MrBadExample
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Who's behind Valerie Plame? Oh, MY...KARL ROVE!
- Thread starter mykevermin
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E-Z-B
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lol, good one, MBE.
Here's further proof that CNN is run by right-wing conservative idiots:
CNN's "That's Bullshit" Coverage
Lou Dobbs Tonight, (7/15/05) as Lou was introducing a piece on the Rove story.
Lou says, "...Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN contributor. Danna Bash reports." Immediately after that you can clearly hear a female voice on mic whispering "that's bullshit". Then Dana Bash continues with her report.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/15.html#a3964
Here's further proof that CNN is run by right-wing conservative idiots:
CNN's "That's Bullshit" Coverage
Lou Dobbs Tonight, (7/15/05) as Lou was introducing a piece on the Rove story.
Lou says, "...Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN contributor. Danna Bash reports." Immediately after that you can clearly hear a female voice on mic whispering "that's bullshit". Then Dana Bash continues with her report.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/15.html#a3964
mykevermin
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How is that right-wing?
E-Z-B
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[quote name='mykevermin']How is that right-wing?[/QUOTE]
Because the right-wing talking points on this scandal are trying to convince the american public that Rove and Libby outing a CIA agent is a non-issue, and that if anything, they should get "a medal" for doing so. It's obvious that CNN and Fox are buying into this.
Because the right-wing talking points on this scandal are trying to convince the american public that Rove and Libby outing a CIA agent is a non-issue, and that if anything, they should get "a medal" for doing so. It's obvious that CNN and Fox are buying into this.
MrBadExample
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[quote name='E-Z-B']lol, good one, MBE.
Here's further proof that CNN is run by right-wing conservative idiots:
CNN's "That's Bullshit" Coverage
Lou Dobbs Tonight, (7/15/05) as Lou was introducing a piece on the Rove story.
Lou says, "...Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN contributor. Danna Bash reports." Immediately after that you can clearly hear a female voice on mic whispering "that's bullshit". Then Dana Bash continues with her report.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/15.html#a3964[/QUOTE]
I listened to the clip and it seems too ambiguous as to what she menat by "bullshit" - that Rove learned about Plame from Novak, that a fellow CNN reporter might have outed Plame, that Rove may not be to blame, that Rove may be totally guilty.
Here's further proof that CNN is run by right-wing conservative idiots:
CNN's "That's Bullshit" Coverage
Lou Dobbs Tonight, (7/15/05) as Lou was introducing a piece on the Rove story.
Lou says, "...Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN contributor. Danna Bash reports." Immediately after that you can clearly hear a female voice on mic whispering "that's bullshit". Then Dana Bash continues with her report.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/15.html#a3964[/QUOTE]
I listened to the clip and it seems too ambiguous as to what she menat by "bullshit" - that Rove learned about Plame from Novak, that a fellow CNN reporter might have outed Plame, that Rove may not be to blame, that Rove may be totally guilty.
mykevermin
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[quote name='E-Z-B']Because the right-wing talking points on this scandal are trying to convince the american public that Rove and Libby outing a CIA agent is a non-issue, and that if anything, they should get "a medal" for doing so. It's obvious that CNN and Fox are buying into this.[/QUOTE]
You've got a point, I suppose, if the reporters are actually treating the "Novak told Rove" story as even remotely plausible.
You've got a point, I suppose, if the reporters are actually treating the "Novak told Rove" story as even remotely plausible.
PittsburghAfterDark
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Sounds like you're all crying that this non-story is losing any kind of traction. I'll have to get out my violin and play a sad sad song for you.
mykevermin
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[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Sounds like you're all crying that this non-story is losing any kind of traction. I'll have to get out my violin and play a sad sad song for you.[/QUOTE]
E-Z-B
CAGiversary!
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Sounds like you're all crying that this non-story is losing any kind of traction. I'll have to get out my violin and play a sad sad song for you.[/QUOTE]
It's still on MSNBC's homepage: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8605680/
This will really hit the fan once the prosecutor announces some indictments. Rove and Libby are first.
It's still on MSNBC's homepage: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8605680/
This will really hit the fan once the prosecutor announces some indictments. Rove and Libby are first.
E-Z-B
CAGiversary!
lol, now Bush is starting to backpeddle:
President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will "no longer work in my administration." His statement represented a shift from a previous comment, when he said that he would fire anyone shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of a CIA officer.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8605680/
So much for being a "straight-shooter".
President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will "no longer work in my administration." His statement represented a shift from a previous comment, when he said that he would fire anyone shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of a CIA officer.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8605680/
So much for being a "straight-shooter".
PittsburghAfterDark
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Did the CIA “Out” Valerie Plame?
What the mainstream media tells the court ... but won’t tell you.
With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA establishes new depths of mainstream-media hypocrisy. A highly capable special prosecutor is probing the underlying facts, and it is appropriate to withhold legal judgments until he completes the investigation over which speculation runs so rampant. But it is not too early to assess the performance of the press. It's been appalling.
Is that hyperbole? You be the judge. Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade — i.e., since about seven years before Novak ever wrote a syllable about her? Had you heard not only that no crime was committed in the communication of information between Bush administration officials and Novak, but that no crime could have been committed because the governing law gives a person a complete defense if an agent's status has already been compromised by the government?
No, you say, you hadn't heard any of that. You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe — or shoes — to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?
The organized media, that's who. How come you haven't heard? Because they've decided not to tell you. Because they say one thing — one dark, transparently partisan thing — when they're talking to you in their news coverage, but they say something completely different when they think you're not listening.
You see, if you really want to know what the media think of the Plame case — if you want to discover what a comparative trifle they actually believe it to be — you need to close the paper and turn off the TV. You need, instead, to have a peek at what they write when they're talking to a court. It's a mind-bendingly different tale.
SPUN FROM THE START
My colleague Cliff May has already demonstrated the bankruptcy of the narrative the media relentlessly spouts for Bush-bashing public consumption: to wit, that Valerie Wilson, nee Plame, was identified as a covert CIA agent by the columnist Robert Novak, to whom she was compromised by an administration official. In fact, it appears Plame was first outed to the general public as a result of a consciously loaded and slyly hypothetical piece by the journalist David Corn. Corn's source appears to have been none other than Plame's own husband, former ambassador and current Democratic-party operative Joseph Wilson — that same pillar of national security rectitude whose notion of discretion, upon being dispatched by the CIA for a sensitive mission to Niger, was to write a highly public op-ed about his trip in the New York Times. This isn't news to the media; they have simply chosen not to report it.
The hypocrisy, though, only starts there. It turns out that the media believe Plame was outed long before either Novak or Corn took pen to paper. And not by an ambiguous confirmation from Rove or a nod-and-a-wink from Ambassador Hubby. No, the media think Plame was previously compromised by a disclosure from the intelligence community itself — although it may be questionable whether there was anything of her covert status left to salvage at that point, for reasons that will become clear momentarily.
