<p>then why doesn’t Bush come out and say something</p>
<p>many of Bush’s lies have been proved, and many Republicans are wanting answers</p>
<p>hard to take, when one more truth about Bush comes out…defend away, the truth is more powerful than any retoric, and stonewalling, anything Scott Mc tells us</p>
<p>If this information leaked, and it was because of the way the information was shared (what else is a :leak: by the way if not information shared through back doors, names hidden, etc), if this information was so important for us to know about, why not do it officially, there has not been ONE good excuse for why it was done the way it was done</p>
<p>walks like a duck…</p>
<p>how low will they go, as low as they need to in order to never admit that Bush is not omnipotent</p>
<p>but hey, have yo all seen the stories of the fake news this administration sends out about the war, the “enemy”</p>
<p>Corporate cronyism, propaganda, as well as media and Congressional complicity have been the foundation of Bush’s presidency of lies. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the majority of the American public (which apparently does not include Strick or FF) have seen through the media coverup, and want the pack of liars, including the GOP led Congress, out. Most are sick and tired of the direction the country is going, the illegal and immoral war, and ginormous deficit.</p>
<p>It is time for a change, and the Republicans are now trying to distance themselves from Bush’s lies and nonsense.</p>
<p>Except the few believers, like those on this forum.</p>
<p>Nah. Something tells me it’s more like certain groups within the party who really weren’t all that in love with Bush before are now willing to splinter because it’s now a lame duck term. </p>
<p>Party loyalty first term, self interests loyalty the second. </p>
<p>I sincerely doubt that anyone in the GOP all of sudden grew a backbone/moral compass during the period from say 2002 until now. But now that it’s no longer imperative to get the guy set up for reelection, it’s much less a party faux paus to be more “vocal” about his shortcomings. Although party loyalty in the US is far weaker than most other countries, it seems fairly clear to me that the GOP shows at least a certain amount of cohesiveness when it counts (e.g. the presidency.)</p>
<p>Actually if you can find a single case of where I’ve quoted or even alluded to FOX News anywhere on this forum, I’ll send you a crisp, new $100 bill. The problem in this particular case is that the left, and particularly the media are redefining “leak”.</p>
<p>So, how about instead of any media outlet you consider on the right, how we go with an article from the Washington Post?
<p>I suppose now you’re going to claim that they’ve been purchased by Rupert Murdoch or something?</p>
<p>The simple truth is, calling this a “leak” is nothing but intellectual dishonesty. Come on, people, think about where we are. We come here expecting our children to make outrageous scores on the SATs to get in exceptional colleges and then fail to recognize and properly define a basic current events vocabulary word like this. Admittedly, it’s the result of being willing to believe everything you read in the Democratic talking point, but you should still be ashamed of yourselves. Falling for an old propaganda trick like that. Again.</p>
<p>I repeat myself, but anyone who’s watched all those great newspaper movies from the 30s, “The Front Page”, “It Happened One Night”, all those wonder stories about the dogged reporter out to get the story for his or her newspaper before anyone else knows exactly what to call it when an official gives you information just before it’s going to be made public as happened here.</p>
<p>It’s called a scoop, not a leak. There’s no such thing as an official leak, that’s an oxymoron. All the twisting and lying in the world doesn’t change that. </p>
<p>Calling a tail a leg as a dear President once described it. And I’m surprised at the people who’ve apparently fallen for it.</p>
<p>As someone I normally don’t care for once said, “Demagoguery beats data.” You’ve made up your mind, so the facts and logic only get in the way. This story is good enough to validate your opinion, so that’s that.</p>
<p>Pretty funny given what folks like you generally accuse Bush of, don’t you think?</p>
<p>mea culpa on the Valerie Plame part of my OP. That was implied in the earliest stories, but now we know different. And we also now know that perhaps nothing “illegal” was done, but it is still extremely shabby behavior is to use classified information in the form of a “leak” to try and discredit a political opponent. It may not have been illegal for Bill Clinton to have a sexual relationship with a young intern, but that didn’t make it any less shabby and you didn’t see liberals running around with statements of support for such behavior.</p>
<p>I am still laughing at a Bush supporter calling everyone else naive. People who call themselves conservatives and then support non-court approved wiretaps, the concept of premptive war against a country that couldn’t even controll the skies above their capitol, plus a budget approach that will have added generations of debt. Conservatives that want to bring government control into adult’s bedrooms, libraries and computer searches…</p>
