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I read this last night and was appalled. He also insists that those who believe Rove is to blame at all in the Plame case are "conspiracy theorists" because Armitrage (supposedly) opposed the war.

Out of touch is not just an understatement for Broder and his ilk.

Someone needs to ask Broder whether Bush has credibility when he says (repeatedly) "We had to invade Iraq in 2003 because Saddam kicked out the inspectors." (Maybe Broder thinks it's true.)
Upper West | 09.18.06 - 10:40 am | #

I have watched Broder on the Sunday talk shows and I don't think he is all there anymore. This only confirms that assessment.
Tom Ballou | 09.18.06 - 10:42 am | #

As often noted, opinion polls taken throughout Clinton's second term show that he did not lose credibility with the public; whereas polls taken throughout Bush's second term show that he has lost credibility with the public.
Gary Sugar | 09.18.06 - 10:44 am | #

Broder is either a conservative suck-up or has lost his marbles.

We have a president and a vice-president who, last week, actually lobbied Congress for the right to TORTURE. And this is something they have already given their blessing to pre-Hamdan decision.

Why aren't more Americans up in arms about this? Why is the news media so bloody mealy-mouthed on this?

The questioner from Ontario has it right. The US in the midst of a grave Constitutional crisis. What do we hear from the chattering clases?

Crickets....blody crickets.
brat | 09.18.06 - 10:47 am | #

Notice that Broder doesn't say that Clinton should have resigned because he perjured himself while under oath in the deposition, which was allegedly the violation Clinton was being impeached for.

Instead, Broder claims Clinton should have resigned simply because he lied to "his Cabinet, and his closest assoc, to say nothing of the public."

GWB lies to the public, day, after day, after day, using doublespeak, manipulations, and outright pathological lies.

Since it wasn't Clinton's perjury according to Broder, where does Broder distingish between Clinton's "alleged" lies and Bush's blatant pathological lying?
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 10:48 am | #

Protesting presidential lawlessness is shrill and overheated.

Under our new principate 'presidential lawlessness' is an oxymoron.

lex est, quod rex vult.

Throw away your Federalist Papers and buy a good translation of Bossuet.
Davis X. Machina | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:52 am | #

David Broder should do the honorable thing and resign.
Splash | 09.18.06 - 10:54 am | #

But President Bush hasn't said or done anything to lose his credibility

Because that would presume that he had any in the first place.....
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:57 am | #

Seems that too many cocktail weenies over too many years have driven Broder into a state of advanced senility.

It's like the house is burning down and Davey boy remarks on how nice the weather is today.

Davey boy, get a clue! Take advantage of that golden parachute and retire. You and your best buds Joe Lieberman.

Clueless senility is soooo hard to watch!
Mad Dog | 09.18.06 - 11:00 am | #

He's an essentialist. Essentially, he believes, Bush is good. Hence, any of his 'bad-seeming' actions are, ultimately, mistakes or misunderstandings.

Clinton, on the other hand, is essentially bad, so his lies lay bare his rotten, corrupt soul.

You seem oddly confident in the power of facts, Glenn, when they have almost nothing to do with contemporary political discourse and activity.
gussie | 09.18.06 - 11:01 am | #

I find the whole thing perplexing beyond belief.

The best explanation I can come up with is this:

At some point during the Reagan era--maybe late Carter-- the press decided that Democrats have cooties and Republicans don't.

Cooties are invisible, of course, and basically indelible. And they make your every action uncool.

Someone with cooties can say the same words as other people, and when the cool people say them they're cool, but when the person with cooties says them, they come out uncool.

I guess what I'm saying is: sometime in the early '80s, the entire national press corps was replaced by a bunch of irrational, swooning pre-teens. They cannot think, they cannot analyze, they can only run with the fads.

This nation will never get back on course until the entire press-corps grows up.
kid bitzer | 09.18.06 - 11:02 am | #

I wonder how Mr. Broder would treat Bush's statement in April, 2004 that his administration only wiretaps in compliance with FISA ("getting a court order before we do so"). Here's the complete quote from the Whitehouse website (emphasis added) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20040420- 2.html

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
Crust | 09.18.06 - 11:02 am | #

I suspect that David Broder is on the government payroll. Nothing else could explain his illogical behavior, which defies basic standards of intellectual discourse. He is not that stupid a guy.

He is a monster of the the most craven spirit if he influences public policy for his own personal profit.

Unlike you, we are not afraid, Mr. Broder.
Dr. Gravity Love | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:07 am | #

Broder
that the honorable thing was for him to have resigned and turned over the office to Vice President Gore. I think history would have been very different had he done that.

Broder may be right about this for the wrong reasons. If Gore were an incumbant President instead of VP, he may have won in 2000 and history would indeed have been different. We (and the rest of the world) would not have had to suffer such an abortion of an administration.
nuf said | 09.18.06 - 11:12 am | #

I heard David Broder give his weekly "analysis" on the Bob Edwards show on NPR this morning. He said two things that astounded me. Paraphrasing, he said that politicians can now hire bloggers, and since bloggers have no rules, they can do the "dirty work" for the politicians. He also said that the November election was a "referendum" on whether we "support the war on terror" or do not.
deborah jaffe | 09.18.06 - 11:14 am | #

These discussions on journalistic 'analysis' seem to miss the point about the nature of this discourse. Clinton broke a broachable rule -- cheating on your wife is a cultural rule that is not dependant on the constitutional order. However, questioning the Bush regimes lies, etc., is not a polite discussion -- it's directly about the abuse of power and the nature of our constitutional order. We are not to discuss this -- that would be akin to discussing religion at a cocktail party.
Even Nixon's transgressions were more limited to 'cheating,' but he did not publically move to reorder the constitution, and so discussible at extremum. The current problem is that a constitutional crisis is about democracy, its about who get to set our agenda, about how journalists are part of the establishment, about how the establishment appears to have lost its moorings.
This is a discussion that just begs for Chomsky. Many of his proposals may be way outside the American mainstream, but his analysis of American discourse is difficult to counter.
jojo | 09.18.06 - 11:22 am | #

I was never a Clinton supporter and I am forever resistant to his alleged charms but people who believe that Clinton or any president, including George Bush, should resign from office for lying about having had an extra-marital affair demonstrate a poor and narrow understanding of human behavior. Of course Clinton lied but why would anybody expect him not to lie or to continue lying about something that he did but that he was also quite ashamed of having done.

I find it quite interesting that folks like David Broder and others seem to have conveniently forgotten that this so-called affair only came to light because a young woman who was obviously distraught and heartbroken over the end of her relationship with a much admired older man confided her sorrow and anger to an older woman with whom she worked. The older woman chose to pass along these confessions to the world instead of doing what she could to protect a vulnerable young person at a terrible time in that person's life.

