DNFTT
Guess what, december? The odds are that Newt was absolutely correct - approximately 25% of Clinton’s staffers had probably had a history of past illicit drugs use.
Guess what, december? The odds are that approximately 25% of Bush’s staffers probably have a history of past illicit drugs use.
Ya know why, ya poltroon? over 35% of the U.S. (non-incarcerated) population has a history of illicit drug use. If 25% of Clinton staffers had a history of drug use, then they were cleaner than the rest of the population. In fact, their rate of drug use is about that of high school students.
I will sit back and await your evasions and half-truths in response.
Sua
I like the way you think, december.
I’m sure that you’ll agree with me that up to 100% of Newt’s statements are lies. :rolleyes:
Yeah, I mean, it’s not as if Newt has a reputation for being a sneak!
<sarcasm>
Where’s Ken Starr when you really need him?
</sarcasm>
and I assert that if there was a serial killing moron in the White House, this would be a serious concern as well. and, I might add, just as realistic as your statement.
let me spell it out for you (again)
-
If you were drawn to a sale that was advertised as “Up to 25% off”, and you discovered that damn near everything was 1% off, and there was one little item that was 25% off, wouldn’t you feel as if the speaker was while technically accurate, ohhhhhhhh, say deliberately misleading?
-
“some (unidentified) drug use in the past 5 years” does not in any way equate to “druggie” or “drug user” let alone Drug addict, crack addict, etc. As a matter of fact, the phase ‘illegal drug use’ does also actually include the use of a prescription drug in an other than proscribed manner (ie when I got in a car accident in 97, and hurt my neck, I was given some muscle relaxants, I used about 4 of the 15 given. When my car got totalled in 99, my son and I were both sore the next day, and both of us used the rest of that script. tho’ my doctor subsequently approved of it, it was technically ‘illegal drug use’ ).
I find it frightening that you seem to fail to understand that what you (and Newt) are doing is called ‘demonizing’ an opponent. That you are critical of folks ‘demonizing’ Newt for his demonizing comments as you cite here, is simply astounding in it’s head-in-the-sandness.
- this was all patiently explained in the other thread. starting a new thread and chanting “nanabooboo Newt was mistreated” doesn’t make it so.
Gee SuaSponte are we forgetting the “don’t be a jerk” rule? or do you feel it does not apply to you?
Debate is spirited 'round these parts, but Sua certainly was not engaging in jerkishness there, treis. We like to distinguish between attacking a poster and attacking a poster’s arguments. Half-truths and evasions go to the latter.
Poltroon is a nice word though.
Anyone who uses “for all we know” and “not incorrect” to present their OP thesis that a politician has been unfairly maligned is engaging in the use of half-truths and evasions. They are aware that they do not have the facts to back up their assertion, yet make it anyway.
Sua
What’s so confusing, IzzyR? The OP lies like a rug.
The statement is ‘true’ because ‘presumably’ someone told Newt this? If one must presume the existence of a condition precedent, one cannot know if the statement is true. Thus, december lies.
The testimony of the Secret Service was that 40 or so Clinton staffers had a history of drug use. That is 2%.
The definition of “accurate” is
An error of an order of magnitude doesn’t meet any of these definitions. Thus, december lies.
Newt makes an assertion of fact without evidence. He is attacked for not having any evidence. december tries to put the onus on Newt’s attackers to provide the evidence that Newt was wrong. The onus does not belong there. Thus december evades.
The “significant” population of which december spews is 2% of the staff, less than 1/17th of the amount of drug users in the general population. Lie or half-truth? You be the judge.
Even Newt didn’t claim, with or without foundation, that Clinton staffers were showing up to work high. Thus, december lies.
As noted above, Newt’s allegations were unfounded. Thus, december lies.
december is attempting to color an ideological argument as a factual one, but he doesn’t have facts. I find this tactic unworthy of Great Debates and unworthy of the person I wrongly thought december to be - an intelligent, honest person.
Sua
Sua,
The items in your recent post concern what are - at most - logical errors by december. Using your approach, you would probably categorize every post that you disagreed with as lies, and it’s poster as a liar.
