The Times Swings Its Hatchet at Bush
and Hits Mukasey
Even by low Gray Lady standards, a journalistic abomination.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
Liberty and security are forever in tension, and never more so than in wartime. This is particularly true when, as in both World War II and the ongoing struggle against radical Islam, the nation has been subjected to a devastating domestic attack and is addled by the prospect of additional strikes.
These conditions always spark fierce controversy between civil libertarians and those whose first concern is national security. Thankfully, people of good will are abundant on both sides. Regrettably, the New York Times is, by contrast, the most juvenile type of libertarian: both doctrinaire and hyper-partisan ?- instinctively unreasonable when it comes to the most modest public-safety measures, and devoid of any self-correcting detachment if the word "Bush" has even the most attenuated association.
That's fine. There is a place for doctrinaire partisans. Their fulminations can bring a welcome sharpening to any debate
as long as the debate is kept where it belongs: the opinion pages.
The Times, however, can't keep it to the opinion pages. Day after day, news coverage in a once-great newspaper devolves into Left-wing polemic, to the point where there is no longer a qualitative difference between the Times and The Nation. Save one: The Nation, self-described "flagship of the left," has no pretensions about being anything other than the Nation; the Times still pretends to be the Newspaper of Record ?- and continues to be treated that way by the "mainstream" press (which itself still pretends to be mainstream).
The problem, of course, is that we are supposed to get an accurate account of what the record is before we start a partisan brawl about what it means. That's not possible with the Times anymore. Monday's hatchet job on Michael B. Mukasey, the former federal judge tapped by President Bush to be the nation's next attorney general, is proof positive.
THE ANTI-ARAB DISCRIMINATION NARRATIVE
"Post-9/11 Cases Fuel Criticism for Nominee" is the ominous headline on correspondent Philip Shenon's dispatch. It is a truly alarming account: In the wake of the suicide-hijacking strikes that killed nearly 3000 Americans, a Justice Department dragnet ordered by President Bush scooped up "dozens of Arab men [who were] detained around the country." Among those imprisoned for no better reason than being Arab was Osama Awadallah. Judge Mukasey [pregnant pause] presided over this travesty.
What does Shenon tell readers about Awadallah's background? We learn that at the time of his arrest, he was a "21-year-old Jordanian immigrant," a "college student in San Diego with no criminal record" who shuffled "in shackles" into the courtroom of Mukasey ?- then chief judge at the federal district court in Manhattan (in easy walking distance from Ground Zero). "Mr. Awadallah," Shenon adds, "was not charged at the time with any crime and had friends and family in San Diego who could vouch that he had no terrorist ties." Yet, Mukasey ordered him held "indefinitely" as a "material witness." And when his lawyer claimed he'd been manhandled, the judge "seemed little concerned," advising counsel to make an application for a medical examination or file a civil lawsuit against the authorities (which lawsuit, the Times might have noted, was never forthcoming).
So coldly detached was Mukasey that he "seemed not to care" that Awadallah "had been whisked away from San Diego to New York" without any notice to his lawyer. The attorney, Randy Hamud, was incredibly inconvenienced: He had to take the red eye to attend the Manhattan court session. (By contrast, agents, prosecutors and judges were on duty around the clock, as were the emergency personnel then picking body parts out of the smoking Twin Tower remnants.) Mukasey, Shenon notes, even denied the assistance of "a prominent Arab-American criminal-defense lawyer, Abdeen Jabara, to help defend Mr. Awadallah."
Shenon concludes that the whole Kafkaesque spectacle was part of the Bush "administration's reasoning after Sept. 11 that young Arab men should be held as ?'material witnesses' in terrorism investigations." It reflected, the correspondent elaborates, "an early effort by the Bush administration to rewrite or reinterpret laws on detention, interrogation and surveillance of people suspected of terrorist ties."
Ever on the lookout for objective observers, the Times adds that "critics" contend the "1984 material witness law was abused by the Justice Department, and by Judge Mukasey and his judicial colleagues." Shenon does not identify these "critics"
except for Jesse Berman, one of Awadallah's own lawyers whose previous claim to fame was his representation of Mahmud Aboulalima. (Berman, a keenly insightful thinker, told Time Magazine that Mahmud, since convicted of bombing the World Trade Center bomber, was charming and "very human").
That's the Times for you: When it suits the Gray Lady's Bush-bashing agenda, you get to learn what Jesse Berman thinks, but not what the federal courts have ruled.