I never felt that Clinton lied to me about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky because I never felt I had a right to ask or know about what two consenting adults did in the Oval Office. I think Broder and folks like him have developed a very warped sense of morality. What Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky did was foolish and inappropriate but their behavior hardly enadangered the Republic.
fogcitynative | 09.18.06 - 11:22 am | #

As a life-long Democrat I thought Clinton should have resigned at the time - not because of anything other than the shear stupidity of letting your dick create opportunities for your enemies.

That Bush is a murderous moron deserving of impeachment hasn't changed my mind on the point.
hollywood | 09.18.06 - 11:23 am | #

So – Bill Clinton was out walking his dog by the lake. He picked up a stick and tossed it across the water. The dog walked across the water and picked it up. Clinton tossed the stick again and again.

Another walker came along and saw this. Clinton took the stick form the dog, tossed it out over the lake, and the dog walked across the water, got the stick and walked back.

The walker ran back to town, and called the press. Soon the area was buzzing with press. Clinton would take the stick, toss it over the lake, and the dog would walk across the lake and fetch the stick.

The next day the headlines read "Bill Clinton's dog can't swim."
edwin | 09.18.06 - 11:28 am | #

yeah, let's not get side-tracked over Clinton.

I too thought he should have resigned, and I too think the world would now be a better place if he had.

He should have resigned not because of sex outside of marriage, not because he lied to his cabinet, but because he lied *under oath in sworn testimony to a court of law*.

I know politicians lie and lie, but that's when the merry-go-round has got to stop: when a President lies to a court, there is an immediate Constitutional issue at hand.

If we had taken that Constitutional issue more seriously--if we had set a lower bar for when we say "this executive is manifesting contemptuous disregard for the other branches of government, and so must go", then it would be a lot easier to make the case right now.

But that's all history. What is outrageous is that Broder can say the crap he does about Clinton, and *not* see that Bush is a hundred times, a thousand times, more dangerous to the Constitution and the country than Clinton ever was.

Yeah, maybe he's on the take from the RNC. It would explain a few things. But I think the explanation is actually trickier, involving D.C. culture. Trickier and in a way more depressing.
kid bitzer | 09.18.06 - 11:30 am | #

fogcitynative:

As you well know, sexual impropreity on the part of the President is an intolerable crime and cannot be passed over in silence! Think of the children and what lessons they'll learn from this! We expect our Commander-in-Chief to be a paragon of moral virtue, a shining example of what an American ought to be! He degrades the office with his misconduct!
IngSoc | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:33 am | #

Why does Broder even suggest such a low standard for presidential resignment? Does that mean that since Bush has even less credibility, he should be run out of town on a bus? Oh yeah, plus all the law breaking, subverting the constitution, lying to the US in order to start a war with Iraq, thousands of unnecessary deaths...

Broder really set himself up for a confusing answer.
steve_e | 09.18.06 - 11:34 am | #

This blatant absurdity is precisely what laid the foundation for my conversion from utter political apathy as a high schooler to what many now consider liberal advocacy today. Having been raised in a household where politics was never, and I mean never discussed, with two parents who were independent voters in every sense of the term, I knew and cared nothing about the workings of the political machinery until the Lewinsky scandal broke when I was in high school in the late '90s. I still didn't know what I really thought of Clinton, but I quickly began to see that Ken Starr and the Republicans who were pushing this "scandal" cared nothing for the daily operations of government when they were willing to bring the apparatus to a screeching halt because the President did something morally contemptible in his private life. When Clinton lied about the affair, I clearly remembered thinking that "at least it had nothing to do with anything that's our business." It became clear to me that the Republicans were moralistic shitbirds, for lack of a better term, who must have felt threatened by Clinton for some reason and were willing to put their hatred of him over the good of the country.

This sentiment only intensified recently when the right-wing hit piece on ABC not so subtly implied that one of the reasons that Clinton didn't get bin Laden was that he was distracted while mired in the Lewinsky scandal. But anyone with the most basic reasoning skills might ask if the Lewinsky scandal was serious enough to the genuine (not prurient) public interest to justify the Republicans' bloodlust. They and their hatchet men, after all, were the ones who foisted this crap onto the stage.

Only recently, and due to posts like this, have I come to finally recognize the extent to which the media was (and is) responsible for providing justification to the Republican witch-hunt of the 1990's, which makes them nearly as culpable as the Republican operatives who initiated it. Thanks to clowns like Broder, they were seen as patriotic defenders of American tradition rather than the sleazy mudslingers that they were.
Epsilon | 09.18.06 - 11:36 am | #

Jonathan Schwarz wrote:
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt...ves/ 000949.html

May 25, 2006
What Does And Does Not Fascinate David Broder
Perhaps you've already seen this column by David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Corps, in which he explains what he's interested in:

"But for all the delicacy of the treatment, the very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons' marriage and placed the story on the top of Page One was a clear signal -- if any was needed -- that the drama of the Clintons' personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president."

Now, here's Broder on Meet the Press last December November, explaining what he's NOT interested in:

MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, is it possible for official Washington--the president, Democratic leaders, Republican leaders--to arrive at common ground, a consensus position on Iraq?
MR. DAVID BRODER: It's possible, Tim, but they won't get there by arguing about who did what three years ago. And this whole debate about whether there was just a mistake or misrepresentation or so on is, I think, from the public point of view largely irrelevant. The public's moved past that.

Of course, by "the public's moved past that," Broder meant "I've moved past that." Just days after he said this, a New York Times poll found that 80% of Americans felt it was "very" (56%) or "somewhat" (24%) important for Congress to investigate Bush's use of intelligence on Iraq.

So to sum up Broder's worldview:

Bill Clinton's Wang And What It's Doing Right This Second: HOT! HOT! HOT!

Lies That Have Killed Tens Of Thousands: EH. THIS MAKES ME SLEEPY.

sysprog | 09.18.06 - 11:36 am | #

I have watched Broder on the Sunday talk shows and I don't think he is all there anymore.

Probably an important qualification for his job - I just hope that people will start to recognize and accept that THIS IS NOT ABOUT PERSONALITIES, CHARACTER DEFECTS, OR COMPETENCE.

This interests behind this administration and its policies have selected a great bunch of "tools" to "catapult the propaganda."

The lying liars that carry the message do need to be held accountable for their deceptions and law breaking, but they are not really our problem.

It it wasn't chimpy, rove, cheney, or any one of the MSM lying liars, it would be someone else.

The folks behind this agenda know better than to stand in front of the American public and lie, often with negligence and even criminal intent. That is why we get "leaders" like the chimperor and his band of thieves.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:45 am | #

Maybe he is saying the mistake Clinton made was admitting that he lied. If he just kept repeating the lies and expanding on them as if no other position could be considered sane, like Bush does, then he never would have lost credibility.

