To briefly re-cap what really ought to be a disqualifying event for Zinsmeister, the New York Sun broke the story this weekend that Zinsmeister was the subject of an article in the Syracuse New Times written by reporter Justin Park. The article was largely positive, but contained some politically inflammatory and risky quotes from Zinsmeister, including some comments which could actually be construed as pointed criticisms of the Commander-in-Chief. Zinsmeister wanted to publicize the article to his American Enterprise Institute readers, but obviously did not want anyone to see the quotes he had uttered.
So, rather than linking to the original article, Zinsmeister re-printed the article on his own site, but deleted or changed all of the quotes that he disliked or that were embarrassing, while misleading his readers into believing that he was printing the article as it originally appeared in the New Times. To describe Zinsmeister's conduct is to illustrate its impropriety.
Anyone who has ever been written about or quoted in a newspaper has had the experience of wishing -- for a whole slew of reasons -- that certain quotes or statements were expressed differently. But everyone knows that you can't take the article once it's published and then re-publish it by simply changing the parts you don't like. The most obvious ethical principles would prevent someone from that doing that. Really, who would do that? Making matters worse here, Zinsmeister was a Magazine Editor for the last ten years, so he obviously knows better than anyone that it's wrong to substantively change the content of someone's article in order to make it reflect better on him.
The New York Sun article over the weekend included a quote from a White House spokesperson claiming that Zinsmeister only altered the article to correct misquotations and other errors made by the reporter -- a plainly ludicrous excuse given that Zinsmeister never once claimed that the article contained any errors, but rather, sent e-mails to the reporter praising him for his professionalism and competence. That is so obviously inconsistent with believing that you were misquoted in serious and numerous ways.
What is going on is obvious. Having been caught in plainly unethical acts, Zinsmeister is incapable of simply accepting responsibility for what he did by admitting that he did it not because he was misquoted, but because the statements he made to the reporter were embarrassing to him, or did not express his ideas how he wanted them to be heard, and so he simply changed the quotes without letting anyone know that he was doing that. Instead, reflecting not just a lack of integrity but a total lack of character, Zinsmeister is now trying to defend himself by smearing the competence of the reporter, heaping all the blame on him in order to save himself.
While The New York Sun article contained some rather angry and persuasive responses from the reporter and the New Times -- which really make clear just how dishonest Zinsmeister is being by trying to blame the reporter -- the Washington Post article today inexcusably allows Zinsmeister to articulate his excuses for why he changed numerous quotes and other parts of the article that he posted free of any opposition or alternative claims. What makes the one-sidedness so indefensible is that Zinsmeister's excuse essentially entails smearing the competence and integrity of the reporter who originally wrote the article, and yet the Post article does not even bother to interview the reporter whom Zinsmeister is blaming or give his side of the story. Thus, Zinsmeister is allowed to make insultingly dishonest claims like this one free of refutation or challenge:
"Looking back, this is foolish," he said in a telephone interview Friday evening. Zinsmeister said he did it to correct the record while protecting a young journalist who had made mistakes. . . .
In other examples, he said he made changes to fix errors he believed the New Times reporter had made because of misunderstandings or truncated notes -- taken in an interview in a noisy restaurant. . . .
But Zinsmeister said he avoided asking for corrections at the time because "I think I would have gotten Justin in worse trouble if I moaned about it."
So, not only is this whole mess the fault of the sloppy, misquoting reporter, Zinsmeister actually performed a noble act. Sure, he could have complained about the misquotes or noted that he was misquoted when printing the article. But he would never want to harm the career of this "young reporter" by noting that he was misquoted (so instead, to protect his new job and his own reputation, he now impugns the reporter's basic quotation abilities in the pages of the Washington Post).
Shouldn't it obvious to the Washington Post Editor that if they are going to publish a story where a high-level Bush appointee heaps blame for his unethical conduct on a reporter, the reporter should be given the courtesy of being quoted and allowed to give his side of the story? That's especially true where, as here, the reporter vehemently denies Zinsmeister's claims and has very strong documentary evidence to support those denials, possibly including a tape recording of the interview. Did the Post even bother to contact Park to get his reaction to Zinsmeister's new attacks or to determine if a tape exists?
Worse, the article never once expresses even slight skepticism over the highly incredible excuses which Zinsmeister is peddling for why he did what he did. Readers who learned about this integrity scandal only from The Washington Post today would think that this was just a minor incident designed to correct some misquotations, and that Zinsmeister just handled the situtation "unartfully," to use Tony Snow's word of defense. Post readers would have no idea of what is really going on - that Zinsmeister is invoking plainly incredible claims to justify what he did which are denied by the reporter in question and contradicted by his own words at the time.
Nor is Zinsmeister entitled to any credit for acknowledging that the quote distortions were “wrong.” He admitted that because he had to. That conduct is intrinsically unethical and everyone knows it. And even then, the supposed acknowledgment of fault was constructed to belittle the importance of what he did. What Zinsmeister did wasn't "foolish," as he playfully put it. It was dishonest and wrong. And, where Zinsmeister has a real opportunity to choose to be truly honest about what happened -- by admitting the real reasons he did it - he instead chooses to lie about it and tries to smear the reputation of the reporter in the pages of the Washington Post.
Zinsmeister is not all that important. If he does not take this position, there will be some new AEI clone lined up ready to perform the duties. But what does matter is that the administration should finally be held to some level of integrity by the national press. Zinsmeister engaged in plainly wrongful and dishonest conduct. He only admitted it when he was caught. And now that he's caught, he is offering plainly incredible excuses at the expenses of someone else's career. How can that not disqualify him from a high-level position at the White House?
What really is going on here seems clear. Zinsmeister is one of those guys who has been around journalism and Washington forever. He is well-connected and well-liked by his good friends like Scott Johnson and Jonah Goldberg. He is one of the Beltway club. And, as a result, there is just no appetite among the national press for doing anything other than giving the most cursory and skewed attention to this story with the goal of resolving it quickly and ensuring it does not impede Zinsmeister's career. How else to explain the Post's decision to allow Zinsmeister to blithely heap all the blame on another reporter without even bothering to interview that reporter to get his side of the story?
Only 2 posts in 3 days and it is about this?
ReplyDeleteThe irrelevance of this blog that began with the confirmation of Hayden appears now to be complete.
How disappointing.
Zinsmeister is obviously the perfect candidate to advise the Bush administration on domestic affairs.
ReplyDeleteHe is unencumbered by ethics, and he regards facts as malleable elements in history, which stars him and his friends. These qualities have probably helped his rise through the ranks.
As for the Washington Post, Mr. Zinsmeister will be working for the administration here in Washington. His version has become far more interesting and important than an old story from an out-of-town paper.
The irrelevance of this blog that began with the confirmation of Hayden appears now to be complete.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Once Glenn didn't single-handedly stop the confirmation of Hayden to be CIA Director, I realized there was not point in reading further. I mean, sure, his discoveries have broken front page stories in major newspapers, his blog is quoted by Senators at hearings to censure the president, and he just wrote a best-selling book.
But once Glenn failed to put a halt to the Hayden nomination, I couldn't believe it. What a failure.
And yeah, why is he wasting his time with some Bush appointee who is a lying piece of selfish shit, as though that's news or something?
All of this was a surprise to the New Times reporter, Justin Park, especially because, as he told the Sun, he had received a laudatory e-mail from Zinsmeister after the profile was published.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't this paragraph seem to indicate that they reached him for comment. If so, that makes the his exclusion from the story even worse.
Doesn't this paragraph seem to indicate that they reached him for comment. If so, that makes the his exclusion from the story even worse.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted that to be simply a reference to Park's quote in the NY Sun article. I think it's clear that they did not interview Park to get his side of the story to any of this.
"Zinsmeister engaged in plainly wrongful and dishonest conduct. He only admitted it when he was caught. And now that he's caught, he is offering plainly incredible excuses at the expenses of someone else's career. How can that not disqualify him from a high-level position at the White House?"
ReplyDeleteIn any normal administration, it would. But in this one, it is, as they say, "a feature, not a bug." If Bush wants to hire dishonest ideologues, that's his business (though also unfortunately, ours, because none of the *normal* checks and balances - political/press - seem to be functioning), but I can't comprehend why the Post would go along with any of this, whether it's the abasement of politics, of the media, or of itself. On the other hand, I *am* eagerly looking forward to Deborah Howell's attempt to justify *this* lapse of journalistic ethics and common sense, because I need a good laugh.
This also reflects the larger decadence in our society, where once such behavior would have had immediate negative repercussions, and where the stink of having been caught in a lie would have permanently followed the liar.
ReplyDeleteNow, lies are but "misstatements" or "misquotes" or some other obvious baloney, and no one blinks twice. I wonder how ANY person, much less the supposed "professional skeptics" (sic) in the media could EVER simply accept at face value anything ever again uttered by Li'l Butch or Big Dick, given the lies they've already been caught in. And yet, these creeps continue to mewl out their mendacities and the press discusses their comments as if they were serious policy statements or substantive on the issues, rather than the rank bullshit which is their stock in trade.
The irrelevance of this blog that began with the confirmation of Hayden appears now to be complete.
ReplyDeleteHilarious!
Anyway, the sad fact of the matter seems to be that the press - which felt it had to treat Bush with kid gloves after the 2000 election and then after 9/11 - has simply become inured to this administration's medacity. It's the same as with the Downing Street memo. Everyone is already supposed to know they lie all the time and just accept it. "We gave up on calling them on it," the press says. "Where were you?"