Yes, the federal courts. They are, we know, the darlings of the New York Times when awarding civil rights to alien enemy combatants or holding ?- often only to be reversed ?- that this or that Bush administration initiative violates the Constitution. Yet somehow the courts manage to be AWOL from Shenon's story.
Why? Could it possibly be because, for half a century, the federal courts have held that it is perfectly appropriate, and violates no constitutional entitlement, for the government to detain witnesses whose valuable information might otherwise be lost to investigators? Could it be because Judge Mukasey and the several other judges who detained witnesses in the 9/11 investigation would have been flouting settled law had they declined to detain material witnesses?
Even for followers of the Times's routinely politicized "news" pages, this account is an eye-opener. It is one of the most pervasively disingenuous reports one is apt to encounter in any journalistic forum, including those which unapologetically identify themselves as partisan.
THE 9/11 INVESTIGATION
To begin at the beginning, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department commenced an investigation of unprecedented breadth. I was one of the supervising prosecutors in New York. We began with at least three distinct disadvantages:
(a) We knew next to nothing about the jihadists who had carried out the strikes, and thus even less about the supporters ?- witting or unwitting ?- they necessarily had inside our country. The hijackers, having self-immolated in the operation, were not available for questioning. We were starting from scratch.
(b) There was no way of knowing whether 9/11 was a one-off or just the first round in a series of attacks. With thousands already dead, the only responsible course was to assume the latter and move heaven and earth to figure out where the next hit might come from. For law enforcement, time was of the essence in a way it had never before been.
(c) We didn't even know what we knew. In 1995, due to irrational concerns over purely hypothetical civil-liberties abuses, the Justice Department had dramatically bolstered internal protocols that prevented intelligence agents from sharing information with criminal investigators and prosecutors. Right after 9/11, this "wall" was declared dismantled. In that immediate time frame, however, the wall's consequences were profound: even as we tried to develop current investigative leads, we were frantically piecing together years' worth of clues in a puzzle that had intentionally been kept fragmented.
In spite of those daunting challenges, a couple of things bear emphasizing. First, no one was apprehended for being an Arab male or a Muslim. This may be news to Phil Shenon but, quite apart from the fact that the Justice Department does not engage in such noxious behavior, public-spirited Arab males who cooperated with the authorities had been essential to the successful prosecution of terrorists throughout the 1990s.
I have been as critical as anyone of what I believe has been the government's propensity, under both the Bush and Clinton administrations, to rely on the wrong Muslims ?- to work with, and implicitly enhance the prestige of, several Islamic interest groups (such as CAIR) which tend to be more part of the problem than the solution. Nevertheless, the impulse behind this government outreach has always been sound, admirable and a reflection of reality: We need the assistance of patriotic Muslims (and there are plenty of them) to root out Islamic extremism. You don't get that by indiscriminately rounding people up based on nothing other than their ethnicity or the unadorned fact that they adhere to a particular creed.
Second, only those mulishly determined to politicize national security and ignorant of the way things actually work fathom the post-9/11 material-witness detentions as a Bush-administration initiative, part of a large-scale, premeditated scheme to rewrite law. Though not a member of the Bush administration, I authorized a number of the material witness arrests. I personally researched the issue ?- notwithstanding the frenetic conditions that obtained ?- to ensure that such detentions would be lawful. I don't get a medal for being careful. In our office, the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, nothing less would have been acceptable.
Of course I had a chain of command, and, in theory, President Bush was at the top of it. But the White House does not micromanage the activities of prosecutors in the field. Nor does the Justice Department. I was put in a position to make such judgments by my boss, United States Attorney Mary Jo White, as wise, non-partisan, and rigorously ethical a prosecutor as it has been my privilege to know and serve. We were reporting our progress to the Justice Department, as were U.S. attorneys and FBI field offices in districts throughout the country. But neither President Bush nor Attorney General John Ashcroft was directing our activities. We weren't, moreover, undertaking to make policy. We were law-enforcement professionals conducting an investigation to determine who was involved in the 9/11 attacks and who might be conspiring more attacks.
In the Southern District of New York, we made decisions based on what we believed the law of the United States permitted. If we had believed the law forbade material-witness detentions, we would not have resorted to them. Independence from Washington is the proud boast of my former office, and I can assure you that people there would resign before complying with an order to violate the law. Knowing Bob Mueller, then the new FBI director, and Barry Mawn, then the Bureau's top agent in New York, I can further assure you that the FBI would not have executed orders it had reason to believe were lawless or based on ethnic or religious animus.
