Let’s just change a few words and see what happens, shall we?
President Bush said Wednesday that he will withhold judgment about [del]top aide Karl Rove’s involvement in leaking the identity of a CIA agent[/del] Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction until a [del]federal criminal [/del] UN technical experts’ investigation into the matter is complete. “This is a serious investigation,” Bush said at the end of a meeting with his Cabinet, with [del]Rove[/del]Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld sitting just behind him. “I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once this investigation is complete.”…
Hell, Elvis, everybody’s a damn centrist, to hear them tell it! Reeder and me are just about the only out and about lefty-radicals here, probably because we’re too old to give a shit anymore.
Screw centrism! Moderates don’t lead, they won’t follow, and they can’t get out of the way! Every single advance in our history, from racial equality to child labor laws, was originally advanced by radicals. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong, go to the root of injustice and rip it out!
I’m reminded of Dick Gregory’s great line about racism: “Get your foot off my grandma’s neck! Now, goddamit, not one toe at a time!”
No. That way lies McCarthyism. Everyone will have their own reason for getting on the train; there’s no need for the conducter to ensure that they all have his own reason. If you want to only allow people to follow your path if they also think the same way as you, you’ll be the only one there.
By the way, Bricker is not a moral cripple. Partisan? Sure. Wrong-headed? Sure. At times a shill? Sure. Morally crippled? Not in a million years. That way lies madness.
Moderates do follow when given a good reason, and a helluva lot faster than conservatives. When we’re in the grip of reactionaries, we’re on the same side as you.
Dang, Elvis. ISTM that any degree of alliance at all with Bricker is a positive development. Due to the nature of Bricker’s posting history, I don’t really fear that you are going to be endangering his present alignment towards the Forces of Goodness and Light, but you are in great danger (IMHO) of saddling yourself with a reputation as a doctrinaire asshat. IME, Bricker crafts his posts with enough qualifications to give himself cover, such that, when and if he is forced to concede a point, he may successfully defend himself against charges of “waffling,” “flip-flopping,” or “rat-like sinking ship-deserting.” This is a legitimate debating tactic, and if his artful use of it makes you have to work harder that you want to to catch him out and score a point, well, that’s just too bad.
Bricker, welcome to the right side, at least for the moment. Perhaps someday, we’ll be able to pour you a glass of chardonnay and provide brie on water crackers. For now, though, please help yourself to the Boone’s Farm (Dixie cups are on the far end of the table) and I’ll have Edith over here squirt Cheez-Whiz on some Triscuits. Bon apetit!
Won’t open for me either. So what’s the scoop? Is Ari the other rat? Don’t worry about hemming and hawing, I’m willing to go with rank speculation and rumor.
Not much new there – rumors about which administration officials have been questioned by the prosecutor, this time including Ari, but nobody knows if they’re looking at malfeasance by Ari or if he’s providing info about someone else’s deeds.
That is exactly what they are hoping for. If they can link politics to the legal issues, they will try to say that a failure to convict is a blanket exhoneration of everything he did.
Rove says he never spoke of Ms. Plame by name, simply referred to Mr. Wilson’s wife, right?
Wilson was previously married! So Rove could have been referring to his first wife! Who has no connection to CIA, so fars we know. But there’s no law against him outing someone who is not a covert agent!
The thing that gets me about this defense is how gleefully smug Rove appeared when he first offered it last year, as if it was some clever strategy that would render any further charges moot. But it is so transparently lame; are we to believe that if someone threatened to “kill Laura Bush’s husband,” the Secret Service would throw up their hands in frustration, stifled by the lack of a specific name? “I never said her name” is no defense at all.
luci, don’t get off the point just to make a whimsical joke. Rove’s leak to Novak was a cheap political trick with one objective and one objective only – to ruin an official who had publically contradicted the President. Wilson’s offense was one of diminishing the majesty of the king (there is a phrase in French for this but I can’t pronounce it or spell it) or contemplating the death of the king. That is not yet an offense in this country. The administrations reaction was a resort to thuggery. I suppose that Wilson is lucky that he didn’t end up with an ice pick in his ear during a trip to view the garbage dumps in New Jersey since that is the sort of tactic real gangsters employ. This bunch, in contrast, just turns the Swift Boat Liars, the paid hacks and the running dogs in Congress lose to contort, misrepresent, falsify and backpedal. The point that has got to me made and made again is that this Administration is dishonestly, dishonorably and vindictively savaging an honest man to cover its own fraud.
Some wit once said that George Washington could not lie, that Nixon could not tell the truth and that Reagan (or Clinton, depending on your proclivity) could not tell the difference. To that we need to add that George W. Bush doesn’t care about the difference. Here is one more demonstration that these people will do and say anything that will allow them to retain power.
I still anticipate that Good Soldier Powell will sooner of later reach the end of his tether. When he starts talking there will be hell to pay.
