Fer chrissakes, Italgato, your incessant personification of argument sure doesn't help your arguments a bit.
You are correct, Timber. Perhaps I reacted too harshly to being called names by Professor Hobibit.
I will limit myself to rebutting arguments.
Thank you for your input.
Italgato wrote:
I will limit myself to rebutting arguments.
Italgato,
OK (if you are really able to do that), but that is hardly the point here.
The various personalities on this and related threads each have their own lenses through which they view, perceive, and interpret the items under discussion. The different world views we manifest are evident in nearly every issue discussed. I have not observed that any of them have changed very much over the course of these discussions. However, occasionally we do grace each other withan unexpected insight and feeling for another point of view - very likely most go unacknowledged.. That plus the pleasure of encountering interesting people is the point of this activity. It is not a contest or a debate.
It is true that 'liberal' points of view and critics of the administration tend to outnumber their opposites on these threads, and that does its part to skew the 'norms' for discourse here a bit. However that is no reason to feel intimidated or react with hostility. No one or no point of view here appears to have a monopoly on the correct interpretation of events, and none of us is immune to being carried away by our own preconceptions. That includes you.
If the CIA asked Novak not to use her name, it seems the buck stops with Novak.
Her job was common knowledge in DC...
Yep. They're trying to squeeze a Watergate out of a turnip.
I foresee backlash.
sofia
We ought to note that it wasn't only Novak. Five or six journalists were fed the same juicy tidbit, and by two separate sources within the administration, but Novak was the only one who passed it on.
I find this Washington culture of leaks pretty repugnant. If the leak is a whistle blow, a revelation about some illegality or malfeasance within government, then that's just fine. But that's not the norm by a long stretch. Rather, it is a covert attempt to manipulate press and opinion.
Quote:The Access Trap
How anonymous sources tie reporters in knots.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 3:53 PM PT
The biggest news story in Washington this week is the identity of the two White House leakers who blew the cover of Valerie Plame?-a covert CIA employee and wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV?-by revealing her identity to columnist Robert Novak, who published it in a July 14, 2003, column.
The Novak-Wilson-Plame story is so huge because 1) the leak appears (to some) to be a dirty trick designed to punish Wilson for going public on the July 6 New York Times op-ed page with his version of the Niger yellowcake uranium story; 2) it's against federal law ($50,000 in fines and 10 years in prison) for a government official who has access to classified information to disclose a covert agent's identity; 3) it indicates the extent to which the Bush administration will dissemble to sear its version of the war on terror on the public consciousness; and 4) we haven't had a good scandal joy ride in Washington since Monicagate.
But Novak can't shed any light on the leakers' identities, of course, because he promised them anonymity in exchange for the information. Nor can the six unnamed reporters who, according to the Washington Post, were peddled similar information by two White House officials but who never used the information in their journalism. Ambassador Wilson told the Post yesterday that four reporters working for three TV networks told him in July that administration officials had contacted them to plant news stories that would include his wife's covert identity. One presumes that the pledge of confidentiality binding Novak also gags these reporters, preventing them from pursuing the big story of who leaked, who played the dirty trick, or who may have broken federal law.
The hard-and-fast rules that govern confidential sourcing leave a half-dozen news organizations in a position where they know the leakers' identities as institutions but can't force individual reporters to reveal their names without violating the journalistic taboo of "burning" a confidential source. If the journalists in the know were to surrender the names of their White House sources, they'd be shunned by their peers and (more important) frozen out by future confidential sources because they're untrustworthy. They might as well move their butts over to the obit desk. (One state court has even found that a confidentiality agreement with a reporter is contractual, enforceable by law.)
But it's not like Washington journalists like to play "get the leaker" in the first place. They don't even like to examine the motives of the confidential sources who appear in their own newspapers or the pages of the competition. It's considered poor form in Washington to uncover another reporter's confidential sources, but not because it's bad journalism. Confidential sources are the grease that makes the wheels of Washington journalism turn, and anybody who disturbs the cloak of anonymity undermines what 80 percent of the reporters in town do. Because Washington reporters outnumber worthwhile confidential sources by a ratio of 10 to 1 (or greater), confidential sources can usually pick the most advantageous (to them) terms for dispensing information. For that reason alone, most Washington reporters would rather acquire the other guy's confidential sources than expose them.
