Comments on: Big Dog bites Man

By: raj

raj — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:22:08 +0000

dave heasman · June 24, 2004 04:58 PM You might have a point, but given Britain’s libel laws, which are more draconian than those in the US (there is no “public figure” exception in the UK, for example), neither you nor I have any idea why Gordievsky’s book might not have had suggestion that Keeler might have been a spy. Perhaps the publisher’s lawyers counselled otherwise.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 20:03:09 +0000

Tom T—As I think comes up on the other thread, in UKian “ticked off” seems to mean “told off” (I think you mention that on the other thread too, so this post is redundant). Nate—Sorry, looks like a reasonable discussion of that issue won’t be happening, will it? Certainly not your fault.

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 16:58:57 +0000

Sorry to flog a dying horse, but raj rejoins : – ” Ah, so Keeler was recorded as haveing said what she said to sell a few books. One might wonder how far that extends.” Well it extends everywhere of course. Including campaign bios. That’s why unlikely claims are checked against external documentation. All other considerations – like she hadn’t a brain cell in her head – aside, it’s impossible for Keeler to have been any sort of spy without Gordievsky knowing and recording it. And if she were, it’d be a titillating item he would put in to help sell his book. But he didn’t. So the balance of probability is massively on the “she wasn’t a spy” side. Fin.

By: raj

raj — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:23:19 +0000

JamesW · June 24, 2004 08:47 AM >Far and away Clinton’s most serious failure was in not stopping the genocide in Rwanda. Perhaps. I’ve seen the (US) public television programs regarding the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan civil war. I suppose you may be correct that Clinton should have said something in 1994. The Rwanda civil war in 1994 was less than one year after the debacle of the Clinton administration in Somalia (1993), the latter of which was an extension of Bush I’s idiotic incursion there in 1992. Given that experience, is it really any surprise that the Clinton administration didn’t venture into Rwanda? I hate to tell you, but the fact is that nobody much gives a tinker’s damn what goes on in sub-saharan Africa. Apparently, not even Africans. I need only cite the reaction of the “world community” in the Congo (or whatever they’re calling it now) for evidence of that.

By: raj

raj — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:21:08 +0000

Jimmy Doyle · June 23, 2004 10:01 >That’s hard to square with the fact that the US audience for the BBC World Service has trebled in the last three years It’s called marketing, dear. If BBC American even existed on American cable TV three years ago, it was miniscule. And their push into providing programming for American “public radio” stations in the last few years has been astounding. One of Boston’s “public radio” stations, WBUR, is virtually “all BBC, all the time.” Julian Marshall (I believe his name is) and Judy Swallow are heard more often on that station than anyone else. (I may be exaggerating, but not by much.) On the other hand, it should be noted that the BBC probably provides relatively low-cost programming for “public radio” stations. The success in the US of syndicated talk radio can be explained by the fact that it is relatively high profit: profit equals advertising revenue minus cost, and if the cost is distributed among a number of outlets, as it is with syndicated radio programs, the profit for each station can be relatively high—certainly higher than if they had to pay local “talent.” BTW, the “we” I was referring to were those of us within our household. Sorry for the confusion. But I had believed that the parenthetical phrase would not suggest that I was referring to all those residing in the US. dave heasman · June 23, 2004 05:57 PM >Keeler has written nothing but Social Security applications. She told a tale to a ghost-writer who jazzed it up a lot, because it was an old cold story, and there was noone left who would sue. Ah, so Keeler was recorded as haveing said what she said to sell a few books. One might wonder how far that extends. I suppose, according to you, that nobody should believe much of anything that comes out of books that are labeled “autobiographies.” BTW, CNN, to which you linked, is even less reliable than the BBC. As should be obvious from their having to suck up to the American government. BTW, I find Brett’s comments interesting. From a formal standpoint, of course, he is correct: the impeachment articles that the House approved against Clinton related to giving false and misleading testimony before a grand jury and influencing the testimony of another witness. But no sentient being who was paying attention at the time could fail to recognize that the case in which he was embroiled at the time involved a private sexual relationship. Impeachment is a political act, generally directed to issues of state, not private issues, even if the private issues are matters that have been brought before a court. So I differ from Brett: the private “indiscretions” of Hyde, the chief accusator in the House, as well as Burton, Gingrich, Livingston, Chenowyth, Ryan (governor), Ryan (senator), Packwood (no longer in the Senate, but his indiscretions still hanging over them), yada, yada, yada, are very much relevant.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:05:38 +0000