I have a sign I made in '03 which says FIRE THE LIARS. These people are so unabashedly dishonest the citizenry collectively should be ashamed for not hounding them out of office. The Press should bear a burden for parroting the lies, and the Congress for allowing themselves to be fooled not once, or twice , but seemingly every time there is an interaction between the Administration and the Congress.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chris, mendacity is required for high-level Bush appointees -- apparently now it's also required to cover them.
ReplyDeleteThis ommission goes beyond neglect to offer a fellow reporter a chance to defend himself. It's fully part of the lie. Zinsmeister silly excuses could not fly without equally silly coverage like this.
The Washington Post may be buckling under to those threats to jail its reporters after all. It's their move to prove otherwise now.
In "unrelated news", Bernard Kerik is reportedly under investigation by a Grand Jury for home renovations performed by a mob-related contractor...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of lying by this Administration, did anyone see that Bush lied about what cheese he puts on his cheesesteak? His cheese, for Christ's sake!
ReplyDeleteLying is like f--king breathing to these guys. They just can't help but make s--t up to make themselves look better. What a bunch of narcissists.
I sent the following to Ombudsperson Howell (because I'm a masochist):
ReplyDeleteDear Ms. Howell,
Isn't the Washington Post obliged to get both sides' accounts of an dispute before reporting one side as fact? I refer to Mr. Zachary Goldfarb's May 30, 2006 article about why Karl Zinsmeisterat, President Bush's new domestic policy adviser, changed quotations attributed to him that had first appeared in an August 2004 interview by Justin Park. The implication of Mr. Goldfarb's article is that Syracuse New Times journalist Park had misquoted Mr. Zinsmeisterat. Specifically, Mr. Goldfarb reports that
Zinsmeister explained the change to The Washington Post by saying he has long studied issues of class and morality and he was confident he would have used the kind of specific language in the quote on the institute site rather than the more broad description in the original article.
In other examples, he said he made changes to fix errors he believed the New Times reporter had made because of misunderstandings or truncated notes -- taken in an interview in a noisy restaurant.
My question to the Post is was Mr. Park contacted for his side of the story? If not, why not? Your reporter quotes from a New York Sun interview with Mr. Park about Mr. Zinsmeister's original praise of the 2004 interview as published. That suggests to me that Mr. Park could have been contacted by Mr. Goldfarb directly. So did he contact Mr. Park directly and ask about the accuracy of quotations included in the original interview? The implication of Mr Goldfarb's article is that Mr. Park was a "young journalist" who did a sloppy job. I would like to know exactly how much experience Mr. Park had in 2004. Did Mr. Park have recordings, transcripts, or notes from his restaurant meeting with Mr. Zinzmeisterat that could corroborate the quotations as published originally? If they did corroborate the original quotations, does Mr. Zinsmeister have a better explanation for his changes?
It seems to me that your reporter, by failing to "check the facts" with the other witness to the dispute, does little to enhance Mr. Zinsmeisterat's credibility. Indeed the article makes me wonder even more if Mr. Zinsmeisterat is ethically equipped to handle the duties of a top White House appointment. I would ask you to look into this matter and report back on Mr. Goldfarb's actions and decision making in assembling his story.
Thank you and regards,
This isn't strictly relevant, but it sure is fun. After reading this, I'm sure policy at the White House will be striking out in a bold new direction. NOT!
ReplyDeleteThe War is Over, and We Won
By Karl Zinsmeister
Your editor returned to Iraq in April and May of 2005 for another embedded period of reporting. I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside.
Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they talked to me about how much change they could see in the country. They noted progress in the attitudes of the people, in the condition of important infrastructure, in security.
I observed many examples of this myself. Take the two very different Baghdad neighborhoods of Haifa Street and Sadr City. The first is an upper-end commercial district in the heart of downtown. The second is one of Baghdad’s worst slums, on the city’s north edge.
I spent lots of time walking both neighborhoods this spring—something that would not have been possible a year earlier, when both were active war zones, where tanks poured shells into buildings on a regular basis. Today, the primary work of our soldiers in each area is rebuilding sewers, paving roads, getting buildings repaired and secured, supplying schools and hospitals, getting trash picked up, managing traffic, and encouraging honest local governance.
What the establishment media covering Iraq have utterly failed to make clear today is this central reality: With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over. Egregious acts of terror will continue—in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.
Contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq. In 2004, our military fought fierce battles in Najaf, Fallujah, and Sadr City. Many thousands of terrorists were killed, with comparatively little collateral damage. As examples of the very hardest sorts of urban combat, these will go down in history as smashing U.S. victories.
And our successes at urban combat (which, scandalously, are mostly untold stories in the U.S.) made it crystal clear to both the terrorists and the millions of moderate Iraqis that the insurgents simply cannot win against today’s U.S. Army and Marines. That’s why everyday citizens have surged into politics instead.
The terrorist struggle has hardly ended. Even a very small number of vicious men operating in secret will find opportunities to blow up outdoor markets and public buildings, assassinate prominent political figures, and knock down office towers. But public opinion is not on the insurgents’ side, and the battle of Iraq is no longer one of war fighting—but of policing and politics.
Policing and political problem-solving are mostly tasks for Iraqis, not Americans. And the Iraqis are taking them up, often with gusto. I saw much evidence that responsible Iraqis are gradually isolating the small but dangerously nihilistic minority trying to strangle their new society. With each passing month, U.S. forces will more and more become a kind of SWAT team that intervenes only to multiply the force of the emerging Iraqi security forces, and otherwise stays mostly in the background.
Increasingly, the Iraqi people are taking direction of their own lives. And like all other self-ruling populations, they are more interested in improving the quality of their lives than in mindless warring. It will take some time, but Iraq has begun the process of becoming a normal country.
Karl Zinsmeister is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Enterprise.
Posted: June 20, 2005
"The War is Over, and We Won"
I *am* eagerly looking forward to Deborah Howell's attempt to justify *this* lapse of journalistic ethics and common sense, because I need a good laugh
ReplyDeleteJust remember to avoid profanity when you e-mail them to call them out on their obvious bias.
Well, if we are ready to be rigorously honest about it -- it is the "great decider" that should lose his job.
ReplyDeleteNot only did he steal 2 "accountability moments", never actually being elected, but he is a dismal failure on virtually every front.
There is more than enough crimialityh -- its not about competence and the likes of "heck of a job, brownie", but the war profiteering, failing to uphold oath of office, treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Like I said before these are the guys who think a victim of rape is to blame for dressing too sexy. They can do no wrong themselves, it is always someone else who is at fault.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make this shit up. The White House is going to hire someone with a name that rhymes with Spinmeister for an advisory position?
ReplyDeleteJust a bit off topic... anonymous 1:59- if you really believe that will you now stop reading and posting please?
ReplyDeleteThe irrelevance of this blog that began with the confirmation of Hayden appears now to be complete.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am disappointed that we are no longer being fed our daily "circle of links" to FDL and atrios and the rest of the faux "advertise liberal" crowd.
After all, if we cannot maintain the illustion of expertise and exclude a reasonable dialog across these issues via the "official" wurlitzers, we cannot possibly become pliable consumers that repeat the words of the crowd that stays at Holiday Inn Express.
Not, they have no expertise, don't speak for liberals, or even support traditional progressive liberal values and issue - but we cannot possibly develop brand awareness without more links - endless links - to the ALL BLOG NO ACTION crowd.
Still, it's good to keep track for future reference.
ReplyDeletehe regards facts as malleable elements in history
Be sure to keep a hardcopy. You never know when the electronic record gets scrubbed.
Well I guess that answers my question....
ReplyDeleteto the ALL BLOG NO ACTION crowd.
ReplyDeleteSays some dumb-ass on a blog.
And what, pray tell, exactly are you accomplishing.
Other than taking annoying to a whole new level?
For the record:
ReplyDeleteA rough translation of "Zinsmeister" from German to English would be "phrase master."
Coincidence?
I think its time for the reporter
ReplyDeleteto apologize for any inconvenience
caused to Zinmeister, after all
its not like he was shot in the face with a shotgun or anything.
by Harry Whittington
SnarkyShark, meaningful action will involve using the only "vote" we have that is verifiably counted -- OUR DOLLARS.
ReplyDeleteSelling books and linking to an endless circle means nothing without asking people to do something -- buyblue.org has a great start.
The point is the the faux "advertise liberal" circle of links is too busy promoting itself and slamming anyone that suggests that we need to do more than blog -- its just another version of the 101st keyboarders.
Not hard to figure this one out - it will take broad coalitions of people that don't march in lockstep to make this work. It will also take bloggers that don't cop-out by proclaiming what is or is not a "netroot" thing.
In the end, everything else is just self-promotion, but I see you support the "fashion statement" sort of "liberalism" so I don't expect you to understand.
"We gave up on calling them on it," the press says. "Where were you?"
ReplyDeleteExcept the trivialization and acceptance of lies only seems to apply to conservatives and Republicans. If you are a 'liberal' or Democrat you will be branded a liar and hounded relentlessly for misstatements you don't even have to make, such as Al Gore invented the internet or Dick Cheney sent Joe Wilson to Niger. It doesn't matter if they never really said those things, people 'know' they are liars just as they 'know' conservatives speak the truth even if everything they say is materially incorrect.
