Just like the Berlin Wall. Hammer, hammer, hammer, chip chip chip... Bang head on keyboard.

Time's efforts to correct their error, while simultaneously trying to hide their error, does lead then into some unintelligible territory. Your territory, Glenn, maybe unclaimed. Time's, on the other hand, is becoming simply unintelligible.

The misstatement about the oath of office -- fantastic find!

What an elementary error -- one that could be corrected in a few moments' research.

The really sad thing about this is that I saw piles of this magazine with Klein's article in it at the airport earlier today. It's out there. Time is sad to say the least. I hope their subscribers leave and that this eventually gets attention in more publications. Nice work Glenn and one of your best strings of posts I have read since reading this regularly now for a year or so...

They actually, if obliquely, referenced what the bill actually says. I imagine they are hoping that their slight reference to an actual fact will calm everyone down and allow them to get back to the important business of talking about what important people are saying.

Glenn,

In case you haven't yet seen this, "Top Spy Must Release Telecom Immunity Meeting Docs ASAP" can be read at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/top-spy-must-re.html

The Director of National Intelligence must quickly release documents relating to 2007 meetings with telecoms concerning proposed amnesty bills for companies that helped government's secret domestic spying program, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The Northern California District Court judge ruled that the government must produce the documents by December 10 so that the public can be informed about the extent of telecom lobbying before Congress votes on immunity.

The actual ruling is at http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/foia_C0705278/eff_v_odni_order.pdf

Emptywheel has a post up now at TNH (http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/11/who-has-been-lo.html?cid=91497680#comment-91497680) for a wee bit of discussion.

Note that even though Wired says the DNI must report by December 10, the actual order from the Judge says "the DNI must "provide an initial release no later than November 30, 2007..." which is this Friday, and before the FISA Update Senate speechifying and voting would have taken place next Tuesday. We might get some goodies before the actual voting after all. Stuff like:

A. Which Telcos did the lobbying. Why is that important? 'Cause we don't know just who all is on the hook for criminal violations of FISA and are trying to get off that feckin' hook.

B. Which Lobbyists are involved. Why is that important? 'Cause it may show if and just how deeply in the pockets of both parties, the Teloc criminals are trying to hide.

Some additional thoughts:

The EFF FOIA request is only for those DNI/ODNI "records from April 2007 to August 31, 2007 concerning briefings, discussions, or other exchanges..." All the Telco lobbying after August 31 is gonna be missing.

The FISC rulings as we've commented on earlier, may have been the impetus for John-boy Ashcroft's and the DOJ/FBI's leadership threatened resignations.

And in addition, the FISC rulings may have also been the impetus for the Telco's crying to both the DNI and Congress to be let off the criminal violations of FISA hook.

Glenn, I'll bet they're dying ask you to just write the goddamn correction for them.

Come to think of it, would you be willing to write it in a way that would be satisfactory, and to name any other terms (bye, Joe)? Whenever I have to complain to some faceless entity (Verizon, God, UPS) I try to give the recipient exactly what would satisfy me. Like Time, most people aren't willing to do the soul searching that would be necessary to realize their error and resolve to correct its fundamental cause. But they are willing to do whatever it takes to get me to just go away. I think that's about all we can expect in this case.

Interesting: in a sidebar called "Related Articles," Time links to the relevant quote from the bill:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1688754,00.html

but I have neither the time nor the legal expertise to see whether they got it right.

I'm reminded of the visibility of "rights crowd" gadflies within the Nixon administration, apparent only after the release of internal documents this decade. That and dubya's, "we hear the criticism", assurance, (which may have to serve if current executive order/abomination holds, i.e. Cheney gets to parade around a big bonfire of the White House records come January 09, presumably drinking crude oil out of Keith Olberman's skull).

They hear you Glenn- keep up the good work.

My recollection is that the "enemies, foreign and domestic" language comes from the oath that US military personnel take, or at least the one I took when I became a US Army officer over 30 years ago. And even in that case, the oath is to protect the CONSTITUTION -- not merely the borders -- from "enemies, foreign and domestic."

I could be wrong, an awareness of which makes me want to go back and check -- an urge that seems not to have struck Mr. Klein or the editors at Time, at least in this instance.

The feel I get from all of these "apologies" is that Klein and his editors are trying to walk the thin line between extricating themselves from this mess and saying something that will get their asses canned by their corporate managers.

Whenever we talk about neoconservatives and Bush policy makers, we always mention politicians and political theorists. We never seem to focus on the corporations that have benefitted so much from neoconservative policies, who send out the lobbyists, who definitely have a stake in the policies of the next government. Maybe we should.

I haven't ever subscribed to TIME, but I've had those freebie subscriptions you can get once in awhile. I never cared much for the magazine, but I've always been struck by the tone. I've always thought TIME sounds like they're letting YOU, gentle reader, in on some big kind of secret or insight into the events or the minds of the people they cover (so poorly).

That bit about the conflation of the office of the Presidency and the military oath is really egregious. Naturally, it would be another chickenhawk not to know the difference.

I suspect that TIME and/or JoeK (never noticed that spells JOKE before, heh) will weasel on the oath of office slip, saying something like, "Well, but Dubya DID take the military oath when he joined the National Guard to stay out of 'Nam, so that's why...bs bs bs" Or ever better, "Because the President is commander-in-chief of the military, OF COURSE he must abide by the military oath." Obviously, they'll assume no one will dare or bother to point out that that's false, too.

SO why are they holding out? What are they trying to accomplish by refusing to demonstrate any integrity at all?

I assume it must be pandering to advertisers (because they're a magazines customers), but I'm damned if I can figure out how/why (TIME thinks) advertisers would want to see such behavior.