Yup, Hyde was “found to have” had an affair; Pure coinicidence that dirt turned up on him and other Republican leaders just as they were going after an administration which had illegaly collected it’s opponents’ FBI files in Filegate. No connection at all… LOL I actually blame the Republican leadership for the failure to successfully remove Clinton from office; He couldn’t have blackmailed them, if they weren’t such scum to begin with.

By: JamesW

JamesW — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:47:55 +0000

Far and away Clinton’s most serious failure was in not stopping the genocide in Rwanda. The comments on this blog confirm the truth of Clinton’s accusation of a trivial and prurient mindset. How do a few blowjobs weigh against three-quarters of a milion people hacked to death with machetes?

By: JamesW

JamesW — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:45:05 +0000

By: paul

paul — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 04:28:29 +0000

No one disputes that Clinton’s problems were of his own making, not even the man himself. What seems to be at issue is the amount of attention paid to his personal behavior during what seemed to an open-ended investigation into a real estate deal and became so much more. And none of the real state stuff or FileGate or TrooperGate or TravelGate amounted to anything: given $70 million and a few years, I suspect Ken Starr could find something unsavory on damn near anyone. I don’t understand the basis for the enmity Clinton seems to attract. It’s not like he’s the first political figure to engage in unseemly behavior or the last, if you are following the headlines. Henry Hyde, head of the Judiciary Committee during the Starr Inquisition was found to have had a five-year affair with another man’s wife—hardly a quickie in the cloakroom—and we have the current Jack Ryan story (what is it with Illinois Republicans? Is that lake water contaminated?). Others have done the same as Clinton, some even more egregiously, but for some reason he gets raked over the coals for it. But as noted in the post that started all this, he seems quite capable of defending himself: would that his detractors were as willing to take the heat as he seems to be. And as for the argument that the news organizations should give the people what they want: in the business of publishing, they have no choice if they are to survive. But it would be a far better world if we didn’t insist on making everything a race to the bottom. The old ideal of a free press that competes to bring out the facts and compete on quality seems to have completely disappeared: I’m not sure democracy is well served by an emphasis on peccadillos rather than probity.

By: Lance Boyle

Lance Boyle — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 01:00:02 +0000

Xavier- A calm reasoned rebuttal, I’m somewhat abashed; though I believe the truth still remains preponderantly on my side, for all the hyperbolic excess it sits beneath. “If the public has no taste independent of what it’s told, why are there so many failed TV shows and flop movies? “ Anyone who’s ever worked with large herbivores will tell you that, depending on their degree of domesticity, getting them to do what you want them to do is an art, compounded of cunning, praise, guile, and brute force, and anything else that comes to hand or mind that works. The subject in question, the mediated American populace, is so recently domesticated, or still in process, that it’s unpredictable, and far bigger in relation to its masters, pound for pound, than the ox or mule of our agrarian heritage. Shorter answer: Because it’s tastes are not wholly predictable, because there are competing interests for its attention on trivial matters like entertainment, and because I was exaggerating to make my point more forceful – a sin in academia, but a valuable tool in the profession under discussion. – “If the media were really capable of creating public interest in any story it chose, don’t you think news ratings would be pretty stable?” This is not equal to the incisive logic of your other questions. Obviously news ratings are going to rise and fall with the glamour and tease of particular stories, on particular days. Just as mood and interest rise and fall concerning most things human. And not so obviously, I’m not saying we have a monolithic enterprise here, though it seems more so with each passing day. There is intense competition for position among journalists and editorial bureaucracies, though there’s an agreement in overall editorial voice that isn’t explained by that competition alone. – “No one had to manufacture the public’s interest in sex and violence. It’s simply human nature. “ No one had to manufacture the public’s interest in fried foods, either. Or large ill-designed vehicles whose cost/benefit ratios are skewed entirely toward their manufacturers. And toward the industry that supplies their fuel. (380 million gallons a day in the US) I do think a case could easily be made there’s been more than a little manipulation behind the public’s demand for these things. Human nature is more flexible even than human anatomy, we survive because we adapt, that’s also our nature, and it’s why we’ve been so successful in the short term as a species. The essential unadorned position I’m taking is that the “Monica Lewinsky” case was an assassination by degrees, it was intended so, and it was carried out so, by all but its most unwitting accomplice, the American public. The converse, which I still think beneath the dignity of reasoned argument, that the “Monica Lewinsky case” entered the public arena in a naturally-occurring manner and sustained itself there independently for the duration of its cycle as an “interesting” news story, isn’t being overtly put forth in this thread, but it is underpinning much of the rightwing position. And it is, as I said, and say again, specious nonsense.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 00:54:13 +0000

