Comments Posted By jukeboxgrad
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 19 Comments
GONZALEZ: CAN EVERYONE BE RIGHT?
sirius: "Please identify the impeachable offenses"
You're ignorant about many things, including the nature of "impeachable offenses." Pay attention to what a famous Republican once said:
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history"
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 30.07.2007 @ 19:09
rick: "It turns out today, that the 'other matters' involved in the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program related to a massive, legal, data mining operation"
If it was legal, why did Ashcroft et al threaten to quit over it?
And there's another problem. On 5/11/06, Bush said we don't do data mining: "we're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."
So this latest spin from the White House, apparently intended to make Gonzales looks like less of a liar, has the unavoidable side-effect of making Bush look like more of a liar.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 22:55
busboy, I think your #19 is a very nice summary of Gonzales' testimony.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:57
rick: "You want me to name every Democrat who’s been arrested the last 60 days?"
Obviously the defining characteristic is not "every Democrat." The defining characteristic is "every Democrat who is holding some kind of public office, and/or has some kind of leadership position as a Democrat."
"some of those are state officials!"
True. But the pattern seems to be that the GOP has a problem with corruption from top to bottom. It would interest me to see a similar list of Dem state officials who've been in legal trouble recently. I think the list just isn't as long.
"What do they have to do with the White House malfeasance?"
I think it's pretty clear that for better and worse Rove runs a tight political ship, which means that there's a lot of integration between local GOP and national GOP. So I think it's appropriate to view the system as a whole.
Specific example: in the NH phone-jamming case, the RNC paid $3 million in legal fees on behalf of the local officials. There were also "22 phone calls from Tobin to the White House between 11:20 a.m. Election Day, two hours after the phone jamming was shut down, and 2:17 a.m. the next day, four hours after the outcome of the election was announced."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601712.html
So it's quite reasonable to imagine that this crime was an extension of "White House malfeasance." Likewise for matters involving other "state officials" I mentioned.
And I think that even after you remove all the "state officials," the number of national names is pretty stunning, and way beyond what the Clinton era produced.
"You are guessing at their motiviations."
I've explained why my guess is logical and why yours is not. I appreciate that you've been very responsive in this thread, but I also notice you haven't responded to that specific point. This tends to confirm what I believe: it's very hard to think of any legitimate reason why Gonzales would simply fail to ask Comey the question. I have never seen anyone suggest such a reason. If you could think of such a reason, I think you would have mentioned it by now.
If, pre-hospital, Gonzales truly did not know where Ashcroft stood, that means Gonzales didn't ask Comey. If he didn't ask, I can't imagine why. Unless he already knew the answer, and knew that by virtue of asking, it would be even harder to make the visit seem legitimate.
Sometimes when we don't ask a question, it's because we already know the answer. And we have some interest in being able to pretend otherwise.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:54
rick: "My memory is unusually good but fails me on occasion"
Don't be too hard on yourself. I've seen worse. There are folks at the White House who think that the CIA used to be run by a guy named Tenent:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/images/20010929.html
Fred Thompson also can't spell:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FredThompson/2007/05/09/tenent’s_time_with_tim
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:50
rick: "substituted that they 'did not handle it correctly' "
Fair enough. That's a big improvement, in my opinion. I respect many things about your work, including your willingness to make corrections. I'm amazed at how some of your ideological pals let their errors stand (which creates the impression that they're not innocent "errors").
For the record, the report used language no stronger than this: "shortcomings … poor judgment … poor communication … counterproductive institutional practices." They also said they did not find "intentional malfeasance."
By the way, I think it's hard to imagine any study of any large organization that was not able to find some signs of "shortcomings … poor judgment … poor communication … counterproductive institutional practices."