If you try tell a Bush supporter that if they believe Clinton deserved to be impeached or should have resigned, then logically they must also believe the same of Bush because his lies and crimes are much more numerous and serious, they will tell you with a staight face that Bush has never lied nor has he committed any crime. That's in a way what Broder's response was too. When asked if Bush should resign for lying about Iraq he said that if everyone who 'believed' Iraq had WMD were to resign it would empty Washington. He changed lying to being misinformed in order to answer a different question. Unless Bush himself admits to lying, making that assertion automatically discredits the source as shrill, partisan and hysterical. So I guess the great mistake Clinton made was owning up to what he did, at least while in office.
Dread Scot | 09.18.06 - 11:50 am | #

These morons remind me of my brother with the extremely high IQ. Yeah, he's got a PhD in atrophysics but he can't dig a friggin ditch to save his life. Completely out of touch with the obvious.

Who will rid us of these meddlesome pundits?
Bob | 09.18.06 - 11:53 am | #

Broder is behaving just as I suppose someone blackmailed into supporting Bush would behave.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe the threat of taking away access amounts to a kind of blackmail.
lysias | 09.18.06 - 12:02 pm | #

Thankyou for calling it as it is. Broder and his ilk are just that overrated insider elites and WATB!
karmicjay | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 12:11 pm | #

(calming music is just audible)
"You look tired, Mr. Greenwald. Why don't you have a seat and let me pour you a glass of something cold. You do like Kool-aid, don't you? Of course you do. Everyone likes Kool-aid. Here you go. Drink it up. Drink it all. Now lie back and rest your eyes. Isn't that better? No troublesome thoughts. Rest. Rest..."
(music continues, drifting to silence as the scene dissolves)
epoh | 09.18.06 - 12:29 pm | #

He's a wingnut. He lives by a number of absolute rules. One of which is:

What ever the liberals do, it must be judged and punished in the worst possible light because they're selfish, evil people.

The corollary is:

What ever we do, it must be judged and punished in the best possible light, because we're good, altruistic people.
Moses | 09.18.06 - 12:33 pm | #

like hell Clinton should have resigned. Bullshit. That would have only encouraged Rethuglicans to gin up scandals against every Democratic president for the next 100 years, with the expectation that they would follow the Clinton precedent and fold like a cheap suit.

Jesus. What is wrong with you people?
r€nato | 09.18.06 - 12:35 pm | #

Glenn [from the post]:

So David Broder still thinks that Bill Clinton should have resigned as President of the United States because he lied about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. So do these high moral standards mean that Broder thinks Bush should resign from office -- how about for continuing to claim a Saddam/al-Zarqawi connection long after it has been clear that no such connection ever existed, or for any other credibility-destroying action taken by this administration?

My favourite lie from Dubya -- repeated three times now and counting is this one:

"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region."

This is so obviously false, I don't understand why the media doesn't call him on it each and every time they get to ask him a question. It's a matter of basic honesty, and it's an outright, bald-faced, undeniable LIE. They might be able to quibble semantically about whether there was (ever) a "weapons program" (but even this would be dishonest), but we have frickin' video of Blix in Iraq!!!

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 12:57 pm | #

Glenn:

Mr. Clinton should have resigned for committing at least 2 counts of felony perjury and 1 count of felony obstruction of of justice.

Mr. Broder thought that Mr. Clinton should have resigned for lying to the rest of us as well as the civil court and the criminal grand jury. That is a legitimate opinion for anyone who wants a President with integrity.

I have yet to see anyone prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the reasons we went to war in Iraq.

Once again, a lie is intentionally making a factual statement (not an opinion) which you know is untrue at the time of the statement.

Mr. Clinton lied repeatedly up to and including perjury. Mr. Bush did not.

I challenged anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about the grounds for going to war some months ago and no one could.

Would you care to try, Glenn, or are you content to lie about Mr. Bush lying?
Bart | 09.18.06 - 12:57 pm | #

"So, lying over an extramarital affair is serious enough to justify the resignation of a President. Leading the country to invade another country on false pretenses, and then plainly invoking fictitious justifications for why we did so, is just" well, just insane.
ciuck | 09.18.06 - 1:01 pm | #

Bart -- I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't know about the post directly above yours (Arne's), which delineates a very clear lie that Bush has repeated on numerous occasions. Moreover, the lie is important and material in justifying the Iraq war.
Upper West | 09.18.06 - 1:05 pm | #

kid bitzer:

He should have resigned not because of sex outside of marriage, not because he lied to his cabinet, but because he lied *under oath in sworn testimony to a court of law*.

Let's be clear here. Leaving aside whether Clinton actually did "lie" (which is arguable as well), lying under oath is nor per se illegal. Should I end up in court under oath, I am free to tell the court and the world that the moon is made of bleu cheese. It's in the statutes (18 USC § 1621 et seq.). The principal missing element is "material[ity", as defined in Kungys (and which has been held to be one of the three essential elements of the crime of perjury that must be proven to a jury [not the judge, despite HWSNBN's incorrect blatherings about such] as U.S. v. Gaudin explains).

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 1:08 pm | #

Bart --

Perhaps you should read the comment that immediately precedes yours and then, after careful reflection, apologize to Glenn.
Greg | 09.18.06 - 1:12 pm | #

Wow. Without reaidng down, I answered all of HWSNBN's offal:

Mr. Clinton should have resigned for committing at least 2 counts of felony perjury and 1 count of felony obstruction of of justice.

Mr. Broder thought that Mr. Clinton should have resigned for lying to the rest of us as well as the civil court and the criminal grand jury. That is a legitimate opinion for anyone who wants a President with integrity.

I have yet to see anyone prove that Mr. Bush lied about anything concerning the reasons we went to war in Iraq.

Once again, a lie is intentionally making a factual statement (not an opinion) which you know is untrue at the time of the statement.

Mr. Clinton lied repeatedly up to and including perjury. Mr. Bush did not.

I challenged anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about the grounds for going to war some months ago and no one could.

HWSNBN is nothing if not predictable ... except maybe wrong, oblivious to what others say, and an eedjit to boot.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 1:13 pm | #

This is revelatory of the insular, incestuous nature of the "inside the beltway" culture in Washington D.C. All of them--the elected officials, the lobbyists, the reporters who cover the beltway beat, and ancillary movers and shakers--become socially friendly, and they come to see themselves as a fraternity, as the golden boys and girls who "run things," and those outside their culture who might take issue with matters of...um, lawful behavior, loyalty to oaths of office, probity in the caretaking of the public's trust, and other such silly matters, are to be dismissed as "naive" or "shrill."

I.F.Stone refused to socialize or befriend the officials he wrote about, as he knew the corruptive influence such relationships could have on a reporter's diligence in reporting truthfully on the facts as they were found, rather than as a friendship might influence them to be seen.

