OK, yes. THAT was criminal.
Methinks the most capricious zephyr hath more design than I.
But now that you’ve grasped it… that is, now that I’ve settled on it… perhaps you would have some comment on the tone?
I think the piece pretty clearly isn’t advocating locking Delay up for not-illegal actions, but instead calling on Congress to tighten the ethics laws. For both Republicans and Democrats. I also think that, to once again support your partisan hackery, you tried very hard to read something in the piece to fit your worldview of liberals so you would have something to post in Great Debates to get a rile out of the Usual Suspects here
Hey, you asked.
Can you think of any examples from recent history, say early 2003, where ‘undertone’ was used as a replacement for proper deliberations, to the great detriment of the nation as a whole? If only you could, it would significantly bolster the impact of your argument.
If not, your complaint comes off kinda like whining about the opposition bringing knives to a knife fight.
Actually your interpretation of the editorial makes no sense at all. The editorial isn’t well written or with a very coherent point. I would describe its main point as “Tom Delay is corrupt” and with a secondary throw away line of “Congress needs to tighten ethics laws”. There’s nothing to suggest the writer feels we should imprison Delay extra-judicially or with an ex post facto law. His “many of Mr. DeLay’s actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them” is poorly phrased, but the meaning is clear. The meaning is “DeLay’s actions amount to crimes but due to various loopholes don’t satisfy the legal standards of any specific charge”. It can in no way be construed to mean “We should throw DeLay in jail despite the fact that we can’t convict him of a specific charge”.
Your interpretation is really stretching things.
The editorial never says that Delay should be prosecuted under the current law. It only says that what Delay did was unethical and should be criminalized, which you claim implies that Delay should be prosecuted despite the law. That’s a pretty large leap there.
The editorial uses the fact that Delay can’t be prosecuted as one of its arguments that congress should change the law. If it thought Delay could be prosecuted then the article would have been asking for a stronger law, or at least saying something about inept Justice Department lawyers.
A more reasonable implication of the article is that Delay should be punished, not prosecuted.
ETA: What treis said.
In light of the recent mod admonishment concerning continuous demanding that an evasive poster answer the question, I’ll merely note here, once, that you haven’t addressed at all my question about the tone of the piece, despite my invocation of the word ‘tone’ in multiple posts. I assume this omission is deliberate.
This very response indicates that you understand and agree with the concept -doesn’t it?
Sure, in 2003, in the walk-up to war, much hay was made by just this tactic: mentioning Iraq right after the 9/11 attacks, while avoiding a direct claim they were involved.
Now what do you have to say?
The thing is, Tom DeLay was already the poster child for unethical behavior. He’s the model for the corruption of that Congress. So I don’t see anything wrong with saying, as an editorial, “If somebody as awful as Tom DeLay didn’t do anything illegal, there must be something wrong with the ethics laws.”
Well sure.
Having said that however, it makes little sense to disavow the tactic when one’s political opponents make a habit of using it any time they feel they can benefit from it.
Are you familiar with the phrase “Trust, but verify”? Appeals for civility from groups of people with a recent history of incivility, need be viewed with that sort of skepticism. Have you verifiable evidence that Republicans are moving away from employing this sort of tactic, or is the OP just another feint in your great game? Before trust can come, there must be verifiable progress. What with our president being an alien muslim socialist bent on destroying America, I’m just not seeing much in the way of verifiable movement towards increased civility from the right. That being the case there’s no valid reason to stop hammering on ‘the Hammer’s’ part in the GOP’s ‘culture of corruption’ is there?
This is the political bed Republicans chose to make when they impeached Clinton. If they want to climb out now, let them put down their sleazy tactics.
No, Bricker’s point is unshakable, he has it nailed, casting undertone on that paragon of political virtue, Tom DeLay, is exactly the same as lying to start a war. No getting around that.
Don’t worry, Bricker. I don’t mind being reminded and then pressed if I’m actually evading a question. You shouldn’t have to worry about a mod admonishing YOU for that.
The only problem is, I am not actually evading your question. Although I didn’t use the magic word “tone” or “undertone” in my answer, I certainly did tell you what the piece was about. Which, to my mind, necessarily includes the “tone” of the piece. I also intended my reference to what you are trying to read into the piece to pretty clearly state that the “tone” isn’t about punishing Delay extrajudicially, but rather a call to tighten up the ethics laws and rules. I suppose there is a further undertone of frustration with the political system as a whole, where lawmakers are lax in regulating themselves, and anger with the tightness between lobbyists and legislators.
I also think the “tone” of the piece indicates one of the authors has father issues and another dislikes pie.
OK, here’s one poster who concedes the tactic is being used, but claims it’s a necessity.
Thanks for your honesty. Would that everyone had a similar commitment to it.
Ah yes, because if we don’t agree with you we are just being dishonest.
Squink wasn’t talking about the article in the OP. It’s not fair to use his example to validate your argument about the NYT editorial.
Who’s being dishonest here?
It was a stupid thing to write. But you’d have to really lack all intellectual charity to think the author’s intended meaning or “tone” was that Delay should have been punished extra-judicially. The clear meaning was that it was unfortunate that Congress had not acted to criminalize acts which should be criminal. The awkward construction was meant to convey the conflict of interest in asking Congress to write the criminal laws that govern its own actions, or something along those lines.
Once upon a time we had something called the common law. Its relevance here is that someone commonly supposed to have committed something reprehensible could be haled into court and accused of his supposed acts, there being a body of customary law under which to charge him. He was entitled to the presumption of innocence, to defend himself, the accusers needed to prove he actually committed each element of the supposed crime. But it did not depend on whether a legislature had had the foresight to make sure that if 1,2-paratoxicene, 1,3-paratoxicene, and 1,4-paratoxicene were all carcinogenic, they needed to criminalize putting 1,5-paratoxicene in baby formula too, or the guy who can be shown to have killed 38 kids by doing so gets off scott free, because it’s not an illegal additive.
Tom DeLay is commonly believed to have done some reprehensible things. Using the common law to accuse him of subverting the electoral process, under whatever terms of common-law criminal law are relevant, and then allowing him to mount a defense against them if possible, would be the proper thing to do. Assuming Texas has not abolished the common law.
Sure he was.
That would be fine with me.
I’m not aware of any common law crime under which Delay could be charged, but perhaps a person familiar with Texas law could enlighten me.
By the way, the usual method of catching 1,5-paratoxicene offenders is to criminalize all substances that the Secretary of Dangerous Substances has published on Schedule DS, and then allow the department to keep abreast of newly dangerous substances without requiring a legislative addition to the criminal code.
In other words, solving this lind of problem is nothing new.
Delay did nothing illegal. Deal with it.
Right. That’s the problem. That’s what the editorial is about. The stuff Delay did should have been illegal, but it’s not because Congress is never going to make it illegal because they want to be able to do it.