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• Sunday, March 2, 2008 09:17 AM

  lil baltimore and double standards

  While you usually write as a cogent and thoughtful advocate for your guy, this latest letter carries quite a lot of unintended ironies, seems to me. You accuse an opponent of using "...a classic Rovian tactic; keep repeating the falsehood until it [sic] enough people have heard it that it becomes truth."

  But you proceed to do precisely that, in your list of alleged sins committed by "the Clintons." There's the Kazakhstan story, the taxes release story, the release of "papers from the library" story, and Lord help us, even the "conviction of perjury" story. And you lecture folks on "Rovian tactics!"

  Re the Kazakhstan stuff; the original NYT article has been roundly criticized for its many inaccuracies, and the real story--sans its Rovian spins by you and others--is not much of a story at all. You're bright, and can be fair, so check it out. MMFA alone has pointed out all these errors.

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200801310011?f=s_search

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200801310014?f=s_search

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200802010002?f=s_search

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200802010013?f=s_search

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200802040005?f=s_search

  As to the tax forms release story that keeps being told until it's believed...the rule is simple and clear, though none of you choose to mention it. The CANDIDATE NOMINATED by each party is to release his/her tax information. I guess it's nice that Obama chose to do it even though he's certainly not yet our candidate--and may never be--but to accuse Hillary Clinton of some kind of terrible corruption because she is playing by the rules is, well, Rovian. And use some of that logic you show often--A-she has believed all along that she will be the candidate. B--she knows that if she is, she will need to publish her tax information. C--there can be nothing serious to "hide" or she wouldn't be running at all, given A and B. Right?

  Then there's the papers-from-the-libary meme. Again, the facts are so blurred by Rovian spins that it's difficult to disengage from the received wisdeom. But the truth is, the law is complex and difficult. Millons of pieces of paper are involved; researchers representing the government, not the Clintons have to peruse every one of them; Bush has made the task worse because after Clinton's researchers and the government researchers are finished, HIS ADMINISTRATION has the right (thanks to him) to keep anything private of OTHER PRESIDENTS that he wishes. All of this, and more details even nuttier, are hard to explain in a lengthy article, never mind when Russert shouts at you across a table for a yes or no answer.

  And finally, I just can't believe you actually add "conviction of perjury." First, unless you're a total republican troll, you must be well aware of the entire Starr investigation and the lies and partisan probing of eight years duration that found nothing. Secondly, the very charge is a lie. Bill Clinton was never convicted of perjury, and certainly Hillary Clinton wasn't either. That is simply a ROVIAN lie, repeated so often that it becomes truth, in your words.

  There are lots of reasons you prefer Obama to Clinton, and you make a lot of solid arguments elesewhere. But to accuse KateTEx or whoever it was of "Rovian tactics" while using them yourself in the very next paragraph is just not up to your own standards.

  In fact, using your own term in your post, it's using "double standards."

  —doc5467 Read doc5467's other letters
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