Our decisions, moreover, would have been exactly the same had the Clinton administration ?- during which we'd repeatedly investigated and convicted terrorists ?- been in power. Between Right and Left, we can and do argue whether, from a policy perspective, terrorism ought to be considered more a matter of law-enforcement or national-defense. No one, however, can credibly deny that, within the parameters of law-enforcement, the Clinton administration was extremely and aptly aggressive when it came to pursuing terrorists and their abettors. Indeed, in my eight years' experience with them, Clinton officials were more anxious than Bush officials (and, for what it's worth, more anxious than me) to demonstrate that the tools of the criminal justice system ?- and the material witness warrant is such a tool ?- were sufficient to respond to the terrorist threat. In any event, arresting a material witness is a decision made in the field. It is based on the facts on the ground, and usually driven by exigency. We were conducting an investigation, not a crusade.
JUST A COLLEGE STUDENT
So, was Osama Awadallah really just a college student arrested because he was Arab? Here is what the New York Times doesn't tell you ?- even though the facts are quite notorious.
On September 11, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar led the suicide-hijacking team that crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. Al-Hazmi had abandoned a car at Dulles Airport in Virginia. When agents searched it, they found a piece of paper with the notation, "Osama 589-5316." It was Awadallah's phone number in San Diego. It turned out that he had been living there at the same time and in the same vicinity as al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar.
Agents went to Awadallah's California apartment on September 20. They interviewed him and obtained consent to search his home and two cars. The searches, an appellate court later recounted, "produced several computer-generated photographs of Osama bin Laden;
two videotapes on Bosnia and one on Islam[,] and a retractable razor which could be described as a box-cutter or a carpet knife."
Awadallah admitted that he knew al-Hazmi. He told agents al-Hazmi was often in the company of a man whose name Awadallah claimed not to know.
(The federal appeals-court later noted that Awadallah had taken an English course, and agents eventually obtained a booklet he'd completed in connection with an exam. In it, he'd written the following: "One of the qui[e]test people I have met is Nawaf. Another one his name Khalid. They have stayed in S.D. [i.e., San Diego] for 6 months." After initially testifying before a grand jury that the "Khalid" entry was not in his handwriting, Awadallah admitted he had, in fact, scrawled it and that he did know Khalid al-Midhar.)
Awadallah was not on the government's radar screen because he was Arab. To the contrary, there was abundant reason to believe he knew two of the hijackers sufficiently well that they had his phone number; and, unlike most people in the United States back then, he had an awareness of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda emir who had ordered the 9/11 attacks. Further, the box cutter, though undeniably legal to possess, was noteworthy given the hijackers' murderous use of them in taking control of the planes.
Nevertheless, the agents did not arrest Awadallah as a material witness right away. They allowed him to return home for the evening. He was arrested as a material witness the following day after being administered a polygraph examination probing whether he had foreknowledge of the suicide hijackings.
It is not true that Awadallah was secretly whisked across the country. Rather, a prosecutor in New York applied to Judge Mukasey for a material-witness warrant. At the time, Mukasey was one of several judges in the country entertaining such applications. The warrant was issued based on the known facts then presented: the phone-number connection to the hijackers, Awadallah's acknowledgment that he knew al-Hazmi, the bin Laden photos, the box cutter, and the fact that Awadallah was a Jordanian national who had extensive family ties to his native country and might well attempt to flee rather than provide testimony to the grand jury about his savage acquaintances.
Yet, when federal agents first arrested Awadallah, they did not bring him to New York. As federal law requires, they brought him to the nearest available magistrate. In this case, that was Magistrate Judge Ruben B. Brooks of the federal district court in Southern California. Judge Brooks advised Awadallah of his rights, ensured that counsel was appointed, and conducted a bail hearing. After listening to the parties, Judge Brooks declined to release Awadallah, ordering him removed to New York where the grand jury was sitting.
Shenon suggests that Awadallah's lawyer, Randy Hamud, was caught unaware by these developments. That's nonsense. Awadallah's California bail hearing took place on September 25. Hamud and everyone else in attendance knew he had been ordered transported to New York.
