too much.
>
>Yes I accuse.  And with complete conviction and plenty of reason.  There=
's=20
>nothing I can do if it's "too much" for you.  It is the truth as I see i=
t.=20
>I will speak it and defend it when challenged.
>
>You cling to the rape charge against Clinton like it's some kind of tali=
sman=20
>that gives Democrats the right to treat GW Bush with contempt.  Bill=20
>clinton's treatment by Republicans has no bearing on how GW Bush should =
be=20
>treated.  Anything less is prejudice or vindictiveness.  Just as it was =
when=20
>the Republicans were trying to do payback on clinton.
>
>Bile and ire is the focus of the Democrat party.  It is all that defines=
=20
>them anymore. Thus they are dependent on outside factors to win or lose.=
=20
>Having no coherent high-contrast message of their own, they are in the=20
>process of pissing away a chance at relevance.  They're caught in a time=
=20
>warp that hasn't moved forward since Reagan took office.  That agenda yo=
u=20
>showed me has zero resonance outside a unionized audience.  There might =
be=20
>sellable elements to it but it's caught up in democrats-as-usual blandne=
ss.

The bile and ire charge is nonsense -- Pelosi's agenda is about as
positive as you could want. Blandly delivered, yes, I agree, and it
bugs the hell out of me, but that's a matter of marketing, not of
substance.

>The Democrat Party is dying.  It's consumed by partisan hatred, bent on=20
>purification of itself and its world.  It either needs to get its ass in=
=20
>gear and make some serious changes or hurry up and die.  I very much wan=
t=20
>leftist candidates I can vote for.  The likes of Dean, Pelosi and Reid w=
ill=20
>never be that.

Actually, recent events and the polls suggest the opposite: the GOP is
the party that's in retreat righ