Letters to the Editor
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Appropriate he should quote Talleyrand...
...who was a generally unprincipled opportunist. Oh, I mean "diplomat of great skill and resources."
The fact that he (may have) said a blunder is worse than a crime does not make it so. Logical fallacy - appeal to authority. Only the most unprincipled would consider a mistake worse than a crime.
Ledeen's only possible excuse for using this quote is to not admit to a crime while admitting he did exactly what Glenn says.
How "rude" of Glenn to attempt to make that plain.
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"It was worse than a crime..."
I know someone who is very principled. They committed a crime in a moment of extreme personal stress, when they were arguably not in their right mind (their request for mental health treatment was turned down by their provider just before the incident). Despite this, they accepted responsibility for their action, and turned themselves in to police. The county prosecutor, apparently not content with an admission of guilt, hounded that person and their family looking for further wrongdoing, which did not exist, and luckily was not found. Eventually, the convicition came through, based upon their confession, which has branded this person for life.
Because they had principles, they accepted responsibility for their actions, as well as the consequences.
Leeden, by his statement, acknowledges that he committed a crime; by definition (as Glenn stated), the crime is treason. I would like someone to advise on the statute of limitations for treason. If there is none (IIRC), then Leeden has the responsibility to turn himself in to a prosecutor and confess to his crime. He should accept the responsibility and consequences for his actions. Failure to do so shows that he does not have principles which accept the rule of law. Instead, Leeden's principles are based on the rule of success--all is forgiven if you win. Since his group's actions failed ("blunder"), he considers that to be the violation of his principles, and apparently feels that the legal consequences are not necessary (or obligatory).
It seems this moral and ethical outlook has been, and is very common among a certain administration and its supporters.
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What Dem congressional staffers should be doing right now
This condemn MoveOn sense of the senate amendment opens the door for Dem sponsored amendments on all past Repug Thugs reprehensible distortions starting with the Swift Boaters. The Dems should offer one amendment after another making clear how hypocrisy and changing stances to fit your ends does not serve the nation or the troops. They can use GG’s past filings as a research tool.
Get busy staffers! Get some guts Dem senators. Show some sense in the Senate.
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Both funny & sad, like a clown holding a dead puppy
So Ledeen thinks that asking permission from another country to honor their dead is an egregious act of war, perhaps even a violation of some Convention or other.
Now it all makes sense. In such a hyper-hyped world, it is indeed an act of martial bravery to put hands to keyboard and bang out a round of bloggery into the enemy. It is perfectly honorable to hide behind your chair when the enemy lobs questions back at you. Those things can mess you up real good.
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Ledeen got it wrong
When Ledeen cited Talleyrand, he got the wrong guy. It was Fouche, Napoleon's secret police chief, who described the execution of the Duc d'Enghien as "worse than a crime, it was a blunder." Talleyrand, when he saw an associate's horrified response to the news of the execution, simply said, "Come on, that's business!"
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Who asked Bush the question about MoveOn at the news conference today?
The transcript says he addressed "Big Stretch." When I heard the MoveOn question, it seemed like a set-up softball to me. After reading Glenn's link (via Andrew Sullivan via The Corner) about Bush's meeting with conservative "journalists" yesterday, I'm wondering if the person who asked that question today was also at Bush's sycophant summit yesterday, and set up the question as a favor to the President?
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MoveOn ad
Why would these Democrats vote for this? I don't get it. I am starting to think that the Republicans have something on most of these people. Perhaps the wiretapping has been aimed at Senate Democrats. What else explains their complete lack of balls? I am no Rhodes scholar or Ivy Leagus graduate (like most of these Senators) but I am smart enough to know that Petraeus' report was bogus and political. What MoveOn did was nothing compared to the Swift Boaters who completely made shit up against Kerry. This measure should go after them too.
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What the faux "Tough Talk" leads to
While the crowd that took us into Iraq, and is already counting the money to be made off military contracts and mercenary assignments in Iran, use the coward’s language of "it’s time to take the gloves off" and "it's time that there be real consequences for those who undermine America in a time of war", are too spineless and chickenhearted to do anything physical themselves, what these 'Duechbags of Democracy' (from Bill Kristol to Michael Ledeen to Jonah Goldberg to the ultimate cowards: George W Bush and Dick Cheney) do is set the tone where what happened at the University of Florida this week is seen as "taking the gloves off" and becomes acceptable. I can’t imagine what the couch-potato warriors are saying this week about tasering a college student for asking inconvenient questions, but once they cross this hurdle (equating asking questions with criminal behaviour), how much longer before Blackwater terrorists are used to silence dissent at GOP conventions, or DNC conventions, considering how chickenshit John Kerry was to allow the police to act without condemnation?
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CincyGirl
Who asked Bush the question about MoveOn at the news conference today?
Good question. I wondered the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, it was the last question he took, and it was asked in the most ridiculously open-ended and un-probing way possible - "what did you think of the MoveOn ad?" -- the only possible purpose of which was to allow him to read pre-prepared remarks on that matter, which he proceeded eagerly to do.
What a great press we have.
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Unconvincing
I'll admit to having a fairly low estimation of Greenwald's powers of analysis, but how much more obvious could it be that (A) an active general commanding troops in military operations is a very different thing from (B) a retired general engaged in political commentary, and that the respective standards for dealing with each are bound to vary? The objection to Congress's treatment of Gen. Petraeus was that they were treating him like a political operative rather than as a military officer. Gen. Abizaid is not commanding troops in combat; he is a retired officer inserting himself into political discourse.
It's not a subtle distinction.