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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBTFD who wrote (692919)	7/20/2005 4:01:57 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

LOL! On to the Big Lie now? Do you think that by repeating the same discredited garbage over & over makes it fact? Well OK, it could be your well documented reading comprehension problem, which is compounded by your hard left partisan bias. But that only works until you have been shown the error of your ways. Now you are ignoring the facts. Is the ignorance willful or are your comprehension & bias problems quite serious?

To: JBTFD who wrote (692919)	7/20/2005 6:55:25 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Goalpost Moving BY JACK KELLY Irish Pennants My colleagues are behaving badly again. Below is my take on the latest wrinkle in the Plame Name Game: The headline on the front page of the Post-Gazette Tuesday read: “Bush Alters Line On Leaks.” <<< In a press conference with India’s prime minister Monday, the president said in response to a question about the investigation into the exposure of CIA officer Valerie Plame that: “If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.” >>> This was represented, in my paper and hundreds of others, as a change in Bush’s position. Here’s how the AP reported it: <<< “Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have to be shown that a crime was committed.” >>> But it isn’t true that Bush’s position has shifted. Bush first spoke about the investigation in September, 2003. This is what he said: “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.” In June, 2004, Bush was asked at a news conference: “Do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name? And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone who had done so?” Notice how the reporter shifted the goalposts in his question. Bush had said he would fire anyone in his administration who had violated the law. The reporter asked him if he stood by that pledge, but falsely restated it as pledge to fire anyone who leaked, crime or no. The President responded: “Yes. And that’s up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts.” When Bush said “yes,” was he confirming his pledge to fire anyone who had violated the law? Or was he consciously accepting the misstatement of that pledge in the reporter’s question? Logic, and the reference to the U.S. Attorney, indicate the former. But journalists insist on the latter interpretation. As web logger Tom Maguire points out, the Washington Post was especially shameful in its goalpost moving story, because the story quotes in part Bush’s September 2003 statement, indicating the reporters knew perfectly well what Bush had actually said, but chose to distort it. This childish game of “gotcha” is shameful, but far from the worst of journalistic behavior in this “scandal” which is scandalous chiefly because of the behavior of journalists. In July of 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a report, signed by all its members, which found that Wilson: -- Lied when he claimed that Plame had nothing to do with his assignment to Niger. -- Lied when he said that he found no evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Niger. Wilson had described in detail one such approach to his CIA debriefers. Wilson’s report made analysts think it more likely Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa, not less, the Intelligence committee said. Shortly after the Senate Intelligence Committee issued its report, the Butler Commission, which investigated pre-Iraq war British Intelligence, concluded reports Saddam was trying to buy uranium in Africa were “well founded.” Both reports are easily accessible on the Web. No journalist should be writing about this matter without having read them. Yet David Broder of the Washington Post wrote in his column Sunday: <<< “Wilson had been sent to Niger to see if (Iraq buying uranium) had been attempted. He concluded that it had not -- knocking one more hole in the administration case that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.” >>> Broder is far from alone in passing on bum scoop. The Los Angeles Times on Monday also wrote about Wilson’s Niger claims as if they were holy writ, and Joel Connelly, a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, claimed that Wilson -- found to be lying about every major contention he made -- had been “vindicated.” And...the examples are legion. If journalists think Bush should fire aides who leaked, even if they committed no crime, journalists are entitled to that opinion. But journalists are not entitled to claim that Bush has ever shared that opinion, when it is clear he has not. It’s hard to say which is in shorter supply in journalism today: competence, or integrity. irishpennants.com