This CIA disclosure, moreover, is said to have been made not to Americans at large but to Fidel Castro's anti-American regime in Cuba, whose palpable incentive would have been to "compromise[] every operation, every relationship, every network with which [Plame] had been associated in her entire career" — to borrow from the diatribe in which Wilson risibly compared his wife's straits to the national security catastrophes wrought by Aldrich Ames and Kim Philby.
THE MEDIA GOES TO COURT ... AND SINGS A DIFFERENT TUNE
Just four months ago, 36 news organizations confederated to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. At the time, Bush-bashing was (no doubt reluctantly) confined to an unusual backseat. The press had no choice — it was time to close ranks around two of its own, namely, the Times's Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper, who were threatened with jail for defying grand jury subpoenas from the special prosecutor.
The media's brief, fairly short and extremely illuminating, is available here. The Times, which is currently spearheading the campaign against Rove and the Bush administration, encouraged its submission. It was joined by a "who's who" of the current Plame stokers, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters America, the Washington Post, the Tribune Company (which publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun, among other papers), and the White House Correspondents (the organization which represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the executive branch).
The thrust of the brief was that reporters should not be held in contempt or forced to reveal their sources in the Plame investigation. Why? Because, the media organizations confidently asserted, no crime had been committed. Now, that is stunning enough given the baleful shroud the press has consciously cast over this story. Even more remarkable, though, were the key details these self-styled guardians of the public's right to know stressed as being of the utmost importance for the court to grasp — details those same guardians have assiduously suppressed from the coverage actually presented to the public.
Though you would not know it from watching the news, you learn from reading the news agencies' brief that the 1982 law prohibiting disclosure of undercover agents' identities explicitly sets forth a complete defense to this crime. It is contained in Section 422 (of Title 50, U.S. Code), and it provides that an accused leaker is in the clear if, sometime before the leak, "the United States ha publicly acknowledged or revealed" the covert agent's "intelligence relationship to the United States[.]"
As it happens, the media organizations informed the court that long before the Novak revelation (which, as noted above, did not disclose Plame's classified relationship with the CIA), Plame's cover was blown not once but twice. The media based this contention on reporting by the indefatigable Bill Gertz — an old-school, "let's find out what really happened" kind of journalist. Gertz's relevant article, published a year ago in the Washington Times, can be found here.
THE MEDIA TELLS THE COURT: PLAME'S COVER WAS BLOWN IN THE MID-1990s
As the media alleged to the judges (in Footnote 7, page 8, of their brief), Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a spy in Moscow. Of course, the press and its attorneys were smart enough not to argue that such a disclosure would trigger the defense prescribed in Section 422 because it was evidently made by a foreign-intelligence operative, not by a U.S. agency as the statute literally requires.
But neither did they mention the incident idly. For if, as he has famously suggested, President Bush has peered into the soul of Vladimir Putin, what he has no doubt seen is the thriving spirit of the KGB, of which the Russian president was a hardcore agent. The Kremlin still spies on the United States. It remains in the business of compromising U.S. intelligence operations.
Thus, the media's purpose in highlighting this incident is blatant: If Plame was outed to the former Soviet Union a decade ago, there can have been little, if anything, left of actual intelligence value in her "every operation, every relationship, every network" by the time anyone spoke with Novak (or, of course, Corn).
THE CIA OUTS PLAME TO FIDEL CASTRO
Of greater moment to the criminal investigation is the second disclosure urged by the media organizations on the court. They don't place a precise date on this one, but inform the judges that it was "more recent" than the Russian outing but "prior to Novak's publication."
And it is priceless. The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana. In the Washington Times article — you remember, the one the press hypes when it reports to the federal court but not when it reports to consumers of its news coverage — Gertz elaborates that "[t]he documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but [unidentified U.S.] intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them."
Thus, the same media now stampeding on Rove has told a federal court that, to the contrary, they believe the CIA itself blew Plame's cover before Rove or anyone else in the Bush administration ever spoke to Novak about her. Of course, they don't contend the CIA did it on purpose or with malice. But neither did Rove — who, unlike the CIA, appears neither to have known about nor disclosed Plame's classified status. Yet, although the Times and its cohort have a bull's eye on Rove's back, they are breathtakingly silent about an apparent CIA embarrassment — one that seems to be just the type of juicy story they routinely covet.
A COMPLETE DEFENSE?
The defense in Section 422 requires that the revelation by the United States have been done "publicly." At least one U.S. official who spoke to Gertz speculated that because the Havana snafu was not "publicized" — i.e., because the classified information about Plame was mistakenly communicated to Cuba rather than broadcast to the general public — it would not available as a defense to whomever spoke with Novak. But that seems clearly wrong.
First, the theory under which the media have gleefully pursued Rove, among other Bush officials, holds that if a disclosure offense was committed here it was complete at the moment the leak was made to Novak. Whether Novak then proceeded to report the leak to the general public is beside the point — the violation supposedly lies in identifying Plame to Novak. (Indeed, it has frequently been observed that Judy Miller of the Times is in contempt for protecting one or more sources even though she never wrote an article about Plame.)
Perhaps more significantly, the whole point of discouraging public disclosure of covert agents is to prevent America's enemies from degrading our national security. It is not, after all, the public we are worried about. Rather, it is the likes of Fidel Castro and his regime who pose a threat to Valerie Plame and her network of U.S. intelligence relationships. The government must still be said to have "publicized" the classified relationship — i.e., to have blown the cover of an intelligence agent — if it leaves out the middleman by communicating directly with an enemy government rather than indirectly through a media outlet.
LINGERING QUESTIONS
All this raises several readily apparent questions. We know that at the time of the Novak and Corn articles, Plame was not serving as an intelligence agent outside the United States. Instead, she had for years been working, for all to see, at CIA headquarters in Langley. Did her assignment to headquarters have anything to do with her effectiveness as a covert agent having already been nullified by disclosure to the Russians and the Cubans — and to whomever else the Russians and Cubans could be expected to tell if they thought it harmful to American interests or advantageous to their own?
If Plame's cover was blown, as Gertz reports, how much did Plame know about that? It's likely that she would have been fully apprised — after all, as we have been told repeatedly in recent weeks, the personal security of a covert agent and her family can be a major concern when secrecy is pierced. Assuming she knew, did her husband, Wilson, also know? At the time he was ludicrously comparing the Novak article to the Ames and Philby debacles, did he actually have reason to believe his wife had been compromised years earlier?
And could the possibility that Plame's cover has long been blown explain why the CIA was unconcerned about assigning a one-time covert agent to a job that had her walking in and out of CIA headquarters every day? Could it explain why the Wilsons were sufficiently indiscrete to pose in Vanity Fair, and, indeed, to permit Joseph Wilson to pen a highly public op-ed regarding a sensitive mission to which his wife — the covert agent — energetically advocated his assignment? Did they fail to take commonsense precautions because they knew there really was nothing left to protect?
