The Times is being panned for being out to get Clinton. Why is that? Because Clinton and the press have a shitty relationship. The media will continue to cover her negatively throughout the campaign.
Thanks. Mix a rush to be first with anonymous and unverified sources and sometimes bad stories get published. Who knew? 
So says the right-wing, but that’s not necessarily true (although my source is the New York Times, so take it for what it’s worth ;))
[QUOTE=The NY Times]
the White House fired back on Wednesday, releasing a letter from a senior counsel to the president sharply criticizing Mr. Walpin’s record. The letter, sent to Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, justified the dismissal on several grounds, including what it said was Mr. Walpin’s “confused, disoriented” behavior at a meeting of the agency’s board on May 20, when, according to the letter, he was unable to respond to questions.
The letter, from Norman L. Eisen, the special counsel to the president who handles ethics matters, also noted that a career federal prosecutor in Sacramento had filed an ethics complaint about Mr. Walpin’s actions in the case involving Mayor Johnson. And the Eisen letter said that Mr. Walpin chose to work in New York, not in Washington, over the board’s objections and that he “had become unduly disruptive to agency operations…
Mr. Walpin issued a rebuttal late Wednesday in which he charged that the board of the corporation wanted his dismissal because he was doing precisely what he is supposed to do — aggressively probing how money is being spent.
He also said he felt ill at the May 20 meeting and might not have been at his best. But he said that was only one meeting of many in which he had performed admirably. He said he believed that working from New York and “telecommuting” was working well.
[/QUOTE]
I would think that refusing to actually travel to meetings (instead choosing to appear by video) and not being able to participate when you do show up are completely justified reasons for being ousted.
Ultimately, this is just a random jab at Obama in a post unrelated to his presidency, so I apologize for the hijack, but an unsubstantiated jab deserves a rebuttal.
I don’t dispute any of that, I just note that Johnson did misuse federal funds, and the person who uncovered it got fired.
Plus the President really wanted his stimulus to work and cities not being eligible to get stimulus funds was something that needed to be cleared out of the way. It’s one thing for IGs to find wrongdoing. They do it all the time. It’s another thing when IGs effectively block a Presidential priority because of what they found.
It seems pretty normal to me for the government to function this way. Walpin probably was doing a lot of things wrong in his job. And he would have been allowed to continue if he hadn’t started uncovering things about an Obama political ally that would have jeopardized Sacramento’s ability to receive stimulus funding.
Why is that? Because politics sells ads best with controversy and with a close race. The media, NYT inclusive, will work their damnest to create controversy and to make a race close by working to kneecap whoever is perceived as being in the lead. She is perceived as being in the lead. The media will continue to cover her negatively throughout the campaign.
Except that the NY Times routinely does this shitty sort of reporting lies from anonymous or bad sources and then doing a half-assed job “correcting” it. Sure, there’s the history with the Clintons, but there’s a long list of other examples. I’m sure the desire for a horse race is there as well, but there’s a definite history of this sort of thing from the NY Times. I’m pretty much at the point that I don’t believe any story based on anonymous sources, no matter where it’s reported.
Screw it
Was going to respond to this drivel -
But with you it doesn’t make any difference.
Shouldn’t have responded to begin with. All I said was that he fired an IG to help a political ally. That’s not the whole story, but it’s not wrong either. It’s weird how on this board you can fire off various attacks on Republicans and no one disputes it, which is fine when it’s not really on topic to get into that kind of discussion. But say anything about Obama, and people rise to his defense, taking a thread completely off topic.
My allegation that Obama has been willing to fire IGs in the past and might do so again for political purposes was germane to the thread. Trying to get into a discussion about Gerald Walpin’s fitness for office actually takes it off topic. Should Walpin have been fired? Maybe so, he did seem to be getting kind of erratic. But OBama CHOSE to fire him only when he hurt the administration with something he found, something which was absolutely true. If he’d just been incompetent but not a problem for the administration he’d still be working today, just like every other incompetent government employee.
Hold on a sec! The topic of this thread was an alleged criminal investigation into Clinton. You responded that there would be no criminal investigation because Obama would likely fire the two IGs who were investigating. Your proof? That he had previously fired an IG for political reasons.
At that point, it is germane to address whether he actually did so. I don’t think a rebuttal of your assertion is taking the thread completely off topic, insofar as your speculation about whether Obama would fire somebody for political reasons is germane to whether Clinton is going to be criminally investigated. If your assertion is without basis, then your comment about Obama protecting Clinton is also without basis.
What you seem to be suggesting is that you can make a criticism of Obama and then not have to defend it because analyzing that criticism “derails the thread”. That’s setting yourself up for some sort of immunity that is not warranted here.