Pointing out unethical conduct by conservatives has little effect when everyone 'knows' conservatives are by definition ethical. Attacking conservative bias in the media has little effect when everyone 'knows' the media is liberal. Facts which run counter to well established conventional wisdoms, however unfounded, are difficult for people to accept, and simply dismissed as aberrations if they are.
Value judgments will always outweigh facts and subjective truth will always trump objective reality. Conservatives have spent decades reorienting American politics and journalism around conservative 'values'. As long as that frame remains in place, facts which don't support it will have far less importance than myths which do. While liberal blogs are now pushing back on the media and making some progress in terms of correcting facts, real progress will only be made by a shift in values and a change in the underlying narrative. In an environment where progressive values can only be expressed in terms of derision as would be used by such paragons of morality as Limbaugh and Coulter, that's going to be a long hard fight.
anonymous 3:42... I understand the pigshit part of your reference but there wouldn't be any pork left behind without the services of a butcher...
ReplyDeleteanonymous 4:11... buyblue.com is a shill for corporate mercantile interests. You might want to do some self examination (crticism, self-criticism) before spewing your bile.
Les Izmore said...
ReplyDeleteanonymous 3:42... I understand the pigshit part of your reference but there wouldn't be any pork left behind without the services of a butcher...
Little Piggies... more work for the butcher who is glad for the work.
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
Professor Foland said...
ReplyDeleteIn "unrelated news", Bernard Kerik is reportedly under investigation by a Grand Jury for home renovations performed by a mob-related contractor...
Rudy!
"and he just wrote a best-selling book."
ReplyDeleteUm, using what definition of "best-selling"?
I bought the book, read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it is not a "best-selling" book.
Look, Glenn has done an amazing job breaking down the lawless behavior of the Bush crowd's view of executive power. But three days and the only topic covered is Zinmeister?? And not even a substantive critique at that, just some bullshit "gotcha" journalism.
I guess I am disappointed because the bar was set so high in the beginning, and it has sunk so low today.
Ah poor George Harrison... Haven't seen the complete lyrics of that one in a while. It may be a bad idea to get your political theories from pop lyrics though. If its pigs your interested in try George Orwell's Animal Farm. Lots of 'em in there and a bit deeper level of analysis.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 4:27- Please go set the bar somewhere else. Your constant carping masquerading as constructive criticism is boring and self serving.
ReplyDeleteLes Izmore said...
ReplyDeleteAh poor George Harrison... Haven't seen the complete lyrics of that one in a while. It may be a bad idea to get your political theories from pop lyrics though.
Nonsense! Geddy Lee and Rush are all about Ayn Rand and Libertarianism! And Ted Nugent is... well, all about Ted Nugent!
If its pigs your interested in try George Orwell's Animal Farm. Lots of 'em in there and a bit deeper level of analysis.
I have read it many times.
Four legs good, two legs better!
"Your constant carping masquerading as constructive criticism is boring and self serving."
ReplyDeleteBoring, maybe. Hard to see, though, how an anonymous posting could be tagged with "self-serving."
DB...Would a Clinton apointment have gotten the same treatment? Would a Democrat get the same treatment today?
ReplyDeleteThe Zinsmeister is getting off easy. No one wants to open his fly and examine his penis.
The Washington Post may have concluded the NY Sun failed to follow the standard procedure for attributing quotes to Administration officials. In other words, they should have known better.
ReplyDeleteRecall that the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman once confessed that he allowed certain White House officials the opportunity to review their quotes before publication, so that the White House could bless the attribution of the quote to a specific individual:
The catch was this: The interview would be off the record. Any quotes I wanted to put into the newspaper would have to be e-mailed to the press office. If approved, the quotation could be attributed to a White House official. (This has become fairly standard practice.)
...
I think it is time for all of us to reconsider the way we cover the White House. If administration officials want to speak off the record, they are off the record. If they are on background as an administration official, I suppose that's the best we can expect. But the notion that reporters are routinely submitting quotations for approval, and allowing those quotes to be manipulated to get that approval, strikes me as a step beyond business as usual.
Weisman quickly recanted when no other journalists were brave enough to confirm this. Atrios had the goods.
Boring, maybe. Hard to see, though, how an anonymous posting could be tagged with "self-serving."
ReplyDelete"Self" as in your own motives.
"Serving" as in your posts are serving your own motives.
Ask for help any time. Always glad to help out a fellow anonymous.
["Serving" as in your posts are serving your own motives.]
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, unlike all of those blog posts out there that serve someone else's motives.
Based upont this definition, virtually all posts are "self-serving."
blud:
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with that meaning for Zins. Is it regional? I know it as interest in the banking sense.
Off topic, but I am looking forward to hearing Glenn's take on today's Supreme Court 5-4 decision that went against government whistleblowers.
ReplyDelete(Bart's probably got a woody just thinking about punishing whistleblowers)
I bought the book, read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it is not a "best-selling" book.
ReplyDeleteMoron, it was #1 on Amazon and Glenn has indicated it's likely to debut on the NYT Best-seller list. That is a best-selling book by every measure.
Look, Glenn has done an amazing job breaking down the lawless behavior of the Bush crowd's view of executive power. But three days and the only topic covered is Zinmeister?? And not even a substantive critique at that, just some bullshit "gotcha" journalism.
Yeah, I can't believe Glenn isn't breaking huge stories on a daily fucking basis on this blog. What is wrong with him?
And he only blogs every single day, 7 days a week. And yet, for the second time today, you complain that he has "only 2 posts in 3 days" - HOW THE FUCK DARE HE TAKE OFF FOR MEMORIAL DAY AND NOT ENTERTAIN US! WE HAVE THE RIGHT FOR HIM TO BREAK MAJOR NEW STORIES EVERY DAY - HOLIDAYS INCLUDED - AND FOR HIM TO STOP THE NOMINATIONS OF EVERY BUSH APPOINTEE WE DISLIKE!!!
Only 2 posts in 3 days, over a holiday weekend! And he allowed Hayden to become CIA Director. What a lazy pig Glenn is.
I guess I am disappointed because the bar was set so high in the beginning, and it has sunk so low today.
This is a major story in the Wash Post, the NY Sun and on huge numbers of blogs. It shows the corruption of the journalist class, the decline of any standards in our government, and scores of other things.
You think any blogger is going to write posts 7 days a week that you find earth-shattering? I would hate any blog that only wrote about one issue. Some of Glenn's best and most influential posts have had nothing to do with the wiretap stuff.
I have never seen a blog with the amount of impact this one has had, especially in such a short period of time. When I saw your comment about how this blog is irrelevant because Glenn didn't stop the Hayden nomination, I thought to myself: "I have never encountered a more selfish, stupid and/or mentally ill person in my life."
Who the fuck do you think you are?
While the Bush administration regularly offers duplicity without moral qualms that might in more ordinary times shatter the earth several times over, it's great to know that we now live in are era of error where a new appointee's dubious conduct is simply an everyday event.
ReplyDeleteGiven that Zinsmeister the non Zen Meister succeeds Claude "The Shoplifting Is Just a Misunderstanding" Allen as Domestic Policy Advisor, one sees a sense of humor in the White House previously unknown. Fun times. Let the irrelevance continue.
Your government $$$$ in action:
ReplyDeleteU.S. Policy Was to Shoot Korean Refugees
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and MARTHA MENDOZA
The Associated Press
Monday, May 29, 2006; 2:44 PM
-- More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light _ a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.
The letter _ dated the day of the Army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950 _ is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all U.S. forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the U.S. government.
"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.
Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.
The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.
The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were "an unfortunate tragedy" _ "not a deliberate killing." It suggested panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals concealed enemy troops......
Sounds a bit like Murtha---they were tired, overworked and demoralized. That's why they turned into depraved mass murderers.
I give up.
In journalism we can what Goldfarb wrote a "puff piece," and the failure to get both sides will get you an "F." It's Journalism 101. FWIW--dropped a note to WaPo's Ombudsgal--
ReplyDelete"The subject of this article, Karl Zinsmeister, was allowed to claim that his unethical behavior of altering a published profile of himself was actually an attempt to correct errors made by the New York Times reporter and editors. However, your reporter Zachary Goldfarb did not seek a reaction from the "young journalist" (Justin Park) or the NYT editors responsible for the piece. This is Journalism 101. Without the balance of sources, what you published is more akin to a puff piece on Zinsmeister than actual reportage."
Helen Thomas tangled with Tony Snow today over Zinmeister. However, she did not seem concerned at all about Mr. Zinmeister's editing and instead took umbrage at his calling the DC elite of which she is a senior member "arrogant, morally repugnant, cheating, shifty."
ReplyDeleteHere is a Drudge blurb on the exchange...
Helen Thomas calls new Bush aide 'contemptible,' tangles with Tony Snow
Tue May 30 2006 13:34:41 ET
Helen Thomas, doyenne of the White House press corps, tangles with Tony Snow at today's briefing over President Bush's appointment of Karl Zinmeister as domestic policy adviser:
QUESTION: Why did the president pick a man who is so contemptible of the public servants in Washington to be his domestic adviser, saying, People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings. Why did he...
SNOW: Apparently an opinion that's...
QUESTION: Why would he pick such a man to be a domestic adviser?
SNOW: You meant contemptuous as opposed to contemptible I think.
QUESTION: Pure contempt.
SNOW: I'm not sure it's pure contempt. I know Karl Zinsmeister pretty well and he is somebody who expresses himself with a certain amount of piquancy. You're perhaps familiar with that, aren't you, Helen?