We'd probably know the answers to these and other questions by now if the media had given a tenth of the effort spent manufacturing a scandal to reporting professionally on the underlying facts. And if they deigned to share with their readers and viewers all the news that's fit to print ... in a brief to a federal court.
Link
What the mainstream media tells the court ... but won’t tell you.
With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA establishes new depths of mainstream-media hypocrisy. A highly capable special prosecutor is probing the underlying facts, and it is appropriate to withhold legal judgments until he completes the investigation over which speculation runs so rampant. But it is not too early to assess the performance of the press. It's been appalling.
Is that hyperbole? You be the judge. Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade — i.e., since about seven years before Novak ever wrote a syllable about her? Had you heard not only that no crime was committed in the communication of information between Bush administration officials and Novak, but that no crime could have been committed because the governing law gives a person a complete defense if an agent's status has already been compromised by the government?
No, you say, you hadn't heard any of that. You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe — or shoes — to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?
The organized media, that's who. How come you haven't heard? Because they've decided not to tell you. Because they say one thing — one dark, transparently partisan thing — when they're talking to you in their news coverage, but they say something completely different when they think you're not listening.
You see, if you really want to know what the media think of the Plame case — if you want to discover what a comparative trifle they actually believe it to be — you need to close the paper and turn off the TV. You need, instead, to have a peek at what they write when they're talking to a court. It's a mind-bendingly different tale.
SPUN FROM THE START
My colleague Cliff May has already demonstrated the bankruptcy of the narrative the media relentlessly spouts for Bush-bashing public consumption: to wit, that Valerie Wilson, nee Plame, was identified as a covert CIA agent by the columnist Robert Novak, to whom she was compromised by an administration official. In fact, it appears Plame was first outed to the general public as a result of a consciously loaded and slyly hypothetical piece by the journalist David Corn. Corn's source appears to have been none other than Plame's own husband, former ambassador and current Democratic-party operative Joseph Wilson — that same pillar of national security rectitude whose notion of discretion, upon being dispatched by the CIA for a sensitive mission to Niger, was to write a highly public op-ed about his trip in the New York Times. This isn't news to the media; they have simply chosen not to report it.
The hypocrisy, though, only starts there. It turns out that the media believe Plame was outed long before either Novak or Corn took pen to paper. And not by an ambiguous confirmation from Rove or a nod-and-a-wink from Ambassador Hubby. No, the media think Plame was previously compromised by a disclosure from the intelligence community itself — although it may be questionable whether there was anything of her covert status left to salvage at that point, for reasons that will become clear momentarily.
This CIA disclosure, moreover, is said to have been made not to Americans at large but to Fidel Castro's anti-American regime in Cuba, whose palpable incentive would have been to "compromise[] every operation, every relationship, every network with which [Plame] had been associated in her entire career" — to borrow from the diatribe in which Wilson risibly compared his wife's straits to the national security catastrophes wrought by Aldrich Ames and Kim Philby.
THE MEDIA GOES TO COURT ... AND SINGS A DIFFERENT TUNE
Just four months ago, 36 news organizations confederated to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. At the time, Bush-bashing was (no doubt reluctantly) confined to an unusual backseat. The press had no choice — it was time to close ranks around two of its own, namely, the Times's Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper, who were threatened with jail for defying grand jury subpoenas from the special prosecutor.
The media's brief, fairly short and extremely illuminating, is available here. The Times, which is currently spearheading the campaign against Rove and the Bush administration, encouraged its submission. It was joined by a "who's who" of the current Plame stokers, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters America, the Washington Post, the Tribune Company (which publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun, among other papers), and the White House Correspondents (the organization which represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the executive branch).
The thrust of the brief was that reporters should not be held in contempt or forced to reveal their sources in the Plame investigation. Why? Because, the media organizations confidently asserted, no crime had been committed. Now, that is stunning enough given the baleful shroud the press has consciously cast over this story. Even more remarkable, though, were the key details these self-styled guardians of the public's right to know stressed as being of the utmost importance for the court to grasp — details those same guardians have assiduously suppressed from the coverage actually presented to the public.
Though you would not know it from watching the news, you learn from reading the news agencies' brief that the 1982 law prohibiting disclosure of undercover agents' identities explicitly sets forth a complete defense to this crime. It is contained in Section 422 (of Title 50, U.S. Code), and it provides that an accused leaker is in the clear if, sometime before the leak, "the United States ha
As it happens, the media organizations informed the court that long before the Novak revelation (which, as noted above, did not disclose Plame's classified relationship with the CIA), Plame's cover was blown not once but twice. The media based this contention on reporting by the indefatigable Bill Gertz — an old-school, "let's find out what really happened" kind of journalist. Gertz's relevant article, published a year ago in the Washington Times, can be found here.
THE MEDIA TELLS THE COURT: PLAME'S COVER WAS BLOWN IN THE MID-1990s
As the media alleged to the judges (in Footnote 7, page 8, of their brief), Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a spy in Moscow. Of course, the press and its attorneys were smart enough not to argue that such a disclosure would trigger the defense prescribed in Section 422 because it was evidently made by a foreign-intelligence operative, not by a U.S. agency as the statute literally requires.
But neither did they mention the incident idly. For if, as he has famously suggested, President Bush has peered into the soul of Vladimir Putin, what he has no doubt seen is the thriving spirit of the KGB, of which the Russian president was a hardcore agent. The Kremlin still spies on the United States. It remains in the business of compromising U.S. intelligence operations.
Thus, the media's purpose in highlighting this incident is blatant: If Plame was outed to the former Soviet Union a decade ago, there can have been little, if anything, left of actual intelligence value in her "every operation, every relationship, every network" by the time anyone spoke with Novak (or, of course, Corn).
THE CIA OUTS PLAME TO FIDEL CASTRO
Of greater moment to the criminal investigation is the second disclosure urged by the media organizations on the court. They don't place a precise date on this one, but inform the judges that it was "more recent" than the Russian outing but "prior to Novak's publication."
And it is priceless. The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana. In the Washington Times article — you remember, the one the press hypes when it reports to the federal court but not when it reports to consumers of its news coverage — Gertz elaborates that "[t]he documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but [unidentified U.S.] intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them."
Thus, the same media now stampeding on Rove has told a federal court that, to the contrary, they believe the CIA itself blew Plame's cover before Rove or anyone else in the Bush administration ever spoke to Novak about her. Of course, they don't contend the CIA did it on purpose or with malice. But neither did Rove — who, unlike the CIA, appears neither to have known about nor disclosed Plame's classified status. Yet, although the Times and its cohort have a bull's eye on Rove's back, they are breathtakingly silent about an apparent CIA embarrassment — one that seems to be just the type of juicy story they routinely covet.
A COMPLETE DEFENSE?
The defense in Section 422 requires that the revelation by the United States have been done "publicly." At least one U.S. official who spoke to Gertz speculated that because the Havana snafu was not "publicized" — i.e., because the classified information about Plame was mistakenly communicated to Cuba rather than broadcast to the general public — it would not available as a defense to whomever spoke with Novak. But that seems clearly wrong.
