I haven’t seen any response since my post (in which I provided a link to show that, yes, there are sources other than the Daily Kos documenting this element of the story).
A classic example of The Politician’s Fallacy:
- We must do something.
- Proposal X is something.
- Therefore, we must enact Proposal X.
No, what really sums it up is, you don’t have anything worth saying.
No, it’s because scumbags like you always wrap it around yourselves to justify anything and eveything, and to try and squelch any logical discussions. Go fuck yourself with a chainsaw. I’m from New York City, so don’t play that 9/11 shit on me.
Yeah, but it still “secret” when it will serve political purposes running up to the midterm elections, and to try and throw some weight around. Good leaks, bad leaks and all that.
The mafia analogy was to demonstrate the value of keeping surveillance secret. Nothing more.
The secret program has been effective. Now that peolpe know about it, it will be less so. This has been covered earlier, so I suggest you go back and review it.
As I mentioned in that other thread, that’s what may explain the administrations half-hearted protestations. Still, I think it is up to the administration, who ever is in power to determine which security measure should be kept secret.
Could very well be the case. As I’ve said, the administrations tepid response might very well mean that keeping it secret is not as valuable as one would think.
You might want to go back and review the dozens of cites in this thread pointing out that the program has never been “secret” in any way, and has been openly discussed by Bush himself and other members of the administration multiple times.
This is just precious. Let me post what you were replying to so I can aprreciate the profound depth of you imbecility without having to scroll around:
Where to start. Okay, first, with the request for you to answer a question about what you wrote honestly you respond, “No”. That’s just wonderful right there. But let’s move on.
Next you foam at the mouth (without addressing my points) about “scumbags like me always wrapping it (9/11, I assume) around ourselves”. Now do you mean me? Is that something I do? If so, I’ll ask you for a cite. And not just one, because I *always *do it. If you did not mean that I always do that, why did you try to lump me in with those that do. Revenant Threshold was unclear along the same lines earlier and had the decency to clarify himself saying that I was not part of that group. Now you are free to disagree with that, in which case, I’ll look forward to those cites.
Let’s see, what next? Oh— So, to paraphrase, “scumbags like me who try to squelch any logical discussion.” This is my favorite part. You stupid, dumb fuck. Read what you wrote. Digest the meaning of the words. Then look at your post in its entirety and compare it to the post you quoted and responded to.
My words, the words you responded to, were a calm, reasoned argument. But your response is just shit spewing out of your mouth, name calling, broad brush accusations and no refutations of the points I made. Do you have any idea ho lame that is. It is clear to me know, you are an immature little shit.
Oh, and wait, you’re from New York. Which means… right, nothing. It’s as valid a point as the fact that I too am from New York. Big fucking whoop.
You’re nothing but a pissy little shmuck that likes to talk tough. If you have something relevant to say to counterr my position, let’s hear it. Otherwise, slide your head up another half-inch so your sphincter gets a nice tight seal around your neck. Any more of your nonsense will not be addressed.
This is a longish thread. Are there any posts in particular you’d like me to take into account?
Hey** magellan01**, have I called you a corpse humper today? If not, please consider yourself so called. Everybody is telling you the same thing I did, just in less colorful metaphor.
Allow me to restate your argument:
3,000 people were killed in a terrorist attack nearly 5 years ago. This means the current administration is always right, anyone who dares to question their divine wisdom is a traitor, and no red blooded American needs to worry about Constitutional rights. I trust the Government, and you should too. Remember 3,000 people. Here’s pictures. It was horrible. I’m skeered. Big Daddy Bush make the bad mans go away.
Further indulge me with a restatement of my own argument:
You’re a dumbfuck.
“Had” being the operative word. It apparently has not been very useful for two years.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_06/009100.php
More information that suggests this may have been a politically strategic “leak” by the administration, knowing that cowardly morons like yourself would hop up and down about the mainstream media and join in on the refrain of “There ought to be limits to freedom.”
Nut up and join America, little buddy. Sure, it can be challenging, but it’s worth it.
One of the secret secrets to keeping something secret is to not issue press releases and speeches outlining your secret plan. Obviously that rule has been kept secret from this administration (and still remains a secret to its less intelligent defenders), who for the umpteenth time in this thread was the source of this information, years and years before the NYT article.
Sure, here it is: " …humping corpse…Bush bad…all Bush do bad…fuck corpse… ."
