The absence of commentary on this board about certain subjects is also telling.
Sen. Menendez has been under investigation for corruption for two years, and criminal charges are expected this week. What did the liberal leadership in the Senate, under Reid and Durbin do? Make Menendez ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. :smack:
And then there’s The Candidate’s husband, President Clinton, who has been hanging out on a private island with a known pederast.
If there were threads on either of those, I must have missed them. But you guys were sure to start a thread about Congressman Schock’s office redecoration. :dubious:
These are great examples of when liberals “deny everything up to the moment when the Democrat pleads guilty.”
ACORN, as you’ll recall, was accused of all sorts of massive improprieties with funding and voter fraud. But several independent reports cleared them of all substantive wrongdoing (the wrongdoing that remained turned out to be minor errors in record-keeping, none of which was ever shown to be deliberate), and the people who spearheaded the attacks were themselves revealed to be engaging in highly deceptive editing of facts and videos. Liberals denied everything up to the moment when ACORN pled guilty–because ACORN never pled guilty, much less was ever found guilty.
Sandy Berger? This is a great example of liberals denying everything up to the moment when the Democrat pleads guilty, only to the extent that that’s not what happened. Instead, liberals tended to say that Berger’s behavior ranged from “a goof” to “inexcusable.” Cite.
It turned out that the “goof” end of the spectrum was right: Berger ended up paying a fine as a result of his wrongdoing.
Now, let’s look at cases where Democrats HAVE been found guilty of serious wrongdoing, to the extent that prison time results: Blagojevich, William J. Jefferson, Don Siegelman, Jim Black. Even look at Eliot Spitzer, who faced no criminal charges. In these cases, do board liberals “deny everything”?
What your evidence shows is that some Republicans on the board, not naming names, have absolutely no idea which political scandals have resulted in serious criminal charges, or in how liberals have responded to these cases. I promise that we all appreciate the demonstration.
You see at the top of this page, the words “Great Debates” underlined and in grey? Move your cursor over these words. Let me know if you’re unsure how to move your cursor.
Click on the left mouse button.
Wait a few moments.
You should see a new screen. Near the upper left corner, you’ll see a button marked “New Thread.” Move your cursor over this button.
Click on the left mouse button.
Wait a few moments.
A new screen comes up. There’s a field labeled “Title.” In this field, type something like, “I’m so SAD AND MAD about Sen. Menendez!” or “Sen. Menendez is in trouble, Ha ha!” or “Sen. Menendez’s corruption proves something about evil libruls, but I’m not entirely clear what.” You get to choose!
Now move your cursor into the field called “message.” Down here, you get to type whatever you want about Sen. Menendez. Seriously–try it!
When you have finished, click the button marked “Submit new thread.”
Hey presto! You know that problem you had, where there’s no thread about Sen. Menendez on this board? YOU JUST SOLVED THAT PROBLEM!
That’s what it’s all about, you know. That’s how to be a problem solver.
Had to look up Sandy Berger – no idea what the Dope had to say about that (before my time). As to ACORN, what Dopers “denied everything” (“everything” being the 1 or 2 instances, I think, of fraud in relation to a handful of fake votes)? Did anyone say that ACORN was perfect and did nothing wrong?
As opposed to the Republicans’ view of James O’Keefe’s rather blatant alteration of the “evidence” against ACORN, which they called out in the strongest …no, I can’t do it with a straight face. They did everything possible to parrot his lies while blocking every effort to get him to produce the unaltered tapes. But thanks for reminding us what conservatives are like!
You’re right, and I was wrong. When I said nobody at ACORN ever pled guilty, I was incorrect.
But let’s look at what they were guilty of: paying people to collect signatures. That’s all. Not encouraging fraud, not deliberately registering people ineligible to vote, not attempting to undermine the very foundations our democracy. They paid workers per signature rather than per hour, and that violated law, and they correctly pled guilty.
Now, I’d like to remind all conservatives that money equals speech. The constitutionality of such a law, in which the use of money (that is, speech) to affect politics is sharply curtailed, ought to be of serious concern to all libertarians out there. But for me, I think it’s a reasonable law.
I was wrong to say ACORN never pled guilty (although I was right to say they did not deliberately commit any sort of fraud).