But in any event, my post did not concern december’s OP, but rather your words that I quoted. The statement that:
is incorrect in a general sense, and certainly here. december is pointing out that unless Gingrich’s words were known to be unfounded and/or false is is not proper to say that they are so. You may disagree with this logic, and evidently do, for some reason, but that does not make december guilty of “half truths and evasions”.
I believe you are guilty of a logical error here, Sua. But that does not make you a liar. 
On further research, I misrembered about a book by a “retired Secret Service Agent.” Actually it was retired FBI Agent Gary Aldrich, who had had worked in the White House. His book, Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House said that under Clinton’s orders, a considerable number of WH staffers were allowed into their jobs, although they were unable to pass a drug test. Former FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene, who also had served in the Clinton White House, said the same thing. (ISTR that Sculimbrene was Gingrich’s source.) So, according to these two witnesses, some early Clinton staffers were still using drugs.
I wasn’t using half-truths. The OP accurately represented a degree of doubt as to Newt’s statement by my use of the phrases “for all we know” and “not incorrect,” not to mention my describing Newt’s use of “weasel words.”
OTOH, Sua has a stronger case that Newt may have been engaging in half-truths. If SuaSponte, wring, rjung, Guinastasia and rsa will accept that Newt’s statement was half true, I will acknowledge that it was half false. It was a highly exaggerated presentation of the problem.
Most politicians and political organizations exaggerate problems and risks. E.g., I’m a member of the Sierra Club; they properly warn of Global Warming, but they magnify the certainty and degree of risk. I was a member of the Anti-Defamation League. They properly point out cases of defamation, but wildly exaggerate its prevalence. I heard Dick Gephart on TV yesterday practically in tears over the issue of federalizing airport security, although most of us don’t care that much, as long as security actually gets improved. Letters to my home from Planned Partenthood make it sound like a woman’s right to choose may be taken away by this afternoon. So, Newt was following a long an honorable tradition, when he exaggerated the risk of drug usage in the White House.
BTW when Aldrich’s book came out in the early 1990’s, his credibility was attacked because the book included rumors about extra-marital sex on the part of Bill Clinton, which was “obviously preposterous.” Pretty funny, given what we know now. 
If the statement was “highly exaggerated”–again, by an order of magnitude–then how in the world was it half true??
It’s fairly impressive, by the way, how you’ve abandoned your claims in the demonization/Democratic corruption thread without ever admitting that you yourself were providing a “highly exaggerated presentation of the problem”–which is to say, a bunch of baloney.
I agree that in general, politics is the business of exageration (your example re: planned parenthood, tho we may disagree strongly as to the relative liklihood of different political events).
however, in the Newt Example, not only was it more than a mere exaggeration, it slandered both an administration and the staff involved.
and, of course, your OP is that Newt didn’t deserve the lambasting he got for his actions. I won’t budge a millimeter from the ‘he got what he deserved’ stance on that one.
If some one had publically stated that 1/4th of your family were pedophiles, and then in back tracking we discover that 2% of your family had baby on the bearskin rug pics in their photo albums, I doubt that you’d be willing to call it a half truth.
Once again. the following things do not in and of themseleves prove a ‘drug problem’:
- an admission to illegal drug use in the past.
- refusal to take a urine test.
- a positive result on a urine test (at best it indicates a single use).
You went from the very small percentage that apparently had a positive urinalysis, to making the accusation of crack addicts having sensative positions. and now want to backtrack to ‘half truth’?
what was that phrase you used in the other thread to describe liberals? something about not having an accurate world view?
Which of these statements has more apparent grounding in reality? Which one, if either, had any real grounding?
A. “I had a senior law enforcement official tell me that in his judgment, up to a quarter of the White House staff, when they first came in, had used drugs in the last four or five years. Now, that is very serious . . … I’m not making any allegation about any individual person, but it’s very clear that they had huge problems getting people through security clearance because they kept bringing people in who had a lot of things that weren’t very easy to clear.’”
