Comments Posted By Rick Moran
Displaying 231 To 240 Of 1317 Comments
A SHORT POST ABOUT GRASPING AT STRAWS
Dale:
Are you saying that my position has changed? Or that new information doesn't alter my perceptions?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 30.07.2007 @ 16:08
WHOSE FREEDOM? WHAT IS SPEECH?
Okay - I misunderstood your comment. You're saying it is NOT a hate crime. Good.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 30.07.2007 @ 09:33
Sorry. Doesn't cut it.
What you're saying is that only Muslims are protected from being offended. It doesn't matter what Muslims say about their own book. They are not the ones engaged in free speech. The protection here is granted the person who is expressing himself - not the target of his protest. And the Constitution grants no rights to those who may become such a target.
And btw - there are many Christians who see the Bible as the verbatum word of God and revere the book the way that Muslims revere the Koran. You're saying that because one religion spells out how a book is viewed, they are entitled to being protected from offense?
And what about the flag? There are specific rules and regulations about how to dispose of a flag. Burning it is only the final step. You are saying that we can ignore the rules and regs regarding burning a flag because that's protected speech (I agree that it is - but not for this reason) but must prosecute someone who ignores the rules about handling a Koran?
It's a muddle to be sure. But shouldn't we be erring on the side of free speech rather than granting special privilges to one group?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 30.07.2007 @ 09:23
GONZALEZ: CAN EVERYONE BE RIGHT?
There is much that I write on this blog (articles for other sites are different) that I take things from memory or after scanning a piece or two. My memory is unusually good but fails me on occasion - "Robert" Comey is a mistake I've made in two separate blog posts for instance.
Not an excuse - but when I'm wrong on the facts, it seems stupid not to correct it. What's the point of not doing so? You only prove you don't care about what you write - something I care deeply about.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 14:32
Jesus Christ! You want me to name every Democrat who's been arrested the last 60 days?
Lord God some of those are state officials! What do they have to do with the White House malfeasance?
As far as your belief regarding Card/Gonzalez - again, that is YOUR OPINION, YOUR SPIN.
Get it through your head that other people have a differnt take on the same information. You are guessing at their motiviations. At least I have a source for my take.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 14:14
Okay - you win. I dropped "blew" alltogether and substituted that they "did not handle it correctly" which even you would agree the report makes clear.
Dave:
The point is that the modern presidency seems to lend itself to this DOJ politicization - and I made the observation that this has been true since after Nixon. That the Carter Administration and Griffin Bell politicized EEOC cases, for instance (going after some companies, not others for political reasons). It's not exactly an "everyone does it defense" but rather a comment on the changing nature of the presidency and government.
This idea of DOJ being semi-independent is fairly new. Presidents used to appoint their most trusted cronies to the post. Only the modern presidency has seen the necessity of keeping much of politics (some cannot be avoided) out of DOJ business. The fact this may be changing is more a reflection of the atmosphere in DC than any attempt to prorouge any perogatives of the judiciary or Congress for that matter.
As far as my take on Bush politicizing government, I have been writing about it for more than a year. Where have you been :-)?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 14:09
First of all, I forgot to change the quotes on "blew" which I have now done and added that it came from Carl Cameron.
I am always open to corrections of the facts - not in the interpretation of those facts by someone with as obvious a political agenda as you have. So I think you're questioning my credibility is a laugh.
As far as the IG Report - from what I read, it showed that indeed the Clinton DOJ "blew it" although not ascribing any ulterior motives to them for it. I think it interesting that a partisan could in fact put that kind of spin on it - that the mishandled and obscured documents could be seen as agenda driven - even though the IG didn't put it quite that way.
All of that aside, perhaps you should resist the temptation to put your spin on everything I write and remember that there are. in fact, two sides to every argument. I thank you for your corrections of the facts. I damn you for your attempt to spin my piece in a way that I, as the author, did not intend nor appreciate.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 13:40
Just off the top of my head...
Web Hubbell went to jail. Did he serve as associate AG from his cell?
Ron Brown almost certainly would have been indicted for lying to the FBI if he hadn't been tragically killed in that airplane accident.
That's just off the top of my head - and doesn't include Johnnie Huang who I believe was a Commerce deputy (he or Chng - can't remember which).
To believe that the Clinton Justice department wasn't politicized is to believe in fairy tales.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 13:23
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 (which as I recall was given by an unnamed Bush WH official at the time of the Comey testimony).
If I wanted to do a post using Democratic talking points, I would have called Harry Reid and have him write it.
And your last comment was deleted for being non germane. If you want to start another thread on what the GOP Congress did during the Clinton years, you'll have to wait until I write about it.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 13:15
You're right. That wasn't a quote from the IG report (although I don't know if your link is the one being referred to in this piece:
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A3261_0_2_0_C/
And Dave - here's a quote from Orrin Hatch and the summary of an article on the fundraising scandals from that same link:
This just scratches the surface. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee was a guest on the same show. He has generally been very forgiving of Janet Reno’s handling of matters at Justice. But this day he took off his gloves. "This is the most politicized Justice Department I can remember in the whole time I've been in the United States Senate in 23 years," he declared. He also claimed to have information that most of the people named now want to tell their stories about what really went on with fund-raising for the DNC, but that the Justice Department has brushed it aside.
AP reporter Pete Yost reported that the normal random assignment of these cases to judges has been dropped. The cases involving Clinton friends and Democratic donors are being assigned to judges appointed by Clinton who have records of going easy on Clinton’s friends. Also, columnist Bob Novak recently obtained a Justice Department memo listing politically sensitive "ongoing" or "pending inactive investigations" that have long been dormant. He suggests that they are being kept open in order to keep Congress from investigating them. He says the list was released by mistake and the Justice Department is trying to retrieve all copies.
Gee - no politics there, huh?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 29.07.2007 @ 12:56