You’re missing my larger point. Yes, Jeb Bush released his emails. Seven years later. And there were later another 25,000 emails that were missed originally. Clinton has released around 55,000 pages of emails, and in a shorter period of time.
All I’m suggesting is that people be consistent with their outrage. If people are upset with Hillary, and accusing her of obfuscating a situation to the point of this being a “scandal,” then it seems to me that similar outrage should be directed towards others who have done similar things.
Side A whines/complains/trashes party B. Side B whines/complains/trashes party A. You seem to expect side A to whine/complain about/trash party A, and expect side B to whine/complain about/trash party B. That’s the other sides job.
Hillary was involved in a situation of her own making. The media asked questions, and the Congressional investigators asked questions. Hillary was slow to respond. The public, and the blogosphere began asking questions. More and more people began asking questions and demanding answers. Viola - a scandal.
Hillary’s problem is a federal issue. Jeb operates at a state level. Hillary went out of her way to make her emails electronically untraceable. (Hillary killed how many trees to print a brazillian emails?)
You’re free to write about any politician you so chose. And so am I. Let’s be consistent about that, and see how it turns out.
So when do we get to see Bush’s emails about firing the US Attorneys who wouldn’t pursue partisan investigations of Democratic politicians? Oh, right, we’re not, they all got deleted. Too bad, so sad.
In my view, the foregoing is a particularly bankrupt type of analysis. It strongly suggests that your ire over Secretary Clinton’s e-mail choices has little to do with the e-mail and almost everything to do with the (D) after her last name, or perhaps with the Mrs. William Jefferson in front of it.
I absolutely endorse Superdude’s point: let’s apply our standards consistently. I don’t think Bush’s e-mail trevails were particularly disturbing, and I don’t think Clinton’s are, either. I can understand someone saying that they are a big deal – but I can’t understand someone simultaneously sweeping Bush’s e-mail issues away “in another thread” that someone else is free to start and piously denouncing Clinton’s here.
Bankrupt? I’m not suggesting that everyone, or anyone, not investigate Jeb Bush. I say, investigate the heck out of all politicians. What took so long? I’ll suggest that it’s because the politicians are stonewalling the investigations.
If politicians do not want to be the center of bad-news stories and Congressional investigations, I suggest that they answer question fully, honestly, and as quickly as possible. Anything else leads to speculation.
Hillary’s emails are her problem. The media ran with the story. The pundits, and interweb, picked it up. Who was the first to call Hillary’s emails a scandal? It wasn’t eye.
Maybe someday, when we all get along :rolleyes:, and the Michigan Wolverine fans get together with the Ohio State Buckeye fans to sing Kumbaya, and Chicago’s White Sox and Cubs fans can share a saloon on game day, Democrat supporters will stop complaining about Republicans and Tea Party candidates, and Republicans and Tea Party supporters will stop complaining about Democrats.
Until then, I’ll be the judge of who, or what, I write about (and I mean that in the nicest possible way. )
THere’s another difference. Jeb Bush didn’t hold a press conference on his emails in which he got caught telling several lies. But I guess the media reporting on those inconsistencies is just another part of the right-wing conspiracy. The latest being that her personal aides communicated with her using their own personal email. she claimed that since all her official correspondence was with .gov addresses, it all got archived. That turned out to be not true.
That’s fine. And your audience will be free to conclude that your judgement arises from partisan political motives, as opposed to even-handed application of principles to the actors in a given situation.
I’m surprised at this line of attack coming from you. Your own audience frequently makes the same claims about you, to your evident frustration, and despite your attempts to forstall that.
In general, it’s a mistake to get too hung up about what the audience may freely conclude about you and your judgement. (This is partly because - among other reasons - the audience may themselves have their own motives in making the judgement.)
Politics is a tough business. Questioning Hillary’s actions, and motives, is an even-handed application of politics-as-usual. We the Voters have every right to question anyone who runs, or expects to run, our government. Suggesting that Hillary should not be questioned, or that Hillary should not be required to fully cooperate with federal investigations, or that Hillary should be treated with kid gloves, goes against the norm.
Yes, that’s true. But I console myself by being able to demonstrate, by other than simple denial, the falsity of such claims by linking to threads like this. In my admittedly hopeful opinion, this shows the reader the emptiness of such claims.
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