Awadallah arrived in New York nearly a week later, on October 1. Once there, federal law dictated that he be brought to court without undue delay. This procedure ?- known as a "presentment" ?- is for the benefit of the detainee, not the convenience of the lawyer. Its purpose is to ensure that the detainee understands what his rights are, that his detention is under the supervision of a judge (i.e., not at the whim of the executive branch), and that he may seek release from the court if he believes he is being held illegally.
Judge Mukasey thus ordered that a presentment be held the following day, October 2. Had it been delayed beyond that, Shenon would no doubt raise the hairs on our necks with tales of Awadallah's secret incarceration, inexplicably denied access to a court. But since that didn't happen, we instead hear that the attorney-client relationship was strained because a lawyer had to take a long flight ?- at night, no less. Oh, the horror!
GET ME THE BLIND SHEIKH'S LAWYER
Awadallah, of course, did not need Hamud. No one has a right to a lawyer who is not admitted to the bar of the court where the case is taking place. In the Southern District of New York, moreover, anyone arrested has free access to ever-available assistance from an extraordinarily competent panel of defense attorneys, admitted in and thoroughly familiar with the practice in our court. Nevertheless, Awadallah wanted Hamud, who, upon arriving, very helpfully announced that he was not up to representing his client because, "I am not familiar with the nuances of the Southern District."
Hamud's solution? He proposed that Abdeen Jabara be added to the Awadallah team. Judge Mukasey said no, agreeing with prosecutors that this would present a conflict of interest given Jabara's prior representation of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the master terrorist convicted in a trial before Judge Mukasey (in which I was the lead prosecutor) on charges arising out of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a subsequent plot to bomb New York City landmarks.
The Times portrays this ruling as a stunning miscarriage of justice. Hamud, we learn, was "taken aback." Here again, though, is what the Times doesn't tell you.
Bin Laden, the 9/11 orchestrator whose picture was in Awadallah's car, has publicly credited Sheikh Omar with issuing the fatwa that authorized the 9/11 attacks. And, sure enough, here is what Abdel Rahman ?- a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence graduated from the prestigious al-Azhar Univerisity in Egypt ?- pronounced about Americans in 1996 after he was sentenced to life-imprisonment: "Muslims everywhere [should] dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, . . . shoot down their planes, [and] kill them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find them."
In fact, the year before Awadallah's arrest, bin Laden had stood side-by-side with Sheikh Omar's son at the "Convention to Support Honorable Omar Abdel Rahman." During the program, broadcast throughout the Muslim world by al-Jazeera, Mohammed Abdel Rahman urged followers to "avenge your Sheikh" and "go to the spilling of blood." Not so coincidentally, al Qaeda bombed the U.S.S. Cole, killing seventeen American sailors, about three weeks later.
The central issue in the grand jury probe for which Awadallah's testimony was sought was: Who was behind the 9/11 attacks? It would be a fairly blatant conflict for a witness to be represented by a lawyer who owes professional fealty to the co-conspirator identified by the self-professed ringleader of the attacks as having provided the Islamic authorization deemed necessary by jihadists.
But if the arc is not clear enough, let's keep it simple and parochial. Jabara is not a New York attorney. He is a Michigan practitioner who was permitted to be third-wheel on the Blind Sheikh's defense team because the lead counsel, Lynne Stewart (who was also joined by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark) was admitted in New York. It is one thing for a judge to be asked to abide a conflict involving an attorney who regularly practices before the court and has a long-standing relationship with the client. It is quite another for the judge to be asked gratuitously to import a conflict ?- particularly under circumstances where there are about ten zillion unconflicted lawyers in New York City ready, willing and able to represent the likes of Awadallah, who had no prior relationship with Jabara.
THE APPEALS-COURT RULING
Contrary to the Times's assertion, Awadallah was not held "indefinitely" as a material-witness. He was so held for a grand total of 20 days before being brought before the grand jury. Meanwhile, though the material witness statute did not require it, Judge Mukasey ensured that Awadallah's counsel was made aware of the government's basis for believing he had relevant information and was a flight risk.
The proceedings were strictly supervised, such that Awadallah appeared before the grand jury on October 10, 2001 ?- the first available date, no additional delay being tolerated by the court. After that full-day appearance, and a return engagement five days later, Awadallah was indicted on two counts of perjury: for falsely denying he knew al-Midhar and falsely denying the handwriting in the aforementioned booklet was his own. From then on, his detention was not based on material-witness status but on criminal charges. Though it took five years to complete his case, he was free on bail from late November 2001 through the rest of the proceedings.