(And, FWIW, I think you are a genuinely good poster; you and I differ politically, but I don’t think you are wildly partisan, and your commentary is intelligent. But this struck me as an unsubstantiated attack that called for some review).
It looks like he took a different tack. The NY Times reported, and stands by, their contention that the Justice Department was initiating a criminal investigation. So that came from the administration. Evidently once the story came out, phone calls were made and now it’s something else.
I’m always willing to defend my assertions. But I often get blamed for taking threads off topic because we get into lines of debate like this one. So if we are going here, I just want to make it clear that this was a mutual choice between you and I, and that it derived from something that was actually on topic.
It’s not unsubstantiated. What I said-“He fired an IG for Kevin Johnson” is a simplification of the story, but quite factual. The justifications the administration had to come up with because it turned into a bigger story than they had anticipated seem truthful only if you’re the kind to always give them the benefit of the doubt. Something that people who challenge every. single. thing. someone says about Obama that’s negative might do.
Given this statement, I’m guessing that you agree that Obama won’t be firing the IG’s (instead choosing to take a “different tact”), so I’ll agree to disagree on whether Obama has made politically motivated firings in the past. I think, at the very least, it’s debatable whether a previous instance of firing an IG was because the IG was “exposing” a politically connected Mayor or whether the IG was going rogue and not complying with the requirements of the job. Perhaps it’s worth a debate of its own, but I’ll drop it here.
Meanwhile, I must disagree with your contention that the NY Times “stands by” their contention that “the Justice Department was initiating a criminal investigation.” From where I sit, the NY Times is furiously trying to preserve their reputation for integrity, and has their tail between their legs.
[QUOTE=a NY Times piece from their Public Editor entitled “A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies: How It Happened and What Next?”]
So it was, to put it mildly, a mess. As a result, I’ve been spending the last couple of days asking how this could happen and how something similar can be prevented in the future. I’ve spoken to the executive editor, Dean Baquet; to a top-ranking editor directly involved with the story, Matt Purdy; and to the two reporters, Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt…"We got it wrong because our very good sources had it wrong,” Mr. Purdy told me. “That’s an explanation, not an excuse. We have an obligation to get facts right and we work very hard to do that.”
[/QUOTE]
Ultimately, I’m amazed that all of this stems from the “Benghazi scandal”, which is an apparent excuse to dig into every possible thing that Ms. Clinton has been involved with to find some discrepancy, misstatement, or slimmer of doubt as she runs for President. It is strikingly similar to the way that Whitewater became an excuse to dig into everything associated with her husband before finally figuring out that (aha!) he was a philanderer. It’s political gamesmanship at its ugliest. (And I say this as someone who isn’t thrilled that she’s the Democratic frontrunner).
And lest you argue that this is a legitimate investigation into criminal behavior, its worth noting that there are examples of classified leaks which didn’t result in such a criminal investigation. Admittedly, the standard doesn’t seem to be applied evenly across all instances, but there is a least some precedent for not pursuing this as an example of law-breaking.
[QUOTE=The Atlantic]
The “state secrets” laws in question are applied with extreme unevenness and unpredictability
[/QUOTE]
Good sources don’t go bad. THe story as originally reported was possibly an election changer. That kind of thing is worth an administration taking a risk and interfering in an investigation. I’m pretty sure the NY Times is investigating that now too, although they’ll be quiet about it until they have something to report. I’ll bet Bob Woodward’s ears perked up at the Post too when he heard this story.
The story about her murdering Vince Foster “…as originally reported was possibly an election changer…”. It was also total buttwhistle. The sources didn’t have to go bad, they already were bad!
C’mon, you’re smarter than that. The story about Vince Foster being murdered didn’t come from good sources, or any sources. It was just right-wing speculation.
It’s understandable that a campaign would want to muddy the waters with dumb arguments designed to fool people who just want to believe, but there’s no need to do that here.
Ah, good! You’ve identified the sources of this NYT story, and can vouch for their boney fidos? And since they were good sources, and good sources never go bad (!), then the sources are still good, and may be trusted.
I am undone, I admit, its hard to break a chain with no links.
I can vouch for the Times. They are after all the country’s most respected newspaper. Not that they never get it wrong, but if they published the story it’s because their sources had been very reliable in the past.
So, what’s more likely, that the sources were wrong, or Obama had another “finding out about something in the paper” moment and made some phone calls?
Gosh, that’s a toughie! Simple, straightforward human duh, or a scenario of insinuation and innuendo. Its too many for me, I fold.
Don’t worry, the NYT is investigating WHY the sources were wrong as we speak. If it turns out they weren’t wrong, then that’ll be a very interesting story.
That’s a big damn “If”. You tried to build an “If” that big, it would fall over and sink in the swamp.
The absence of evidence is the proof!