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:25
rick: "Web Hubbell … Ron Brown … Johnnie Huang"
The following is a list of GOP folks who have been in serious legal trouble in recent years. I think it's pretty clear that there's no comparison:
Jack Abramoff, Claude Allen, Richard Berglund, Ed Buckham, John Colyandro, Lester Crawford, Tom DeLay, Jim Ellis, Robert Fromm, Shaun Hansen, Adam Kidan, Thomas Kontogiannis, Scooter Libby, Chuck McGee, Bob Ney, Allen Raymond, Warren RoBold, Tony Rudy, David Safavian, Michael Scanlon, Roger Stillwell, James Tobin, Neil Volz, Cherie Carroll, Terrence Gasper, Brian Hicks, Douglas Moorman, Thomas Noe, Donna Owens, Sally Perz, Betty Shultz, Robert Taft, Douglas Talbott, Maggie Thurber, Jim Adams, Darrell Brock, Stan Cave, Dave Disponett, Dan Druen, Vincent Fields, Ernie Fletcher, Daniel Groves, Keith Hall, Tim Hazlette, Marshall Hughes, Cory Meadows, Richard Murgatroyd, Bill Nighbert, Basil Turbyfill and Bob Wilson.
I'm sure I forgot a few, but those fifty or so are a good start.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:10
rick: "As for the state of mind when Card/Gonzalez entered Ashcroft’s hospital room, you have as much evidence for your talking point as I have for mine"
One difference is that I described my reasoning (in #10), so that the line between fact and opinion is clear. Your talking point ("not being aware of this") was presented flatly, as if it were an established fact. But it's not, and the closest thing you have to a source ("an unnamed Bush WH official") is not much of a source at all.
Also, your talking point makes no sense once you realize that this simple question hasn't been answered: if Gonzales was really "not … aware" of whether or not Ashcroft had already made a decision, and whether or not Comey was acting with Ashcroft's full support, then why not simply ask Comey?
It's very hard to understand why a person acting in good faith wouldn't start with that step: ask Comey where Ashcroft stood. If Comey couldn't be trusted to answer such a question honestly, then he shouldn't have been working as a janitor at DOJ, let alone as DAG and acting AG.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 14:09
rick: "I forgot to change the quotes on “blew†which I have now done"
Huh? The word had quotes before, and it still has quotes, so I'm not sure what you "have now done."
"added that it came from Carl Cameron"
That's definitely an improvement. But my unsolicited opinion is that your sentence is now incomprehensible, because of the way it says "according to" twice.
"I think you’re questioning my credibility is a laugh."
Your original sentence, which pretended that Cameron's word ("blew") appeared in the Inspector General's report, speaks for itself. (That sentence can be seen in #8.)
"your attempt to spin my piece"
I don't see where anything I've said is fairly described as an "attempt to spin [your] piece."
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 13:56
rick: "I don’t know if your link is the one being referred to in this piece"
I expect better from you, but maybe I shouldn't.
It's always fun to peel back the layers of the onion this way. Here's your sentence which caught my eye:
the slew of illegal fundraising cases that the Clinton Justice Department, according to an Inspector General’s audit, simply “blewâ€
An innocent person reading that sentence would ordinarily conclude that you are quoting the Inspector General. So I asked you who you are quoting. It turns out you are quoting Cliff Kincaid who is quoting Carl Cameron (of Fox).
It's not OK for you to take a word out of Cameron's mouth and pretend that it came out of the Inspector General's mouth. You're also off your rocker if you think that a non-wingnut reader is likely to perceive Cameron as someone who can be trusted to fairly paraphrase the Inspector General.
"I don’t know if your link is the one being referred to in this piece"
Yes, as far as I can tell, the link I provided is "the one being referred to in this piece." Of course, I can't really know for sure, since "this piece" is extremely vague, and doesn't tell us exactly what is "being referred to."
It's worth noting that you, Kincaid and Cameron are all propagating information about "an inspector general's report," even though none of you have offered any specifics about the report (like, for example, what it was called, when it was issued, or where a reader could find it, or relevant text that is quoted from it, which would help one identify it).
You seem to be well-aware that Gonzales has no credibility whatsoever. I'm surprised that you're this careless with your own.
Comment Posted By jukeboxgrad On 29.07.2007 @ 13:29