Astoundingly, Shenon's hatchet job does not mention, much less explain, that in November 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit thoroughly rejected the central premise of his story. The judges found that the federal material-witness statute (Section 3144 of Title 18, U.S. Code) had long authorized the detention, for a reasonable period of time, of witnesses who might flee or otherwise become unavailable so that their testimony could be presented before grand juries. The appellate court reasoned that, for decades, federal courts had understood the grand jury to be the type of "criminal proceeding" contemplated by the statute; that "the legislative history of § 3144 makes clear Congress's intent to include grand jury proceedings within the definition of ?'criminal proceeding'" for which detention is permitted; and that, in light of the Supreme Court's well-settled conclusion that sharing one's information with a grand jury was a "public duty," it had long been the law that detention to enforce that duty did not violate the Constitution.
Thus, though the Times won't tell you, I can report that the Court of Appeals ruled,
The undisputed facts establish that [Awadallah] received two bail hearings
within days of his arrest, and that the judges in both hearings found his continued detention to be both reasonable and necessary. Under these circumstances, Awadallah's detention as a material witness was a scrupulous and constitutional use of the federal material witness statute.
HATCHET JOB
While the Times is quick to point out that Awadallah was eventually acquitted of the perjury charges ?- the better to intimate that the whole adventure was a monumentally abusive injustice ?- that does not come close to telling the story.
In fact, Awadallah had two trials. The first ended in a hung jury. It had voted overwhelmingly (11-1) for conviction. Since criminal juries must be unanimous, that forced a second trial, at which the acquittal took place.
In both cases, it is important to note (though Shenon's story elides) that Awadallah did not claim to have given true information. As the Times reported in 2006, Awadallah conceded that his initial statements to the grand jury about al-Midhar had been false, but claimed this was due to confusion brought on by harsh treatment, not willful dishonesty, and that the inaccurate information had not been "material" (as prosecutors must prove in a perjury case) since he corrected it.
Plainly, it was not an injustice to prosecute Awadallah ?- he was found not guilty, but it could easily have gone the other way. Even if an injustice had arguably been done, however, that would have utterly nothing to do with the propriety of seeking Awadallah's testimony. Nor would it bear on the propriety of detaining a Jordanian national who had an undeniable tie to the 9/11 suicide hijackers for a brief period of time so he could be questioned by a grand jury probing both the atrocities and the very real possibility of further attacks targeting Americans for mass murder.
It would have been irresponsible under the circumstances not to pursue Awadallah's information by any legal means at the government's disposal. But what is truly irresponsible is for the New York Times to suggest that the means used by government, and approved by Judge Mukasey after searching analysis, was legally dubious. In truth, it was airtight.
Judge Mukasey has been nominated by the president for a high office. In that office, attorney general of the United States, fidelity to the rule of law is paramount. The episode in question underscores (as if further underscoring were necessary) his fitness. Indeed, there is an 88-page opinion by a federal appeals court to prove it.
The Times may not like witness detentions ?- that's its editorial board's right. But by what right, by what journalistic standard, does the Times withhold from readers of its news pages, in a matter of such manifest public significance, the fact that a federal appeals court ?- four years ago ?- studiously analyzed the central allegations in Philip Shenon's "news" story and rejected every one?
?- Andrew C. McCarthy directs the Center for Law & Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
kuvasz wrote:The thesis of corporate media liberal bias is nonsense, unsustained by even elementary analysis.
Whether they're called liberal or conservative, the major media are large corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger corporations, they sell a product to a market.
The market is advertisers, that is, other businesses. The product is the audiences. For the elite media that set the basic agenda to which others adapt, the product is, furthermore, relatively privileged audiences.
So we have major corporations selling fairly wealthy and privileged audiences. Not surprisingly, the picture of the world represented reflects the
narrow and
biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers, and the product.
The media are only one part of a larger doctrinal system: other parts are journals of opinion, the schools and universities, academic scholarship and so on. We are much more aware of the media, especially the prestige media, because those who critically analyze ideology have focused on them.
The doctrinal system, which produces what we call propaganda when discussing enemies, has two distinct targets. One target is what is sometimes called the political class, the roughly 20% of the population that is relatively educated more or less articulate, playing some roll in the decision making. Their acceptance of doctrine is crucial because they are in a position to design and implement policy.
Then there are the 80% or so of the population. These are, as Walter Lippmann wrote "spectators of action", whom he referred to as the "bewildered herd". They are supposed to follow orders and keep out of the way of the important people. They are the targets of the "real" mass media: the tabloids, the sitcoms, super bowl, and so on.
These sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values:
The Holy Posture of Right Wing behavior:
Passivity
Submissiveness to Authority
The Overriding Virtue of Greed and Personal Gain.
The Lack of Concern for Others.
Fear of Real or Imagined Enemies, etc.
The goal is keep the bewildered herd bewildered.
It is unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it is undesirable ---if they see too much of reality they may set themselves in charge.
You aren't stupid, Finn, in fact of the denizens on the Right who haunt a2k you appear the least non-intelligent, but you are just brainwashed into thinking that this is all there is. Meanwhile, you attack those who believe differently, that there is more going on beneath the surface because you know deep down its true. But, psychologically you can not deal with the idea that you've been fooled.
Those
Liberals whom you attack on a2k represent something much deeper and more fearful to your allies- freedom, unconventionality, and experimentation in a materialistic, capitalistic society. We have the appearance of being Free men.
Which is why whenever I read the nonsense you guys write I think of this dialogue from Easy Rider
Quote:George: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.
Billy: Huh. Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened, man. Hey, we can't even get into like, uh, second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel. You dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or something, man. They're scared, man.
George: Oh, they're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.
Billy: Hey man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody needs a haircut.
George: Oh no. What you represent to them is freedom.
Billy: What the hell's wrong with freedom, man? That's what it's all about.
George: Oh yeah, that's right, that's what it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it - that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.
Billy: Mmmm, well, that don't make 'em runnin' scared.
George: No, it makes 'em dangerous.
Oh wow! You've actually referenced Easy Rider is your reply.
When I was a HS Junior in NY I had to take a state run test called The Regents. There was a Regents test in English, Science and Math. Scoring well on these tests allowed you to receive a Regents Diploma and helped your effort to attend a NY state university.
I barely passed the Science and Math Regents but looked forward to the English test. It was a series of multiple choice followed by essays.
I took the test and felt like I had aced it.
Afterwards, I caught up with my English teacher (a horrific Satantic figure who regulary deflowered impressionable female students) and asked him how I had done.
His reply was something to the effect of "In all my years, I have never graded anyone 100% on an English Regents..." Of course, I saw this as a lead in to "Until now." Nope. He took great pleasure in telling me that I had aced the test except for the fact that in the essay that called for a comparison of a movie to a novel, I chose to compare Easy Rider to Metamorphisis, and of course Kafka's tale was a "novella," not a "novel."
I lost 2 points and scored a 98.
Your post requires a response crafted on something other than a blackberry at a bar.
I'll be back
Finn dAbuzz wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:Finn dAbuzz wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:kuv and blatham... good stuff.
... pile ons...
you consider my comment a "pile on"?
i thought conservatives were
rugged individuals, dude.
as far as the travelling in packs thing... you may want to reflect on what has happened over the last few years to not only liberals and centrists, but also conservatives who go off the rez.
chuck hagel comes to mind.
and back on topic...
i don't seem to remember the right complaining about the nyt when judy miller was pimpin' the iraq war for the administration.
No, I don't consider your comment a "pile on."
More like an A2K version of that classic Warner Bros cartoon where the little scawny mutts bounces all around the big tough Bulldog, gibbering: "That's great Spike, you're great Spike, I'm your buddy---right Spike!"
Only here it's a Hungarian herding dog and not a Looney Toon bulldog.
sorry that's all you got out of the 4327 posts i've put up over the years.
but in deference to your delicate sensibilities, i promise to try really, really hard to never to compliment another poster ever again.
starting with you.
finn, i have rarely seen you post anything that was more than the equivalent of a cut and paste hit piece on liberals. ignore the idea and attack the messenger. apparently, it's inherent in the rugged individuals known as conservatives to avoid,even occassionally, looking beyond approved party rhetoric to consider that maybe someone else might actually have a decent, and more importantly, original idea.
perhaps you've never had one of those?
nope. none of that. if it doesn't fit neatly into your little box of "values", (because of course, only conservatives have those), you quickly sound the alarm and jump into action launching a holy seek and destroy mission on the nearest liberal before they can singlehandedly devastate this here nation under god.
really, man. it's pathetic.
are you and your gang of righteous vulture warriors really that threatened by nasty little things like free speech and inquiring mind ?
i have to laugh when you clowns label me a liberal.