At the risk of ticking Zizka off, I think the idiom can indeed be used transitively. I agree that giles’ usage seems odd, though; perhaps he meant to say “told off.”

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 23:56:13 +0000

I guess it’s going to have to be repeated on into infinity, every time the Democratic lie comes up: Bill Clinton was not impeached for having an affair. He was impeached for perjury, subornation of perjury, and obstruction of justice. Something we have every reason to believe he committed on many occasions, concerning far more grave matters, for all that it could only be [i]proven[/i] in a relatively trivial case. And if said offenses had something to do with his affair, we must remember that he, himself, signed the bill which made questioning him on those matters legal. Typical Clinton, signing a law, then refusing to abide by it… If there was anyone on the face of the Earth with an absolute moral obligation to answer those questions truthfully, it was William Jefferson Clinton. He gets no sympathy from me.

By: Alaska Jack

Alaska Jack — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:51:42 +0000

Bill Clinton has one person—one single individual—to blame with respect to the troubles he experienced in office. Here’s a few hints: It’s not Ken Starr It’s not Linda Tripp It’s not Monica Lewinsky It’s not Hillary Clinton It’s not Newt Gingrich It’s not Jerry Falwell It’s not the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy It’s not Al Gore It’s not Sister Souljah It’s not Lucianne Goldberg It’s not his alcholic father It’s not Matt Drudge It’s not Bob Dole It’s not Paula Jones It’s not Betty Curry It’s not Vernon Jordan It’s not Dick Morris It’s not Webb Hubbell It’s not Michael Isikoff It’s not Vince Foster It’s not Gennifer Flowers It’s not Kathleen Willey It’s not Juanita Broaddrick It’s not Christy Zercher It’s not Dolly Kyle Browning It’s not Elizabeth Ward Gracen It’s not Susan McDougal It’s not Sally Purdue etc. …

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:46:47 +0000

Nate, I think that’s consistent with the possibility that Starr was treated more gently than Clinton and that his behavior was in fact much much worse than Clinton’s, which I also think is in fact the case. That is, I think Starr deserves his destroyed reputation; by the end he lost his own ethics counsel. The important thing here is the role of straight journalists rather than op-ed types. Did straight journalists gin up stories about Starr or uncritically report falsehoods from the anti-Starr forces? It seems to me that they did with respect to Clinton—in some circles Susan Schmidt is called “Steno Sue” for her alleged uncritical transcription of leaks from the OIC. But I haven’t done any in-depth investigation of the reporting here, so my views may be unduly shaped by the echo chamber.

By: Nate Oman

Nate Oman — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:11:54 +0000

It seems to me that at least one premise of Clinton’s argument is rather demonstrabely false, namely the notion that the media treated Ken Starr with kid gloves. It seems to me that he was rather persistently attacked, and his reputation (remember he was getting praise in the NYT as a “reasonable” judicial conservative prior to his stint as independent counsel) outside of right-wing circles was completely destroyed.