(LAUGHTER)
And so, as a consequence from time to time, he's going to say -- he'll have some sharp elbows.
QUESTION: His attitude toward public servants...
SNOW: I don't think it is his attitude toward public servants. It may have been toward the press. Just kidding.
(LAUGHTER)
No, look if, you look at the bulk of what Karl Zinsmeister has done at the American Enterprise and elsewhere, I think you're going to find somebody who's done some pretty meaty and interesting research on a variety of topics.
The reason he's being brought in is that he's...
QUESTION: Do you agree with his assessment?
SNOW: I'm not going to -- it is one sentence the guy wrote. And perhaps you may recall -- yes?
QUESTION: Arrogant, morally repugnant, cheating, shifty.
SNOW: That's a lot in one sentence, isn't it? He just packed it right in.
Developing...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
It must be an awful slow period for news if this silliness is the subject of two blogs.
ReplyDeleteTHIS is why you do not convict suspects before the evidence is in.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to video from the drone, investigators have records of radio message traffic between the Marines and a command center, said military defense lawyers who have discussed the investigation with Marines who were at Haditha but who have not yet been formally retained by them.
"There's a ton of information that isn't out there yet," said one lawyer, who, like the others, would speak only on the condition of anonymity because a potential client has not been charged. The radio message traffic, he said, will provide a different view of the incident than has been presented by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and other members of Congress. For example, he said, contrary to Murtha's account, it will show that the Marines came under small-arms fire after the roadside explosion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052900928.html
The sad fact is that Zins is reflecting the ethics (noticeably the LACK OF IT) that now pervades the entire political center of the nation. All 5 aspects of our politics - executive, legislative, judicial, media, petitioning - are now governed by self-serving and self-admiring forces that holds no one accountable, and shows contempt for all those (including the public they are supposed to answer to) outside of their little circle.
ReplyDeleteThere’s good reasons Helen Thomas calls him “contemptible”.
ReplyDeleteYes Bart, an anonymous quote from a defendant's lawyer trumps all!
ReplyDeletePRESIDENT BUSH: Secretary of Treasury Snow?
ReplyDeleteQ Has he given you any indication he intends to leave his job any time soon?…
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he’s doing a fine job.
According to rumor the other people at AEI hate Zinsmeister and think he is the wrong person for the job. Anyone wonder why virtually none of his fellow scholars at AEI have gone on the record with positive comments about him?
ReplyDeletescholars at AEI
ReplyDeleteSpew! Coffee >>>>>> monitor!
Please! Don't debase the term. Scholars do exist, just not at AEI or any other right wing think tank.
fellow scholars at AEI
ReplyDeleteCall them what they are. Propagandists and apologists.
I am not related to this moronymous. Not even by marriage.
ReplyDeleteGlenn posts, you comment. Kind of like, I smell, you stink. Glenn's posts serve many purposes. Maybe some folks are here for the first time. Many people come here to read Glenn's posts and do not feel the need to comment. It's enough for them just to read what he has to say. You and I felt the need to comment, along with many other folks. If it's boring you, vote with your feet, as Ender has suggested.
Anonymous said...
["Serving" as in your posts are serving your own motives.]
Ah, yes, unlike all of those blog posts out there that serve someone else's motives.
Based upont this definition, virtually all posts are "self-serving."
"Karl Zinsmeister should lose his White House job" ... and Zachary Goldfarb should lose his Washington Post job.
ReplyDeleteBut that would be assuming that The Washington Post still even tries to pretend it is anything other than the Republican Party's Pravda.
SnarkyShark, meaningful action will involve using the only "vote" we have that is verifiably counted -- OUR DOLLARS.
ReplyDeleteMeaningfull action to me means running the sanitation, volunterring for road gaurd, and pulling the midnight shift at Camp Casy during last summers rumble in Crawford.
Meaningfull action means tabling for Dean in Tom Delays district, and being screamed at by fanatical Wingers.
Both of these actions have had immeadiate benificial results that I can see.
So far my boycott of Wal-mart doesnt seem to be doing anything.
Your idea has merit, but coming in here with that big ol chip on your shoulder doesn't serve to advance your cause very well.
The liberal blog-o-sphere has had an affect, as the corperate mediea isn't getting a free ride anymore and has been forced to respond. Its called working the refs.
A community can do much more than one individual whos message is dilluted by his/her obvious bitterness toward????
Just my two cents.
The radio message traffic, he said, will provide a different view of the incident than has been presented by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and other members of Congress. For example, he said, contrary to Murtha's account, it will show that the Marines came under small-arms fire after the roadside explosion.
ReplyDeleteThis is a first! Finally! Radio has pictures! Jack Benny and Milton Berle will be so happy! And we will finally get to se Uncle Milty in a dress.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletekvenlander said...
ReplyDeleteYes Bart, an anonymous quote from a defendant's lawyer trumps all!
The only thing this report trumps is Murtha's claim that the Marines were not under small arms fire.
It also raises the possibility that the Marines were clearing houses which had fired on them. This usually involves breaking down doors, throwing in a grenade and/or spraying the room with fire. Under those circumstances, it is often impossible to discriminate between combatants and civilians.
This comports with the purported testimony of one Iraqi boy who saw the ends of rifles inserted through the windows and firing, but never say the faces of the soldiers, who he initially thought were Iraqis.
Murtha has admitted that he is relying on what others are telling him and has never claimed to have seen any evidence himself. Yet, he keeps saying categorically that the Marines are guilty of cold blooded murder.
Let's see the evidence first.
What's with the concern troll(s) here today?
ReplyDelete1) It's Glenn's blog, he's just one guy, and he can post whenever he wants (Digby is an absolutely brilliant writer, and just this weekend went three days without posting). There's plenty of other things to read out there in the internets.
2) Want to do something concrete? Join the netroots projects that FireDogLake is organizing. (Is that why FDL is the target of your 'concern trolling', because it actually is organizing people?) Or use resources from DailyKos, dKosopedia, etc. to find ways to get active locally.
3) A college student would be expelled for less than what Zinsmeister did, and Goldfarb might be fired for writing that on a college paper (a one-sided piece to give Zinsmeister cover that smears Park without even talking to him). But Zinsmeister will be WH policy adviser, and Goldfarb is still employed at The Post. If this is a not a very important story, then we have fully given up on any standards of ethics and truth in both politics and journalism. Well, the Republican Party and their stenographers on duty and The Washington Post clearly have -- but there's still a good part of the country whose moral sense has not yet choked to death on all the bullshit, and still finds all this repugnant.
Back to our dear anonymous -- if it looks and smells like a wingnut concern troll, it probably is one.
Lawyer: officers not target of investigations into Iraqi killings
ReplyDeleteNo George Washington, our boy George. He sure knows how to help the troops morale. Not. And he has raised taxes! Twice! What will Bart say? I'd say you are next, Bart.
In separate interviews with The Associated Press on Monday, the parents of two of the Marines who were members of a unit sent into Haditha to help remove the bodies said their children have been traumatized by the experience.
ReplyDeleteLance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, were ordered to photograph the scene with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack, the families said. Briones' mother, Susie, said her son told her that he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day.
"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," Susie Briones said in a tearful interview at her home in California's San Joaquin Valley.
Navy investigators confiscated Briones' camera, his mother said. Wright's parents, Patty and Frederick Wright of Novato, declined to comment on what might have happened to the photos their son took but said he turned over all of his information to the Navy.
"He is the Forrest Gump of the military," Frederick Wright said. "He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own."
Ryan Briones told the Los Angeles Times that Navy investigators had interrogated him twice in Iraq and that they wanted to know whether bodies had been tampered with. He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.
Susie Briones called the incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40, an academic adviser at a community college. "It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing."
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday on CBS's "The Early Show" that "it would be premature for me to judge" the situation.
But he added that it is critically important to make the point that if certain service members are responsible for an atrocity, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have."
Asked how such a thing could have happened, Pace replied, "Fortunately, it does not happen very frequently, so there's no way to say historically why something like this might have happened. We'll find out."
Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said. Briones was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.
"He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."
The Wrights declined to say whether their son witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.
He was under so much pressure because of the investigation that he had consulted with an attorney, they said. He has also experienced psychological trauma.
Wright and Briones are both recipients of the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in battle.
Wright was injured during an assault on Fallujah in January 2005. He voluntarily rejoined his unit at Camp Pendleton the next month.
Briones was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He received a Purple Heart during his first tour.
"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females. I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood. This left something in my head and heart."
ReplyDelete- Observations of Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones after the Haditha Massacre
From Bart at 7:49PM:
ReplyDelete"The only thing this report trumps is Murtha's claim that the Marines were not under small arms fire."
This 'report' does nothing of the sort. It is an unsubstantiated claim made by a defense attorney (who may or may not be on the level). It contests, but doesn't disprove the claims made by Rep. Murtha, who admittedly is depending upon presumably second-hand accounts.
Bart does make a valid point however: there's no way to know for certain what happened until all evidence is presented and witnesses speak on the record.
These Marines might actually be innocent of the charges; they might equally be guilty of this and far worse.
Rep. Murtha perhaps jumped the gun a bit, but this is understandable as he's a former Marine and rather protective of the service; the allegation alone is a stain on the Corps honor, something I doubt his critics have much concept of. The 101 Keyboardists have no such excuse in their rapid condemnation of either the man or his service.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete[Bush] has raised taxes! Twice! What will Bart say?