Moreover, these highly paid media blowhards have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo; to do otherwise would destroy their comfortable careers, their handsome incomes and perks, and their status.
Robert1014 | 09.18.06 - 1:18 pm | #

We obviously need to do a better job of cataloging Bush lies. A Google search brings up tons of pages dedicated to this. It would be helpful to have the top ten Bush lies that are copiously documented and then trumpet them repeatedly. Everyone seems to accept that Clinton lied. It should be just as obvious that Bush lied. The wiretap example is exceellent. What are the other nine TOP 10 BUSH lies?

http://www.google.com/search? hl=...G=Google+Search

Duke S | 09.18.06 - 1:44 pm | #

Can there really be ANY doubt remaining as to whether Broder, like many of his press peers, is in the back pocket of Bush/Cheney?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 1:53 pm | #

I don't think that Broder is a "wingnut" or anything like that. I just think that he has a confused sense of the difference between personal and political morality. I took his reasoning to be something like this: Clinton deliberately misled his own cabinet, and therefore can be said to have done so on purpose and with full awareness. Bush, on the other hand, gave (and still gives-- see Arne Langsetmo's comment above) every impression that he actually believes that his own falsehoods were true. So do Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, and the rest of the charmed power circle around Bush. So either Bush is the idiot that much of us on the left say that he is, or at best he is guilty of failing to draw obvious inferences (about the non-existence of Saddam's WMD program, etc, etc) from the evidence available to him-- in other words, incuriosity.

If this were a matter that didn't involve a political official, and one as powerful as a President of the U.S., Broder might have a point. Many people tend to think that deliberate wrongdoing on an individual's part is somehow worse than that individual causing bad things to happen through stupidity or even incuriosity. I think, though, that extending this way of thinking to the conduct of politicians is mistaken. After all, saying that G.W. Bush should or shouldn't resign isn't, or isn't just, a moral evaluation; it's an evaluation of his fitness for office, along with a suggestion for how he should evaluate his own fitness for office. And there's more to being fit for the office of President than simply moral uprightness.

Plus, we might expect someone who is just stupid or incurious to be able to acknowledge when his own stupidity or incuriosity is to blame for negative consequences. Bush, however, has demonstrated nothing of the sort, and indeed has persisted so long in perpetuating falsehoods that the most charitable interpretation is that he's doing it willfully. If that's the case, we really do have reasons, contra Broder, for thinking that Bush isn't even morally fit for office.
Brian Cubbage | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 1:54 pm | #

Robert1014,

It goes beyond a rational self-interest. They really do believe that questions of law, of constitutional order are 'shrill.' They don't argue against it -- it's completely outside their universe of acceptable speech. So they use personal invective instead.

You're talking about their friends, their spouses, their children. They go to dinner parties with these people. They simply can't imagine that these nice people they work with are monsters -- that would make the journalist and hangers-on into monsters and collaborators.

We have to stop being polite.
jojo | 09.18.06 - 2:04 pm | #

At some point during the Reagan era--maybe late Carter-- the press decided that Democrats have cooties and Republicans don't.

Cooties are invisible, of course, and basically indelible. And they make your every action uncool.

Someone with cooties can say the same words as other people, and when the cool people say them they're cool, but when the person with cooties says them, they come out uncool.

I guess what I'm saying is: sometime in the early '80s, the entire national press corps was replaced by a bunch of irrational, swooning pre-teens. They cannot think, they cannot analyze, they can only run with the fads.

This nation will never get back on course until the entire press-corps grows up.
kid bitzer

That's because the establishment was liberal. Remember, dog bites man = not news. Man bites dog = news.

Man says let's be reasonable, raise taxes, help fellow citizens, cut spending, reduce the military = snooze.

Man says taxes are theft, welfare queens are rich, the government is in your bedroom, the gays are molesting your child right now, we're about to be attacked from space = news.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 2:05 pm | #

There is something I have been curious about and since the subject of Clinton has come up, could someone answer these questions for me since I didn't follow that story:

l) Why did Clinton lie?
2) Why was he in a position to lie in the first place? I mean, why would would anyone be asking him about his sex life? Who asked? And couldn't he just have said, I do not discuss my personal life with anyone as it's nobody's business but my own?

So how is it that a situation came about where Clinton felt the need to comment on allegations about his personal life?

Thanks.
Eyes Wide Open | 09.18.06 - 2:11 pm | #

Unfortunately, the Violence Against Women Act that Clinton signed early in his presidency included a provision that made it admissible for Paula Jones's lawyers to ask him the questions about his sex life that he lied in answer to.
lysias | 09.18.06 - 2:21 pm | #

Arne, Bart will no doubt return to claim that Clinton's denial of sexual relations did constitute perjury because the statement in question was deemed material to the proceedings in question. Those proceedings, however, involved a bogus sexual harassment lawsuit hijacked by right-wing lawyers well connected with Scaife and the Arkansas Project crowd. The case was ultimately thrown out as entirely without merit by a Republican judge whose law exam paper Clinton lost while he was a professor at the University of Arkansas law school (i.e. hardly a liberal/Clinton lackey.)

Leaving aside the fact that the question proferred Clinton by the Paula Jones shysters was deliberately constructed to elicit an incomplete response so that they could pin perjury on him (read: perjury trap), and leaving aside the fact that Clinton in good faith could have believed the answer he was giving was correct with regard to whether he actually had sex with her by penetrating her vagina with his penis (which would exonerate him of perjury), the fact remains that with regard to impeachment proceedings, any standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors" must refer to matters of state. Anyone who thinks that Clinton being less than forthcoming about his sex life in a hijacked meritless lawsuit is tantamount to an offense the writers of the Constitution intended to be grounds for removal of a President from office is frankly beyond help.

As far as obstruction of justice was concerned, it is simply laughable to believe that a man unjustly accused of something he did not do somehow obstructed "justice" because he didn't volunteer information past what the pernicious hacks they call lawyers directly asked him. Such a definition of "justice" truly elucidates the warped minds of the impeachment crowd of the late 1990's.
Epsilon | 09.18.06 - 2:27 pm | #

Eyes Wide Open, the questions you just asked indicate to me that you must have opened them for the first time this morning.
Mooser | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 2:29 pm | #

I read Broder's comments on Friday. I'm not an attorney or a journalist, but, you know -- he's making lying about an extramarital affair more significant to our country than purposefully misleading our country into a war under false pretenses. I know there are those who say that the intelligence failed. No -- we were lied to. It's that simple. Bill Clinton lost his law license for a while which is appropriate. GW Bush should be charged with War Crimes. I'm not holding my breath.
kak | 09.18.06 - 2:30 pm | #

anotha spot o' tea, señor hare?
Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 2:36 pm | #

anonymous:

The comparison is preposterous. Clinton did not just lie about Monica during a press conference or public speech. He lied before a grand jury. That is a flat-out crime, namely perjury. The worst that Bush administration officials can be accused of is possible rhetorical hyperbole about some then ambiguous intelligence information. This has happened in every administration since George Washington.

