...if it weren't for those meddlin' CIA kids.

(Spoken by an old guy in what's left of a minotaur costume).

There are so many more important things to discuss, like Al Gore's electric bill.

We in the progressisphere need to be reminded not to be overly shocked about the lying and the believing of lies by this band of merry robbers. They have aggressively set up for themselves, and have become quite adept at selling, certainly better than the Democrats, and instilling into the DNA of their followers, a frame of reality that'd be like Dracula peering into the sunlight if the truth is ever allowed in.

Glenn's point that we'll likely never hear any retractions or ammendments is spot-on. My question is, how can we become more adept at communicating a better and closer-to version of reality than the schmucks in power?

Anybody? Buehler?

GG:

Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secretary to tell outright lies like that?

You'd think! Maybe, someday, he'll be, like, in front of a bunch of reporters and stuff, and they'll be asking him questions about things-- I don't know, it might be on the T.V. or something-- and perhaps one of them could ask him a question about this claim of his. I know, I know... it's a highly unlikely scenario.

Thanks for your comment. I hear you on the noise machine situation. I know similar people, some of whom are family (family gatherings can get tense, and we end up walking on eggshells sometimes around these issues, and overall it's terribly sad that to gather as a family means a subterranean sense of discontent. Thanks, George! He's a Uniterator, not a Dividerator, I guess).

The quote by the young man in your discussion is chilling. Fear has got to be at the heart of so much of this. I can't imagine that in some part of their being, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, those present didn't feel some fear. After all, what they had just done, in the context of the time, was sign their own execution orders.

What's awesome (in the old sense of that word) for me about that is that they went ahead anyway (I was always taught that's what courage was, being scared and going ahead anyway). They believed that the attainment of freedom meant risk to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the very things they held so dear, and that as part of freedom, there is also the freedom to live without fear (but not risk, that's just life). They may have felt fear, but I can only guess they also felt right in their decision (and there were lots of complicating factors, as ever, of course, as some of them were slaveholders, and what was being done to the native residents, and so on).

We need to find a way to dispel the fear, or at least convince people that courage is going ahead anyway, scared as hell, but moving forward. The proposed "security" of the authoritarian state doesn't dispel fear, it just feeds it, and in fact, requires fear.

No kings,

Robert

Not about Plame, and not about an MSM outlet making an honest correction... but it is about a (business?) reporter at the NYTimes holding Lou Dobbs's feet to the fire re: his story about leprosy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30leonhardt.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Reporter David Leonhardt actually picked up the phone and called people to check on facts.

The money quote, as it pertains to this discussion:

The most common complaint about him [Dobbs], at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths.

via Salon's Blog Report

IOKIYAR.

Glenn, yes, they were wrong (and I said so at the time: we never knew whether she was covert, and their claims were wrong). But on the other hand, so were the claims that she WAS covert: a claim is not justified just because you turn out to be right in the end. People on the left were claiming she was covert without actually knowing it.

And don't even get me started on the still-repeated lie that Bush's "16 words" were in any way based on the forged documents, or affected by Joe Wilson's trip. There's no evidence of this whatsoever, and while you might think the Brits are lying, they still stand by this separate intel. Yet the left still habitually repeats the false claim that the 16 words were connected to the forged documents, just as the right was claiming Plame was not covert.

Both the leftwing AND the rightwing noise machines are full of crap, which is why I watch PBS NewsHour.

Ames!!:

You can extend this to why would anyone want to work in government at all?

Apparently, John McCain thinks our captains of cutting edge industry would:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/05/30/mccain/index.html

That's cultural narrative enough for them, and sadly their own personal narratives -- who they think they are, and how they came to be who they are -- are just as truncated, and just as inflexible. For them, not only is the unexamined life worth living, it's the only life -- short of a conversion experience -- which they can live.

I was criticized yesterday for saying that I would not have such people working for me, because I found it counterproductive to research. I was told that a better approach would be to first nurture curiosity and encourage breaking bonds, in order to push them to become more.

I do believe that the criticism was correct and I was wrong.

(I actually am talking about the topic. The reason the right-wing thinks Valerie Plame wasn't covert is because it was a secret).

Look, I'm as happy as the next guy that Libby got caught in the cover-up, and only wish more important targets had been hit, but I do think it's a bit telling that you yourself use quotes when calling Plame "covert"; the fact of the matter is that Plame did drive to work in Langley every day at the time and for years previous to her exposure. She had this to say on the subject at the hearing:

your employment status was classified and that your affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. The CIA has confirmed to this committee that at the time of Mr. Novak's article, your employment status was covert and that information was classified. But some people are still trying to minimize your service by suggesting you really weren't at risk and that your position was not classified because you worked at a desk job at the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.

Let me give you an actual example: Representative Roy Blunt said on the television program "Face the Nation," "You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA and she went to that office every day."

Mrs. Wilson, is it fair to say that, based on your service for our government, you are well versed in the rules governing the handling of classified information?

MS. PLAME WILSON: Absolutely, Congresswoman. And I'd just like to add that when an operations officer -- whether they are posted in the field or back at headquarters -- we are given training to understand surveillance detection training so that we understand very carefully that we are not being followed and that we feel very comfortable that our status can be protected.

I, frankly, find that less than convincing. No-one has to follow you to work at Langley; it's much more productive to just stake out the entrances, or areas somewhat close to entrances. Given that there's a ton of people interested in that information (every intelligence operation except the CIA, for instance), and that the market is easy to hook up with (all you have to do, after all, is call the listed number of any of those agencies, provided your bona fides are in order), I just find it really hard to believe that there aren't people constantly engaged in the acquisition and sale of this information it's just too lucrative.

And, so, no, spy training about people following you or not, I just don't think that Plame was a covert officer at that time. The revelation that she worked in WMD, which narrows the scope of her possible contacts in any given country with regard to the work she was doing previously, that's a easier to argue harm from.

I like you, Glen, but I'm not sure you're being any less disingenuous here than the slimy shits you're covering.