Let's take a gander at your link...
With One Pen Stroke, Bush Raises Taxes Twice
In an effort to raise revenues, tax writers in Congress added a last-minute provision that retroactively increased taxes for Americans living abroad. … The change, which is retroactive to the beginning of 2006, is expected to raise taxes on Americans abroad by $2.1 billion over the next 10 years. …
Americans working overseas get a dollar-for-dollar credit for income taxes paid to foreign countries to offset their American income taxes. They also get to exclude $80,000 from the income they report to the I.R.S. The new law increased the exclusion to $82,400 this year.
But analyses by the accounting firms Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers show that by adding provisions to how the exclusion is calculated, it raises the overall tax bill and marginal tax rates as well for some overseas Americans.
You will have to do better than this to explain to all of us how increasing a tax deduction somehow "raises the overall tax bill and marginal tax rates as well for some overseas Americans."
The Times reported last week that the bill also “tripled tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds.”
Big surprise, the NYT lied again.
The GOP has announced for weeks that it is going to include renewal of this popular deduction along with several others to a second tax cut bill to be voted on just before the elections. For some reason, the proximity of having to answer to voters increases Donkey support for tax cuts.
The NYT is again mindlessly repeating DNC talking points without checking the facts.
It is going to be absolutely hilarious if the NYT profits and stock price keeps plunging and someone like Rupert Murdoch buys out the old leftist rag and cleans house.
yankeependragon said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 7:49PM: "The only thing this report trumps is Murtha's claim that the Marines were not under small arms fire."
This 'report' does nothing of the sort. It is an unsubstantiated claim made by a defense attorney (who may or may not be on the level).
Possible, but not likely. These are JAG officers, not a group of politically motivated anti death penalty attorneys. During their careers, JAG officers often serve both as prosecutors and defense attorneys. They have no particular reason to lie about the evidence.
It contests, but doesn't disprove the claims made by Rep. Murtha, who admittedly is depending upon presumably second-hand accounts.
These radio transmissions are supposedly recorded.
Bart does make a valid point however: there's no way to know for certain what happened until all evidence is presented and witnesses speak on the record.
These Marines might actually be innocent of the charges; they might equally be guilty of this and far worse.
I basically agree. However, I doubt there are many "innocent" parties here. This is war and the Marines appear to have killed these civilians. The question is whether they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of a crime.
Rep. Murtha perhaps jumped the gun a bit, but this is understandable as he's a former Marine and rather protective of the service; the allegation alone is a stain on the Corps honor...
Don't you see the contradiction in what you just posted. This accusation is a stain on the Marines individually and as a service. How can anyone who claims to care about the Marines make such a condemnation without having even seen the evidence?
Bart,
ReplyDeleteDon't leave Haditha massacre undefended. Raising taxes in a time of war is a "good thing."
How can anyone who claims to care about the Marines make such a condemnation without having even seen the evidence?
ReplyDeleteI'm a Yankees fan. Fuck the marines.
Just my two cents.
ReplyDeleteHere's your change...
ttttttttppppppppphhhhhhhhpppppppptttttttttttttttttttttttt
Yup, your boycott of walmart does no good just like a boycott of grapes would do no good without people talking about doing it together.
If pointing out that truth is a "chip," I carry it proudly.
There would have been no civil rights movement or labor movement if everyone said, "well, at least we are telling people the things that aren't in the mainstream media."
COP-OUT!
People that procliam they are our "saviors" but insist on stopping short of building concensus for change are also part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, it does sell a lot of books, t-shirts, coffee cups and "faux" liberal advertising.
If we have the tools for organized, peaceful, meaningful actions but choose not to use them - then shame on us.
Digby is an absolutely brilliant writer
ReplyDeleteLOL
you must have read that on the circle of links!
Yes Bart, an anonymous quote from a defendant's lawyer trumps all!
ReplyDeleteWell when your livelihood is based on an endless stream of drunk-drivers, thats about the only "evidence" you get.
"LOL" -- that pretty much summarizes your appreciation for writing style.
ReplyDeleteWhat a troll infestation. They are not here to persuade or argue, only to heckle and disrupt. Which is not surprising, given that Glenn Greenwald has been scoring so many direct hits and, unlike them, does not put Party above country and Constitution.
Wait, Justin Park has his interview of Zinsmeister on tape?
ReplyDeleteAnd he hasn't appeared yet on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show to play it, and show what a lying little shitweasel Zinsmeister truly is?
What's the holdup?
HWSNBN is oblivious to reality:
ReplyDeleteIt is going to be absolutely hilarious if the NYT profits and stock price keeps plunging and someone like Rupert Murdoch buys out the old leftist rag and cleans house.
Murdoch has been dumping many millions into his pet rag, the New York Post, for years. It hasn't made a cent. Talk about your miserable excuse for a newspaper ... ummm, let me amend that: Subsidised rag of Dubya apologia and ranting.
Cheers,
small-minded character assassination
ReplyDeleteAs to Haditha, see the following discussion about detering suicide killers
ReplyDeleteif "Anonymous" is so upset about bloggers not rushing out into the streets, why does he [my bet is he's a he] spend so much time reading the blogs and the comments? Why isn't he out working? If he isn't a conservative troll, why does he think accusing Glenn and commenters of being "lazy" and "lying" and "faux" is going to encourage them to act instead of writing?
ReplyDeleteOh wait, that question answers itself. Jerk. I resent wasting time reading his crap.
Bart, actually, your description of how to clear a room is wrong, unless you base your knowledge on watching re-runs of the A-Team. Also, you say, it is impossible to discriminate. What you describe as clearing a room is not "discriminating between hostiles and non-hostiles," it is indiscrimate killing. While you attempt to refute anyone who suggests marines may have killed non-hostiles, you are at the same time accusing them of indiscriminately firing their weapons, something the military teaches NOT TO DO.
ReplyDeletebart spat...
"This usually involves breaking down doors, throwing in a grenade and/or spraying the room with fire. Under those circumstances, it is often impossible to discriminate between combatants and civilians."
The incident that is being reported on and investigated took place on Nov 19. It is now May 30.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we're looking into this now while the trail is still fresh!
anonymous:
ReplyDeleteWhile you attempt to refute anyone who suggests marines may have killed non-hostiles, you are at the same time accusing them of indiscriminately firing their weapons, something the military teaches NOT TO DO.
HWSNBN was sleeping through those lectures. He's of the "shoot first, ask questions later" school ... you know, like the folks that killed Pat Tillman.
Cheers,
Not to say that's what the Marines in Haditha did; from some accounts, they shot civilians in the back of the head. Even more against "SOP"....
ReplyDeleteCheers,
"Oh, the integrity!"
ReplyDeleteRadio announcer watching the Bush Blimp crash and burn.
Arne:
ReplyDeleteBart: It is going to be absolutely hilarious if the NYT profits and stock price keeps plunging and someone like Rupert Murdoch buys out the old leftist rag and cleans house.
Murdoch has been dumping many millions into his pet rag, the New York Post, for years. It hasn't made a cent.
This has nothing to do with money apart from a continued drop in the NYT stock price making it an attractive takeover target.
Actually, I picked up this bit of paranoia from a leftist blog.
Bart: It is going to be absolutely hilarious if the NYT profits and stock price keeps plunging and someone like Rupert Murdoch buys out the old leftist rag and cleans house.
ReplyDeleteCalling the NYTimes leftist, either in jest or as a rhetorical device, proves Bart has his wingnut tinfoil hat on firmly. He might even be serious. Then I guess he is a fascist. He is Italian, after all. Bwahahaha! You are a constant source of hilarity. Things at Freep must be somber and gloomy when you are over here.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBart, actually, your description of how to clear a room is wrong, unless you base your knowledge on watching re-runs of the A-Team. Also, you say, it is impossible to discriminate. What you describe as clearing a room is not "discriminating between hostiles and non-hostiles," it is indiscrimate killing. While you attempt to refute anyone who suggests marines may have killed non-hostiles, you are at the same time accusing them of indiscriminately firing their weapons, something the military teaches NOT TO DO.
bart spat...
"This usually involves breaking down doors, throwing in a grenade and/or spraying the room with fire. Under those circumstances, it is often impossible to discriminate between combatants and civilians."
When Bart wants to clear a room, he just enters it. But since his wife and dog ran away, he's got the place all to himself.
Yeah, there are all kinds of ways to clear a room that don't involve a frag grenade and a sweep with a SAW. There are flash bangs, CS gas, hell... some people even use a bullhorn. I think Bart got all his medals in online FP shooters.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBart, actually, your description of how to clear a room is wrong, unless you base your knowledge on watching re-runs of the A-Team. Also, you say, it is impossible to discriminate. What you describe as clearing a room is not "discriminating between hostiles and non-hostiles," it is indiscrimate killing.
So is firing a tank shell into a building from which the enemy is firing on you.
My technique is from personal experience training at clearing buildings at urban warfare training centers at Ft Benning and Germany.
The basic technique is to kick in the door, lob in a grenade and then rush in right after the grenade explodes and start shooting people in the room.
This technique can be ratcheted back if you expect that the enemy is hiding behind civilians, but this drastically increases the danger to the troops clearing the building because they have to make split second decisions identifying friend from foe. That gives an enemy the drop on the soldiers entering the room as they enter and then pause to identify targets.
Folks like Delta Force spend hundreds of hours training for these insertions and they don't always get it right.
