Calling a spade a spade is not acting like a jerk, treis. If december hadn’t engaged in the use of half-truths and evasions, but I accused him of them anyway, then I would have acted like a jerk. As what I did was state the facts, I fail to apprehend the basis of your accusation.
Sua
A response to Ned’s post appears on the “Exposing Democratic Corruption” thread. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=95759&pagenumber=5
Sure, but NG wasn’t trying to make the point that his statement (“I’ve been told that. . .”) was true. He was asserting – albeit in a round-about way – that the 25% figure was accurate.
Look, the following statement is absolutely true: “If the moon is made of cheese, and if all cheese is delicious, then the moon is delicious.” This is not evidence in the least that the moon is delicious, and using that statement to suggest such a thing is tantamount to a lie. Similiarly, the truth or falsity of precisely what Newt said (again, “Somebody told me that. . .”) is irrelevant to the fact that the statement was either intentionally deceptive or recklessly ignorant.
Hmmm . . . a minor point, but “asserting” in my above post should be changed to “implying,” which more accurately conveys my meaning. Carry on.
– Jer
Gadarene I never said that is what I believed december did, I asserted that if someone were to do that then that person would be an idiot.
SuaSponte, you are not asserting facts, you believe that he is evading and using half-truths. This does not make it so. You then engaged in personal attacks by saying that his responces are full of half-truths and evasions. If this were the pit you could do that, but this is not the pit it is great debates. You must show that his facts are half-true and evasive.
Kindly re-read the thread. In particular, kindly read my post time-stamped 11/02/01 at 11:42 A.M. In that post, I demonstrated that december’s OP consists of lies, half-truths and evasions.
Pointing out facts is not a personal attack. To demonstrate the difference, if I were to accuse you of being a sock puppet, I would be making a personal attack.
Sua
seems that Mr. scumlimbrene was one of several ‘senior FBI agents’ in charge of running background checks on White House Staff and Cabinet nominees. This was a reassignment job after a head injury.
In part of these transcripts, we find that Mr. Scumlimbrene didn’t appear to like those he was interviewing.
, when the interviewees apparently had the audacity to ask “why” a question was being posed. Of course, GWB did the same sort of thing (ie refusing to answer specific questions about ‘did he do illegal drugs prior to’ whatever date. One wonders what would have happened if this gentleman had been called upon to do a background check on GW during the Bush administration)
Another example of his reporting ability. We go from “I don’t think, I couldn’t swear to it, but I’m sure that” and then on to something that he cannot and doesn’t even attempt to substantiate, and links it to ‘possible’ criminal behavior. And this is sworn testimony. too bad Newt didn’t pull from this gem as well “a senior FBI agent testified about the Clinton Administration possibly having volunteers that were armed robbers and weren’t signed in”
On to the specifics about drug usage. He indicated that ‘some’ were more recent than college (which of course also means that ‘some’ were only long ago), ‘some’ were for things other than mj (again, meaning that ‘some’ were for simply mj), he specifies psychodelics (including mushrooms and LSD), ‘designer drugs’ which was a term he was unfamiliar with (of course, we’d expect that some one who was competent to make an assesment of ‘current drug problem’, would be aware of the typical nomenclature used); and cocaine, tho he did something that december didn’t (ie, refrain from the claim that it was ‘crack cocaine’) In fact in here, he defines his term of ‘problem w/drugs’ as some one with a ‘pattern’. This again is not the clinical and generally accepted meaning of hte terms ‘drug problem’, since a ‘pattern’ of use includes say “every year at Christmas”. More to the point, you use as your ‘expert’ in the field of ascertaining ‘drug problems’ the person who makes this statement:
In case you’re unaware, neither hashish nor mushrooms are acurately described as either ‘amphetamine derived’ or ‘designer drugs’. Not at all. There is reference to a number (50 and or 100) as being the number of times some one may have used drugs in their life w/o it being a ‘problem’. Again, generally speaking, such usage (even the top one of 100 times) would not be considered to be a ‘drug problem’ (generally, it’s not considered to be a ‘drug problem’ unless the drug use causes problems in their family life, social life, business life, legal problems etc… Step 1 in AA ‘we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanagable’)
Of course the a good point that I see is that this person would not appear to have access to personnel files, with reports of urinalysis, that he was to conduct background checks, interviewing both the staff and persons in their background, so how does he become an ‘expert’ on current usage?.
