Bill Maher on Valerie Plame - Bush and Cheney are traitors

The BBQ Pit
121

[QUOTE=John Mace]

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.
[/quote]

But the context here is the Plame scandal, I have to say what happened here was anything **but ** a leak in the definition it seems you are using there.

The administration used the press, and the press said “Thank you! May I have another?” A real leak would be one that the press would get regarding unethical or illegal activities that then would undermine the powers that are misleading us (see the Pentagon Papers), this Plame leak was set to undermine a critic of the administration IOW: the people in power are the winners, IMHO the reverse of the idea that we should protect whistle blowers!

If you can not understand that policy has to be set that would protect the little guy against the powerful setting up a bad plan of action, then there is no hope of we even working to prevent similar moves by the powerful in the future.

122

John,

Allow me to preface what follows with saying that I think you’re a genuine good-guy with plenty of smarts to along with the previous qualifier. And no, I’m not flirting with you.*

OTOH, I am sick and tired of your two-faced approach towards the Bush Administration, for it seems you’re willing to dive-in in search of dingleberries in order to defend them, while attacking them at the same time.

Now, I am not saying that such a thing is impossible, for even I will admit that Bush-bashing is akin to to a national pastime:

*Stewardess: The Times or Washington Post, Sir?

Passenger: Neither, thank you. Too busy bashing Bush inside my head.*

Not that they don’t deserve every bit of scorn that comes their way. Anyway, that having been said, just in case you haven’t noticed, this is NOT a judicial hearing but rather a court of public opinion. A people’s court if you will. And putting aside all the legal and/or partisan pettyfoggery, the fact of the matter is that outing your own undercover operators, comes as close to treason as anything else I can think of. In fact, in my book IT IS treason no matter how cloudy some would like the issue to be.

In closing, don’t you have better things to do than standing-up and caveating (made-up word methinks, but I like it) to hell anything that demeans the Greatest Mass Murderer this century has seen? And that’s not an opinion based on “winning” or “losing” in Iraq, it’s a fact based on empirical evidence. As in reality.

I mean, seriously, I know you can do better than Bricker, never mind the 'hump.

So there. Loosen-up your tie, unbutton your shirt collar, have a brew…and STOP PICKING FUCKING NITS vis-a-vis this demented Administration of yours. Og knows they’ve lied their collective asses off on many an occasion. So why the fuck are you – or anyone else – still putting your collective heads on the chopping block for them? Masochism?
Fuck yeah. Bush et al are not just traitors, they are wanna-be dictators and very dangerous murderers at that, what with all the power they have at their disposal.

Think about it. And get off the fuckin’ fence once and for all.

*If interested, ask Jodi and/cosmodan what I am talking about. Not one of my finer moments on the SDMB. :frowning:

Lib,

Long-time Maher fan here, thus I don’t quite agree with the totally of your OP. Yes, he can and is quite smug at times…but other than the vaccines stupidity (he must have been on triple-A stuff that night) he is also seldom wrong in his sarcasm. Case in point, your OP.

123

[QUOTE=Clothahump]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I wasn’t convinced by your first post, but this one put the nail in the coffin.

124

I think there is a severe disconnect between a phrase like “leaking information” and what happened here. Leaking information, to me, is telling someone who the President is thinking about for his next appointment. Comparing that to telling someone who the CIA has been using for covert operations against terrorists is just wrongheaded, in my opinion.

And yes, if Washington had turned a blind eye to Arnold, allowing his men to shield Arnold from investigation, then Washington should have been tried for treason. Bush said at the outset that he wanted to know who did this deed. Now he knows. And his response is the equivalent of, “Oh you mean it was Dick’s guy? That’s okay then.”

125

[QUOTE=Lakai]
Well, I wasn’t convinced by your first post, but this one put the nail in the coffin.
[/QUOTE]

Damn right. You can’t can’t argue when he comes up with that many cites, can you?

126

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Damn right. You can’t can’t argue when he comes up with that many cites, can you?
[/QUOTE]

and such well researched cites, too, don’t you agree?

127

[QUOTE=Liberal]
… (l)eaking information, to me, is telling someone who the President is thinking about for his next appointment…
[/QUOTE]
A difference being, that’s not generally classified. (Otherwise, Lib, I’m in agreement with you).

Classified leaks can benefit a free press as John describes (e.g., the classified budget of an outrageously wasteful program). It can be argued in such cases that the end justifies the means. But Plame’s outing appears to have been done as either political revenge, or to undermine a position now verified as accurate (Niger had not sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq), so it’s hard to defend it morally.

The important difference between the Plame case and most leaks is the magnitude of the damage done when a source (or someone who’s been associated with sources) is identified. Remember when Jack Anderson published the identity of a Soviet source during the Nixon administration? G. Gordon Liddy claimed the White House contemplated killing Anderson.

I have not gone through the entirety of the thread debating whether outing Plame was legally treason, so I can’t comment authoritatively. But there’s no debate that it’s a big deal. And I don’t have a problem with Maher calling the people who did it (or tried to cover it up) traitors.

128

[QUOTE=wring]
and such well researched cites, too, don’t you agree?
[/QUOTE]

Not to mention the stunning intricacies of the irrefutable logic with which he expanded upon them.

129

[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
But the context here is the Plame scandal, I have to say what happened here was anything **but ** a leak in the definition it seems you are using there.

The administration used the press, and the press said “Thank you! May I have another?” A real leak would be one that the press would get regarding unethical or illegal activities that then would undermine the powers that are misleading us (see the Pentagon Papers), this Plame leak was set to undermine a critic of the administration IOW: the people in power are the winners, IMHO the reverse of the idea that we should protect whistle blowers!

