Silly me, I thought that repeatedly calling someone a criminal required a trial.

A criminal is someone who has committed a crime, like say, illegally wiretapping the phones of Americans in violation of FISA. under the law, a trial is required to convict and punish a criminal.

Under free speech, I presume Glenn has the right to label people and actions, criminals and crimes, without having to prove anything. But honesty would dictate that he make it clear he's not saying something factual. Surely you can't argue with that?

Glenn and many others have provided much evidence that telecoms and Bush have committed criminal acts; it is entirely right an proper to use the label "criminal" when refering to either.

As for facts, Glenn has stated multiple times that he doesn't even know what was done re: warrantless wiretapping...

What's been admitted is that the extent of their criminal activity remains unknown; that they are criminals is apparent.

Meanwhile, the only thing that is factual and undisputed, is that all such labeling of Bush and Co. is opinion, and should be represented as such. At least that's what serious people would do.

"Serious" people don't substitute symantics for substance.

"I really appreciate that Glenn continually states that he tries hard to avoid using terms like "liar" when it isn't founded."

Carol, I do agree to an extent. The term "liar" is explosive, and of course, most people who are telling untruth do not see themselves as lying. What is a lie? Is it an untruth, and a liar someone who tells an untruth? Or is a liar only someone who tells an untruth knowing it's untrue?

The problem is that many in the media are keeping themselves deliberately ignorant of the facts. They have more access to the truth than we do; even the ones who somehow haven't figured out how to use Google can usually call a young researcher to dig for them. If they do not know, for example, that the majority of Americans for many, many months have shown in polls they want the troops home soon, want out of this war soon, then those media sorts have to be making some choice NOT to know. You and I know. Anyone who reads knows-- or can know. If a reporter-- part of whose job is to report the facts-- reports not the easily accessible facts but something untrue, what do you call it?

I call it a lie. It's not a Karl Rove type lie (that is, one done in full consciousness and choice and with a willingness to admit it later, as Rove so often does-- "Oh, just wanted to see if you'd bite!"), but the deliberate ignorance becomes a lie when it continues.

And in a way, the focus on "is this a lie if the speaker chooses to believe it's not a lie, or can a speaker tell a lie and not be a liar" takes the focus of what ought to be important- what is the truth-- and puts it on the personal. Mara Liasson's motivations here, her personal self-understanding of what she's doing, might be of interest to her, but they are really irrelevant to us. Maybe George Bush reminds her of her beloved daddy. What do I care? I expect reporters to get beyond their own personalities, their own needs, their own biases and find the truth out. If they choose not to do that-- and it is a choice-- they are at best unworthy of their jobs and the public trust and that special exemption in the Constitution.

So is she a liar? Yeah, I think so, but so what? She's telling a lie. (An untruth, if that feels better.) That is exactly the opposite of her job. She should be ashamed and now make an effort to dedicate herself to the facts alone for awhile, even if it means she doesn't get called back to Fox News, the great Corrupter. :)

So if I understand your response correctly, Glenn, you believe political power in our country is electoral, and that hundreds of competing interests can affect voters and determine who gains and remains in power. Those in power, though, form a kind of insider's club you call the Beltway, and that this club takes on its own cohesiveness that is a frequent target of your criticism. Much of your work in this blog is meant to expose and question this insider's collusion and threaten elected officials with the possibility that positions that seem safe, insofar as they are ratified by their fellow insiders, are in fact dangerous because the voters may turn against them.

Yet you are not reaching voters in any serious numbers here, or even in your ad in the Washington Post. If anything, it seems you are straining to reach elite opinion makers, and your biggest successes come when you are able to do so. So I guess I'd like to hear a bit more detail about who you really see yourself as ideally talking to here and exactly how this audience might pressure elected officials.

the consensus was the Barack Obama needs to move towards McCain on the topic of the war ("as Joe Lieberman just said on this program" added Stephanopolus, to give it the added authority) because McCain is "stronger on the war in Iraq" than Obama.

They all said it. And agreed with each other about it.

McCain, whose "100 years of war in Iraq" comment is sinking him faster than any other single thing in this campaign. Is "stronger on Iraq."

My jaw dropped. I just wonder where they get their information. Then I realized: They get it from each other. They sit there week after week and echo each other and the David Broders and Joe Liebermans, saying "this is what the American people want" and getting it dead wrong every time.

here you are defending someone that feels free to declare people criminals just because he feels like it

People offer their personal opinions on such matters all the time. It only comes into play when the person in question holds a position of public trust- and even back when President Nixon stated his opinion that Charles Manson was "guilty as hell", no mistrial was declared.

By contrast, I know of a case where someone holding a position of public trust has not only been seeking public approval for an ongoing policy to "declare people criminals just because he feels like it"- he has continually demanded the power to disappear them and imprison them, on nothing more than his personal signature or that of his "deputized agents."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0331,hentoff,45847,6.html

[click my highlighted screen name for link]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0236,hentoff,38006,6.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_16_21/ai_n25113616

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0110-33.htm

Go on, shooter, tell me how much you deplore that. Leaving aside of the fact that any President claiming such un-Constitutional powers by fiat is arguably guilty of treason.