another snippet
So, we have sworn ‘testimony’ offered up that wouldn’t be admitted to any court I’ve ever even heard of “some one said this, but I don’t want to tell you who” . But of course, elsewhere he states that he doesn’t want to repeat rumors. Wonder why he didn’t care this time.
and of course we have CNN reporting the allegations, and Panetta’s rebutal, that drug testing was done, some more frequently than others, and that none had tested positive since their hire, which should put to rest decembers query of crack addicts having sensative positions.
Sum of evidence: This one person, who has a demonstrably limited basis of knowledge of drugs, no apparent training in asecertaining/judging current drug abuse, basing his definition of ‘serious drug problem’, not on clinically accepted criteria such as arrests, convictions, hospitalizations, personal, job or legal problems due to drug activity, but as some one who admitted their prior drug use as somewhere up to 100 times in their life. That’s about twice a week for one year, or for a 40 year old person 5 times a year for their adult life. And, at least 75% of their staff hadn’t even done that much. That’s what he considered to be a ‘serious drug problem’, or as reported here, “extensive use” Of course this most recent report chides Clinton on the basis of rumors about his own prior drug use. One wonders how this reporter treated Bush’s refusal to answer specific questions.
Now, as for when does a claim go from ‘unsubstantiated’ to ‘filty lie’, I’ll leave it to each of us to determine.
Yes Sua,
That post is after I accused you of being a jerk, that is what you should have said the first time.
tries,
if the moderators think Sua is being a jerk, they’ll come in here and mention it. So far, this hasn’t hit their radar, and if this were aggregious jerkiness it would have.
If you want to pursue a claim that Sua is a jerk, the appropriate place for that claim is the pit.
Ya know, I started typing a response, but Dangerosa is right - you have a beef with me, take it to the Pit. If not, then be quiet - grownups are talking here.
Sua
Excellent post, wring. Your post would have been an effective attack on DS as late as 1995.
However, in 1996, several Secret Service Agents testified about the seriousness of the drug situation in the early Clinton White House. Another White House FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, also supported the nature of the situation. It’s now a well-supported fact, independent of anything DS said.
Your last statement just shows a lack of understanding about what the SS said in 1994 and 1996:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9607/17/fbi.files/index.shtml
The SS considered that a serious situation but it was dealt with it, the SS fears were taken care of. The whole truth is that the Secret Service then considered the past drug use a non-issue.
http://www.ndsn.org/SUMMER96/WHDRUGS.html
december it is obvious to me that Newt just grabbed an issue that even the SS in 1994 declare it dead. What Newt said in the OP looks even more irresponsible now, especially after what the SS told in 1996, that there was no relaxed attitude about drugs in the White House. So please do accept the conclusions of the Secret Service (that were part of the sworn testimony) and give this issue a rest.
The real question is: Why is anyone talking about Newt Gingrich except in the context of Republicans who would be a better President than George W. Bush??
There you go agian SuaSponte engaging in personal attacks.
:eek:
GINGRICH as President? GOD HELP US!!!
shudder
BTW, yesterday, I saw on CNN that former Congressman Edward Boland of Mass. died-he was 90 years old. Boland was the one behind the Boland Ammendment, prohibiting aid to the contras. He was also the man that Newt was caught ridiculing during CamScam-when he was spouting off false charges to an empty house on C-SPAN, when Tip O’Neill (Boland’s roommate and good friend) called his bluff.
No reason, I just found that interesting.
I think you have a stalker, Sua.
Newbie, if you have nothing of substance to say in a GD thread, it’s best to shut up, else you look ridiculous. As you do now.
I’ve made it easy for ya, treis. let’s not interrupt these nice folks anymore, but go to the Pit.
Sua
Another unclear post from moi. I shudder also at the thought of Newt as President, but he would be better than George W. Bush. He’s a smart man, and, if he doesn’t get too full of himself (which, of course, he always does),he’s a good politician.