Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
He's saying that the press shouldn't have taken his leaks in the first place. He's careful not to defend what Libby did once he was in the perjury trap.

Kinsley doesn't answer the questions that other pundits can answer. He thinks outside the box. Understood as a proposition for establishing a niche in the media marketplace, the man is brilliant. Maureen Dowd is just playing his game.

No, he's much too cerebral to get upset about much of anything, except perhaps stem-cell research.

I don't think he's gaming here and the suggestion the cerebral and the emotional/judgmental are mutually exclusive is a little broad brushed, wouldn't you say?

His point is a perfectly rational grey observation of a very grey event in an entirely grey arena.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Congratulations -- this is just about the stupidest thing anyone has ever said on this board (setting aside, of course, things said by people who were full of shit or on some kind of supervised release from an institutional setting).

You forgot drunk.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Congratulations -- this is just about the stupidest thing anyone has ever said on this board (setting aside, of course, things said by people who were full of shit or on some kind of supervised release from an institutional setting). The GOP did not "have to agree" to any of this. The CIA -- not "the Democrats" -- was the agency that actually refered the matter to the DOJ. James Comey is the person who appointed Fitzpatrick, and there is no reason to think that anything any Democrat ever said or did contributed in any way to his decision.

Spoken like a true lawyer who can't think outside of the box. Here's a tip, rule-and-reg-boy, POLITICS INFILTRATES EVERYTHING. If I have to explain further, or actually argue whether there was pressure brought to bear by Democrats to make this thing move forward, I am going to lose a lot of respect for you.

Stop reading the fucking narrow little rules and responding like this is a math problem.

Need I offer you the 8 million stories about the CIA's displeasure with Bush and Co since 2000? Are you dim enough to believe that no Democrat in power has the ear of anyone at the CIA and vice versa. Are you really as naive as the statement you just made or is your need to win every argument overtaking your common sense again?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Maybe. Are you suggesting that because he doesn't weigh in on the right or wrong of the thing as you'd like to see him everything else he offers somehow lacks creddibility?

No. I like to read his stuff because he's clever. But on issues that matter to people, he can be maddening, because he can seem oblivious to the aspects that matter because he's preoccupied with sounding clever. As I suggested, this doesn't happen when he writes about stem-cell research, no doubt because the issues hit home with him (he has Parkinson's).

Right or wrong in politics is entirely, well, partisan.

I don't even know what this means, but it sounds stupid. Does anyone but a bunch of Cubans in south Florida think that our Cuban policy is the best course for us and for Cuba? No, and in my experience just about every non-Cuban Republican agrees. But because this same group of Cubans votes on this one issue and because they live in a swing state with a bunch of electoral votes, they get to run our Cuban policy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I don't think he's gaming here and the suggestion the cerebral and the emotional/judgmental are mutually exclusive is a little broad brushed, wouldn't you say?

His point is a perfectly rational grey observation of a very grey event in an entirely grey arena.

I already said that I agree with his column. But he's not defending Libby, which you seem to have missed.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You forgot drunk.

Ty's algebraic in his responses. A classic lawyer mind. His aim is to linearly try to use bits of evidence he's amassed from internet sources to disprove the obvious.

Now, wait for his waterfall of blog sources supporting the notion the Dems had nothing to to with the Plame investigation. He'll find some nitwit who'll actually suggest they just sat on their hands and did nothing, and the thing just steamrolled forward under the power of the American Public's massive interest in it.

It's still barely a story of interest outside the realm of people like us, and people who think Graydon Carter is a swell political commentator.

Wait... wait... I think I hear Ty putting together his little first year law student's rebuttal. Oooooh, here we go... Moot Court! Yay!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I already said that I agree with his column. But he's not defending Libby, which you seem to have missed.

Uh, no. I said he's being opaque on that issue for good reason. You and I agree that Kinsley is not defending Libby.

You and I split on the issue of the Dems involvement in this thing. You should think twice before you throw "stupid" around. You forget I occasionally have moments of lucidity.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I already said that I agree with his column. But he's not defending Libby, which you seem to have missed.

"I feel that he should not have had to face a perjury trap: the choice between prison for lying, or prison for his role in a set of transactions that the press regards as not merely O.K. but sacrosanct."


That reads not only as an indictment of the press for their role, but as an exoneration of Libby. It shifts blame away from Libby to the press.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Spoken like a true lawyer who can't think outside of the box. Here's a tip, rule-and-reg-boy, POLITICS INFILTRATES EVERYTHING. If I have to explain further, or actually argue whether there was pressure brought to bear by Democrats to make this thing move forward, I am going to lose a lot of respect for you.

Stop reading the fucking narrow little rules and responding like this is a math problem.

Need I offer you the 8 million stories about the CIA's displeasure with Bush and Co since 2000? Are you dim enough to believe that no Democrat in power has the ear of anyone at the CIA and vice versa. Are you really as naive as the statement you just made or is your need to win every argument overtaking your common sense again?

You're like a Marxist in your capacity to eliminate complexity and detail in order to reduce things to a simple, deterministic world view. I was wondering whether you would respond with anything about what actually happens, but I'm not surprised that you didn't.

We all know about issues between Bush and the CIA since 2000. This doesn't mean that the CIA is controlled by or answering to Democrats. They have other reasons to be pissed, one of which is that the White House ruined the career of one of their people to score political points. That has everything to do with the CIA's institutional interests, and nothing to do with whatever you mean by "Democrats in power" -- there weren't any in Washington at the time we're talking about, a fact that either eludes you or is too inconvenient for your "it's all politics, all the time" worldview.

