What did Howard Kurtz and others say when SCOTT RITTER was outed?

[Proud2BAmurkin]

Time for the bloggers to dig up all the comments these assholes made about SCOTT RITTER when his crimes were exposed and compare them to the "personal life" crap about Gannonuckert.

[hippiechick]

1. Outed ?

Ritter's gay ? :shrug:

[Proud2BAmurkin]

4. outed for sex crimes

nt

[DefenseLawyer]

8. That was John Ritter

but he wasn't gay, it was just a clever ruse to fool Mr. Roper.

[InternalDialogue]

11. Oh, I don't think Mr. Roper was fooled!

[qanda]

2. Oh, good point!

[Stephanie]

3. What crimes? He wasn't convicted of anything & the judge sealed the record

But somehow that record was made public anyway, just when the WH wanted to discredit Ritter.

[Red State Rebel]

12. Sealed doesn't mean they didn't happen....

I don't care whose side he is on, what he did was very wrong and tho it was wrong to have the records leaked, it didn't mean he was any less guilty.

It does DUers credibility no good at all to put our heads in the sand and pretend just because we don't want to believe it.

[Stephanie]

21. what he did was chat w/ a police officer who he thought was a teenage girl

and agree to meet with her. he did not meet her because she did not exist.

[UdoKier]

5. What crimes?

I remember hearing that some false rumors were spread about Ritter because he was contradicting Bushco's lies leading up to the murderous Iraq war.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

9. He was arrested for arranging a meeting with underage girl

nt

[Stephanie]

14. a girl who didn't exist - it was a police entrapment case

and it was dismissed by the judge and the court record was sealed - until it was leaked

[UdoKier]

18. He was not convicted of anything

It was a partisan smear job.

[Stephanie]

6. Here is a FR thread on Ritter >

Remember Ritter was entrapped online by a cop posing as a teenage girl. He went before a judge and the case was dismissed and the record was sealed by the judge. Suddenly the record was made public when Ritter started saying there were no WMDs. Who has really committed a crime here? I say it's whoever broke the seal on that court case.

Freepers are none too kind about it. Let's remind them if they complain about the Gluckert coverage.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/826220/posts

[Red State Rebel]

16. The case was not dismissed

He was court ordered to receive counseling and the record was sealed.

[Stephanie]

19. I just looked at interviews with Ritter where he said it was dismissed

do we have records that say otherwise?

_____________________

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/22/ritter.arrest/

Ritter confirmed the arrest in an interview with CNN Wednesday but declined to confirm any detail about the nature of the case.

"The facts are simple," Ritter said. "I was arrested in June of 2001. I was charged with a Class B misdemeanor and I stood before a judge in the town of Colonie in a public session with my wife by my side."

"The file was sealed. Those are the facts. I am ethically and legally bound not to discuss any aspect of this case," Ritter said. "So is everybody else involved. Unfortunately, there appear to be those who don't feel to be bound by rule of law."

The source said Ritter had arranged in an Internet chat room to meet with the girl at a Burger King in Colonie, a suburb of Albany, so she could witness him masturbating. The source said Ritter was charged with "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child," a Class B misdemeanor.

The source also said Ritter was confronted by police in April 2001 after communicating with an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old.

Ritter declined comment on those claims.

"It's not my duty to clear the air. I'm not asking for forgiveness," he said. "I'm not asking to wriggle out of my responsibility. The judge made his determination. The case was dismissed."

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

7. I have always wondered about that whole thing

Remember back when Howard Stern first started criticizing Bush? Right after he became a critic of Bush, he stated on his show that he had received some weird email that was offering him a chance to look at kiddie porn. He said he didn't click on any link and reported it to authorities.

How convenient, right?

[pleft]

10. Here is Howard

Appears to me he is complaining about the double standard. Howard claims, and of course his claims and reality are usually quite different things, that Snow got a lot of press and Ritter did not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47534-2003Jan26¬Found=true

Getting Personal

What's fair game when it comes to the private lives of public figures?