While you attempt to refute anyone who suggests marines may have killed non-hostiles...
I said nothing of the sort. Rather, I posted that it appeared the Marines must have done the killing unless these people were caught in a crossfire between the Marines and the terrorists.
The question is not who did the killing, but rather under what circumstances. It is not per se illegal to kill civilians in a firefight. That unfortunately happens all the time. The issue is whether the soldiers intentionally or recklessly targeted the civilians.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBart: It is going to be absolutely hilarious if the NYT profits and stock price keeps plunging and someone like Rupert Murdoch buys out the old leftist rag and cleans house.
Calling the NYTimes leftist, either in jest or as a rhetorical device, proves Bart has his wingnut tinfoil hat on firmly.
Apart from the lunatic left fringe, no one considers the NYT center or right. The NYT and CBS News compete for ridicule as Donkey echo chambers.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteYeah, there are all kinds of ways to clear a room that don't involve a frag grenade and a sweep with a SAW. There are flash bangs, CS gas, hell... some people even use a bullhorn. I think Bart got all his medals in online FP shooters.
You have been watching too many TV SWAT shows.
Great post Glenn. FYI, I found this rather interesting although it may not have any real significance. Mr. Goldfarb's article was posted under the washingtonpost.com > Politics > Federal Page section of washingtonpost.com but if you follow that link you won't find any reference to Mr. Goldfarb's article as of 10:07pm 05/30/06.
ReplyDeleteanonymous 4:38 PM- Perhaps a more pithy and precise wording would have been self-serviceing, which in a public forum would more likely be done anonymously.
ReplyDelete"Self" as in your own motives.
"Serviceing" as in... well, you know...
HWSNBN is still clueless:
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with money apart from a continued drop in the NYT stock price making it an attractive takeover target.
Ummmm, that was my point about Rupert's execrable New York Post rag: It ain't about money; it's about buying a mouthpiece for the RW "spin machine" and subsidising the Republican party. Something the New York Times is not. For all its failings (and they are manifold), it's actually a newspaper (and has countless Pulitzers compared to The Post's big fat zip ... not to mention the big fat zip for Peabodys for Murdoch's foaming lunatic, Bill O'Lielly).
Cheers,
OH NO! It goes on and on.
ReplyDeleteYou see hypatia and jao? I was right about Alito. The clues were all right there but you two just decided to ignore them. You are brainwashed by OK.
High Court Trims Whistleblower Rights
- By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
(05-30) 14:54 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote.
In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.
Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security.
Supporters said that it will protect governments from lawsuits filed by disgruntled workers pretending to be legitimate whistleblowers.
The ruling was perhaps the clearest sign yet of the Supreme Court's shift with the departure of moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the arrival of Alito.
A year ago, O'Connor authored a 5-4 decision that encouraged whistleblowers to report sex discrimination in schools. The current case was argued in October but not resolved before her retirement in late January.
A new argument session was held in March with Alito on the bench. He joined the court's other conservatives in Tuesday's decision, which split along traditional conservative-liberal lines.
Exposing government misconduct is important, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. "We reject, however, the notion that the First Amendment shields from discipline the expressions employees make pursuant to their professional duties," Kennedy said.
The ruling overturned an appeals court decision that said Los Angeles County prosecutor Richard Ceballos was constitutionally protected when he wrote a memo questioning whether a county sheriff's deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit. Ceballos had filed a lawsuit claiming he was demoted and denied a promotion for trying to expose the lie.
Kennedy said if the superiors thought the memo was inflammatory, they had the authority to punish him.
"Official communications have official consequences, creating a need for substantive consistency and clarity. Supervisors must ensure that their employees' official communications are accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer's mission," Kennedy wrote.
Stephen Kohn, chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, said: "The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States."
Justice David H. Souter's lengthy dissent sounded like it might have been the majority opinion if O'Connor were still on the court. "Private and public interests in addressing official wrongdoing and threats to health and safety can outweigh the government's stake in the efficient implementation of policy," he wrote.
Souter was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Stephen Breyer also supported Ceballos, but on different grounds.
The ruling upheld the position of the Bush administration, which had joined the district attorney's office in opposing absolute free-speech rights for whistleblowers. President Bush's two nominees, Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, signed onto Kennedy's opinion but did not write separately.
"It's a very frightening signal of dark times ahead," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project.
Employment attorney Dan Westman said that Kennedy's ruling frees government managers to make necessary personnel actions, like negative performance reviews or demotions, without fear of frivolous lawsuits.
Ceballos said in a telephone interview that "it puts your average government employee in one heck of a predicament ... I think government employees will be more inclined to keep quiet."
Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a statement that the ruling "allows public employers to conduct the people's business without undue disruption and without turning routine personnel decisions into federal cases."
The court's decision immediately prompted calls for Congress to strengthen protections for workers.
Kennedy said that government workers "retain the prospect of constitutional protection for their contributions to the civic discourse." They do not, Kennedy said, have "a right to perform their jobs however they see fit."
The case is Garcetti v. Ceballos, 04-473.
davidbyron: This sort of description is typical of American massacres. All sorts of excuses are offered up for incredible acts of evil but there's a dichotomy bbetween the banal excuses and the extreme crime.
ReplyDeleteThat's because Americans are incapable of evil. As Martin Matustik puts it (alluding to Fredrick Douglas and Kierkegaard):
Known to [Frederick] Douglass but lost on most contemporary Americans is the danger of an even greater evil: what Kierkegaard called the human capacity for acting “diabolically.” The “diabolical” is anyone who wills oneself to be good without having confronted one’s capacity for evil. Such a person must cling fast to false innocence because this person despairs over the question whether he or she truly is innocent. The politically “diabolical” is any regime that in despair wills its false innocence. The desire to be the innocent source of one’s power - a phenomenon we can call the despair of America - can be confronted, says Kierkegaard, by the breakdown of the false ego and its attachment to power.
The radio message traffic, he said, will provide a different view of the incident than has been presented by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and other members of Congress. For example, he said, contrary to Murtha's account, it will show that the Marines came under small-arms fire after the roadside explosion.
ReplyDeleteBart, I think you should just give it up already. Remember the kid who produced those video-tapes in his basement in California showing a person being beheaded, and the entire world press published them and attested to their validity?
This is the age of technology. The cover-ups now can be worthy of special effects Oscars.
There were plenty of eye witnesses. We all know what happened. You do too. Check the morgue.
With all of the people slaughtered, only one was found to have had a weapon. And guess what? It wasn't a two year old child.....
You appear to think the lives of "infidels" are worth nothing.
That's you. It's not the rest of us. That's where we differ.
What do I have to do? Start posting quotes by Albert Schweitzer to remind you how decent people view life?
OK. I know everyone has a big chuckle when I talk about a reverence for life which includes the lives of animals, and the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
ReplyDeleteWho cares? Not I. Here is a little about Albert Schweitzer, one of my few biggest heroes. A giant among men if there ever was one.....
BTW, laugh all you want but you would never have found Albert Schweitzer torturing or killing anyone or me either. So who has the last laugh now when you all see where a lack of reverence for the lives of other beings has brought this planet?
[Quoting Schweitzer from The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer, Edited by Charles Joy] "Out of such heart-breaking experiences that often shamed me there slowly arose in me the unshakeable conviction that we had the right to bring pain and death to another being only in case of inescapable necessity, and that all of us must feel the horror that lies in thoughtless torturing and killing. This conviction has become increasingly dominant within me. I have become more and more certain that at the bottom of our hearts we all think so, and simply do not dare to admit it and practice it, because we are afraid that others will laugh at us for being sentimental, and because we have allowed our better feelings to be blunted. But I vowed that I would never let my feelings get blunted, and I would never again fear the reproach of sentimentalism."
[Quote from a letter by Schweitzer to Christine Stevens, giving the Animal Welfare Institute permission to award a medal in his name for outstanding service to animals] I am profoundly moved that you would like to give my name to the medal you have created. I give you this right with all my heart. I would never have believed that my philosophy, which incorporates in our ethics a compassionate attitude toward all creatures, would be noticed and recognized in my lifetime. I knew this truth would impose itself one day on human thought, but it is the great and moving surprise of my life that I should still be able to witness this progress of ethics."
He spoke too soon, alas. What progress of ethics? There's still just a handful of us, and everyone else tortures and kills, maims and devours, snuffs out life for fun and profit, and laughs their cruel, eerie, bloodless laughs as they enter Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Sorry to whine, but you know, it is very depressing.
Bart said, "Apart from the lunatic left fringe, no one considers the NYT center or right."
ReplyDeleteJust more confirmation of how far to the right Bart is...I am hardly an extreme leftist, (although I won't pretend I'm a straight centrist, either...and I started as a Republican), but I certainly think the Times, on balance, is centrist with a shading toward the right. They have some liberal op-ed writers, as they have some conservative op-ed writers, but their news reportage is rarely scathing toward the power elite. The Times' owners are PART of the power elite.
For example, I have noticed a distinct tendency of the Times to place stories embarrassing to Bush inside their front pages, rather than on page A-1, or to give such stories short shrift. I hardly remember the Times' coverage of Steven Colbert's righteous savaging of Bush and the mewling White House press corps, for example; did they even report it?
And, of course, Judith Miller's shoddy articles for the Times did much to give credence to this administration's fabulations about Hussein's "threat" to us; Miller's lack of skepticism, her lack of real reporting, rather than merely taking dictation from pro-war spokesmen, is hardly indicative of a "leftist" paper out to savage the establishment. Similarly, the Time's agreement to sit on the story of Bush's criminal NSA wiretapping for a year does not signify a paper of bomb-throwers eager to take down this regime.
