Complete the following sentence.
bq. The dismissal of Ms. McCarthy provided fresh evidence of the Bush administration’s determination to (…) leaks of classified information.
a. abuse
b. manipulate
c. hypocritically punish others for
d. stanch
The correct answer here is a, b or c. Unless you’re David Johnston and Scott Shane of the _New York Times_. In which case, apparently, it’s “d”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/washington/22leak.html?ex=1303358400&en=96b99d312427aecb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss.
{ 7 comments }
dearieme 04.22.06 at 9:15 am
Golly, I didn’t know that alternative spelling. I blame my school-teachers.
Maria 04.22.06 at 12:51 pm
I thought the appropriate word was “monopolize”.
bi 04.22.06 at 1:12 pm
Does New York Times have an NPOV policy like Wikipedia?
P O'Neill 04.22.06 at 3:25 pm
One of the CIA justifications is to say that a complaint came from European intelligence services about the leak, presumably those in Poland and Romania. It’s providing an interesting test of exactly how much about their intelligence services the citizens of these countries would rather not know. EU implications too.
Alan Green 04.22.06 at 4:50 pm
When they say “evidence of”, they probably mean “evidence of the quality of”.
Phill 04.23.06 at 8:49 am
The aspect of this that the press is not reporting is the extent to which the current rash of negative leaks are payback from the CIA, NSA and JAG corps.
Pissing off a bunch of spies by ordering them to violate their core principles, not a smart political move.
rvman 04.24.06 at 4:51 pm
The correct answer is (E) None of the Above: The correct sentence is:
The dismissal of Ms. McCarthy provided fresh evidence of the Bush administration’s determination to (CONTROL) leaks of classified information.
“Manipulate” implies they are some sort of underworld information puppetmasters – they are not. They are simply, in the immortal words of Al Gore, “the controlling legal authority” regarding this information. “Abuse” describes the original Plame leak, but not the McCarthy dismissal. “Hypocritically punish others for” isn’t as far off, except there is no evidence that the White House (as opposed to Cheney’s office) has been in the habit of leaking currently classified information. (Selective declassification is not the same as leaking classified data, by the same logic that says that the faucet isn’t ‘leaking’ after you turn on the tap.) Besides, “but she did it first” isn’t a valid defence for hitting your sister, leave alone criminal activity.
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