Plenty of media organizations last week reported two long-ago incidents involving John Snow, President Bush's nominee for treasury secretary. The White House disclosed that Snow was charged with driving under the influence in 1982, and that he settled a child support case in 1991. (Snow argued he didn't owe his former wife child support because his sons were living with him and he was paying for private school.)

While these episodes may have little or nothing to do with Snow's fitness to run the Treasury Department, they were covered by the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Knight Ridder and Newsday, among others.

On the other hand, many news outlets ignored a more recent allegation against Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector who's been a fixture on television, arguing against war with Iraq. As first reported by the Schenectady (N.Y.) Daily Gazette, Ritter was arrested in 2001 after allegedly visiting an Internet chat room and arranging to meet with a 16-year-old girl who turned out to be an undercover police officer. (The charges were apparently dropped and the case sealed.)

Ritter initially told the Daily Gazette that "you must have the wrong person." Does that undermine his credibility? The story got big play in the New York Post and Daily News and was reported by the wire services and cable networks. "You are radioactive until this is cleared up," CNN's Aaron Brown told Ritter, who refused to comment. But the fallout hasn't reached most major newspapers or network newscasts.

[pleft]

15. And then there is this

He made it a central issue on his show....
---------
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/26/rs.00.html

KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. For months, U.N. -- former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has been all over the airwaves, blasting the administration's Iraq policy, but now come reports of his two-year-old arrest in upstate New York for pursuing what he thought was a 16-year-old girl over the Internet. And just today, CNN is reporting that federal prosecutors are reviewing the file from police and district attorney to determine if a federal case regarding Internet commerce can be made against Ritter.

The former U.N. staffer told CNN he is aware of the story, had no comment except to say that timing stinks. The case has been sealed so the details are not public. But does the incident make it more difficult for the media to use him as an anti-war spokesman? A combative Ritter talked to CNN's Aaron Brown about his arrest.
-------
Later....
-----------

KURTZ: You did a page this week on the sweet potato queen. No room for Scott Ritter?

KLAIDMAN: Look, the issue here is we do stories that we think are important, we do stories that we think are compelling. We do stories that we think serve our readers, and we do stories that we think are entertaining. And not every story gets in. If the reporters in my bureau could get all their stories in, they would be very happy. That just can't happen.

This is a case -- this is a story about a guy who, you know, a marginalized voice, already marginalized voice on the periphery of this debate. The fact that he's become further marginalized by a two- year-old sex scandal just doesn't strike me as a story that we needed to do this week.

Having said that, we will watch it.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I would say that for a marginalized voice, Scott Ritter is quoted all the time in newspapers, is on cable TV a lot. And Fred Dicker, I thought the media loved sex scandals? So...

DICKER: Well, some of us do. I thought the media loved the truth, too. If there was a leading figure outside the administration rallying public support for President Bush on Iraq and that figure was picked up in a kiddie sex scandal, I guarantee you "The New York Times" would do a story on it. They've done it before, they would do it again, and that would be fair. But it seems to me to be fair we should be doing stories about people like Scott Ritter, who would have us believe he is credible on international issues, but lied repeatedly about this incident, not to mention the specifics of it, which is an ugly, predatory on children kind of story.
-----
lastly
----


KURTZ: Is there an argument that there should be a distinction made between Scott Ritter's alleged fondness for 16-year-old girls and his expertise when it comes to Iraqi weapons and the whole Iraq debate?

KLAIDMAN: Look, I think at a certain point, depending on what he actually did, what he was actually -- first of all, he was not convicted. And it may be...

KURTZ: Nor was he acquitted.

KLAIDMAN: But it may be that the case will be expunged, that as the law sees it, that if after six months he doesn't get in trouble again, the case essentially goes away, which doesn't mean it didn't happen. But there are, you know, as we know, there are lots of second acts in American history. I would not be surprised to see Scott Ritter back at some point if there aren't more incidents like this, and that may be legitimate.

My view is that he's -- my view is that he is already not a particularly credible figure on this subject. He's had this weird conversion from being very anti-Iraq and all of a sudden he is the biggest war, you know, anti-war guy out there.