I read both the Times and New York Newsday, the latter primarily a Long Island paper with a small circulation Manhattan edition, and I have noticed more than once when both papers have covered the same story that the Times's coverage will tend to favor the status quo more than Newsday's, and Newsday, of the two, seems distinctly the more liberal.
The Times' "liberal" or even (ha!) "left" perspective may have had some basis in reality at some dim time in the past--or it may not have--but presently such an idea is, as with the notion of Bush being a "compassionate conservative" or a "uniter, not a divider," or a human being with an iota of capacity for thought or feeling or honesty, merely an urban myth.
Whoa. Cynic mentions Frederick Douglass! He's another one of my few greatest heroes. I wrote my thesis on him.
ReplyDeleteWhen I often write about "original Americans", I am talking about men like Frederick Douglass, American Patriots and monumentally heroic human beings.
I distinguish these people from the John Yoos or the Alberto Gonzales types who frankly I don't think of as "Americans." Actually, I don't even think of them as human beings. Must be mutants.
After being on the farm for one week, Frederick was given a serious beating for letting an oxen team run wild. During the months to follow, he was continually whipped until he began to feel that he was "broken". On one hot August afternoon his strength failed him and he collapsed in the field. Covey kicked and beat Frederick to no avail and finally walked away in disgust. Frederick mustered the strength to get up and walk to the Auld farm, where he pleaded with his master to let him stay. Auld had little sympathy for him and sent him back to Covey. Beaten down as Frederick was, he found the strength to rebel when Covey began tying him to a post in preparation for a whipping. "At that moment - from whence came the spirit I don't know - I resolved to fight," Frederick wrote. "I seized Covey hard by the throat, and as I did so, I rose." Covey and Frederick fought for almost two hours until Covey finally gave up telling Frederick that his beating would have been less severe had he not resisted. "The truth was," said Frederick, "that he had not whipped me at all." Frederick had discovered an important truth: "Men are whipped oftenist who are whipped easiest."
See what footsteps we were left to walk in here in America?
See why I like Glenn so much? He's one of the few who is still walking in those same footsteps.
My Lai . . . Haditha . . . and America’s whitewashers
ReplyDeleteThe whitewashers came in all ranks of importance, from the anticipated ever-present military brass, that initiated and maintained the cover-up, to a host of politicians and people in leadership, all the way to the commander-in-chief, President Nixon in this case. The incredible bottom line to this massacre was, however, that the only person found guilty for this carnage was Lt. Calley, who ended up serving three and a half years of “house arrest” in his quarters at Fort Benning, Georgia. The entire sordid affair became not just a national disgrace for which the country could do penance, but a monumental whitewash that to date Americans prefer not to talk about.
In a way, the enablers to the entire whitewash were the American public. Not only were the villains and whitewashers de facto exonerated, but the four heroes in the plot became traitors . . . to their military comrades, and also to much of the population.
My Lai, photos and all, was just too big a war crime to allow an effective cover-up, or it might have remained a secret to this date. Accounts provided by soldiers who lived through similar criminal accounts, if on a much smaller scale, were kept hush-hush we are led to believe “not to affect the morale of the troops.” It was all done, as it always seems to be in these cases, for the “greater good.” Yes, the end justifies the means!
Now the hamlets of Pinkville have given way to the streets of Haditha, and the probable murder of two dozen Iraqis, including women and children, by a large, yes large, group of marines. If it turns out to be as horrific as noted in some of the leaked details, and there wasn’t a single marine with enough humanity in the group to put a stop to this. God have pity on us as a nation . . . and as human beings.
Vietnam is far away in time and memory. But now Americans have to cope with new unpleasant realities: a government that lied to them, so as to enlist their support for an illegitimate war; then Abu Ghraib, and the realization that the military is far from squeaky-clean when it comes to torture, human rights and compliance with international law. Now, it is the pride of the military, the marines, who are being put to the test. And this may turn out to be a test like no other in the history of the Corps.
Revenge for the killing of a fellow marine is no reason to kill innocent, defenseless Iraqi women and children; nor is frustration, even when insurgents are at times fed and sheltered by civilians in the area, or when complicity is suspected. Criminal reprisal as an answer to physical and/or mental strain is just unacceptable behavior in human beings, much less in soldiers. When soldiers get to a point where they are apt to crack, they should be kept in their barracks or sent home. Just what role does the military leadership play in all this? Commanders, doctors and chaplains . . . aren’t they all gravely derelict?
How many more Hadithas are there . . . will we ever know what happened in Fallujah, and so many other places where the US military has no reason or right to be?
One must wonder. One, two . . . three decades from now some of these people who are committing crimes in Iraq, or those whitewashing their behavior, are likely to be in positions of political power in these United States. One could even become senator, president, or secretary of state. The whitewash, it appears, never ends.
What the hell is the matter with you anyway Bart? What happened to you along the way that made you decide to abandon your humanity?
Don't you even feel any shame when you are alone?
robert1014:
ReplyDeleteThe Times' "liberal" or even (ha!) "left" perspective may have had some basis in reality at some dim time in the past--or it may not have--but presently such an idea is, as with the notion of Bush being a "compassionate conservative" or a "uniter, not a divider," or a human being with an iota of capacity for thought or feeling or honesty, merely an urban myth.
I'm afraid you don't understand. To the troll HWSNBN, those that don't kiss Dubya's butt for saving REMF HWSNBN's sorry a$$ from Terra-ists -- and who don't stand up and salute with their little sol'jah when Dubya shows up with a codpiece -- are "lib'ruls". Any criticism of the Doofus-In-Chief, as we've heard so many a time, is "giving aid and confort to the enemy" ... and the logical consequence of this is that anyone that does so is al Qaeda by definition ... or that al Qaeda is the political opposition ... or they are one and the same ... or something like that, makes no difference....
HTH.
Cheers,
DavidByron said...
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you guys but I am constantly murdering people because I'm tired and overworked.
EWO:
Sounds a bit like Murtha---they were tired, overworked and demoralized. That's why they turned into depraved mass murderers.
[yes the sarcasm is in the original too]
I certainly don't condone any reprisal murders and I would hope that the Marines if found guilty will be appropriately punished. I however also find your and EWO's uninformed commentary highly objectionable. When you have done three combat tours, been through multiple IED atttacks, and firefights; watched your friends get their limbs blown off and die in front of you; then come back and talk to somebody about it.
Your description of the cause of the incident as being tired and overworked, like it was just a tough week at the office is highly inaccurate of what our combat troops go through and is highly insulting.
Just a general post on some unpleasant facts.
ReplyDeleteThe type of incident that allegedly occured at Haditha has occured in every war of any duration to include WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and now possibly Iraq.
It is unrealistic to put the military in war conditions, fully expecting them to kill to achieve Government objectives; have them come under repeated attack by the enemy; watch their friends get blown apart and die; and then expect them to not take it personally.
That is why war should only be undertaken as a last resort after all other options have been exhausted and there is no other alternative.
Should those that engage in reprisal attacks against civilians (probably believed to be in collusion with the enemy) be punished as they would for the same crime committed as a civilian? Yes. But the real solution is to not put people in the military in extraordinary situations where the judgement of even the most law abiding citizen is likely to lapse, and make criminals out of people that ordinarily would never become one.
That is why war should only be undertaken as a last resort after all other options have been exhausted and there is no other alternative.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. And once undertaken, go for broke within the rules of war, and situational exigencies, such as the inevitable diplomatic and political considerations. It still is hard to imagine how the cold-blooded murdering of infant children can be countenanced by anyone, no matter how much of a bloodlust they are in the grip of.
Bart... You have been watching too many TV SWAT shows.
ReplyDeleteNo, Bart. I don't watch that crap. But I do know that HRT and SWAT teams try real hard not to kill the hostages or non-combatants when they do an entry on a barricaded suspect. A position I hope we find you in someday. I'd like to watch it on TV as you either burn up or come out horizontal.
Bombshell, or flash bang because even Bart is stunned speechless. Poor Boy George. This is surely a case of Bush's puppet having his hand up Bush's ass. That's a switch. These poor bastards can't cop a break.
ReplyDeleteNew Iraq Ambassador to U.S. Drops Bombshell
The new Iraqi ambassador to the United States has accused US Marines of "intentionally" killing a cousin in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year.
Speaking only hours after presenting his credentials to President George W Bush at the White House, Ambassador Samir al-Sumaidaie said his relative was shot dead five months before the killing of 24 civilians in the town in November that is now the subject of a controversial inquiry.
The ambassador told how Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, a 21-year-old engineering student, was killed after opening the door of the family house to US Marines on June 25.
"I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe he was killed unnecessarily," Mr Sumaidaie said on CNN television.
"The Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them. His mother, his siblings were there. He let them into the bedroom of his father, and there he was shot."
At the time, Mr Sumaidaie was the ambassador to the United Nations and the US military agreed to investigate the death after he released a statement.
Mr Sumaidaie said the investigation "concluded that there was no unlawful killing. I would like further investigation," he told CNN.
The ambassador added that General George Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq, had rejected a first investigation into the death. Mr Sumaidaie said he was still waiting to see a copy of the report.
The ambassador said his family had been told his cousin was shot dead "in self-defence" but he could not believe this.
