I’d rather not see the “who was nastier” discussion continue, Scylla; I think it’s been rendered pointless. On the other hand, I’d certainly like Tejota’s involvement in the discussion to continue, as I find myself impressed with T’s ability to frame an argument. I think there are valid points of debate which have made, and which deserve further treatment, just not in this thread. But I think the fights which have been going on tend to obscure the valid points of all the participants.
Really wish you hadn’t said that. Really.
Your demand for a retraction from Tejota is ludicrous. Simply ridiculous. (Are you the all-time champeen at retraction demands? I’d bet on it.)
Your Self Portrait in Flattering Light is, for the most part, factually accurate. But Lordy! the spin!
Way I figure it, as soon as you tried to sucker me with your “question”, all bets were off. If I game you back and you lose, you cannot then don the umpires shirt and penalize me five yards.
Your claims to rhetorical integrity would have some weight if you had said “Tut, tut! Not the done thing, don’t you know. Not quite cricket.” and gone on from there.
But you didn’t, did you, buckaroo? You went totally ballistic, tearing your hair, beating your head against the wall and screaming “Liar!” at the top of your lungs. How many times? 10? 15?
And then you try to recruit me to support you against Tejota? Now, I’m just an ol’ country boy, but I know when someone is peeing on my shoes and trying to tell me its raining.
Now, if your recent tone is a permanent change, all well and good. But trying to paint yourself as a paragon of rhetorical civility at Tejota’s expense is just plain wrong.
May the Mandy be with you.
Five thousand pages ago on this thread I posted an old Mother Jones story on the Bush bros.
There are all kinds of children of privilege. It doesn’t necessarily have to play badly. Look at someone like JFK, Jr. who, I think most people would agree, was a very talented, decent guy with many admirable qualities.
When I look at the Bush sons, I have to wonder how Barbara didn’t manage to do better.
Even without any indictable offense, the W. story will play badly now because he (and other family members) have persistently been involved in the kind of shady you-scratch-my-back cronyism and insider self-dealing (loans, Aloha scams, options, corporate welfare a la the Rangers deal) that is now biting average Americans on their rears.
I want to see it on the cover of Newsweek.
But, fwiw, that’s just not true of every privileged scion of a famous family; Americans have no reflexive dislike of wealth and privilege.
Had the press been more forthcoming on W’s background before the election–had they given it half the attention they gave to Gore’s “exaggerations”–Bush would probably have lost at least 600 votes in the state of Florida.
For whatever reason, American journalists were just not feeling the pain of whoever was hurting in the bubble economy; and so they were not interested in writing much about speculative America and the dangers of “infectious greed,” or in making clear exactly who George W. Bush was. We just got a lot of stuff about what a nice guy he was.
Just saw xeno on preview. What he said.
Well I never bought the warm and fuzzy.
He didn’t choose his parents, that’s true. But tell me, when do we start counting his adult reliances on privelege and indulgence as marks on his character? Many of Bush’s political opponents have been children of privelege as well (notably, Mr. Gore); have they all been so dependent on their situations of birth for their success? Arguably, I think, to an appreciably lesser (and more ethically justifiable) degree. YMMV.
[more speculation]
But the privelege issue isn’t the underlying political ugliness I think Americans will find important. It’s the abuse of trust issues, at Harken and later as Texas Governor, and also the image of backroom business skullduggery invoked when we look at Harken. (And just wait until the media starts covering the sweetheart Rangers dealings in detail.)
[/speculation]
Fair enough, but I hope you appreciate my stance as well.
Right xeno–that’s what I meant above. Privilege on its own is no problemo. Abuse of privilege is seriously bad karma.
Yeah, Mandy, we’re making the same points at the same time. Wanna go on a rotation schedule?
(Naah; the free-for-all’s much more fun, I think.)
I’m just about to take a much overdue work break ;).
I don’t think the problem with revealing Jr.s character or lack thereof lies with the reporters. Basicly, they have to sell stories. If nobody wants to read about Jr.'s summer job clubbing baby harp seals to death, or the mysterious disappearance of neighborhood pets in his youth (note: I am shamelessly making this up) then they’re stuck.
Its the “Reagan effect”. American’s desperately wanted to believe in his avuncular charms and his steady gaze. News stories that contradict that were not welcome, and therefore couldn’t be sold. They had the same response to a similar image concocted by same spin-wizards with Jr.
