I’m a fan of Bill Maher, but I can think of one “barking mad idiot” opinion he’s mentioned. In one episode IIRC he said he didn’t think vaccines prevented disease. Dave Foley was one of the guests, I believe.
Has no bearing on his Bush/Cheney treason argument, of course. Either his supporting comments are valid or they are not.
I would have written an equivalent but slightly different haiku:
An old desert myth
Warcraft for politicos
You must be joking
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Back to rant.
Well done, Subterraneanus. I disagree, of course, but good crafting nonetheless. 
Substance? From Clothahump?
Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything…
Depending on the specific substance, you might want to use gloves and a mask.
I like a lot of his stuff, too, and had a big 
moment when I saw the clip you are referring to.
And it’s interesting that this thread has gone on for 3 pages with no one calling Bullshit on that charge. Anyone interested in the legal discussion can go to this thread where it was discussed thoroughly. No one committed treason here.
Furthermore, while there is some evidence that Cheney was personally involved in the outing of Plame, there is virtually no evidence that Bush was. So, even if outing Plame were a treasonous act (which it wasn’t), we are a looooong way from knowing that Bush either approved of the act, or even knew about it before it happened.
That doesn’t exonerate either Cheney or Bush, and this whole affair is a major stain on their administration. But calling it treason is simply incorrect.
But John, how does one ever obtain such evidence? I mean, unless you’re an idiot like Nixon — recording every word you ever say to everyone — who’s gonna know? It’s hard enough to get evidence on ordinary people; how do you get evidence on a man so powerful that he rewrites laws by scribbling in margins as he signs them? How do you make a man who can declare you or your family member to be an enemy combattant, and ship you away to GodKnowsWhere, give you so much as the time of day?
Shouldn’t the President, especially one with the power that Bush has, be held to a higher standard? And isn’t that what conservatives argued when Clinton was accused? There shouldn’t have to be a direct link to the President. He should be responsible for everything that goes on in his administration. And to head off a reductio argument at the pass, yes I know that means he’ll be accountable for every bureaucratic fuck-up but so what. If someone in his administration screws up a welfare form, let him take the blame for it. It’s his fucking job to oversee that branch of government. If it’s too much for him to handle, then either get rid of him or make what he has to manage a more manageable size.
But . . . but . . . but this is a second term President - the dude was re-elected. I mean, it wasn’t as if the first term was error free.
And willful ignorance. Don’t forget that. Lots of it. For it’s not like some responsible journos didn’t try to sound the bugle early on:
Surviving At The Pleasure Of The President
-underlining/bolding mine.
And here is Lane’s referenced piece
BTW, welcome aboard. Trust you’ll stick around, you come across as a smart cookie.
Which, of course, doesn’t mean I won’t be sending to hell on some other topic. 
Doesn’t matter. Disclosing classified information to a journalist isn’t treason. It’s cycnical, at best, and illegal, at worst. But the bar for treason is set very high, and is defined in the constitution. Had Bush met repeatedly with Al Qaeda operatives and given them detailed, classified information about our counter-terrorism plans, that would be treason. Not to mention that both Bush and Cheney had the authority to declassify information.
I think Bush is one of the worst presidents we’ve had, and I think the invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy tactic in modern history, but I don’t understand why someone would want to make the wildly ridiculous claim that the outing of Valerie Plame was an an act of treason by Bush. He probably didn’t know about it, and it wouldn’t have been treason if he did.
Yes and no. I think Bush bears considerable blame here because he seems to have turned a blind eye to activities that went on in his administration. Had he actively sought out the leakers and gotten rid of them, then I wouldn’t be so quick to hold him accountable for their actions. Still, I’d like to see at least some evidence that Bush was directly involved before I jumped to the conclusion that he was. Given his hands-off management style, I find it very plausible that he wasn’t.
We know of plenty of terrible things Bush has done. No need to strain credibility by claiming he had direct responsibility for the Plame affair. And he certainly screwed the pooch on getting the bottom of what was going on right under his nose.
I do disagree, but I believe you’re arguing honestly, and I appreciate that.