since first registering to vote, i've only belonged to 2 parties. libertarian since 1979, and previously...
republican. voted for ford. voted for reagan. twice.
i'll be kind here. the main reason i began voting otherwise than republican in presidentials is simple. while growing up, the republicans were pretty good with money. they also stayed out people's personal lives.
that disappeared when reagan tripled a deficit that had never doubled since the time of washington. bush senior did him one better. the current knucklehead in chief, has out done both of 'em and sold us to the communist chinese. asi viejo, dubya!
put that together with 20+ years of the republican conservative's elevation to the status of a bunch of old nellies running around wringing their hands about abortion, gays, and any number of things that are really none of their business and what you have is this;
i will never vote for another republican president until every single one of your current crop of goody two shoes, "i'll give up every liberty to be kept safe" crowd of one size fits all haircuts has been put out to pasture.
hopefully, in your town. so
you can be the beneficiary of their constant pissing and moaning.
and while you are sitting there, nodding sagely to the canned speeches about "activist judges", "secular progressives", "liberal academia" (which is complete horseshit as evidenced by my mother, a teacher of over 45 years who was such a consumate conservative republican that she not only campaigned for nixon but also got me introduced to him) and worst of all, having to actually pay taxes to support your "faith based initiatives" and "proxy wars" with the villian of the week, it might actually come to pass that you realize;
you are not a conservative.
in fact, people like you give conservatism a bad name.
but hey, if you really just can't get off without demonizing at least half, and more likely three quarters of the american public, knock yourself out.
then we might get a little peace and quiet around here.
DTOM,
I need to Correct something you said.
You said...
Quote:that disappeared when reagan tripled a deficit that had never doubled since the time of washington.
That isnt correct.
If you look here...
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo3.htm
You will see that the national debt almost tripled from 1917 to 1918, and that from 1940 to 1945 it went from
06/29/1940 42,967,531,037.68
06/30/1945 258,682,187,409.93
And since REagan was president from 1980 to 1988, here is what the national debt did during his admin...
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.42
09/30/1985 * 1,823,103,000,000.00
09/30/1984 * 1,572,266,000,000.00
09/30/1983 * 1,377,210,000,000.00
09/30/1982 * 1,142,034,000,000.00
09/30/1981 * 997,855,000,000.00
09/30/1980 * 907,701,000,000.00
The National Debt is the total amount of money owed by the government; the federal budget deficit is the yearly amount by which spending exceeds revenue. Add up all the deficits for the past 200+ years and you'll get the current National Debt.
So,there have been several times when the National deficit/debt has not only doubled,but tripled during an administration.
Roxxxanne wrote:McGentrix wrote:Roxxxanne wrote:Are we (the liberal lunatics)now sufficiently impressed as to how intellectually superior Finn is?
Come on, a paper clip is intellectually superior to most of you.
LOL
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Fin sniffed:
Quote:Your post requires a response crafted on something other than a blackberry at a bar.
You are posting to a political forum from your blackberry at a bar? (Rubbing elbows with wealthy Aussies, no doubt!) With social graces like that, it is any wonder that "Prof" deflowered all the girls and not Finn?.
Roxxy
I love the fact that I (figuratively of course) get under you skin to the point where you'll write anything in response, irrespective of whether or it makes sense, as long as it rises to your personal low setting for a cutting retort.
People's exhibit #1: The nonsensical relation of social graces to posting in a political forum, followed by some bizzare homophobic rip.
How the hell was that supposed to be a razor?
Here's a free lesson in writing style. The use of "sniffed," may have been wry once (not likely though since it's a Dowdian cliche) but repition has a tendency to dull the blade. Give it a rest. Try "bleated," or "superciliously sneered" Just mix it up a bit.
Similarly, you're killing the wealthy Aussie bit. First of all you've taken the comment completely out of context. If I recall correctly, I made the comment in response to someone's broad-stroked characterization of Australian public opinion. The Australians I know did not agree with him. There is relevance in understanding the nature of my Aussie friends. Perhaps the original comment was largely accurate, and it did not resonate with me because my Aussie friends held a minority view. That they happen to be "wealthy" may explain their residence within a rather small slice of Aussie opinion. But then, maybe not. In any case their description as wealthy was relevant. Secondly, you are (as is your won't) beating a dead horse.
Like when you trumpeted that are a "real estate professional" while responding to someone else's post some time ago. That was certainly fodder for ridicule, but it only would have worked once.
