Up fifty and fire for effect!

[OldSoldier]

This was in my local paper this morning. Anyone care to rip these people a new asshole? I intend to.

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=opinion&Story=5909394

Some excerpts...

"Every administration needs a scandal." (This was the subhead)

"And the Democrats would be wise to back away from trying to magnify a stupid trick into a wide-ranging indictment. The public won't buy it. It's more bogus hysteria, just like the Republicans churned out during Clinton's administration."

(I know that's more than three lines, and I'm probably going to get my head squeezed by the moderators. I apologize in advance, but felt it important to do it.)

Bogus hysteria? What the fuck?

[dbt]

1. Wasn't Watergate a 'stupid trick,' too?

You might point out to yer local paper that the public will buy anything that their TV "News" pumps up to even half the extent that it employed on Clinton.

And ask them if real hysteria is to be preferred over the bogus variety.

:evilgrin:
dbt

[trof]

3. Naw, H2Ogate was a "third rate burglary"

at first.
I hope we'll be looking back in enlightened amusement that the first spin on this was "stupid trick".

[Pepperbelly]

2. spin ...

and spin only.

The "prank" might well have led to deaths. It certainly led to neutralizing a network of intelligence that had previously served the nation. Of course, to the editorial, it may not reach the level of significance of a blow job but perhaps the writer's priorities are skewed a tad.

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Bogus my arse

I'll go with the hysteria over Clinton's wandering wang being bogus, but there's a tiny scale difference between that and leaking info on details of national security.

"Watergate at least involved a real crime." :grr:

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Double-standard thinking.

Republicans are so accustomed to having the laws customized around them -- so that laws apply differently to others than it does to them for the same behavior. I say zing them. Zing them with reminders that no one is above the law. And if anyone thinks that Clinton got away without punishment, they're not being objective nor realistic. Personally, I think privileged frat boys like Bush and Rove will have a nervous break down long before they get one half of the pressure that was applied on Clinton. They're just not prepared to deal with the realities the rest of us face from birth.

[JHB]

6. "Have you no honor, sir?"

Either the editor doesn't understand what was done, or (more likely) they're just in full political spin mode, downplaying some serious wrongdoing by "their boys".

I'm curious, did the Fayetteville Observer likewise rail against the "bogus hysteria, {which} the Republicans churned out during Clinton's administration"? If not, point out that hypocricy.

And given the fact that this case involves senior members of the Administration trying to enforce their "line" on subordinates, a special prosecutor certainly is called for. Opponents can point to Starr all they want, but his "investigation" was only so wide-ranging and out of control because he was allowed to by the overseeing three-judge panel. And in contravention to the Independent Council statute, the members of that panel were not chosen from "senior circuit judges and retired judges" but by younger, politically active judges. While that law is no longer in effect, it's fairly certain that if those provisions are adhered to, an independent investigation into this matter won't be so wide-ranging.

[OldSoldier]

13. No they didn't

The unofficial motto of the Fayetteville Observer is "Don't piss off the general."

The generals hated President Clinton, so there were weekly demands for President Clinton to resign in disgrace.

The generals love Dubya so Dubya's shit don't stink.

Hell, they still haven't admitted that Karl Rove fired John Poindexter over his terrorism gambling parlor thing.

[trof]

7. Here's my letter to the editor and a link to send yours.

"Bush would be wise to find the leaker fast and fire him or her. And the Democrats would be wise to back away from trying to magnify a stupid trick into a wide-ranging indictment. The public won't buy it. It's more bogus hysteria, just like the Republicans churned out during Clinton's administration."

I pretty much agreed with your editorial until I got to the last paragraph.
I'm old enough to remember that the initial spin put out by the Nixon administration on the Watergate break in to the Democratic HQ: "Just a third rate burglary." Nothing to see here; just move along. Eventually a president resigned in disgrace one jump ahead of the impeachment posse.

I wonder if we'll some day look back in enlightened amusement that this execrable piece of Rovian political payback started out as a "stupid trick".


[e-mail]

[punpirate]

8. Hmmm...

... I believe that the law here says that it's a felony punishable by up to ten years in federal prison and up to $30,000 fine. That's hardly trivial.

And, since Ashcroft is on the warpath for strict adherence to the maximum possible sentence and no plea bargaining, the act should be taken seriously by whomever was responsible--and by the press.

And, as for the consequences, should we really worry about the possibility of the dismantling of an actual information-gathering network? After all, the administration is perfectly capable of re-starting the Office of Special Plans--and they can manufacture all the evidence this administration requires.

There's also a small matter of the truth, something to which the Fayetteville Observer seems indifferent: "Blowing a secret agent's cover may be illegal. And whoever in the administration actually leaked the information may have committed a crime."

Not "may be..." and "may have...." The operative words should be "is..." and "has."

Cheers.

[TacticalPeek]

9. RNC Chair, Ed Gillespie agrees that if true, its worse than Watergate.

Tweety scores one on Hardball last night.