First, the theory under which the media have gleefully pursued Rove, among other Bush officials, holds that if a disclosure offense was committed here it was complete at the moment the leak was made to Novak. Whether Novak then proceeded to report the leak to the general public is beside the point — the violation supposedly lies in identifying Plame to Novak. (Indeed, it has frequently been observed that Judy Miller of the Times is in contempt for protecting one or more sources even though she never wrote an article about Plame.)
Perhaps more significantly, the whole point of discouraging public disclosure of covert agents is to prevent America's enemies from degrading our national security. It is not, after all, the public we are worried about. Rather, it is the likes of Fidel Castro and his regime who pose a threat to Valerie Plame and her network of U.S. intelligence relationships. The government must still be said to have "publicized" the classified relationship — i.e., to have blown the cover of an intelligence agent — if it leaves out the middleman by communicating directly with an enemy government rather than indirectly through a media outlet.
LINGERING QUESTIONS
All this raises several readily apparent questions. We know that at the time of the Novak and Corn articles, Plame was not serving as an intelligence agent outside the United States. Instead, she had for years been working, for all to see, at CIA headquarters in Langley. Did her assignment to headquarters have anything to do with her effectiveness as a covert agent having already been nullified by disclosure to the Russians and the Cubans — and to whomever else the Russians and Cubans could be expected to tell if they thought it harmful to American interests or advantageous to their own?
If Plame's cover was blown, as Gertz reports, how much did Plame know about that? It's likely that she would have been fully apprised — after all, as we have been told repeatedly in recent weeks, the personal security of a covert agent and her family can be a major concern when secrecy is pierced. Assuming she knew, did her husband, Wilson, also know? At the time he was ludicrously comparing the Novak article to the Ames and Philby debacles, did he actually have reason to believe his wife had been compromised years earlier?
And could the possibility that Plame's cover has long been blown explain why the CIA was unconcerned about assigning a one-time covert agent to a job that had her walking in and out of CIA headquarters every day? Could it explain why the Wilsons were sufficiently indiscrete to pose in Vanity Fair, and, indeed, to permit Joseph Wilson to pen a highly public op-ed regarding a sensitive mission to which his wife — the covert agent — energetically advocated his assignment? Did they fail to take commonsense precautions because they knew there really was nothing left to protect?
We'd probably know the answers to these and other questions by now if the media had given a tenth of the effort spent manufacturing a scandal to reporting professionally on the underlying facts. And if they deigned to share with their readers and viewers all the news that's fit to print ... in a brief to a federal court.
Link
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Sounds like you're all crying that this non-story is losing any kind of traction. I'll have to get out my violin and play a sad sad song for you.[/QUOTE]It's on the front page of www.NYTimes.com as well as www.Foxnews.com
Maybe we just have different definitions of "losing any kind traction". It could be related to Cheney's definition of "last throes" as in "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
Maybe we just have different definitions of "losing any kind traction". It could be related to Cheney's definition of "last throes" as in "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
MrBadExample
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[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark'] Did the CIA “Out” Valerie Plame?
What the mainstream media tells the court ... but won’t tell you.
With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA ...yada, yada, yada, spin, spin, spin, blather, blather, blather[/QUOTE]
Andrew C. McCarthy?!? Why should we care what the guy from Weekend at Bernie's thinks? :lol:
What the mainstream media tells the court ... but won’t tell you.
With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA ...yada, yada, yada, spin, spin, spin, blather, blather, blather[/QUOTE]
Andrew C. McCarthy?!? Why should we care what the guy from Weekend at Bernie's thinks? :lol:
David Letterman: "You folks following the scandal with Karl Rove? Earlier today, President Bush says that he doesn't want to act too quickly. And does not want to act before he has all of the facts. And I was thinking, 'Jeez, this doesn't sound like the President Bush I know.'
E-Z-B
CAGiversary!
[quote name='CheapyD']David Letterman: "You folks following the scandal with Karl Rove? Earlier today, President Bush says that he doesn't want to act too quickly. And does not want to act before he has all of the facts. And I was thinking, 'Jeez, this doesn't sound like the President Bush I know.'[/QUOTE]
He's alllllmost done with My Pet Goat...
He's alllllmost done with My Pet Goat...
MrBadExample
CAGiversary!
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[quote name='E-Z-B']He's alllllmost done with My Pet Goat...[/QUOTE]
Reading or coloring?
Reading or coloring?
rumblebear
CAGiversary!
anyone think Bush and Rove have a much closer relationship than we all think? .... perhaps sexually? Just look at what Rove said in an interview about when he first saw George W. Bush.
mykevermin
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[quote name='mingglf']anyone think Bush and Rove have a much closer relationship than we all think? .... perhaps sexually? Just look at what Rove said in an interview about when he first saw George W. Bush.[/QUOTE]
nope.
nope.
MrBadExample
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[quote name='mingglf']anyone think Bush and Rove have a much closer relationship than we all think? .... perhaps sexually? Just look at what Rove said in an interview about when he first saw George W. Bush.[/QUOTE]
There needs to be an NSFW on that thought. Yeesh!
There needs to be an NSFW on that thought. Yeesh!
Trancendental
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[quote name='CheapyD']David Letterman: "You folks following the scandal with Karl Rove? Earlier today, President Bush says that he doesn't want to act too quickly. And does not want to act before he has all of the facts. And I was thinking, 'Jeez, this doesn't sound like the President Bush I know.'[/QUOTE]
:lol:
:lol:
E-Z-B
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LA TIMES TO SPLASH WORD 'PERJURY' WITH REGARD TO ROVE; WASH. POST MOVES IN PAGE ONE: DEVELOPING...
WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status, the LOS ANGELES TIMES will report Saturday, RAW STORY has learned.
The LA Times piece is titled: "CIA Probe Moves from Leak Source to Perjury, Obstruction."
EXCERPTS FOLLOW. THE WASHINGTON POST will move a similar page one story Saturday as well.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/LA_TIMES_MOVES_WORD_ROVE_PERJURY_TO_FRONT_PA_0722.html
And treasongate continues to unfold...
WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status, the LOS ANGELES TIMES will report Saturday, RAW STORY has learned.
The LA Times piece is titled: "CIA Probe Moves from Leak Source to Perjury, Obstruction."
EXCERPTS FOLLOW. THE WASHINGTON POST will move a similar page one story Saturday as well.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/LA_TIMES_MOVES_WORD_ROVE_PERJURY_TO_FRONT_PA_0722.html
And treasongate continues to unfold...
E-Z-B
CAGiversary!
Today's white house transcript:
Q On the leak investigation, does President Bush feel that it was appropriate for there to be an 11 or 12-hour time gap from the time that Chief of Staff Andy Card was notified that an investigation was underway to the time that staff here at the White House, including him --
MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has said that -- and the President directed the White House at the beginning of the investigation to cooperate fully with those overseeing the investigation. And that is exactly what we have done, and that's what we did in that context, as well. If you will recall, back on October 1st of 2003, these questions came up and I addressed it at that time. So you might want to go back and look at that discussion during that briefing.