Covered ... nay, refuted above. Read it (and I mean "read it!") and weep.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 2:38 pm | #

What is it with these people and Clinton? Can't they let that go, or at least live in the now?
Dan Coyle | 09.18.06 - 2:45 pm | #

lysias:

Unfortunately, the Violence Against Women Act that Clinton signed early in his presidency included a provision that made it admissible for Paula Jones's lawyers to ask him the questions about his sex life that he lied in answer to.

No, not true. FWIW, what is admissible in this respect is covered in FRE Rules 412-415. These are specific rules to such situations. Other than those (and none of these fit Clinton's specific circumstance), the Jones lawyers would have had to rely on such as "habit" or "character" (see FRE Rules 405 and 406), and even that's a stretch (404 clearly doesn't apply).

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 2:47 pm | #

The comparison is preposterous. Clinton did not just lie about Monica during a press conference or public speech. He lied before a grand jury

Idiot boy. It was a deposition in a trumped up civil suit. No Grand Jury. Moron. I can file a meritless lawsuit against you and subpena you to be deposed, by me, and I'm not even an attorney. I've done it.

Dumbass.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 2:48 pm | #

epsilon:

Arne, Bart will no doubt return to claim that Clinton's denial of sexual relations did constitute perjury because the statement in question was deemed material to the proceedings in question.

See U.S. v. Gaudin. There's a specific definition of "material[ity]" in the context of perjury cases (see Kungys). But the judge didn't ever rule the Lewinsky stuff "material" (nor, if fact, could she). She allowed the deposition, but in the end she excluded all this testimony.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 2:50 pm | #

Thanks for the clarification, Arne. I wasn't saying that the justification I was putting in Bart's mouth was necessarily accurate, only that it wouldn't really even matter if it were (aside from the fact that Clinton probably didn't even commit perjury even if the judge could decide materiality.) I'll go read that case. Thanks for the info.
Epsilon | 09.18.06 - 2:56 pm | #

At some point during the Reagan era--maybe late Carter-- the press decided that Democrats have cooties and Republicans don't. - kid bitzer

I think also that at some time in the very early '90's, famed homewrecker and slut (who tried sleeping her way to the top at CBS in the '70's because she is lazy and talentless except between her lips and legs) and all around shallow, horrible, vile cunt Sally Quinn Bradlee, recoiled at the idea of people like the Clintons, who worked hard and used their brains to earn their success, but committed the unpardonable sin of not being born into one of the 'families' of America (or stealing a husband who ran a Major Newspaper as Ms. Quinn did, because she is as common as she thinks the Clintons are - she was raised Christian Science, for christ's sake, how much more lower middle class could you be?), becoming part of the Washington Elite (an elite that rivals the Windsor Family for being pathetically dull-normal) and did everything in her power to make the Clintons pariahs because she was the almighty Sally Quinn BRADLEE (without her last name, she was just another tired old whore with bleached hair) and she TOLD YOU WHO WAS IMPORTANT AND WHO WASN'T IN D.C. and she decided the Clintons didn't cut it. But the Bush Crime Family, comprised of Nazis, drug addicts and serial STD infection throughout their incestuous clan, WAS IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY HAVE MONEY.

And Dave Broder said "Oh, yes, Mrs. BRADLEE, whatever you say Mrs. BRADLEE."

And that was that.
tellybelly | 09.18.06 - 3:01 pm | #

Great post, Glenn. This man sounds like the man behind the Post's demand for an apology to Karl Rove in the pseudo-wake of the Armitage leak.

Crust's cite to "a wiretap requires a court order" preempted the first half of my comment. The second half remains to be said.

To Broder's thinking, representative governance is "virtual." The people are a construct, not human beings, and are irrelevant unless their stirrings rattle Washingtonians. Ideally they are neither seen nor heard, and so long as politicians and pundits can, through magical incantations, keep them from disrupting Broder's "calm and quiet," nothing is up with the Constitution.

To this poor excuse for a political observer the lesson of Watergate was simple: Don't piss off DC. In Broderworld, lying about sex to cabinet secretaries -- with whom he dines -- is off the charts; lying to the American people about their civil liberties is a nonevent because they are a far off phenomenon, if that.

A 6th grade civics student has a better grasp of what goes into preserving a republic. Broder's is a government of, by and for the chattering classes.

What an disservice to the nation to have this cynical courtier cawing randomly from his perch. He would have made many friends in the palace of Louis XVI in the run-up to Bastille Day. Just as surely he'd have shared their fate.
Creeping Truth | 09.18.06 - 3:04 pm | #

kid bitzer @ 11:30 am

When a President lies to a court

A deposition is usually conducted in attorney offices. No judge is present. It is pre-trial and part of the discovery process in civil or criminal litigation. It is under oath, but it is very informal.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 3:05 pm | #

Just curious, with all the legal types here, (not you Bartlejuice), how many prosecutions for alleged perjury during interrogatories or depositions is common practice, do you suppose.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 3:09 pm | #

What a sad thing this is to watch happen to our nation. The wheels are coming off and it's not pretty.It's not just Broder,there's alot of meltdowns happening all over the rightwing. My heart is broken by the last 10 yrs or so of American politics. I think that's kinda the worst part of all this,today's conservatives have left devastation between neighbors,in communities and in families all across this country.That's gonna be the really hard part for me to forgive.We'll heal,I still believe the country is strong,but it's going to take awhile.

If they're breaking the law,why can't they be arrested?If I went on a much smaller crime spree than theirs,I'd be in a cell,so would you or the people we know in our day to day lives.So Why not them? Doesn't ANY agency have some damned jurisdiction here? If not why not?I don't understand. I'm not an attorney,so all the legal language hurts my head sometimes,but surely the law of the land allows for intervention to stop crazy people from stealing money and hurting others and commiting outright felonies,right?
An Angry Old Broad | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 3:29 pm | #

Nice summing up.

I know many reporters respect David Broder. But I've read him thoroughly for the past few years. And it seems he just epitomizes erroneous conventional wisdom. Even in an otherwise solid column a month or so ago, he made a completely unnecessary - and more importantly, inaccurate - swipe at liberal bloggers. He suggested that liberal bloggers attacked Bush while ignoring another important target - Congress, and their failure to perform oversight. (!!!!) Howard Kurtz has at least discovered Greg Sargent and some other liberal bloggers, but Broder, sad to say, has grown very out of touch if he could possibly hold that view. And anyone who can suggest, in the same chat, that Clinton should have resigned but Bush should not is an idiot and a fool. (I would accept it if he said something like, "At the time, I thought Clinton should resign, but in retrospect..."). Broder is still under the mistaken idea that the current rabid partisan politics practiced by the GOP is just the same old, same old and that everyone in both parties does the same. It's not the same game at all. He's interpreting all events according to an outdated understanding of the game being played.
Batocchio | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 3:51 pm | #

call me crazy...but I am beginning to think they really ARE putting something in the kool aid.

