This widely-derided and impolitic remark by President Clinton was in response to a question as to whether he was involved with Monica Lewinsky at a certain time. It may be the case that the question of whether a relationship is or is not happening at any moment in time is straightforward to some, but if you are in a secret, intermittent relationship it seems entirely reasonable to ask whether, if you see a person in January and then not again until April, when asked if you were in a relationship in March, whether the proper answer should be yes or no. (I don't remember if this was the exact situation, but it was something similar.)

The real question is not what does 'is' mean, but when a person can say a relationship 'is' happening. I suspect most people understand this is not always a straightforward question.

Thank you, bold anonymous commenter!

In small words, for the small minds:

The fact that AG Gonzales truthfull said his name does not mean he did not perjure himself.

We have been over this a thousand times by now. Gonzales lied to Congress when he said that there were no objections raised about the NSA wiretap program. The latest footwork about data mining (which, BTW, itself represents an illegal program)is not in any way related to what Gonzales said, because the objections raised by Comey and others were not about the data mining program.

Gonzales and the Bush administration have concocted a ex post facto explanation insinuating that there were different NSA programs, and the fact that there were objections to some programs does not relate to what Gonzales was talking about. Gonzales was talking about a program that nobody had objected to.

This is a lie. There was only one program.

Conveniently for the Bush administration, the details of the program are classified. That, however, does not mean that Gonzales has not perjured himself. We know enough to know that Gonzales directly misled Congress about the nature of the meeting.

Furthermore, none of this discussion begins to address Gonzales simply refusing to answer a question posed to him by Senator Schumer. In a judicial proceeding, a witness who simply refuses to answer a question lawfully made of him is cited for contempt of court. If a witness does this before Congress, the witness is cited for contempt of Congress. Bizarrely, the person who would be in charge of prosecuting this contempt of Congress is the Attorney General himself, the person holding Congress in contempt.

These facts are why the President's approval rating is languishing in the 20s. The baffling bit is that the NY Times thinks that, if someone from the Bush administration calls them "off the record" and simply pumps up their own case, that anonymous "source" is somehow newsworthy.

All of the faux outrage is tiresome.

Let's get some things straight

1) stealing signals is not against the rules. The quote by Mike Shanahan illustrates that point. Also along those lines, consider how the Jets had former Patriots Reche Caldwell and Artrell Hawkins visit their camp a few days before their game with the Patriots. I do not recall any outrage about that.

2) using video to gain a competitive advantage is not against the rules. Indeed, it is a key aspect of any team's preparation during the week.

So what, exactly, is against the rules? Making your own video during the game, regardless of what the purpose is. The intent of this rule is to make signal stealing harder, but whether that was the purpose of the Patriots remains undetermined.

Personally, I think not only that it is clear that stealing signals is not illegal, but I do not see what the big kerfuffle is all about. If a team wants to communicate secretly with the players on the field, that is their prerogative, but they only have themselves to blame if their communication system is decoded by somebody else.

Breaking rules is another question. Anybody found to break the rules should be punished, but we should recognize when a rule is silly, like the "do not take off your helmet on the field" rule.

Here's an idea: maybe OJ's wacky behavior was caused by the fact that he actually was the murderer, like most white people think, and the fact that he was acquitted is because the LAPD manufactured evidence, lied under oath, and generally screwed with the evidence to such an obvious extent that reasonable doubt was created in the mind of the jury.

Or, to put it another way, even if I think "not guilty" was a reasonable verdict, given the evidence involved, I still think Bob in Pacifica has got a long way to go before he can proclaim that OJ was actually innocent.

Why are there knife wounds into a corpse that has already been dead? Seems like the LAPD would be the best people to put that question to. Even if one were to suppose that the LAPD tried to frame OJ, that doesn't make OJ an innocent man.

What a mess!