Which Democrats told the CIA to do something it didn't want to do anyway? What was their leverage? You had Republican congressional leadership that wasn't letting House Democrats hold meetings in conference rooms, so I'm curious about the "power" you have in mind. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee was Jay Rockefeller, who since 2000 gladly let himself get rolled on just about every occasion where it was possible, and some where it probably wasn't but he did it anyway. What "power" did he exert over the CIA.

And then there's DOJ. Tell me about the supernatural political powers possessed by Democrats that let them force John Ashcroft's DOJ to open an investigation, and then to get him to recuse himself, and then to get Fitzpatrick to get appointed by James Comey.

Did you even know who James Comey was? Or is your commitment to the idea that it's all political so profound that you can just repeat that mantra without knowing much of anything about what actually happened.

Fitzpatrick then got Republican-appointed judges to preside over a jury trial -- the unanimous jurors who voted to convict were clearly the pawns of unnamed but resourceful Democratic politicians who bent their feeble minds to the interests of the Democratic party, as we all know that only a partisan could look at evidence and decide that it shows anything beyond a reasonable doubt, right? -- and to affirm the conviction. Never mind that these judges had the sort of connections and careers that got them appointed to the bench by Republican presidents, and never mind Article III, which gives them life tenure -- you just know that these judges, too, were acting because of some sort of pressure from Democratic politicians. Do tell.

At other times, you are happy to post here about how useless and hapless the Democratic Party is, a party which didn't do much else to control the actions of the Bush Administration over the last several years. Yet here they had amazing powers.

eta: Sorry, no blog posts or evidence -- I figured you would more appreciate whatever rhetorical flair I could muster.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
"I feel that he should not have had to face a perjury trap: the choice between prison for lying, or prison for his role in a set of transactions that the press regards as not merely O.K. but sacrosanct."


That reads not only as an indictment of the press for their role, but as an exoneration of Libby. It shifts blame away from Libby to the press.

I guess I read it differently. It certainly shifts the focus away from Libby to the press, and in a context in which others are complaining about commutation the effect is as you describe. But I've read Kinsley enough to think that he was being careful not to express an opinion exonerating Libby.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Now that... That is a really good argument. I didn't think of that, but it is an excellent hole in Kinsley's reasoning.

Why didn't Clinton do that as well?

Prosecutors tend not to immunize their prime target.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Congratulations -- this is just about the stupidest thing anyone has ever said on this board (setting aside, of course, things said by people who were full of shit or on some kind of supervised release from an institutional setting). The GOP did not "have to agree" to any of this. The CIA -- not "the Democrats" -- was the agency that actually refered the matter to the DOJ. James Comey is the person who appointed Fitzpatrick, and there is no reason to think that anything any Democrat ever said or did contributed in any way to his decision.

This pales beside Hank's Clinton "hit list," which I'm just not sure he's joking about any more.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You're like a Marxist in your capacity to eliminate complexity and detail in order to reduce things to a simple, deterministic world view. I was wondering whether you would respond with anything about what actually happens, but I'm not surprised that you didn't.

We all know about issues between Bush and the CIA since 2000. This doesn't mean that the CIA is controlled by or answering to Democrats. They have other reasons to be pissed, one of which is that the White House ruined the career of one of their people to score political points. That has everything to do with the CIA's institutional interests, and nothing to do with whatever you mean by "Democrats in power" -- there weren't any in Washington at the time we're talking about, a fact that either eludes you or is too inconvenient for your "it's all politics, all the time" worldview.

Which Democrats told the CIA to do something it didn't want to do anyway? What was their leverage? You had Republican congressional leadership that wasn't letting House Democrats hold meetings in conference rooms, so I'm curious about the "power" you have in mind. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee was Jay Rockefeller, who since 2000 gladly let himself get rolled on just about every occasion where it was possible, and some where it probably wasn't but he did it anyway. What "power" did he exert over the CIA.

And then there's DOJ. Tell me about the supernatural political powers possessed by Democrats that let them force John Ashcroft's DOJ to open an investigation, and then to get him to recuse himself, and then to get Fitzpatrick to get appointed by James Comey.

Did you even know who James Comey was? Or is your commitment to the idea that it's all political so profound that you can just repeat that mantra without knowing much of anything about what actually happened.

Fitzpatrick then got Republican-appointed judges to preside over a jury trial -- the unanimous jurors who voted to convict were clearly the pawns of unnamed but resourceful Democratic politicians who bent their feeble minds to the interests of the Democratic party, as we all know that only a partisan could look at evidence and decide that it shows anything beyond a reasonable doubt, right? -- and to affirm the conviction. Never mind that these judges had the sort of connections and careers that got them appointed to the bench by Republican presidents, and never mind Article III, which gives them life tenure -- you just know that these judges, too, were acting because of some sort of pressure from Democratic politicians. Do tell.

At other times, you are happy to post here about how useless and hapless the Democratic Party is, a party which didn't do much else to control the actions of the Bush Administration over the last several years. Yet here they had amazing powers.

eta: Sorry, no blog posts or evidence -- I figured you would more appreciate whatever rhetorical flair I could muster.

I think what Sebby meant was the Dems and its press created this reality where the WH was behaving so badly overall, and then on this out 'ole no tits, that prosecutions had to happen, and once started a patsy had to be found.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by taxwonk
This pales beside Hank's Clinton "hit list," which I'm just not sure he's joking about any more.

If anyone's going to hold hyperbole against me, it's not going to be sebby.

[Replaced_Texan]

100 mph, in a Prius? Impressive.