What the FUCK are der Shrubenfueher and his gang of criminals DOING to these people to make them say such insane, disconnected, random and just plain stupid things?
marblex | 09.18.06 - 4:12 pm | #

Eyes Wide Open, the questions you just asked indicate to me that you must have opened them for the first time this morning.
Mooser

Actually, Mooser, your comment reveals a serious misapprehension about what constitutes the ideal. Why anyone would believe anything the press says is certainly a mystery to me and a series of posts by Glenn has been illustrative of just how little trust in the media an intelligent person should have.

But I've known that since I was a child and remember, the blogosphere was not around then so any news about politics was filtered through the mainstream media. I doubt you are interested in making a case for their accuracy, are you?

Perhaps your time is worth so little to you that following prurient stories in the press ranks high on your list of "to do" items.

I was involved in activities that were meaningful to me. There are many subjects I was studying and spending time on during those years that I am certain are subjects about which I am now exceedingly knowledgeable but are subjects about which you probably know nothing. Given the opporunity, I am sure I could put you through a few "knowledge hoops" at which you would not compete favorably.

Not everyone is either a political junkie or someone who needs to live vicariously by focusing on the pecaddillos of others. If I want to spend time entertaining myself by musing on the foibles of human nature I'll read Chaucer.

I'm not so stupid as to think politicians are other than what they are: basically corrupt liars. The overwhelming majority of what you read and hear in the media is an outright lie. Spending one's life ferreting out the small percentage that is true is a major waste of time, but I concede it might fill the vacuum in otherwise empty minds which are not engaged in exciting intellectual endeavors.

Politics in general is nothing more than pulp fiction. I'm much more interested in ideas than events. But as Glenn said in the forward to his book, there comes a time when things happen that force one to pay attention.

Abu Graib was something so horrible, so inconsistent with everything we've thought of as America that one couldn't not pay attention even if one wanted to.

Sorry if you think that means I was blind. I can assure you I've seen things and been places you will never go in your life and all the while, my eyes were open to a fault.

I'm exceedingly happy with the way I have chosen to spend my mind's time thus far in life. How much do you value all the time you spent focused on Clinton's sex life?

Each to his own.
.
Eyes Wide Open | 09.18.06 - 4:17 pm | #

kid bitzer>"I know politicians lie and lie, but that's when the merry-go-round has got to stop: when a President lies to a court, there is an immediate Constitutional issue at hand."

I agree that we shouldn't get sidetracked about Clinton but c'mon let's get real here. Br. Clinton lied to a grand jury about whether or not he had had a consensual sexual relationship with someone over the legal age of consent. What in the world did this ever have to do with whether he exposed his penis to another woman years earlier in a hotel in Arkansas? No president or any human being deserves to be dragged through the mud about something of this nature. I respect the law but Judge Susan Wright's ruling was preposterous.
fogcitynative | 09.18.06 - 4:24 pm | #

Gary Ruppert --

The comparison is preposterous. Clinton did not just lie about Monica during a press conference or public speech. He lied before a grand jury. That is a flat-out crime, namely perjury. The worst that Bush administration officials can be accused of is possible rhetorical hyperbole about some then ambiguous intelligence information. This has happened in every administration since George Washington.

And "perjury" is almost as severe a "crime" as jaywalking, or public expectoration.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:26 pm | #

Anonymous --

Just curious, with all the legal types here, (not you Bartlejuice), how many prosecutions for alleged perjury during interrogatories or depositions is common practice, do you suppose.

Well under 1%. Well under.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:27 pm | #

Anonymous, correcting Gary Ruppert --

Idiot boy. It was a deposition in a trumped up civil suit. No Grand Jury. Moron. I can file a meritless lawsuit against you and subpena you to be deposed, by me, and I'm not even an attorney. I've done it.

Dumbass.

Absolutely true. But Gary Ruppert says it was "before a grand jury," and he has absolutely no ideological axe to grind here... do you, Gary? You don't hate Clinton as much as you hate thems terrrissss durrrrty reggghedds does yew?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:29 pm | #

tellybelly | 09.18.06 - 3:01 pm | #

True enough. But how many people know about Sally the Whore, besides you and me and a few others?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:31 pm | #

Everyone seems to accept that Clinton lied. It should be just as obvious that Bush lied.

This does not take into account the way an authoritarian orthodoxy works. Bill Clinton is known to have lied because:
a. he admitted it
b. he was not an authoritarian leader, so the rules of logic and evidence actually applied.

In an authoritarian orthodoxy (whether political or religious), evidence (or sacred text) is just the raw material from which the annointed ones contstruct and reveal the Truth. No matter how much of a preponderance of evidence there is to indicate that Bush is both a liar and a criminal, no Bush critic is annointed with the authority to construct that truth, so no Bush follower is obligated to ever concede that point. When they tell you that no one has proven Bush lied, they are just taunting you into a game you can't win, because by their rules there is only one man alive today with the authority to reveal such a truth: George Bush. So until such a day as George Bush, or whover takes up the mantle of Dear Leader, says Bush lied, Bush is not a liar.
Dread Scot | 09.18.06 - 4:34 pm | #

The comparison is preposterous. Clinton did not just lie about Monica during a press conference or public speech. He lied before a grand jury. That is a flat-out crime, namely perjury. The worst that Bush administration officials can be accused of is possible rhetorical hyperbole about some then ambiguous intelligence information. This has happened in every administration since George Washington.

"Possible rhetorical hyperbole?" They were either flat out lying, or they are so incapable of carefully appraising information available to them before deciding to act that it amounts to criminal negligence.

Given that Li'l Butch ordered Hans Blix and his UN Weapons inspectors OUT of Iraq before they were done--in order that he could launch his attack--then later said and has repeated numerous time words to the effect that "Saddam had been given the chance to avoid war by allowing the inspectors in, but when he refused, he left us no choice but to pursue military action," I'd say they fucking flat out lied.

Of course, Li'l Butch and Big DICK (and Rummy and Condi) have all uttered other lies, but this stands as the one to highlight, the other lies being ancillary to or in furtherance of this one.

Initiating wars of aggression are war crimes, buddy; as Iraq was no imminent peril to us, it had not attacked us and was not about to attack us, and in fact had no capacity to attack us, Li'l Butch's adventuring is nothing less than a groundless war of aggression.