"I know the boy. He was in second year engineering courses at the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work."
The ambassador added that he was also suspicious about the deaths of three other youths in Haditha shortly after that of his cousin. "They were in a car, they were unarmed, I believe, and they were shot."
"I haven't seen the video of the interview yet but apparently this came out of nowhere in The Situation Room. I heard that Jack Cafferty said something like, "well that was an open interview." Perhaps the new government can't be afraid to play the anti-American card if it wants to survive in the midst of the new Haditha scandals. Afterall, the new Iraqi government has already endorsed the development of Nuclear technologies in Iran."
Link
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"It still is hard to imagine how the cold-blooded murdering of infant children can be countenanced by anyone, no matter how much of a bloodlust they are in the grip of."
I think that we should wait for the facts. That is not to condone anything that happened, but at this point we don't know whether infant children were murdered in cold blood intentionally or whether they were just caught in a spray of bullets. In other words did somebody just walk into a room spraying bullets without thinking or was a gun put to a childs head and the trigger pulled? Was it a crime of passion or was it premeditated murder? It's something we can't know until charges are filed and there is a trial.
gris lobo: you forget the most important fact. We have a volunteer army, not a draft. These people enlisted when the country had no obvious enemy. What did they expect to happen? Nobody "put them" in harm's way. They asked to be put there and agreed to kill on the whim of people they never even met for a paycheck.
ReplyDeleteWake up. We are talking about human lives. You are talking about protecting the image of the military.
Don't equate a volunteer army to a draft. They are two completely different animals.
Eyes Wide Open said...
ReplyDelete"gris lobo: you forget the most important fact. We have a volunteer army, not a draft. These people enlisted when the country had no obvious enemy. What did they expect to happen? Nobody "put them" in harm's way. They asked to be put there and agreed to kill on the whim of people they never even met for a paycheck."
I didn't forget anything. It doesn't matter whether it's an all volunteer military or if there is a draft. It is about the proper employment of military force as an act of national defense and in situations where all other options have been exhausted and there is no other alternative. As opposed to using military force as a means of foreign policy to achieve objectives not associated with the above reasons. It is about executing a military mission when there is no other alternative and immediately withdrawing, and not getting the nation's military embroiled in another long drawn out non-winnable Viet Nam type war that drags on for years.
"Wake up. We are talking about human lives. You are talking about protecting the image of the military."
I am not talking about protecting the image of the military. Mabe you should try going back and rereading my post.
"Don't equate a volunteer army to a draft. They are two completely different animals."
See the above paragraph about proper employment of the military.
Remember the story that Jews will have to wear yellow stars in Iran? George Bush doesn't. According to the Financial Times:
ReplyDeleteUS President George W. Bush and Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, have received separate background briefings from Iranian opposition activists, including one visitor to the White House on Tuesday who caused a storm earlier this month by reporting Iran had passed a law requiring Jews to wear special identification.
I got an email reply to my complaint to the WaPo ombudsperson from Zach Goldfarb, the author of the May 30 article. Key points: (a) Goldfarb believed his article actually broke the story that Mr. Z admitted to making mistakes. (b) Goldfarb tried to locate the orginal New Times interviewer Justin Parks but because of the holiday and a deadline could not do so.
ReplyDeleteGoldfarb appears to be a Princeton '05 grad. I didn't know that WaPo hired them right out of college for the desk. Anyway, I replied via email that (a) the very real ethical and legal problems of Mr. Z's actions were not addressed in his article, leaving readers with a "so what" and (b) by not finishing the story, Goldfarb and his deadline-focussed editor denied us the much bigger story if it turned out that Mr. Z had in fact lied about being misquoted. Sadly, I noted, we'll never know the truth, and Mr. Z will get his appointment.
I also noted in my reply that Mr. Z and Tony Snow implied that the problem stemmed from working with a "young journalist", something that should connect Mr. Goldfarb. Let's hope that Mr. Goldfarb is a fast learner with a desire to do better!
While we talk about ahditha, let's not forget the atrocities of Falluja. According to Dahr Jamail:
ReplyDeleteAbu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. ”The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore,” he said. ”Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot..”
Should we even mention the use of banned chemical weapons? And whatever happened to the guys who put pics of dead Iraqis on that porn site? Or the British mercenaries who wrote, directed, and produced the snuff film?
Oh, I forgot, we talk about those things because they might reflect poorly on W:
ReplyDeleteThe dominant political force of our time is the media.
Time after time, the news media have covered progressives and conservatives in wildly different ways -- and, time after time, they do so to the benefit of conservatives. [Media Matters]
DavidByron said...
ReplyDeleteNot our description. I said it was sarcasm didn't I? It's closer to yours. I agree that it is insulting to say someone is such a fiend that they commit mass murder simply bacause they are tired. But that is how the actions of US soldiers is "excused". Such an excuse in reality makes the soldiers into utter monsters. Psychopaths who laugh and kill at the same time and for little or no reason.
I don't think that anyone has been excused of anything at this point. The reports I have seen so far indicate that there may have been a coverup. If there in fact was I hope that those responsible are also appropriately punished for their actions.
As for the Marines themselves there is an ongoing investigation into what happened and I will withhold judgement until all of the facts are out about what happened.
Eyes Wide Open said...
ReplyDelete"gris lobo: you forget the most important fact. We have a volunteer army, not a draft. These people enlisted when the country had no obvious enemy. What did they expect to happen? Nobody "put them" in harm's way. They asked to be put there and agreed to kill on the whim of people they never even met for a paycheck."
I normally try to avoid your posts but in this case I do have to address one more issue that you brought up.
"They asked to be put there and agreed to kill on the whim of people they never even met for a paycheck."
I guess in your mind everyone has equal opportunity and choices in life but that is far from the reality of what actually exists.
In my own case when I entered the service it was patriotism combined with economic factors that caused me to enlist. As it turned out the politicians lied about Viet Nam but I don't think that reflects on my personal motivation for joining since I was young, naive, and unaware of the lie when I joined. I believe that many who originally enlisted to fight the "war on terror" were similarly motivated, and were simularly lied to.
As for the economic factors I was broke, my family was poor, and no one would hire me because I was subject to the draft and hadn't been called yet. Where I lived at it was a certainty that at age 19 you would be called unless you were in college or had some other form of exemption. I had neither the grades for a scholarship nor the money to attend college. In fact I was a high school dropout. By joining the military I found a way out. I got my GED while in the military and eventually used the GI Bill to attend college.
The draft no longer exists but the economic factors do with outsourcing, insourcing (H1B etc.), and the enormous influx of illegal aliens entering the country. Some recruiter comes along and offers you a signing bonus, (not available when I joined) a chance for a college eucation after your service, and tells you that you will be a patriot for joining. Add in the fact that George Bush has substantially cut back on student loan programs cutting that option out for many. What choice do you think people are going to take when that offer is made as opposed to a lifetime of working at McDonalds, or mabe becoming a carreer criminal as your only other outs.
I would also like to point out that as of last January 13,000 service members that had already completed their service agreement were not allowed to get out of the military under Bush's stop loss program. Plus reserve officers have been denied the ability to resign their commissions. Basically they are being forced into involuntary servitude because they once signed a contract to join the service.
My point being that there is a lot more to it than people just joining up of their own free will and asking to be put there and agreeing to kill on the whim of people they never even met for a paycheck.
Watching the Washington Post and the NewYork Times - institutions that really did help save the country 34 years ago in the face of great danger to themselves - turn themselves into lapdogs who spew bullshit about Democrats (i.e., the NYT reporting on Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi) and justify official mendacity (the most recent example at the Washington Post being this issue and anything written by Woodward or David Broder), is as disappointing as watching my childhood hero Chuck Yeager prove every day that "there's no fool like an old fool."
ReplyDeleteThat these particular newspapers would turn themselves into litterbox liner and toilet paper substitute, and do so for the "mess of pottage" they've gotten for so doing, is truly sad.
Sorry, Bart, but as usual, your "facts" are in fact FANTASIES.
ReplyDelete"The radio traffic" in fact proves the opposite to what you say. The evidence that forms the basis of the investigation was gathered by a Marine intelligence unit composed of reservists with a law enforcement background and experience in crime scene investigation. The photos taken of the bodies immediately after the "action" directly contradict the reports filed by the Marines involved. Marines who were there have now directly stated in public that none of the "facts" you cite happened.
But I forget, you're one of those "patriots" who's never gotten closer to combat than playing paintball with the other morons and you want them to "get tough" so that you can do your one-handed news reading and get some "finish."
Perhaps you can channel the ghost of General Jacob Devers and he can recreate the Massacre of Panay for you, where he turned the island into a "howling wilderness" after his troops killed 30,000 civilians. A fine bit of "patriotic warfare" there, eh?
By the way, does Clearasil work with acne as bad as yours? Does mommy know you're using the computer? Just wondering.
Obviously Karl Zinsmeister had not lost his job at the White House, nor should he. The characterization that Zinsmeister is a "Washington insider" is completely off the mark and made by someone who knows little about him. Karl Zinsmeister has studiously avoided the Washington scene and had chosen to edit The American Enterprise from a quiet village in Upstate New York.
ReplyDeleteThe White House and the nation is fortunate to have the services of Mr. Zinsmeister and I can assure the readers that Washington fame and glory are at the bottom of his list of priorities.
I doubt that there is a more decent, approachable, and down to earth individual in all of Washington than Karl Zimsmeister.