In the midst of a War on Terror, there is hardly a more traitorous act than to out an agent charged with fighting a critical component of it, and in the process doing unknowable damage to an entire network of clandestine operatives and their contacts and missions. General Sir Henry Clinton of the British Army could only have dreamed of getting anything with that much strategic value from Benedict Arnold.
Dude, laugh all you want. The fact of the matter is that Maher consistently makes a total idiot of himself on a regular basis. Just watch excerpts from “Politically Incorrect” et. al. Hell, “Politically Incorrect” was cancelled because of his stupidity.
Actually, it was cancelled because of the stupidity of mouth-breathing network executives who equated any remark questioning the validity of certain aspects of American society/policy as “unpatriotic”. Which I’m sure is the same thing to you.
But doing damage to the network of clandestine operatives is still not a treasonous act. Now, if you want to use the terms “traitor” and “treason” in their colloquial sense, then you might have a case. But in a legal sense, there is simply no precedent here for claiming that outing Plame was an act of treason. Can you name one-- when someone was charged with treason for leaking a single piece of classified information to a journalist? And what is your evidence that Bush was involved? If Bush committed treason because of the actions of Libby, then I guess Washington committed treason because of the actions of Arnold.
A treasonous act in the War on Terror would be directly helping Al Qaeda identify targets and bring weapons into the US. A treasonous act would be telling Al Qaeda about a secret mission to strike one of their training camps. You must “levy war” against the US or “adhere to the enemy” of the US in order to commit an act of treason. Americans journalists are not “the enemy” and giving them information, even classified information, is not “levying war”.
Treason is a very narrowly defined crime, and the term should not be thrown around lightly. Very few Americans have been convicted of treason, but if you want an example, here’s a good one:
It certainly could have been phrased better, perhaps leaving out the claim that officers ordering the launching of cruise missiles were cowardly.
Edit > Find and Replace
Find: Maher
Replace with: Clothahump
Replace all.
Certainly it could have, and yet if it had been he wouldn’t have really made the point he was trying to make. In any case, no reason to shut him down. I’m no huge fan, and I thought Politically Incorrect was pretty lame once it moved to ABC and cut back to 30 minutes, but the real assholes in that instance were the ones who decided to sack him. Bill O’Reilly’s one of the biggest douches on TV, who’s said infinitely more hateful things than Maher, but I’d still be pissed if they cancelled him because they were afraid the audience wasn’t going to agree with his position on whatever issue.
Then again, because that bar is set too high I see administrations like this one then pushing and testing the limits.
It is interesting to notice that recently there was evidence the administrations is funneling money to groups close to Al Qaeda.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/
It seems the administraton did a loud “oops”, when it noticed the Shia influence (close to Iran) was getting too strong (Gee, I think invading Iraq made other things march besides freedom), so Sunny groups that have terror connections and can not be aided directly are getting some aid thanks to schemes one could call "the son of Iran-contra” (And with many of the same a-holes that were involved in the original Iran-contra!)
Bush lied to the American people when he said he was going to get to the bottom if this, only to have the guy in charge of security in the White house say recently that the leaks were never investigated internally.
To me anyone that has the power to dismiss elements that are in reality harming and administration and is not doing anything to get rid of them, is protecting them, and supporting what they did.
Maybe we should set one.
If I had a neighbor that had a dangerous dog I would call animal control. I would not care that they are moving out soon.
We’ll have to see how this plays out if Congress does, in fact, investigate. Not to minimize such actions, but even if someone did funnel money to a Sunni group “linked” to al Qaeda in Iraq, that would not necessarily be treason against the US.
Bush’s incompetence and downright underhandedness has ceased to surprise me. While I find it plausible that he wasn’t “in the loop” originally, he basically seems to have just brushed the issue under the rug even since it came to light.
That would be a terrible policy decision. A free press would die without access to information (read “leaks”), and if anyone who leaked could be tried for treason, the information spigot would be turned off permanently. That would be too high a price to pay for revenge against Bush. There are plenty of lesser penalties that can invoked in egregious instances like this. Downgrading the charge of “treason” to something like this simply isn’t necessary. If anything, it would make prosecution much, much harder.
That’s a different issue entirely. I never said we should just shrug our shoulders because Bush will be out of office soon.