Everyone in the administration party to our illegal invasion is a war criminal and should be tried and imprisoned for their crimes.

Read the Geneva Conventions..."quaint" as this administration terms them, they're trying like hell now to rewrite the law domestically so that they can evade punishment under its provisions.
Robert1014 | 09.18.06 - 5:19 pm | #

Broder is simply among the more obvious, consistent and heinous examples of the laziness, cowardice, stupidity and opportunism that pervades the MSM these days. He has many, many, many willing accomplices.

There was little to no price to be paid for condemning Clinton--and much to be gained by it in the political climate of that time. Whereas, there still is--or at least is still perceived to be in the self-selecting and ironically misnammed MSM--a high price to be paid for standing up to Bush, even when it is highly warranted--or at least no perceived benefits to be gotten.

That's what it comes down to, as I see it, in most of the MSM. I.e. how does reporting a story this way or that affect ME, MY career, and MY company, as opposed to what's the ACTUAL STORY here, in its full and gory details, wherever that takes me, my career, or company?

So long as MSM reporters are allowed to get away with this--and we ARE letting them get away with this by our relative silence and inaction--they will continue to spin stories in the direction that they see as most benefitting, and least harming, them, their careers, and their companies.

For this to change, we have to figure out a way to force them to change, either by continually exposing and condemning their dishonesty, laziness, cowardice and careerism, and holding them accountable for it professionally and their companies accountable financially (e.g. sponsor boycotts), or by pressuring them to change by putting up a viable alternative media. And, ideally, both.
Kovie | 09.18.06 - 5:28 pm | #

liquified visera:

I wish more people were aware of her because she does exert a tremendous amount of influence in the social world of D.C., she knows she does, and she uses it to enforce her likes and dislikes and I think a lot of the more insecure members of the Washington press corp pay way more attention to her than is healthly. There is no question that she hates the Clintons, does not believe they deserve what they have earned and she was probably as responsible as almost anyone outside of Richard Mellon Scaife and the man from Little Rock who despises Bill Clinton for the constant undertow of 'Bill Clinton is not a legitimate President' that pervaded Clinton's entire eight years in office.

And I don't even care much for the Clintons.

But Sally Quinn Bradlee has made me furious for years and I wish she could be publicly unmasked for the snobbish, phony fraud that she is.
tellybelly | 09.18.06 - 5:42 pm | #

tellybelly --

Isn't it a truism of human psychology that humans dislike and criticize in others most, the very thing which they dislike or are ashamed of regarding themselves?

How Sally the Whore so well fits that truism, eh?

I grew up in DC, I know all about the boolshyte "social circles" of selfimpression run by StW, BennyB and their gang. Yeah, Sally thought Clinton a trailer trash rube, but what the phoque is Sally the Whore anyway, but herself a bit of the PWT offspring?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:10 pm | #

"The wiretap example is exceellent. What are the other nine TOP 10 BUSH lies?" -- Duke S.

Duke, the wiretap example is one of the few times Bush is speaking the truth: anytime it is used, a wiretap DOES REQUIRE A COURT ORDER. What is striking here is that Bush was willfully breaking the law as he was speaking to that crowd in April 2004 in (I believe) Buffalo.

This whole situation puts conservatives in a predicament. On the one hand, if they claim that there are times when a wiretap does not require a court order, then they assert that Bush was lying (because Bush said "Any time..."). On the other hand, if they claim Bush was not lying, then they concede that Bush was breaking the law. And he was breaking the law.
Herman | 09.18.06 - 8:27 pm | #

liquified viscera:

[anonymous]: Just curious, with all the legal types here, (not you Bartlejuice), how many prosecutions for alleged perjury during interrogatories or depositions is common practice, do you suppose.

[LV]: Well under 1%. Well under.

Many civil cases involve disputes in which the central facts of the case are at issue, and in which the two sides testify under oath two different and irreconcilable versions of these facts. This is one of the reasons the cases go to a jury; if no facts are in dispute the case is settled early, and it's only when the parties want to take their chances on whose story is must believable to a jury that it goes to trial. In such an instance, someone probably (if not both parties) is committing perjury. The standard "remedy" for this is that the side the jury thinks is dishonest loses the case and has to pay.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:03 pm | #

Broder reminds me of the typical sitcom character who is so stupid that he inadvertantly and continuously makes jokes at his own expense. Much like John Yoo.

The problem is, both are published in major newspapers, and not in the comedy section.

I think we have to realize that both these people are paid by the right wing to lie through their teeth and create cover for Bush.

They have no honor. And they have no credibility.
TheGris | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:15 pm | #

Just for the record, this is a lie:

[HWSNBN]: I challenged anyone here to prove that Mr. Bush lied about the grounds for going to war some months ago and no one could.

Why, I've done so at least three times so far (and in fact, once above in this very thread). HWSNBN ignores it. That's a lie, folks. Outright, bald-faced lie.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 2:41 am | #

Arne - Again, I don't know how you think you debunked Bart on Clinton, but it is amusing to see you cling to the fiction that he did nothing wrong. Judge Wright held him in contempt of court for providing intentionally false testimony. Does that mean he lied or perjured himself. It sounds like it to me, but oviously not to you. He settled the trumped up case for $850,00 when it looked like the Appelate Judges were sympathetic to Paula. The case never went before a jury you twit. The following are some remarks from Robert Ray that are relevant.

ROBERT RAY, INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Fifteen months ago, I promised the American people that I would complete this investigation promptly and responsibly. Today, I fulfill that promise.

President Clinton has acknowledged responsibility for his actions. He has admitted that he knowingly gave evasive and misleading answers to questions in the Jones deposition and that his conduct was prejudicial to the administration of justice.

He has acknowledged that some of his answers were false. He has agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas bar license. And he has agreed not to seek attorney's fees in connection with this matter.

Arne, you didn't debunk anything, you're the one who is full of shit as usual.
daleyrocks | 09.19.06 - 4:58 am | #

You people are youngsters!! There was history before Clinton!! I haven't listened to David Broder since sometime in the 1980's when, in a WASHINGTON POST column, he wrung his hands at the prospect of an Iran-Contra investigation and wailed that the country couldn't survive another Watergate-like investigation.
Theo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 7:52 am | #

Great post Glenn. I have been confused for years why journalists like Cokie Roberts, Joe Klien, and Mr Broder continue to be regarded as "experts". Oh I know, their positions represent "serious" policy analysis, as opposed to the "shrill", "angry" rhetoric of the "left blogosphere". Whatever.

A great example of the sickness of our political dialogue was very well illustrated in a segment today on NPR examining the Republican strategy to highlight the "war on terror". NPR (and Fox News) analyst Maura Liasson played a disgusting attack ad by Republican Nancy Johnson against Democrat Fred Murphy. The segment can be heard here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/ sto...storyId=6102216

Of course the piece naturally included the obligatory "everything favors Republicans" commentary (Not by Ms Liasson but by a contributor to the segment).

