Letters to the Editor
GlennGreenwald
Published Letters: 2095 Editor's Choice: 18
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Jim von der Heydt:
[Read the article: What Fred Thompson means by the "rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, it's too bad for anyone, Glenn included, to seem to defend President Clinton's personal conduct as a way of accusing a Republican of being worse.
I didn't defend Bill Clinton in any way. I did point out the fact that the allegation that he engaged in obstruction of justice was unproven, as contrasted with Lewis Libby's conviction, but I raised that fact not to defend Clinton, but only (as you alluded to below) to highlight Fred Thompson's highly inconsistent and dishonest belief in the "rule of law."
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Che
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I couldn't agree with you more, though the one they really hung out to dry was Jebediah Reed, not me. I was ancially to the whole thing, if anything just used as a weapon to punish Jebediah for his audacity in reporting their Inner Sanctum conversations.
That's why I say that although I am mostly (though not completely) convinced that Edsall was joking here, my sympathies lie entirely with Reed and not with Edsall. Edsall and friends were completely coy about this for days. The minute he emailed me (and I may just print the whole exchange), I immediately said: "if you were joking, why not just come out and say so and make that clear?"
When people emailed me to suggest that Edsall was joking, including several people who said they knew him personally, that was the point I made -- if that were the case, one would expect him to say that. It happens to a lot of people who use sarcasm -- including me -- that sometimes readers and others mistake it for literal or serious claims, and when I see that, I make clear immediately that it wasn't intended literally.
This was a clear closing of the ranks against someone who they deem an outsider (Reed/Radar) who should have been grateful just to be in their company, and instead, he went and acted like a real reporter, rather than a grateful sycophant/hanger-on, by actually reporting what he heard, rather than keeping the chatter confidential. For that, he needed to be punished, and so rather than being straightfowrad about a correction, they let it hang for days, opting for coyness instead.
The whole event still ended up being extremely illustrative, just illustrating different things than the exchange originally suggested.
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ancially = ancillary
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]d
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Anonymous letter above is mine - GG
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon letters is bizarre today.
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Stars
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No Stars
Add me to the impromptu petition for a starless commenting section.
I'm hoping that whoever it is who had this little burst of enterprise and excess time over the past few days to assign stars here is going to have their enthusiasm peter out or get busy again or something. Let's hope it fades away on its own over the next couple of days, and if it doesn't, I'll make an affirmative cease and desist request.
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Wendell:
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think, in evaluating the program, you may be being a little too lawlerly here. Refashioning of the "President's Program" wouldn't have to be, wouldn't even necessarily be about whipping up a new (AUMF) justification. After all, that takes no more time (or effort) than writing a legal brief.
The only problem with your comment is that you think I made the opposite point of the one I actually made. The whole point of the post is that the 2004 "refashioning" was NOT confined merely to creating a new legal theory, but instead to changing the scope of the program itself.
It's true that people can be "too lawyerly" in how they approach an issue. But there are some good attributes to being "lawyerly." Reading what one writes carefully before responding is one of those attributes.