you don't have to utter someone's moniker to "name" someone

[unblock]

unka karl's defense appears to rest on the notion that he never uttered 'valerie plame' and maybe not even 'valerie wilson'. so he's off the hook, right?

i call bu**sh**.

is his defense really that it's perfectly fine to point to an undercover cia agent and say "this person is an undercover cia agent, though i shall not utter her given moniker"???

anything that reasonably identifies an individual serves as a name:

"the senior senator from massachusetts" NAMES ted kennedy;
"the village idiot in the oval office" NAMES george w. bush; and
"mr. wilson's wife" NAMES valerie plame.

[im10ashus]

1. Good point.

Also: bu**sh**! LMAO!

:rofl:

[trotsky]

2. If the end result causes an undercover agent to be exposed,

then the person has been named. Period.

I can't believe how much parsing is going on from the people who absolutely ridiculed Clinton over how he asked what the meaning of "is" is.

Just tack another item onto the parsec-long list of Republican hypocrisy.

[unblock]

3. and that "meaning of 'is'" thing still bothers me, because it was a trap

clinton was asked a question in the form of something like:

"you wrote a book about dinosaurs. is the t-rex the largest animal on the planet", which is ambiguous as to tense.

the correct answer to which is, "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is. if by 'is', you mean, during the time when when t-rex was alive, then yes, it was the largest animal; if by 'is', you mean today, well, the answer is no, the dinosaurs are extinct and the whale is now the largest animal.

nothing funny or devious about clinton's answer, in fact, it points out the stupidity of the question.

but this is all WAY too complicated for the msm to explain....

[trotsky]

4. Yes, exactly.

Unfortunately the Repukes have been enormously successful at putting Democrats into situations where there is no 5-second soundbite answer. Life is a lot more nuanced. People don't like dealing with gray areas, so they gravitate towards the simpleton solutions. Thus the "success" of today's Republicans.

[im10ashus]

5. Exactly.

They couldn't focus on the fact the Clinton is one of the smartest President's ever. They have to make it into some sort of joke. We'll see who gets the last laugh now.