Q But in the spirit of cooperation, and you had indicted on October 1, 2003, that the reason that the Justice Department was asked, is it okay to wait until the morning, and the answer was that it was okay, but in the spirit of cooperation, why did the notification not go out until 11 or 12 hours later?
MR. McCLELLAN: I talked about that in that briefing, and addressed all those questions at that time. And the President has made it clear that we should cooperate fully with the investigation. That's what we have done, that's what we continue to do.
-----snip-----
Q Yes, thank you. There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove. The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that in terms of decisions regarding the investigation, those are matters for those overseeing the investigation to decide.
Q Thank you.
MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you.
Apparently, Scotty scooted out of there pretty fast as soon as it was over.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050725-5.html
Q On the leak investigation, does President Bush feel that it was appropriate for there to be an 11 or 12-hour time gap from the time that Chief of Staff Andy Card was notified that an investigation was underway to the time that staff here at the White House, including him --
MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has said that -- and the President directed the White House at the beginning of the investigation to cooperate fully with those overseeing the investigation. And that is exactly what we have done, and that's what we did in that context, as well. If you will recall, back on October 1st of 2003, these questions came up and I addressed it at that time. So you might want to go back and look at that discussion during that briefing.
Q But in the spirit of cooperation, and you had indicted on October 1, 2003, that the reason that the Justice Department was asked, is it okay to wait until the morning, and the answer was that it was okay, but in the spirit of cooperation, why did the notification not go out until 11 or 12 hours later?
MR. McCLELLAN: I talked about that in that briefing, and addressed all those questions at that time. And the President has made it clear that we should cooperate fully with the investigation. That's what we have done, that's what we continue to do.
-----snip-----
Q Yes, thank you. There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove. The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that in terms of decisions regarding the investigation, those are matters for those overseeing the investigation to decide.
Q Thank you.
MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you.
Apparently, Scotty scooted out of there pretty fast as soon as it was over.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050725-5.html
MrBadExample
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[quote name='MrBadExample']21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak
Interesting to see how high this could go...[/QUOTE]
Hmm for some reason the phrase "start from stratch" comes to mind...
Interesting to see how high this could go...[/QUOTE]
Hmm for some reason the phrase "start from stratch" comes to mind...
gamefreak
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[quote name='mykevermin']Your theory simply cannot be true. I hope you'll be comfortable with the fact that you are absolutely, uneqivocally (I love that ultra-pretentious word) wrong. Ready?
Your theory is premised upon the insistence that in no way, shape, or form would the three people (two and a half, since Novak's hiding out in the shade at the moment) hold out on releasing a government source, in a Republican administration, given the potential career-making Woodward-and-Bernsteinian (?) kind of collegial kudos that these three would get for spilling the beans. In other words, our media is so frothing mad with liberals that Cooper and Miller would undoubtedly blow their proverbial wads with excitement at the opportunity to
up this administration severely, by outing a perjurer (perjurist?).
So, in a short sense, you think that, ceteris paribus in the MSM, nobody could withold information about this administration's wrongdoings for any period of time, correct?
Alright, you're going to have to live with a fact. Although I'm not angry, and I'm actually feeling very paternalistic at the moment, I'm going to type this in caps so that it comes out crystal clear.
YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT IT WAS A REPUBLICAN MEMBER (OR MEMBERS) OF THIS REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION THAT HELPED COOPER, MILLER, AND NOVAK OUT VALERIE PLAME AS POLITICAL PAYBACK TO THE WORDS OF HER HUSBAND, JOSEPH WILSON.
whew...alright. Settle down, have a glass of lemonade, breathe deeply. According to your theory (MSM would sell their children to bring down this administration), these journalists would have outed Hobie Jones, administrative coffee-fetcher to the person who works under the manager of the white house bathroom cleaning staff, if it meant bringing down this administration. However, we do have two things: (1) perjury, and (2) no leakie of the sourcie. How can we reconcile these facts? Your theory is basically this: "It is impossible for what is currently happening to have happened because the media is liberal." Given that these people have refused to reveal their sources, your argument denies the very reality of what has actually happened since Novak, douchebag of liberty, outed Plame.
Enjoy that lemonade. We look forward to your nonresponse, just like we did in the Fox News ratings post you started.[/QUOTE]
Take a breath and calm down man. Would it be possible to argue the facts without turning to insulting someone or resorting to slander? To me, these just serve to discredit what you're auctually trying to say and make you look like a rediculous radical. This leads me to believe that you're purpose arguing here with PAD isn't to convince him that he has a bogus theory, as you claim, but to score as many points with your liberal friends by putting down and making fun of people. You aren't the only one to be doing this (hell, many Repubs on here do it as well) but its kind of getting old.
Your theory is premised upon the insistence that in no way, shape, or form would the three people (two and a half, since Novak's hiding out in the shade at the moment) hold out on releasing a government source, in a Republican administration, given the potential career-making Woodward-and-Bernsteinian (?) kind of collegial kudos that these three would get for spilling the beans. In other words, our media is so frothing mad with liberals that Cooper and Miller would undoubtedly blow their proverbial wads with excitement at the opportunity to
up this administration severely, by outing a perjurer (perjurist?).So, in a short sense, you think that, ceteris paribus in the MSM, nobody could withold information about this administration's wrongdoings for any period of time, correct?
Alright, you're going to have to live with a fact. Although I'm not angry, and I'm actually feeling very paternalistic at the moment, I'm going to type this in caps so that it comes out crystal clear.
YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT IT WAS A REPUBLICAN MEMBER (OR MEMBERS) OF THIS REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION THAT HELPED COOPER, MILLER, AND NOVAK OUT VALERIE PLAME AS POLITICAL PAYBACK TO THE WORDS OF HER HUSBAND, JOSEPH WILSON.
whew...alright. Settle down, have a glass of lemonade, breathe deeply. According to your theory (MSM would sell their children to bring down this administration), these journalists would have outed Hobie Jones, administrative coffee-fetcher to the person who works under the manager of the white house bathroom cleaning staff, if it meant bringing down this administration. However, we do have two things: (1) perjury, and (2) no leakie of the sourcie. How can we reconcile these facts? Your theory is basically this: "It is impossible for what is currently happening to have happened because the media is liberal." Given that these people have refused to reveal their sources, your argument denies the very reality of what has actually happened since Novak, douchebag of liberty, outed Plame.
Enjoy that lemonade. We look forward to your nonresponse, just like we did in the Fox News ratings post you started.
[/QUOTE]Take a breath and calm down man. Would it be possible to argue the facts without turning to insulting someone or resorting to slander? To me, these just serve to discredit what you're auctually trying to say and make you look like a rediculous radical. This leads me to believe that you're purpose arguing here with PAD isn't to convince him that he has a bogus theory, as you claim, but to score as many points with your liberal friends by putting down and making fun of people. You aren't the only one to be doing this (hell, many Repubs on here do it as well) but its kind of getting old.