At this point some may wonder why I spend this much time and space responding to you. The answer is twofold and simple:
I feel a sense of responsibility to my A2K stalker (or is it groupie - good God I hope not) and secondly, in addition to being supercilious, I, at times, am pedantic.
Try these tips. Like a change in golf swing, they may feel funny at first, but with time you'll see they can improve you game - Lord know it needs it.
DontTreadOnMe wrote:Finn dAbuzz wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:Finn dAbuzz wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:kuv and blatham... good stuff.
... pile ons...
you consider my comment a "pile on"?
i thought conservatives were
rugged individuals, dude.
as far as the travelling in packs thing... you may want to reflect on what has happened over the last few years to not only liberals and centrists, but also conservatives who go off the rez.
chuck hagel comes to mind.
and back on topic...
i don't seem to remember the right complaining about the nyt when judy miller was pimpin' the iraq war for the administration.
No, I don't consider your comment a "pile on."
More like an A2K version of that classic Warner Bros cartoon where the little scawny mutts bounces all around the big tough Bulldog, gibbering: "That's great Spike, you're great Spike, I'm your buddy---right Spike!"
Only here it's a Hungarian herding dog and not a Looney Toon bulldog.
sorry that's all you got out of the 4327 posts i've put up over the years.
but in deference to your delicate sensibilities, i promise to try really, really hard to never to compliment another poster ever again.
starting with you.
finn, i have rarely seen you post anything that was more than the equivalent of a cut and paste hit piece on liberals. ignore the idea and attack the messenger. apparently, it's inherent in the rugged individuals known as conservatives to avoid,even occassionally, looking beyond approved party rhetoric to consider that maybe someone else might actually have a decent, and more importantly, original idea.
perhaps you've never had one of those?
nope. none of that. if it doesn't fit neatly into your little box of "values", (because of course, only conservatives have those), you quickly sound the alarm and jump into action launching a holy seek and destroy mission on the nearest liberal before they can singlehandedly devastate this here nation under god.
really, man. it's pathetic.
are you and your gang of righteous vulture warriors really that threatened by nasty little things like free speech and inquiring mind ?
i have to laugh when you clowns label me a liberal.
since first registering to vote, i've only belonged to 2 parties. libertarian since 1979, and previously...
republican. voted for ford. voted for reagan. twice.
i'll be kind here. the main reason i began voting otherwise than republican in presidentials is simple. while growing up, the republicans were pretty good with money. they also stayed out people's personal lives.
that disappeared when reagan tripled a deficit that had never doubled since the time of washington. bush senior did him one better. the current knucklehead in chief, has out done both of 'em and sold us to the communist chinese. asi viejo, dubya!
put that together with 20+ years of the republican conservative's elevation to the status of a bunch of old nellies running around wringing their hands about abortion, gays, and any number of things that are really none of their business and what you have is this;
i will never vote for another republican president until every single one of your current crop of goody two shoes, "i'll give up every liberty to be kept safe" crowd of one size fits all haircuts has been put out to pasture.
hopefully, in your town. so
you can be the beneficiary of their constant pissing and moaning.
and while you are sitting there, nodding sagely to the canned speeches about "activist judges", "secular progressives", "liberal academia" (which is complete horseshit as evidenced by my mother, a teacher of over 45 years who was such a consumate conservative republican that she not only campaigned for nixon but also got me introduced to him) and worst of all, having to actually pay taxes to support your "faith based initiatives" and "proxy wars" with the villian of the week, it might actually come to pass that you realize;
you are not a conservative.
in fact, people like you give conservatism a bad name.
but hey, if you really just can't get off without demonizing at least half, and more likely three quarters of the american public, knock yourself out.
then we might get a little peace and quiet around here.
Stung did it?
The Looney Tunes analogy was related to one of your posts, that you might believe it was intended to represent the totality of 4000+ contributions to A2K speaks somewhat loudly of the confidence (or lack thereof) you have in your body of cyber-work.
Spare me your bonafides as a...what? Freethinker? I'm equally disinterested in your assessment of the current conservative movement, or of me for that matter.
In addition, I have no doubt your mother was a wonderful women, but I don't really care what her politics were. The association with Nixon was interesting though. Remember his comments about his mother during his final meltdown?
Spare me as well your feeble indignation about attacks. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
If you want peace and quite, leave this forum and take a dirt nap.It's laughable to think I might flee A2K because of a DTOM hissy fit, but I guess it was worth a try.
