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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (48843)	4/6/2005 12:42:37 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

We already know the Hollywood audience...a bunch of freekazoids who can't remember if they're suppose to punch the first or second hole in a ballot. Hollywood should be looking at their bottom line instead of trying to dictate politics to the rest of us... How long since Hollywood made a decent movie? Along that line, look at the outrage of Berger's non-punishment.. Berger's Plea The Justice Department shows admirable restraint. Wednesday, April 6, 2005 12:01 a.m. We've never been considered soft on the Clinton Administration or its leading personalities. So we hope we'll have some credibility, especially with our friends on the right, when we say that the misdemeanor plea bargain struck by the Justice Department last week with former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger looks to be a reasonable outcome. In the plea, Mr. Berger admits to knowingly taking and destroying copies of classified documents from the National Archives while preparing for his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. When the illegal behavior came to light last summer, suspicions were raised (including on this page) that Mr. Berger may have been trying to deny evidence to what was then a highly polarized Commission. Those suspicions were amply justified at the time. Some of the documents Mr. Berger honed in on were multiple iterations of a sensitive "after-action" report on the Clinton Administration's response to the al Qaeda threat around the year 2000 celebrations, and he was obviously lying (he now admits) when he said last year that the documents had been taken inadvertently and as part of an "honest mistake." After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out. More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission." It's worth noting that Mr. Berger will still have to explain his actions to a judge at sentencing--a judge who could reject Justice's recommendation and give him to up a year in jail. We hope the judge does insist on a full explanation of motive. Lesser officials have received harsher penalties for more minor transgressions, so a complete airing of the facts will show the public that justice is being done. But given the minimal damage from the crime, this looks to be a case where prosecutors have shown some commendable restraint against a high-powered political figure. opinionjournal.com

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (48843)	4/6/2005 2:54:14 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Oh ya, this is unbiased reporting, isn't it? Oh yes, just to make you happy...THOSE STUPID JERKS!!!!! Drudge gets competition By Frank Barnako, MarketWatch Last Update: 1:19 PM ET Apr 6, 2005 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Matt Drudge has owned the online news/ gossip /investigative reporting/ scaremongering Web space for almost 10 years. That may be set to end Wednesday, as blog publisher Nick Denton is launching Sploid.com, a tabloid Web site for breaking news with attitude. "Sploid is a news site with a tabloid mentality -- top stories up top, played big, as fast as they break," Denton said in an e-mail. "If there's a political line, it's anarcho-capitalist -- sniffing out hypocrisy and absurdity, whether from salon left or religious right." Befitting with Web style, headlines on Sploid.com link to the full stories on other sites. In a preview this morning, little original reporting was evident, other than an editorial comment roasting CNN for being too "perky" in its Wednesday broadcast. Straight stories like "Halliburton Gets Billion-Dollar Payday" and "Iraq's Got a Prez" were accompanied by a sensational item, "Ms. Wheelchair Runner-Up Blasts Pageant." Denton publishes several other blogs, including Gawker, Defamer and Wonkette. He's been credited with having a great eye for writing talent and an easy managerial hand. To produce Sploid, he's lined up Gawker's original editor, Choire Sicha, and two freelance journalists, Ken Layne and Henry Seltzer. "We want to occupy the space between the whiny left and the ranting right," Denton told Observer.com. "Drudge is very good. It will probably take us 10 years to catch up with his level of traffic. We'll have 1,000th of the traffic, at least to begin with."