Trancendental
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[quote name='gamefreak']Take a breath and calm down man. Would it be possible to argue the facts without turning to insulting someone or resorting to slander? To me, these just serve to discredit what you're auctually trying to say and make you look like a rediculous radical. [/QUOTE]
The PC crowd, the "I'm better then everyone else because I'm a moderate" steps in again. When did this nation become so wussified (probably about the same time that people started demanding fat rights and suing for spilling coffee on their selves)
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.
The PC crowd, the "I'm better then everyone else because I'm a moderate" steps in again. When did this nation become so wussified (probably about the same time that people started demanding fat rights and suing for spilling coffee on their selves)
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.
alonzomourning23
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[quote name='camoor']The PC crowd, the "I'm better then everyone else because I'm a moderate" steps in again. When did this nation become so wussified (probably about the same time that people started demanding fat rights and suing for spilling coffee on their selves)
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.[/QUOTE]
Yes, camoor, cause we all know far right people who stand up and scream what they believe are the ones who get all the respect and the first ones you listen to. No one gives a damn what the more moderate ones, like mccain, have to say.
There's a time for confrontation, but if you also go into it with that intention no one will listen.
Camoor, read this:
http://www.siegfriedandjensen.com/cases.html
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.[/QUOTE]
Yes, camoor, cause we all know far right people who stand up and scream what they believe are the ones who get all the respect and the first ones you listen to. No one gives a damn what the more moderate ones, like mccain, have to say.
There's a time for confrontation, but if you also go into it with that intention no one will listen.
Camoor, read this:
http://www.siegfriedandjensen.com/cases.html
mykevermin
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[quote name='gamefreak']Take a breath and calm down man. Would it be possible to argue the facts without turning to insulting someone or resorting to slander? To me, these just serve to discredit what you're auctually trying to say and make you look like a rediculous radical. This leads me to believe that you're purpose arguing here with PAD isn't to convince him that he has a bogus theory, as you claim, but to score as many points with your liberal friends by putting down and making fun of people. You aren't the only one to be doing this (hell, many Repubs on here do it as well) but its kind of getting old.[/QUOTE]
So don't read what I have to say. It's not like you're tackling any of my substantive arguments anyway.
So don't read what I have to say. It's not like you're tackling any of my substantive arguments anyway.
gamefreak
CAGiversary!
[quote name='camoor']The PC crowd, the "I'm better then everyone else because I'm a moderate" steps in again. When did this nation become so wussified (probably about the same time that people started demanding fat rights and suing for spilling coffee on their selves)
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.[/QUOTE]
Non-confrontationalist? Uhhhh not quite. Confront all you want but keep in mind if your idea of confronting someone is through personal attacks that serve no purpose then keep in mind you're going to be dismissed from their mind. If you're going to argue a point or challenge someone, why is there a need to slander their person instead of attacking them on the basis of their ideals or actions?
[quote name='mykevermin']So don't read what I have to say. It's not like you're tackling any of my substantive arguments anyway.[/QUOTE]
No, I'm not going to tackle any of your substantive arguments anyway in part because I don't feel like sifting through 6 pages of bickering and attacks to find your arguments. Futher, I'm not informed enough on this topic to argue one way or the other and would probably just make myself look like an idiot if I tried.
Take some of your own advice, calm down, and stop trying to preach the way of the non-confrontationalist. Some of us want to see truth and change.[/QUOTE]
Non-confrontationalist? Uhhhh not quite. Confront all you want but keep in mind if your idea of confronting someone is through personal attacks that serve no purpose then keep in mind you're going to be dismissed from their mind. If you're going to argue a point or challenge someone, why is there a need to slander their person instead of attacking them on the basis of their ideals or actions?
[quote name='mykevermin']So don't read what I have to say. It's not like you're tackling any of my substantive arguments anyway.[/QUOTE]
No, I'm not going to tackle any of your substantive arguments anyway in part because I don't feel like sifting through 6 pages of bickering and attacks to find your arguments. Futher, I'm not informed enough on this topic to argue one way or the other and would probably just make myself look like an idiot if I tried.
Trancendental
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Alonzo, they provide hot water for tea/coffee at my work - the sign on the tap says that it's 180 degrees, I think it's probably accurate because it's always too hot to drink right out of the faucet.
Do they have to put a sign saying "do not spill on your genitals" so that they won't get sued now?
Ridiculous. And I could have substituted Janet's boobgate or Jack Thomson's crusade against Rockstar in this post - the fact is that Americans are starting to slide into being fat, complacent, and I am dismayed that the next step in the current descent may be laziness.
Do they have to put a sign saying "do not spill on your genitals" so that they won't get sued now?
Ridiculous. And I could have substituted Janet's boobgate or Jack Thomson's crusade against Rockstar in this post - the fact is that Americans are starting to slide into being fat, complacent, and I am dismayed that the next step in the current descent may be laziness.
ZarathosNY
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[quote name='camoor']Alonzo, they provide hot water for tea/coffee at my work - the sign on the tap says that it's 180 degrees, I think it's probably accurate because it's always too hot to drink right out of the faucet.
Do they have to put a sign saying "do not spill on your genitals" so that they won't get sued now?
Ridiculous. And I could have substituted Janet's boobgate or Jack Thomson's crusade against Rockstar in this post - the fact is that Americans are starting to slide into being fat, complacent, and I am dismayed that the next step in the current descent may be laziness.[/QUOTE]
McDonalds was negligent because they provided evidence that they had reports of 700 people being burned by their coffee, and did nothing to lower the temp. It would be a different story if she was the first person burned by the coffee.
Do they have to put a sign saying "do not spill on your genitals" so that they won't get sued now?
Ridiculous. And I could have substituted Janet's boobgate or Jack Thomson's crusade against Rockstar in this post - the fact is that Americans are starting to slide into being fat, complacent, and I am dismayed that the next step in the current descent may be laziness.[/QUOTE]
McDonalds was negligent because they provided evidence that they had reports of 700 people being burned by their coffee, and did nothing to lower the temp. It would be a different story if she was the first person burned by the coffee.
mykevermin
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[quote name='gamefreak']No, I'm not going to tackle any of your substantive arguments anyway in part because I don't feel like sifting through 6 pages of bickering and attacks to find your arguments. Futher, I'm not informed enough on this topic to argue one way or the other and would probably just make myself look like an idiot if I tried.[/QUOTE]
No need to sift through six pages. Go back to the post you quoted me on. If you're insightful enough to identify my statements as ad hominems, then the residual statements can be clearly identified as pure argument. Would you like a one sentence summary?
The likelihood that a Republican is responsible for a scandal prepetrated by the White House is higher when there is a Republican administration.
