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The FISA court was created because these powers were being misused. And Nixon was positively squeamish about using presidential power, compared to Bush.
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Yeah, but Libby's charge is like Clinton's: perjury in a trial with a not-guilty verdict. Of course, in Clinton's case, it was more like let's ask him questions until we find something he lies about and then charge him w/ perjury. But anyway, it's a smaller deal than the original charge.
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Creative editing, there.
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The fact is that three decades later, Bush is operating in a completely different environment: everything he does is under an intense level of hostile scrutiny, and it stands up extremely well compared to what Tricky Dick got away with without even thinking about it much (up to the point he was impeached, anyway) mostly because nobody was looking, or knew how to. Today every journo student learns about Woodstein at his prof's knee, and throughoiut his career longs to earn his Pulitzer breaking the Big Story that topples the Evil and Mighty. I remeber the Nixon administration quite well, and nobody cheered louder than I did when he went down. But your comparison is either hysterical or woefully uninformed. |
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You can play crappy music though a huge amplifier (The Internet, anyone?) but it's still crappy music. It's just louder. |
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And frankly, you're criticism of his being under the microscope doesn't hold up for most of his tenure as president. How else was he able to get us into Iraq on extraordinarily feeble evidence? Or, for a more recent example, find a comparison on major news outlets on the time spent on JonBenet last week vs. Diggs-Taylor's ruling. I already have one, but you will probably dismiss it as biased, since TP is a lefty site. |
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I'm not *criticising* his being scruitnized; it's both necessary and an inevitable consequence of technological change. The same was true of Bill Clinton, to a somewhat lesser extent, and if his wife is elected in '08, it will be even more true for her. Or anybody else who might be elected then. Do you *remeber* 1974? I sure do. Your profile says you weren't even born yet. |
I read implied criticism into your statement by your use of the word 'hostile.' Was I wrong?
Hooray for being born before me. My response to you, paraphrased, is: -1)Hostlie scrutiny of GWB is justified. -2)The scrutiny isn't all that intense in the mainstream. How does my age enter into the equation here? I'm pretty sure that you're implying a comparison to Nixon into my statement, but it isn't there. |
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I think there's more hostile scrutiny for two reasons: 1) there's more scrutiny, period, and 2) the "mainstream" media has moved considerably to the left since 1974, due not in small part to the events of 1974. That said, I'd guess that reason 1 is a vastly bigger impact than reason 2. Your age is relevant because it's much more difficult to appreciate the profound differences in culture and mediaspace between 1974 and 2006 if you weren't around then. Only four TV networks, with a daily news cycle rather than an hourly one. PBS/CBS/ABC/NBC news for an hour (or two, if you stayed up late) per night, but no CNN, no CNBC, no FoxNews, no CSPAN. Access to being published only if the editor or publisher of a dead-tree newspaper/magazine deems you worthy, and even your audience is no bigger than the readership of the rag in question. Today's media environments create huge information spaces at the drop of a hat; the memetic equivalant of a flashmob. They're just not comparable playing fields. |
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However, I'm going to call shenanigans on saying the media has moved to the left since '74. There's always been folks willing to call the government on it's BS (Edward Murrow comes to my mind). What changed was the press's willingness to dig into what those in power were actually doing and exposing it. I'll also argue that the sunlight effect is fading with consolidation of major media (though that's another thread). Do you have some general trends (specific examples are not conclusive data) that you could point out that say the media is drifting left? I have some that say the mainstream press is moving rightish (though not through changes in demographics of reporting editorial or reporting staff), but I'd like to hear your theory. |
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My subjective impression over that period is that the mainstream media have moved left over that time, but then I've moved away from the left over that time, so that's a moving frame of reference. |
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What makes us tired is that somehow all the findings of people like these are clearly aimed not at increasing, but reducing US effectiveness in prosecuting the GWOT. This "we must lose because we're, uh, America" attitude is nonsense, and must go if we really want a good world.
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So, my general theory is that in the past few years (say, from the mid-90's, when media de-regulation really kicked into overdrive), fewer and fewer companies have controlled larger and larger percentages of the top-down, traditional media. And, though I may disagree with alot of the right's politics, they're generally better business people than the left. Therefore, the people that own top-down media have decreased in number, while simultaneously moving to the right politically, which has influenced the overall tone of media outlets. So I wasn't trying to remove the demographic shift of the newsroom staff, I just didn't think it was relevant. RE: Diggs-Taylor's potential links to the ACLU: Probably not a big deal. After, Scalia didn't recuse himself from the SCOTUS case involving the VP, and they're friends. ;) Quote:
And BTW, how exactly do you win a war on terror? Simple answer: not by blowing shit up or undermining civil liberties (those pesky little things that make us BETTER than the rest of the world), but by NOT BEING TERRORIZED. |
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Actually, I don't think there is much of a difference, legally speaking. The judge in question is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not there's a conflict of interest (which I think is a bunch of horsecrap, but that's another thread). I'm pretty sure there's no legal requirement for a judge to even disclose if there's even of potential COI. The flip side of that is there's more than likely an ethical necessity, but since when do ethics and law coincide?
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Oh boy, I'm glad that whole thing is finally over! I bet all you Bush-Haters feel pretty silly now. See, things worked out just fine, as usual (oh ye of little faith). Nothing more to see here, move along now. Hey! Move it along, we said. Now!
Central Control, we got us a Freedom-Hater in sector 7G.. Release the hounds! |
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Seems this hasn't quite happened. We've a problem: fanatical bigots attack us. Convert these to good bigots by killing them in ways that make other bigots know it's extremely unsafe, and makes for not only a solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish life to attack us, but a short one as well. Deprive the fanatical anti-Americans any advantage, of any sort. Do these antis wish to scream at us about Israel? Advise them they are being immoral, and back it up by vaporizing the anti-Israelites. They really should have learned their lesson from 1948 and 1956, when Israel showed the whole planet God wanted Israel to be, twice over. All we're doing is helping God's manifest plan. The eastern Mediterranean could be enriching itself in trade with a highly successful country, but it foolishly refuses to do this -- how moronic can you get? Nobody paid much attention to that stretch of the Mediterranean littoral until a bunch of Jews moved in and made a success of the place. If the Arabs would do as the Israelis do... "There'd be a lot less people to worry about, and a lot more people who care." |
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