But I wrote to NPR in response specifically to the Johnson ad:

Hello,

I was listening to your segment today on the 2006 elections where Maura Liasson was describing the Republicans 2006 strategy to focus on terror-related issues. Ms Liasson replayed an ad by Republican Nancy Johnson attacking Democrat Fred Murphy. The ad describes an "emerging terror plot" and whether we should "intercept the call immediately" or "get bogged down in paperwork". It goes on to explain that Johnson favors "acting immediately because lives are at stake" whereas "liberal" Murphy advocates "getting a court order while valuable time is lost".

It would have been nice if Ms Liasson would have pointed out the clear, blatant dishonesty of the ad given that the 1978 FISA law allows the government to retroactively get a warrant up to 72 hours after the communication has been intercepted. This and other important components of the FISA law continue to be ignored by the Main Stream Media, including NPR.

Regards,
Me
My town, my state

PS Question: Who said this in April 2004?

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

Keep up the good work, Glenn. Slowly but surely you and others are making a difference.
Indiana Bob | 09.19.06 - 10:59 am | #

"daleyrocks":

Arne - Again, I don't know how you think you debunked Bart on Clinton, but it is amusing to see you cling to the fiction that he did nothing wrong....

Here "daleyrocks" shows the typical RW approach: "Straw man" fallacy. Did I ever say Clinton "did nothing wrong"?

... Judge Wright held him in contempt of court for providing intentionally false testimony. Does that mean he lied or perjured himself. It sounds like it to me, but oviously not to you, but it is amusing to see you cling to the fiction that he did nothing wrong. Judge Wright held him in contempt of court for providing intentionally false testimony.

IIRC "false and misleading testimony". But, as I pointed out, that ain't perjury. Perjury? IOW, no. That's because "daleyrocks" is an ignerrent eedjit about the law.

He settled the trumped up case for $850,00 when it looked like the Appelate Judges were sympathetic to Paula. The case never went before a jury you twit....

He settled for various reasons, I'm sure, which are his and his alone. Amongst other things, he gave her the same offer he'd given before the Wright decision, and I'd note that Jones has been pretty silent about things ever since ... hmmmmm. But as is stands, the only decision on record is Wright's tossing it on SJ (which I had predicted, BTW, after reading the briefs for SJ). I think the twit here is the moron that thinks I said the case did go before a jury. Now that should be obvious to even the mildly sapient.

... The following are some remarks from Robert Ray that are relevant.

ROBERT RAY, INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Fifteen months ago, I promised the American people that I would complete this investigation promptly and responsibly. Today, I fulfill that promise. President Clinton has acknowledged responsibility for his actions. He has admitted that he knowingly gave evasive and misleading answers to questions in the Jones deposition and that his conduct was prejudicial to the administration of justice.

"Evasive and misleading answers" are not illegal. See, e.g., the Bronston case.

He has acknowledged that some of his answers were false. He has agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas bar license. And he has agreed not to seek attorney's fees in connection with this matter.

False answers are not perjury. In fact, strangely enough (taking the law literally), you can give an answer that is true, and be charged with perjury. There was even a case where such a conviction did hold (albeit the court finessed the seeming injustice of such a result by pretending he gave a false answer to a question he was never asked). And the sum total of convictions for this $60 million witch-hunt and panty-sniffing raid? Say, look, if telling lies is sufficient for a suspension of license (as per MRPC Rule 8.4(c), someone ought to contact the Colorado State Bar about out friend HWSNBN....

Arne, you didn't debunk anything, you're the one who is full of shit as usual.

Everything I've said above is true. It is "daleyrocks" that is confoosed about the law here.
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 2:54 pm | #

Just a quick question: Does any of this turn on the fact that despite Bush's lying, he's never been "caught" in a legal sense?

Clinton actually was guilty of a crime. And if we apply the terrorists / alleged terrorists distinction, don't we also have to point out that difference between lying / alleged lying?

So in a very narrow sense, it would seem most prudent to somehow get the president under oath so that we could then set up conditions that he will inevitably perjure himself. Right? Haven't we just been given a great gameplan for the elections this fall?

This should be motivating to Democrats, and I want to hear about it in the press. But I don't. They are all too afraid to make a move. Pretty soon, they won't have much to lose.
otob | 09.19.06 - 5:00 pm | #

Arne - How about it, do you think Clinton did anything wrong?

Will Democrats campaign under the banner of it's OK to lie under oath, it's not perjury, Arne says so? I'd like to be there to see them debate that tactic with Republicans.

Move along here, nothing to see, Arne defending Clinton's honor, Clinton was a saint, he didn't do anything wrong, it was an evil right wing conspiracy, it OK to lie under oath, I've got the precedents to prove it, it's even easier if you're president.

Wake up Arne!
daleyrocks | 09.19.06 - 5:15 pm | #

"daleyrocks" sez:

Will Democrats campaign under the banner of it's OK to lie under oath, it's not perjury, Arne says so?

"daleyrocks" is confoozed once again. I don't speak for the Democratic party nor do they speak for me. I come to my own conclusions, and expect others to adopt them only if they do so willingly after consideration and agreement. I have advocated -- going back at least 8 years -- that you ought to lie to grand juries every once in a while and tell them that the moon is made of bleu cheese just for kicks, and to "plead the Fifth" just for practise even when you don't have to, just to maintain the precedent. I'm even of the opinion that involuntary testimony of any kind should not be permitted; that such testimony is not likely to be reliable, and even more so, likely to be less than forthoming and complete.

If you don't use your rights, you lose them. But that's just me, I guess, being really "impractical". Fortunately, I have a right to be "impractical", "irascible" even at times, and "uncooperative" as the mood suits me. You want my assistance, you'd be best to ask nicely.

That said, I'd frame the 'talking point[s]' here differently (natch): "People are free to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm others". And "we ought to stick to the rule of law when using the power of the gummint." If that's what the laws says we must (or may) do, then, as far as I'm concerned, that is what the gummint can demand as far as what we must (or may) do. If "daleyrocks" disagrees with these sentiments, that's his prerogative, but I can't find his 'logic' in doing so in the least way compelling.

Clinton was a saint, ...

Never said that ... but, compared to the serial liar and all-round incompetent if not worse, Dubya, yes.

... he didn't do anything wrong, ...

Let me finish the sentence: "... legally."

... it was an evil right wing conspiracy, ...

That it was. Read Conason's and Lyon's book The Hunting of the President for the gory details.

I'd note that lying us into a war with 2600 U.S. soldiers killed, OTOH, doesn't even show as a blip on "daleyrocks"'s radar screen....

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.21.06 - 6:26 pm | #

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