Jr.s tenure as TX Gov. is all public record, and is mostly apalling. No other word comes close. His attempt to keep the Reagan papers under wraps is far more suspicious and noteworthy than any of his shady Harken deals. But you can’t tell the public what they adamantly will not hear!
The ugly truth is that when poor folks are getting shafted, its ho-hum bore yawn. But when upper-middle folks with fat 401K’s get screwed…that’s a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
Mandy I love Mother Jones. I just can’t stand to read Mother Jones. Everytime I do I find myself calculating the driving time to the Canadian border. (6 hours fifteen minutes, Minnesota style. About 2 hours, Texas style)
I just noticed this item on the CNN website: In '89, Bush opposed Harken overseas subsidiary
From the article:
Now, I’m pretty sure Bush didn’t mean exactly what he said, as that would mean he opposed the Bahrain venture entirely (a venture which was exactly the sort of thing he was invited on board to promote). I believe he meant to say “I opposed creation of the Cayman subsidiary.” But the language is ambiguous. (Apparently, “moral clarity” doesn’t include clarity of speech.)
Fortunately, the always trustworthy Ari Fleischer informs us that the President’s opposition is “a matter of public record.” Unfortunately, a search through all the documents linked previously in this thread has revealed no information. Can anyone corroborate this matter of record?
Also in CNN today, here’s an article discussing the Bush administration’s immediate creative interpretation of whistleblower protection afforded by the new corporate reform act. ISTM the administration very much wants an interpretation which only allows whistleblowing upon request. Sort of “you can tell Congress all about your company’s dirty dealings whenever you want —assuming Congress specifically asks you about them.”
More Harken Documents on publicintegrity.org
Seems I’m not the only one who wonders where to find the “public record” of Bush’s opposition. But I’m sure it’ll turn up. The Pres sounded quite confident when he told us he was against the deal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/L02KRUG.html
So Bush was not a sitting governor and the money he received was not a gift.
Krugman is a :wally
Yes folks, it’s the thread that won’t die (sorry).
Regarding the OMB “retraction”, Krugman has this to say in his most recent column:
Pretty creepy, if you ask me. But Bush’s “trifecta” remark is even worse.
There’s also a response from Krugman regarding the Texas Rangers contract here (first link):
http://www.pkarchive.org/
Permit me to summarize Krugman’s response to the Texas Rangers NYT letter.
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It would be nice to see that 1989 contract.
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It seems unusual to grant a failed businessman a 10% ownership share when he only puts up 2% of the capital. Unless that businessman happens to be the son of a sitting President AND is an active participant in crony capitalism.
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[It’s unclear to flowbark whether GWB received 12% or 10% at the end.]
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Krugman, “We don’t have the full story of Bush’s career. I have reason to believe that there is a lot more to the Harken story, and also a lot about cronyism during his years as governor. But this isn’t really about finding smoking guns. It’s about seeing what lies behind Bush’s pose as a regular guy, someone who shares the concerns of ordinary people.”
It turns out that Krugman was right after all. This link, from
Spinsanity exposes the OMB’s claim of a ‘mistake’ for the lie it is.
Krugman was just on CNN’s Moneyline and in the interview he said something to the effect of “It doesn’t look like Bush did anything necessarily illegal.” I’d have to wait for the transcript to get the exact wording, but he wasn’t as loony (politcally I mean, I don’t think anyone has said he’s got mental problems) as some might portray him to be. The crux of his argument as I heard it was that Bush was not a good businessman and that the Republicans portray him as a man of character and principals that his history betrays.
Anybody else see it, and is my summary correct?
I didn’t see the show, but I don’t think his message, as you summarized it, is substantially different than that he’s put forth in his columns.
No, Krugman is still wrong. He accused the agency of “lying” – i.e., deliberately misstating. That charge is unsupported.
Spinsanity says that the agency understated their mistake and that they ought to have made the correction more apparent. However, Spinsanity doesn’t say that the error was intentional, and they don’t dispute that the error had been corrected before Krugman’s column appeared.
Actually, as far as I can tell, Krugman used the phrase, “deception”. In my experience, the root “lie” tends to raise eyebrows and is thus avoided in polite company.
IMHO, changing a news release from an earlier date without indicating that it has been edited is indeed a “deception”. Furthermore, I believe that it is fair to characterize it as Orwellian.
I urge GWB’s OMB to come clean and rectify this situation by placing a full disclaimer at the bottom of the July 12th press release (web version).