[OldSoldier]

10. What I sent to them...

Whoever wrote the editorial "Leakygate" needs to add a new phrase to his lexicon: "Would you like fries with that?" Because anyone who'd write that editorial needs to be flipping burgers in a McDonald's somewhere, not writing editorials in a major metropolitan newspaper like the Fayetteville Observer.

Here's the real deal about this "apparent" scandal. In 1992, Vice President Cheney requested the Central Intelligence Agency dispatch an officer to Niger to investigate claims contained in a British document that the Iraqi government was trying to buy 500 kilograms (a little over half a ton) of milled uranium oxide, also known as yellowcake, from Niger. The CIA dispatched former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger. He searched around, discovered that not only were the Iraqis not attempting to purchase yellowcake but that the British document was a very crude forgery--many of the Niger government officials who had purportedly signed the document hadn't worked for the Niger government for years--reported his findings and went home. Case closed, or so he thought.

Come the state of the union address, and President Bush included the disproved Niger claim in the address. Ambassador Wilson started screaming. Two senior Bush Administration officials together called six reporters to try to get one to print a story stating that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIA covert officer specializing in weapons of mass destruction. Finally, someone called Robert Novak; one week after Ambassador Wilson went public, Mr. Novak announced that Valerie Plame was a CIA covert officer. Motive: revenge.

Valerie Plame ran a network of seventy foreign nationals working to stop the threat of weapons of mass destruction. All seventy of those people are now in mortal danger.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, signed by Ronald Reagan, makes it a felony punishable by three years in prison to disclose the identity of a covert agent. No weasel words like "may" are necessary here; this is definitely a crime. And forget your Whitewater Revenge line. This isn't a land deal that went sour. This is a woman who was working on what is supposedly President Bush's highest priority--weapons of mass destruction--who can't do it now because the White House destroyed her in an act of spite, and seventy foreign nationals who were working to protect our country who are in mortal danger from their own governments.

Let me toss out another two-dollar word: misprision. In legalese, it means concealment of a crime. There are two misprision statutes, misprision of a felony and misprision of treason; which one applies depends on whether you consider giving out the name of the CIA officer responsible for watching weapons of mass destruction to be "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." The White House has insisted that it didn't provide any reporters with this information; so far, six reporters have confirmed that the White House attempted to get them to "blow" Valerie Plame. Anyone in the White House who knows who the offenders are and doesn't turn them in is guilty of misprision.

Is this Watergate? No, it's worse. Because of the spiteful actions of this White House, you are less safe than you were before Novak wrote his column.

There's a gurney in Terre Haute. Some of the people in the White House may need to be strapped to it. Please don't call this case "more bogus hysteria" again.

[JHB]

11. Cheney did that in 1992? <G>

I think you mean 2002.

[OldSoldier]

14. Oops.

They do edit those things, and hopefully will get the date straight.

[Padraig18]

12. Excellent!

I wouldn't change a word! :toast:

[BiggJawn]

24. Oh, that's good....Very good!

As has been stated ad nauseum "Nobody DIED when Clinton LIED".

Frankly, I'm fond of the idea of stretching their necks in the shadow of the Washington Monument...

[DarkPhenyx]

15. As a "DAG-B" I have a small critique.

it should read "up five zero, fire for effect" Like I said, just a small one.

For those who don't speak the jive "DAG-B" is just a "dumb ass gun bunny". Better known as a soldier in a cannon Artillery unit.

KING OF BATTLE!

[HawkerHurricane]

16. It is with artillery

that war is made - Napoleon

[DarkPhenyx]

17. Hey Hawker! How goes?

"We're Artillery
King of battle!
Our weapons roar,
they never rattle."

I agree with Nappy. W/o big brother Arty little brother Infantry would have a much harder job. Still can't understand why they killed that "Paladin Project". Just one stupid move among hundreds by this administration.

[OldSoldier]

18. Because it weighed too fucking much

IIRC it was heavier than an Abrams Tank.

[DarkPhenyx]

22. And did far more damage...

...per unit than either the Abrams or any 5 conventional howitzers.

Actually they killed the program so they could fund "Star Wars". IOW...they killed a proven weapons system in order to fund an proven failure of a weapons program.

[HawkerHurricane]

19. Why kill Paladin?

How about 'wrong weapon for the mission'.

What I hear, it wasn't air transportable on a C-17 or C-130, and took up too much space on a C-5A. You want one Paladin, or 3 of the older models per C-5A flight?
Plus the cost thing, another big expensive waste.
AND, the political thing: by cutting a big project early, they get points for 'not being under the control of the MIC'.

(I hope I'm not confusing Paladin with something else...)

[DarkPhenyx]

20. I want one Paladin.

The fact that you can use one to do a Time on Target mission which would require 5 "conventional" cannons makes it cost effective. Liquid propellant. Smaller crew. Several other modifications.

I don't think it was that much bigger. Might have been, but as I recall it wasn't really any bigger than the standard 155 howitzer.

[Nlighten1]

21. Call for fire! over

Redleg, redleg, call for fire! over...

[HawkerHurricane]

23. Unit calling for fire...

This is November Romeo Papa Golf, we have 2 Mark Four Seven on standby five miles wet, give coordinates and target type, over.