That's all I'm saying in that quote. It's not hard to decipher. I might as well say that christians are more likely to get run over by cars on the crosswalks near a church, because it's simply a saturation effect.
No need to sift through six pages. Go back to the post you quoted me on. If you're insightful enough to identify my statements as ad hominems, then the residual statements can be clearly identified as pure argument. Would you like a one sentence summary?
The likelihood that a Republican is responsible for a scandal prepetrated by the White House is higher when there is a Republican administration.
That's all I'm saying in that quote. It's not hard to decipher. I might as well say that christians are more likely to get run over by cars on the crosswalks near a church, because it's simply a saturation effect.
Trancendental
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[quote name='ZarathosNY']McDonalds was negligent because they provided evidence that they had reports of 700 people being burned by their coffee, and did nothing to lower the temp. It would be a different story if she was the first person burned by the coffee.[/QUOTE]
I'm going to bow out of this counter-productive coffee spill discussion.
Fact is, frivolous lawsuits are being filed day in and day out these days.
People need to step up and take responsibility for raising their kids, accepting that stuff happens in life, etc.
If a corporation is at fault, then yeah the government should demand restitutions according to the harm they caused (IE Exxon should clean up oil spills, Halliburton should return any payments for soldier food that was rotten, etc)
I don't know enough about coffee and the temp that it burns you at because I drink tea and I don't carry it around on my crotch. Last thing I'll say is that if you need a sign to tell you "dont carry hot coffee near your genitals", then maybe it's good if they get burned off, darwin's theory of evolution and all that.
A few more examples that this country is losing more brain cells every day:
On a container of lighter fluid: WARNING: Contents flammable!
On a box of household nails: CAUTION! - Do NOT swallow nails! May cause irritation!
On a hose nozzle: "Do not spray into electrical outlet."
:lol:
:lol:
I'm going to bow out of this counter-productive coffee spill discussion.
Fact is, frivolous lawsuits are being filed day in and day out these days.
People need to step up and take responsibility for raising their kids, accepting that stuff happens in life, etc.
If a corporation is at fault, then yeah the government should demand restitutions according to the harm they caused (IE Exxon should clean up oil spills, Halliburton should return any payments for soldier food that was rotten, etc)
I don't know enough about coffee and the temp that it burns you at because I drink tea and I don't carry it around on my crotch. Last thing I'll say is that if you need a sign to tell you "dont carry hot coffee near your genitals", then maybe it's good if they get burned off, darwin's theory of evolution and all that.
A few more examples that this country is losing more brain cells every day:
On a container of lighter fluid: WARNING: Contents flammable!
On a box of household nails: CAUTION! - Do NOT swallow nails! May cause irritation!
On a hose nozzle: "Do not spray into electrical outlet."
:lol:
:lol:
alonzomourning23
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[quote name='camoor']I'm going to bow out of this counter-productive coffee spill discussion.
Fact is, frivolous lawsuits are being filed day in and day out these days.
People need to step up and take responsibility for raising their kids, accepting that stuff happens in life, etc.
If a corporation is at fault, then yeah the government should demand restitutions according to the harm they caused (IE Exxon should clean up oil spills, Halliburton should return any payments for soldier food that was rotten, etc)
I don't know enough about coffee and the temp that it burns you at because I drink tea and I don't carry it around on my crotch. Last thing I'll say is that if you need a sign to tell you "dont carry hot coffee near your genitals", then maybe it's good if they get burned off, darwin's theory of evolution and all that.
A few more examples that this country is losing more brain cells every day:
On a container of lighter fluid: WARNING: Contents flammable!
On a box of household nails: CAUTION! - Do NOT swallow nails! May cause irritation!
On a hose nozzle: "Do not spray into electrical outlet."
:lol: :lol:[/QUOTE]
So wait, if you were in a passenger seat in a car, how would you pour the cream in your coffee (even if you wouldn't, just for arguments sake)? Most people would put it on there lap. But mcdonalds had multiple reports of burns similar to this one which also required hospitalization. Where she spilt it wasn't the issue, it's just part of the facts. The woman had to be hospitalized. I've spilt coffee on myself many times, and it's always "ow, that's hot". Not exactly "OH MY GOD!! THE COFFEE IS BURNING ME!! I NEED TO HAVE MY SKIN GRAFTED!!", which is what happened here, makes me glad I don't drink mcdonalds coffee. Also take into account this happened even though it had to go through clothes (which would provide some protection), it wasn't even bare skin. They used scalding water, no other chains did that, and mcdonalds had repeated warning that this was causing injuries. Mcdonalds restaurants actively enforced the policy of keeping it around 185 degrees. They refused to pay the womans medical bills and they stated they had no intention of lowering the temp, which came across as extremely arrogant and careless, aggravating both judge and jury (they lowered the temp, though quietly and unnanounced, after being forced to pay, so the lawsuit did it's job). There was the normal "hot" reminder on the cup, but no other place provided coffee that could cause severe burns if spilt. I surely wouldn't expect that a drink I'm holding in my hands could put me into the hospital if someone were to bump into me, but that's what could happen there. Hell, it was hot enough to burn your throat if drank.
There was a specific danger involved in possessing and drinking mcdonalds coffee that was not present with other coffees.
edit: just realized I was talking to camoor, nice new avatar.
Fact is, frivolous lawsuits are being filed day in and day out these days.
People need to step up and take responsibility for raising their kids, accepting that stuff happens in life, etc.
If a corporation is at fault, then yeah the government should demand restitutions according to the harm they caused (IE Exxon should clean up oil spills, Halliburton should return any payments for soldier food that was rotten, etc)
I don't know enough about coffee and the temp that it burns you at because I drink tea and I don't carry it around on my crotch. Last thing I'll say is that if you need a sign to tell you "dont carry hot coffee near your genitals", then maybe it's good if they get burned off, darwin's theory of evolution and all that.
A few more examples that this country is losing more brain cells every day:
On a container of lighter fluid: WARNING: Contents flammable!
On a box of household nails: CAUTION! - Do NOT swallow nails! May cause irritation!
On a hose nozzle: "Do not spray into electrical outlet."
:lol:
:lol:[/QUOTE]So wait, if you were in a passenger seat in a car, how would you pour the cream in your coffee (even if you wouldn't, just for arguments sake)? Most people would put it on there lap. But mcdonalds had multiple reports of burns similar to this one which also required hospitalization. Where she spilt it wasn't the issue, it's just part of the facts. The woman had to be hospitalized. I've spilt coffee on myself many times, and it's always "ow, that's hot". Not exactly "OH MY GOD!! THE COFFEE IS BURNING ME!! I NEED TO HAVE MY SKIN GRAFTED!!", which is what happened here, makes me glad I don't drink mcdonalds coffee. Also take into account this happened even though it had to go through clothes (which would provide some protection), it wasn't even bare skin. They used scalding water, no other chains did that, and mcdonalds had repeated warning that this was causing injuries. Mcdonalds restaurants actively enforced the policy of keeping it around 185 degrees. They refused to pay the womans medical bills and they stated they had no intention of lowering the temp, which came across as extremely arrogant and careless, aggravating both judge and jury (they lowered the temp, though quietly and unnanounced, after being forced to pay, so the lawsuit did it's job). There was the normal "hot" reminder on the cup, but no other place provided coffee that could cause severe burns if spilt. I surely wouldn't expect that a drink I'm holding in my hands could put me into the hospital if someone were to bump into me, but that's what could happen there. Hell, it was hot enough to burn your throat if drank.