OR
B. “I have here in my hand a list of 205, a list of names made known to the secretary of state as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Newt wasn’t the first, nor was Tailgunner Joe, but they were both enthusiastic users of the same technique. Newt’s position in history won’t, I think, be much different, nor should it be.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by december *
Truce Offer - your offer is rejected, Sir. You have demonstrated yourself to be unworthy of respect or honor. More personally, your conduct has made a mockery of my repeated efforts to defend your conduct in various Pit threads. I feel personally betrayed. You will have no quarter from me, Sir, until you offer an abject apology, not a mere offer of “truce”.
Fine, great. Let’s assume some Clinton staffers were using drugs. Given the statistics of drug use in America I provided earlier, do you assert that there were/are no Bush I or Bush II staffers who were active drug users in their time working for the White House? If you assert that, do you have any evidence to back up your assertion? Would you have any objection to Gephardt making the same accusations now against the Bush staffers that Newt made against the Clinton staffers? After all, the odds are that there are active drug users on the Bush II staff.
Bullshit. If you, a rabid ideologue, can acknowledge that Newt may have been wrong (and indeed, in this post acknowledge that he was, at the least, exaggerating), how did Newt get a ‘raw deal’ when Democrats pointed out that he was wrong? You made an accusation that you yourself didn’t believe in.
Newt made accusations without evidence. He was attacked for making accusations without evidence. The only reason he was not sued for defamation of character was because he didn’t name specific names.
You asserted his defamatory attacks were accurate. The only reason that you are not liable for defamation is that you also did not name names.
Damn straight I did. More importantly, I made this case to you in the other thread, before you started this one. Despite that, you decided to start this thread. I submit, Sir, that you started this thread for purely ideological reasons, not in the hopes of starting a fact-based Great Debate.
You will not get such an admission from me. Newt lied. You, knowing Newt lied, started this thread. You have done a disservice to this MB’s purpose of combating ignorance. On a personal level, you have made a mockery of my repeated defenses of you and your tactics in Pit threads started about you (and, indeed, a Pit thread I started in defense of you). I feel personally insulted, and nothing less than a complete apology for your conduct will suffice.
Sua
Uh oh, I’m in trouble. My compromise was seen as a sign of weakness. My adversaries smell blood in the water! Although I’m surrounded by sharks and sharkettes, I refuse to go quietly. I will desperately swim toward that island in the distance until they finish tearing me limb from limb!
Gaderene, I take your point about “half” and amend my offer. I’d be willing to compromise that Newt’s statement was “partially true.” How about it?
I’m afraid I must reject the idea of equating a highly exaggerated presentation of a problem with a bunch of baloney. Political positions with a reasonable degree of reality are often presented in a highly exaggerated way.
Elvis, you’re behind the times. Joseph McCarthy, repulsive though he was, has been partially rehabilitated, because there were a significant number of Communists in the government. Read the Venona Reports. Also, there were some drug abusers in the early Clinton White House.
wring, I think a refusal to take a drug test means that the job applicant expects not to pass it. Drug tests are commonly required +for new hires. (An employee is restricted in their ability to require employee drug tests. However, there are no restrictions on using them for new hires, so most companies do so.) Drug tests were required for new hires at my current company and at my prior company. No job applicant ever refused. A file clerk couldn’t be hired without a drug test.
SuaSponte – I regret letting you down after you had defended me, and hope I can regain your esteem over time.
According to Aldrich’s book, prior to Clinton, White House staffers couldn’t serve until they had passed a drug test. I would assume that Bush 43 has gone back to requiring a drug test for new employees.
Clinton allowed quite a few White House staffers to serve although they hadn’t passed their drug test. I take Sua’a point, that someone might stop using drugs long enough to pass a drug test, and then go back to using them after being hired. Still, putting staffers into the White House without the drug test was a significant change in government policy. The public has a right to know how our government operates. Gingrich deserves credit for making known this change in policy, but he deserves criticism for doing so in an exaggerated way.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
I am well aquainted w/the issues of employers doing urine tests . What I posted, however, was that a persons refusal to submit to such a test does not equal proof that they are a drug user, addict or anything of the sort.
And I stand by that.
and you neatly sidestep the rest of it, which is in summation :
you.
are.
wrong.