Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Wesley Clark -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (1175)	1/16/2004 8:56:12 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1414

Drudge: The Ellipse as a Tool of Deception campaigndesk.org January 15, 2004 Distortion Drudge: The Ellipse as a Tool of Deception Thursday afternoon, the Drudge Report chimed in with a grossly incorrect headline, "Wes Clark Made Case For Iraq War Before Congress; Transcript Revealed" atop an article designed to distort the General's position. In excerpting Clark's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on September 26, 2002, Drudge entirely misrepresents the candidate's remarks. Drudge quotes Clark's testimony: "'There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.'" [ellipses Drudge's] Drudge is using the ellipse as a weapon, with malice aforethought. Clark's statement that "Saddam Hussein is a threat" came from his opening remarks to the committee. An ellipse then carries the reader more than 11,500 words later into the transcript to a second quotation. Finally, Drudge uses the next ellipse to jump way back to the beginning of Clark's testimony. The effect is to make Clark's testimony sound more frantic than it really is and to incorrectly suggest that Clark had endorsed the war. The deceptive reporting continues with two final excerpts. The first is drawn from a section in which Clark states that the use of force must remain on the table as a threat, but that all diplomatic measures must be taken before military action proceeds. Drudge's selective excerpt ends with Clark suggesting that the situation with Iraq has "been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this." Drudge would like you to think that Clark's thoughts on the subject end there. In fact, only moments later, Clark clearly stated, "but time is on our side in the near term and we should use it." Then Drudge leads into the final excerpt with the words, "Clark explained," implying that Clark's statements in the final excerpt modified his statements in the previous excerpt. Once again, however, Drudge is cavalierly skipping through Clark's testimony: There are 3,798 words in-between these two statements -- enough to fill four pages of Time magazine. --Thomas Lang

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (1175)	1/17/2004 12:15:42 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 1414

As we head into this next phase of the campaign, I'm reminded of an excerpt from the book, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals, (2001), by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam: <<...In [the Kosovo war]…Clinton's commander in the field, General Wes Clark, would be the man caught in the middle between conflicting forces: a hesitant White House, a skeptical Congress, a reluctant Pentagon, and of course the other members of NATO, all of them having very different attitudes on how much or how little power to use. Because of what Clinton had said about ground troops and the decisions made by the principals about the Kosovo campaign, Clark would be in constant collision with the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs…[and] with his air commander. The pressure on Clark was almost unbearable, his aides thought. Everybody in NATO, and everybody in Washington, both civilian and military, [thought they] knew what he should be doing, and their calls would soon be followed by a call from someone else, often from the same country and of the same or greater rank, telling him not to do it. Those around him, even senior officers who disagreed with him on policy or did not always like him personally, thought that Clark was at his very best during this period. He worked endlessly hard, generally treated subordinates well, kept his cool, balanced difficult warring constituencies with considerable grace, and never lost sight of his essential purpose. He was getting little support from his own military, but he did not whine and he remained resolute. To the degree he had allies, they were civilians, not military men. Whatever you thought of Wes Clark—that unusual but occasionally maddening blend of great talent, intelligence, ego, and purpose—this was him at his best. He had the job he had always wanted, and his confidence never flagged...>>