I should concoct some appeal to the masses, as well. But, as I am aware that is a weak, fallacious debating tactic, there’s no sense to it. And please don’t take that to mean that I characterize your contributions as debate.
Well, to be fair in the arena of secrets being kept secret, I’ll state again this isn’t the first time anything involving security has been leaked to the press. Pick up any newspaper or periodical and you’ll see scores of anonymous quotes willing to tell everything short of the combination of Fort Knox. Leaks, for the most part, aren’t the result of who’s in charge. Most often it’s a result of just too many people with info. Think of how bloated the government is. There’s no way in hell you can expect secrets of any kind to stay secret. You’re always going to have someone that just has to pick up a paper, see a quote, and go through the day knowing it was him/her.
You think this administration is secretive? At this rate it will be seen in 10 years as one of the most transparent. There are very few secrets anymore. Whether leaks are good or bad only history will tell. Decades ago secrecy proved to be a pretty good asset in some issues the US and Europe had to deal with. There was propaganda, less than honest press conferences, and even misinformation reported. Not in an effort to pull one over on the citizens, but rather to keep those not so friendly from knowing too much. Worked well for the most part.
I’m certainly not calling for a state-run news system. We do need the important news. And it needs to be free. But dammit we don’t always need to know the minutiae of everything. The reason we elect leaders is to decide the important stuff, and then report to us with what is happening and what they’re doing. That’s gone by the wayside. Now we learn from aides and staffers and rivals and lackeys with no accountability nor an onus to prove the info is in anyway factual.
For many calling on a biased media, I think it’s more about the reporting being often unreliable and, frankly, opinion and speculation.
It seems if the papers kept the news on the front page and hearsay/opinion on the editorial pages it would be a good start.
And to everyone with “inside information”, unless you’re emulating Deep Throat, think twice about talking to any organic being with a press card just to be the one that gets quoted.
Have you been reading the thread? We’ve posted numerous links that show it was the President himself who “leaked” this “secret” years ago. It wasn’t a secret, therefore there wasn’t really a leaker. If there was a leaker, it was the President and his staff when he made speeches about it, issued press releases, etc. This “outrage” is all just smoke and mirrors for the magellan01’s of the world to swallow and get upset about.
Since you seem intent in ignoring the words I write, I think continuing our coversation is useless. I will comment on this though, as it makes no sense to me. Some groundwork:
You feel that the mention of 9/11 is legitimate and should be included in the debate.
You feel the pictures are not legitimate in the debate.
Most everyone else thinks that pictures are not legitmate in the debate. And plaenty are saying so.
You say that others asre better debaters than you, and you leave them to do the convincing. Yet you are trying to argue the same point about the pictures they are.
Yet, regarding the other issue, about mentioning 9/11, you offer no resistance to any of the posters who disagree with something you say you feel strongly about. Instead, you’ve mentioned it only to me, one of the few who agree with that position.
It seems that if the paragraph above, as well as what you’ve said in other posts in this thread, is true, you would 1)Leave the plethora of better arguers to convince me and 2) step up and counter their arguments regarding the mentioning of 9/11.
Hmmm.
Magellan01, dude…nobody jumps ON a sinking ship.
It would help if you knew what you were talking about,
, before you say shit like this.
CMC fnord!
Well, I wwent back and looked at all those links and I could not find where Bushlt aked abou the prrogram. Back in 2001 he talked about a Financial Tracking Program, but SWIFT was not mentioned. If I missed something, which I very well may have, feel free to point to it.
And for the record, my position here, and int the other thread in GD, is that the administration should be the one to decide what is secret. It’s not ideal, but I’d rather the people we voted for make the call than any newspaper. We elected them, and only them, to do that job. If you don’t take that position, you are, by default, allowing a private organization to make national security decisions. And I can’t be an advocate of that.
Regarding this particular case, again, I see no choice but to let the administration make the call. If you don’t, you allow the NY Times to make it. Making national security policy decisions is not their job. Now as I’ve said both in GD and here, it seems that that adminsitration’s protestations were half-hearted. So maybe the secret program had dimished in effectiveness and they really didn’t care about it being revealed. Maybe they see this as an opportunity to stop the leaking that’s been going on. And I think that is a good thing.
Don’t know of this has been linked to yet or not…
Keith Olbermann against the NYT bashers - shows clips of bush talking about this program maybe a dozen times since 9/11, plus also talks about SWIFT’s publicly-accessible website, and SWIFT’s magazine. Yuppers, sounds super-top-secret to me.