KURTZ: You keep saying he is not credible. You keep saying he is not credible, but television keeps putting him on. Newspapers keep quoting him.

KLAIDMAN: Well, that I can't explain. We haven't quoted him in "Newsweek." And I can't explain why he keeps going on...

DICKER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) this was his second arrest, not his first arrest on the same kind of charge. He lied about the arrest, he lied about his restrictions about discussing the substance here, and, frankly, you know, you're mentioning the flip-flop, as Dan did on his position on Iraq, there may be something related to it. There is a certain narcissism associated with this kind of crime. He was charged, according to repeated reports, with wanting to perform a sex act in front of someone, a child or a woman under the consenting age, who would watch him. And when you watch him now, he's a bit of a preener, he's a bit of a prima donna. It could very well be an insight into his psyche.

KURTZ: Well, let me go to the question of -- let me go to the question, Fred Dicker, where do we go from here? Does Scott Ritter need to come clean? Does he need to apologize in order for it to get back on the media circuit and resume talking about Iraq?

DICKER: I think he's irretrievably damaged. If he comes clean and admits that he has this proclivity, and professionals will tell you it's a repeating proclivity, I think his credibility is shot. That's why he hasn't admitted it to this point.

So I think he's damaged goods. He will trying to do what he's doing, but he's damaged goods. And he's going to lose a lot of money. Scott Ritter speaks for money. He has got $400,000 from an Iraqi- related businessman, as you know. This is going to damage his earning potential.

KURTZ: Dan Klaidman, can Ritter continue to go on programs as he did with Aaron Brown and say, I am not going to talk about this case, I just want to talk about Iraq, or can he not get away with that?

---------
Kurtz is really pushing for people to discredit Ritter isn't he?

[pleft]

22. Letter to Howard

I'm curious why you are so sensitive about bloggers investigating Gannon's personal life. They have successfully proven that the man has zero credibility. Contrary to what he has said in the past,the facts are he is a fake journalist and he was a male prostitute who did advertise pictures of himself on gay porn sites.

Conversely, in the Scott Ritter case, you were practically pleading with Newsweek to devote more attention to his personal life because it was important to establishing his lack credibility. Yet, unlike Gannon, Ritter had already been perfectly honest about what happened to him. He admitted he was arrested and that the file had been sealed.

Hypocrisy?

The only possible difference between the two is that you feel that Ritter's personal life was fair game because he was criticizing the President’s policies. However, as it turns out, Ritter knew what he was talking about…he was essentially correct. On the other hand, Gannon has been helping the President by lobbing soft ball questions and, in fact, turns out to be a fake journalist. This is an inherently interesting story and therefore investigations of him and his public statements are perfectly legitimate.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/22/ritter.arrest /

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/26/rs.00.html

[qanda]

24. Great letter

And good work digging up the facts, you should send it to mediamatters.org.

BTW, welcome to DU. :hi:

[mattclearing]

13. Prostituting oneself and soliciting minors is a bit of a different thing.

I'd argue that the latter has potential for harm.

[UdoKier]

20. We don't know any details about the Ritter "case"

We DO know for a FACT that Guckert is a male hooker who was posing as an objective reporter to shill for Bushco.

I'm pretty certain that he WAS a plant, put there to make it easier for them to spread their lies.

That *IS* harmful, even if it is just a minor facet of the whole huge web of BFEE filth and crime.

[geniph]

23. Accusations and convictions are different things, too

or at least they USED to be...

[No Exit]

17. Yeah--and Ritter was never even convicted!

Face it: if you speak the truth about the * administration, expect to be called a "child molester". Or... killed.

[grasswire]

25. perhaps.......

....someone oughta remind Mr. Aaron Brown about his disgusting episode with the freepers and our own Will Pitt about the Scott Ritter matter.

Freeper Doug From Upland (spit) sabotaged Pitt's appearance on CNN by corresponding with a willing Aaron Brown, who became infuriated and insulting to Pitt.

Maybe someone can find the transcript of Brown's treatment of Ritter then. And it's possible to find Doug from Upland's posts on the matter on FR.

(I'd do it but am about to leave the house to pick up a kid.)