There was a specific danger involved in possessing and drinking mcdonalds coffee that was not present with other coffees.
edit: just realized I was talking to camoor, nice new avatar.
MrBadExample
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[quote name='alonzomourning23']There was the normal "hot" reminder on the cup...[/QUOTE]
I just wish they'd put that warning on the bottom of the cup.
I don't know coffee because I drink tea. When I make it at home, I use boiling water (that's 212 degrees). I know better than to get that cup anywhere near my crotch. I'm no fan of McDonald's but they did seem to get a raw deal here. Of the 700 previous burn victims, how many spilled it on themselves vs. burned their mouths drinking it too soon? Unless the cups spontaneously exploded, I don't see any fault of McD's.
I just wish they'd put that warning on the bottom of the cup.
I don't know coffee because I drink tea. When I make it at home, I use boiling water (that's 212 degrees). I know better than to get that cup anywhere near my crotch. I'm no fan of McDonald's but they did seem to get a raw deal here. Of the 700 previous burn victims, how many spilled it on themselves vs. burned their mouths drinking it too soon? Unless the cups spontaneously exploded, I don't see any fault of McD's.
mykevermin
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I don't know so much about the coffee lawsuit, although I do recognize that, after appeals and reduced compensations (not to even bring in attorney's fees), the notion that "people everywhere" are making a ton of money suing corporations for individual stupidity-based ignorance and oversight is way wrong. Not that either or you are arguing that, but it *is* one of the most common unproven remarks made in this kind of argument (by the kind of people who lack data and/or analytical skills, but want to say something).
All I want to add to the conversation is this: 2.7 MILLION ON TWO DAYS? INING COFFEE?
Now, of course Starbucks and their ilk dwarf that amount, I'm sure; the thing is, McD's coffee is shite, it's gas station coffee. At least (and I suppose this is arguable, but I am a coffee snob) Starbucks coffee is damn tasty.
ton of money suing corporations for individual stupidity-based ignorance and oversight is way wrong. Not that either or you are arguing that, but it *is* one of the most common unproven remarks made in this kind of argument (by the kind of people who lack data and/or analytical skills, but want to say something).All I want to add to the conversation is this: 2.7 MILLION ON TWO DAYS? IN
ING COFFEE?Now, of course Starbucks and their ilk dwarf that amount, I'm sure; the thing is, McD's coffee is shite, it's gas station coffee. At least (and I suppose this is arguable, but I am a coffee snob) Starbucks coffee is damn tasty.
alonzomourning23
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[quote name='MrBadExample']I just wish they'd put that warning on the bottom of the cup.
I don't know coffee because I drink tea. When I make it at home, I use boiling water (that's 212 degrees). I know better than to get that cup anywhere near my crotch. I'm no fan of McDonald's but they did seem to get a raw deal here. Of the 700 previous burn victims, how many spilled it on themselves vs. burned their mouths drinking it too soon? Unless the cups spontaneously exploded, I don't see any fault of McD's.[/QUOTE]
Well, of the 700 they many had similar injuries, the same would have happened if she spilt it elsewhere. If she spilt it on her arm she still would have had a problem. The whole thing is, there was a particular danger with mcdonalds coffee, one they ensured remained until the lost the lawsuit.
I don't know coffee because I drink tea. When I make it at home, I use boiling water (that's 212 degrees). I know better than to get that cup anywhere near my crotch. I'm no fan of McDonald's but they did seem to get a raw deal here. Of the 700 previous burn victims, how many spilled it on themselves vs. burned their mouths drinking it too soon? Unless the cups spontaneously exploded, I don't see any fault of McD's.[/QUOTE]
Well, of the 700 they many had similar injuries, the same would have happened if she spilt it elsewhere. If she spilt it on her arm she still would have had a problem. The whole thing is, there was a particular danger with mcdonalds coffee, one they ensured remained until the lost the lawsuit.
MrBadExample
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[quote name='alonzomourning23']Well, of the 700 they many had similar injuries, the same would have happened if she spilt it elsewhere. If she spilt it on her arm she still would have had a problem. The whole thing is, there was a particular danger with mcdonalds coffee, one they ensured remained until the lost the lawsuit.[/QUOTE]
My point was, wherever they spilt the coffee, it's their clumsiness at fault, not McDonald's. Unless the coffee was so hot that the cup was too hot to handle, McDonald's shouldn't be liable.
My point was, wherever they spilt the coffee, it's their clumsiness at fault, not McDonald's. Unless the coffee was so hot that the cup was too hot to handle, McDonald's shouldn't be liable.
PittsburghAfterDark
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I'm glad this went horribly OT. I'd hate to think that anyone here actually thought this story was going anywhere anymore.
alonzomourning23
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[quote name='MrBadExample']My point was, wherever they spilt the coffee, it's their clumsiness at fault, not McDonald's. Unless the coffee was so hot that the cup was too hot to handle, McDonald's shouldn't be liable.[/QUOTE]
I disagree, but that's fine. My basic point is this isn't just one of those frivelous lawsuits like "I thought mcdonalds hamburgers were healthy cause they said 100% beef, so now I'm fat!". It's not the type of lawsuit that it has become the poster child for. And it did have a good result, mcdonalds lowered the coffee temp preventing future incidents.
I disagree, but that's fine. My basic point is this isn't just one of those frivelous lawsuits like "I thought mcdonalds hamburgers were healthy cause they said 100% beef, so now I'm fat!". It's not the type of lawsuit that it has become the poster child for. And it did have a good result, mcdonalds lowered the coffee temp preventing future incidents.
Trancendental
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[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']I'm glad this went horribly OT. I'd hate to think that anyone here actually thought this story was going anywhere anymore.[/QUOTE]
LOL too true.
If Watergate happened today, all Fox news would have to do is to run Natalee Halloway coverage for two weeks straight or do another of those "OMFG sharks at the local beach" hard hitting journalist reports that they are famous for. The short attention span of the American majority, and their resulting weak and temporary demands for truth from the new government, are laughably tragic.
LOL too true.
If Watergate happened today, all Fox news would have to do is to run Natalee Halloway coverage for two weeks straight or do another of those "OMFG sharks at the local beach" hard hitting journalist reports that they are famous for. The short attention span of the American majority, and their resulting weak and temporary demands for truth from the new government, are laughably tragic.
MrBadExample
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I don't think the story's dead yet. There just hasn't been any new information to feed the machine. The investigator has been playing his cards very close to the vest which is smart.
bread's done