If you can not understand that policy has to be set that would protect the little guy against the powerful setting up a bad plan of action, then there is no hope of we even working to prevent similar moves by the powerful in the future.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, but how do you write a law that allows “real” leaks but punishes “Plame” leaks?

130

[QUOTE=RedFury]
John,

Allow me to preface what follows with saying that I think you’re a genuine good-guy with plenty of smarts to along with the previous qualifier. And no, I’m not flirting with you.*

OTOH, I am sick and tired of your two-faced approach towards the Bush Administration, for it seems you’re willing to dive-in in search of dingleberries in order to defend them, while attacking them at the same time.

Now, I am not saying that such a thing is impossible, for even I will admit that Bush-bashing is akin to to a national pastime:

*Stewardess: The Times or Washington Post, Sir?

Passenger: Neither, thank you. Too busy bashing Bush inside my head.*

Not that they don’t deserve every bit of scorn that comes their way. Anyway, that having been said, just in case you haven’t noticed, this is NOT a judicial hearing but rather a court of public opinion. A people’s court if you will. And putting aside all the legal and/or partisan pettyfoggery, the fact of the matter is that outing your own undercover operators, comes as close to treason as anything else I can think of. In fact, in my book IT IS treason no matter how cloudy some would like the issue to be.

In closing, don’t you have better things to do than standing-up and caveating (made-up word methinks, but I like it) to hell anything that demeans the Greatest Mass Murderer this century has seen? And that’s not an opinion based on “winning” or “losing” in Iraq, it’s a fact based on empirical evidence. As in reality.

I mean, seriously, I know you can do better than Bricker, never mind the 'hump.

So there. Loosen-up your tie, unbutton your shirt collar, have a brew…and STOP PICKING FUCKING NITS vis-a-vis this demented Administration of yours.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but there’s no nit-picking here. The main point of this thread is a charge of treason, which is wildly wrong. Not just slightly wrong, or a little off base, but flat out wrong. I’ve already said that if you want to use “traitor” or “treason” in a colloquial sense, then there’s not debate. Fine, use those terms in that way. But that’s not how I see them being used here. People are saying they want Bush prosecuted for treason, in court. And no one has presented even one shred of evidence that Bush was involved in outing Plame (leaving aside the issue that said outing was not a treasonous act).

But this is the Pit, so rag on Bush all you want. If anyone really wants to debate this, he or she can open a GD thread. That’s all I have to say in this thread.

131

From American Heritage Dictionary -

trea·son (trē’zən)
n.
1.Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it **or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies. **
2.**A betrayal of trust or confidence. **

Seems to me that outing a spy fits these bolded parts pretty well.

132

I have to say, John, it doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch at all to say that outing one of our spies is aiding our enemy[s]. Providing aid to the enemy is, in fact, treason in a legal sense. Now, whether or not Bush was involved is a different matter, but that’s why you have a trial, yes?

133

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sorry, but there’s no nit-picking here.
[/QUOTE]
“Nitpicking” is one word, and is not hyphenated.

134

[QUOTE=Liberal]
“Nitpicking” is one word, and is not hyphenated.
[/QUOTE]

Unlike “anal-retentive”.

135

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Unlike “anal-retentive”.
[/QUOTE]
I thought it was funny. Nitpicking “nit-picking.” It’s like all meta and shit.

136

[QUOTE=Cervaise]
I thought it was funny. Nitpicking “nit-picking.” It’s like all meta and shit.
[/QUOTE]

Well it wouldn’t be shit if you are anal-retentive.

137

[QUOTE=Miller]
Okay, but how do you write a law that allows “real” leaks but punishes “Plame” leaks?
[/QUOTE]

I think you are still also hung on thinking all leaks are equal. The laws are currently fine, but I don’t think whistle blowers have enough protections now, I just need to remember that the livelihood of the officer that complained about Abu Grahib has been affected negatively.

Going back to Plame, the right wing media did try to make this leak to be just the same as what a whistle blower does. Even a Republican prosecutor (I still think he gave too many breaks to Rove and Cheney) had to dismiss as silly the idea this was a leak to denounce something evil. Even so, I do remember the right wing media going so far as saying that Cheney, Rove et all, were whistle blowers! leading to the great remark by Randi Rhodes that “if Cheney was a whistle blower then Jeff Gannon was the whistle!” :slight_smile:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/02/23/more_gannon/index.html

What I’m trying to say is that even with the current rules I see no trouble differentiating between whistle blowers that point at evil in high places from leakers that attempt to silence the ones pointing at evil in high places, the problem is the enforcement, and IMHO the corruption was/is so bad in the White House that even a Republican Prosecutor under pressure from other Republicans (Do you really believe only the fired prosecutors had those phone calls telling them to “perform” or else?) had to notice. However, I do think that thanks to that pressure a lot was swept under the rug.

138

[QUOTE=Clothahump]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Of course! That’s why Amercian TV is world-renowed for its incisive intelligence - any show containing stupidity is instantly cancelled. Thanks for clearing that up, it was worrying me.

139

[QUOTE=Liberal]
“Nitpicking” is one word, and is not hyphenated.
[/QUOTE]
Which is tautolgous.

140

[QUOTE=Clothahump]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Since you obviously missed the point, here it is spelled out for you.

Maher supported his argument with logic and reasoning, helpfully quoted by the OP.

You did not address any of those arguments, but merely attacked Maher himself for unspecified past things he’s said.

Even if you were 100 percent correct on those past things, that says nothing for this particular argument of his. Hence, your “response” was laughable.