[karajorma]

Originally posted by redmenace
Things were not as divisive as they are now. I am not going to argue if that is becuase of civil violations or just reporters are jumping at the chance to report some little thing.

I don't think you can claim any abuses of personal freedoms as large as the ones that have occured under Bush. The Patriot act, placing dept. Hom Sec beyond reproach etc. Like I said the stuff that happened under Clinton is much smaller in comparison.

Originally posted by redmenace
And Clinton did plenty. I guess no one remembers when they requested the tax returns and FBI files on up and coming republican politicians? Or when Democrats in the 2000 election purposefully skipped over cuban areas in recounting because Bush would have been picking up votes? Or when the Florida Supreme Court kept extending the deadline for recounts, basically ignoring the law?

Best you've got? Seriously?

Originally posted by redmenace
If it is so obvious my pointing it out isn't going to help republicans much. Especially since I am stating their both a load of ****. I don't honestly think that it really helps either party. And further more I don't think I have gotten it through that this behavior is expected from both parties.

The real Democrats know. The only people you're helping to convince are the wavering republican and democrat voters. Personally I think America needs to stop voting for both parties but that's more of a long term goal. Short term is getting the current set of f**kers out of power as fast as possible.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
To say that Democrats and Republicans are the same is ludicrous. Democrats have been engaging in the character assasination of every single Bush appointment. Just compare Howard Dean's screams and howls to the comments of the Republican leaders. When it comes to Republicans its always the seriousness of the charge and not if it has any grounds.

Didn't a republican funded veterans group run adverts during the election calling John Kerry a coward?  Certainly - even from my distant perspective - I've seen both parties supporters run ill-concealed smear campaign; it's just that the parties themselves are good at hiding any concrete connection.

For example (bearing in mind I was exclusively searching for a counter-example), in 2002 the Republican funding people ran a campaign against a Democractic senator (Max Cleland)depicting him next to Saddam Hussein and bin Ladin because he'd not voted for a military bill.

I think Karl Rove also accused a Democratic senator of endangering US troops in Iraq, and 'liberals' (general term) of not wanting to attack terrorists - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160450,00.html (straight from the horses mouth, sort of).

To me those constitute smear tactics.  That's what politicians do, after all.  They create problems to blame on others.

[karajorma]

This isn't about smear tactics though DeepSpace9er. I'll conceed that they're probably just as bad as each other in that respect.

What I'm on about is whether the Republicans are worse for civil liberties than the Democrats.  Both are bad. But I feel that one is worse.

[aldo_14]

I don't think civil liberties have ever been this under threat in either the US or UK for a very long time - certainly not within my lifetime (including the worst years of IRA attacks in the Uk, when the government was attacked twice in the Brighton hotel bombing and the mortar attack on 10 Downing street).

[StratComm]

To at least try and re-rail this topic (as I don't see an answer to this question anywhere in here) the "leak" of this woman's name came on the heels of her husband's denouncement of the intelligence that was used to justify the Iraq war as the President was trying to make his case to go to war.  It looks by all accounts to be something far worse than a smear tactic; it appears to be retribution for questioning the administration.

[karajorma]

Yep. That's the point I made.

As far as I can understand the entire story goes like this.

• Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. He finds no proof of this and tells the US government that fact.
• Bush refers to Iraq trying to buy uranium anyway.
• Columnist Robert Novak reports that he has inside information that Wilson's wife is a CIA agent and that Wilson only got the job because of nepotism.
• The CIA begin investigating.
• Speculation grows that Karl Rove, the president's closest domestic political advisor, is responsible for the leak.
• journalist Matthew Cooper claims that he was also approached by the same source at the same time as Novak (although he didn't publish anything at the time).
• Judith Miller supposedly gets information about the same source too although she doesn't even publish that fact (How on Earth the DoJ  got hold of her name is something I still don't know).
• The DoJ prosecute Miller and Cooper for not revealing their source.

Now that I've got all that down and hopefully correct it does lead to a rather interesting question.

Why are Miller and Cooper being prosecuted for not revealing the source when Novak (who is the reporter actually responsible for revealing the name of the CIA agent) is still free?

Novak obviously knows who the source is. Miller and Cooper could possibly have made the entire thing up. So since Novak is the only person 100% to have the name of the actual source and is obviously 100% guilty of revealing the name of a CIA operative why the hell isn't he in jail?

[aldo_14]

Update FYI; Cooper has revealed the source as being Karl Rove (Deputy chief of staff in charge of policy & chief political strategist) and  Lewis Libby (Dick Cheneys  Chief of Staff)

You can draw your own conclusions from that.

[Rictor]

Guys, it's Judith Miller. I think I'll save my tears for someone worthy of them.

If journalists cannot be trusted to keep confidences, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press

She has about as much authority to speak of a free press as blind people have to speak of Michelangelo.

[aldo_14]

To me the whole situation is ****ed up.  On the one hand you have something that could potentially destroy independent journalism (prosecution for publishing information from anonymous sources - imagine if it was a whistleblower being protected), on the other you have a senior White House official whose released the name of a CIA operative in an apparent smear tactic; something which I thought was supposed to be a criminal offence.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Rictor
Guys, it's Judith Miller. I think I'll save my tears for someone worthy of them.

I'm not the slightest bit sorry for her to be honest. She knew that someone in the White House was responsible for a dirty tricks campaign and didn't publish.

That breaks every single rule of journalism

As I said before what I want to know why Novak isn't in the adjoining cell.