<p>We all know there were no weapons of mass destruction, but tell me do you still think attacking Iraq has helped to stablize the mid east? Bush and his supporters have been a losing team for America. I can’t wait for Tom Delay to help his friends in congress out.</p>
<p>On the contrary, it was a setup, structured so you’d make false inferences and then clarified in the earliest stories down around paragraph 57. Lots of inuendo intended to make the careless and the witless think that this was directly related to the Plame leak. It’s clearly intentional.</p>
<p>As for using classified information to discredit an opponent, in those same articles if you read long enough you’ll discover that the document in question, the National Intelligence Estimate, was already in the process of being declassified and that Libby’s scoop to Miller (the NY Times reporter, remember) came shortly before the entire document was declassified. Hardly a major issue. </p>
<p>More to the point, the information Miller received wasn’t discrediting anyone, it was attempting to refute the clearly baseless attacks on the White House. If that discredited anyone, it was only because the facts showed the authors of those attacks for what they were. </p>
<p>Perhaps you don’t agree. Care to share with us exactly how what Libby shared with Miller incriminated anyone? It’s all in her article. If what you say is true, you shouldn’t have much trouble showing us what you mean.</p>
<p>Now if anyone can refute what I’ve said with some reasonable citations, please go ahead. I’m perfectly willing to point to what I’m referring to in both the NY Times and the Washington Post and other directs sources of this story to show what I mean. Can you? Before you do, please try to, you know, actually read what they wrote carefully and completely. As Digmedia points out, the articles don’t really say what some folks here think they do, not when you read the whole think and apply some commonsense to some of the things they say.</p>
<p>Actually, I never used the word naive. I just see what I referred to above, yellow journalism being used to mislead people either don’t read carefully, rely on the DNC party line for their news or who’ve already made up their minds. </p>
<p>The funny thing is that this particular attack by the Times is completely self-serving. They may be facing legal charges soon over the clearly illegal leak of the NSA program and they’re trying to make the case that the White House leaks, too, so it’s all alright. </p>
<p>The difference being, of course, that the President has complete authority to declassify information, or in this case, to hurry the declassification already in progress. In the NSA leak case, the so called whistleblowers didn’t follow the laws that allowed them to blow the whistle legally (the law requres they go to Congress, not the press) and all parties have run afoul of specific provisions of the Intelligence Act.</p>
<p>So, sorry, folks, this was a CYA on the Times part, not the relevation of news that been in the public domain since the testimony was made public a couple of years ago.</p>
I was the one who used the word “naive,” and I don’t see any reason to back off from it. “Easily misled people who don’t read carefully” would be another way to put it though.</p>
<p>Funny, but when I heard David Brooks call Bush’s behavior hypocritical, I had no idea he was being a naive demagogue? I kind of assumed the opposite–that he wasn’t letting his ideological predilections color his perception of the president’s actions. </p>
<p>What I said was “too genteel,” and Brooks is always a perfect example of that. Why else do you think he was hired by both the NYT and PBS? He’s a pathetic little wimp. I wouldn’t even waste my time smacking that boy, I’d just fire him. But of course, I don’t work in the MSM echo chamber.</p>
<p>While I essentially agree with you, you insinuate that this is really as simple as defining a word on an SAT. Unfortunately in politics, the difference between “leak” and “scoop” (as an example) is not clearly defined. That, I think, is why this has become a huge issue. </p>
<p>I don’t really think that the administration really committed any sort of high crime or misdemeanor in this case, but I do certainly see the “fine line” that so many think they crossed.</p>
<p>Driver, you can share this with your boy president…not backing off isn’t the same as being right.</p>
<p>I think an interesting question is, “Who thinks Bush’s history of interpreting intelligence, using international negotiations, and developing military interventions makes him highly qualified to handle nuclear weapons?”</p>
<p>Why are the Republican candidates inching away from this administration toward the door? Could it be they don’t want to be associated with this losing team? Will George B. help a lot of congressmen out in this next election?</p>
<p>Again, I would attribute that to lame duckness more than anything. I don’t think that all of a sudden, the dissenting GOPers have decided that they are opposed to his policies en masse. I think that a fair number of them weren’t supportive of him to begin with. But stuck between the choice of having a Republican or a Democrat, they rationally chose the Republican.</p>