This may explain why none of the reporters who talked to the White House sources filed the more newsworthy story: namely, that the normally leak-free administration was attempting to put Ambassador Wilson in an unflattering light by connecting his Niger mission in some nepotistic fashion to his wife's position as a CIA employee, and damage her cover in the process. Any of the reporters could have published a story about how an administration source was talking trash about Wilson without naming Valerie Plame or violating their confidentiality agreements. So, why didn't they? I can only assume that the reporters calculated that with confidential administration sources being so rare these days, they shouldn't do anything that would deter a future leak. So, they ignored the tip and declined to expose the leakers' skulduggery in hopes of getting a different?-and perhaps less dicey?-story leaked to them later.
and speaking of Watergate and competing 'gates', the following is germane and very thoughtful...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0310.greenberg.html
I find perhaps the most salient point of that article to be
Quote: ... the press acts not as a pawn of the left or the right, but according to its own (sometimes screwy) internal laws and logic.
Oh I see, Timber.....you're saying that since politics is politics, there are no real boundaries which protect any of us from fraudulent practices which disenfranchise the voters. And especially the less well healed voters. It's as if you're saying, "aw, that's just good politics, all's fair." Or that there's no line between good spin and down right cheating.
It seems to me we should look at this assumption as we go along. It seems both sides want to say, "well, the other side did it then, so it's ok for us to do it now." And both sides seem to think it's only fair if the questionable practice be stopped when they are in power.
I think there should be some understanding about what's fair. Is it ok, for instance to covertly set about entrapping a president in a "lie?" Millions of private dollars went into that effort (money that was not counted in observation of limits on political fund raising.) And it cost the American people more than all the millions we spent. It cost us our confidence in a system that is fair and reasonable. It cost us a loss of hope that such a thing even exists. Is it really true that all's fair in politics? Is there no line that should not be crossed? I surely hope not.
Quote:Nor can the six unnamed reporters who, according to the Washington Post, were peddled similar information by two White House officials but who never used the information in their journalism
.
From blatham's article.
Interesting to note-- Six unnamed sources, who 'can't/won't' cite their sources... Under these parameters, anyone could allege anything...
First, Lola, I do not posit that "All is fair in politics"; rather, much to the contrary, I point with dismay that to expect fairness in politics is at best disingenuous.
Second, I see no valid reason to consider that entrapment was in any way involved in the recent Presidential Impeachment; what I see is a lot of spin that would try, but fails, to make the point. I just don't buy it.
Third, while Ideals are laudable, even things to which to aspire, often they are not realistic Goals. Pragmatism necessitates no endorsement of reality, pleasant or otherwise; it simply and dispassionately recognizes and acknowledges reality, thereby establishing a framework from with which to deal realistically with reality, and to perhaps facillitate effort to effect change. Wishes and hopes are intellectual condiments. The meal is effective action, which rarely comes pre-packaged.
Quote:Interesting to note-- Six unnamed sources, who 'can't/won't' cite their sources... Under these parameters, anyone could allege anything...
This is the way of Washington.............. Watergate would never have happened without "DeepThroat"
Don't buy it, Watergate would never have happened without Nixon giving the okay.........
We spend more time discussing national security and one CIA operative while our country sends 150 billion dollars to Iraq when our own people are doing without sufficient resources to improve our schools and health system. Where's the balance?
we're discussing who will be elected president in 04, c.i. I agree what's going on in Iraq is devastating and it's entirely consistent with the performance of George W. Bush in what he does at home.
I know, Lola. I'm the one that started this topic. Just a bit of my frustration showing.
I like the notion that for every school we build in Iraq, we have to build one in America. I know that we need at least 5 to 8 within a 15 mile radius of me. It is a proven fact that small school size as well as small class size leads to better education quality. It is funny that the major point being made today, ie, degreed teachers, is one of the least important point. Note, I did not infer unqualified.
Cicerone,
On what basis do you suggest that more Federal Money would make our school system any better? There is little general agreement on this point. Indeed the national correlation between per capita student cost and measured student proficiency is hardly even positive. Washington D.C. schools have nearly the highest per capita costs in the nation and are at the bottom of the performance ranking. In my view the limits of our educational system have much more to do with the self-serving behaviors of teachers unions, and the closed loop bureaucracies of the NEA, school administrators, and state & Federal governments.
Same goes for our health care system. The often mindless paperwork, procedure code assigning and insurance claims processing - all a form of rationing - are a direct result of government interference in a previously free market. Most of the evidence suggests that the greatest contribution to public health could result from lifestyle changes already freely available to all. Despites its shortcomings our health care systems do work well compared to those of other modern countries.
BillW wrote:Quote:Interesting to note-- Six unnamed sources, who 'can't/won't' cite their sources... Under these parameters, anyone could allege anything...
This is the way of Washington.............. Watergate would never have happened without "DeepThroat"
Don't buy it, Watergate would never have happened without Nixon giving the okay.........
I understand not naming the sources--but they should name the six journalists, who make the allegation.
