Saturday, January 07, 2006

You are the real hypocrite, and no backsies.

I am a hypocrite...

But you are the real hypocrite...

But I am rubber, and you are glue -- and the charge of hypocrisy does not stick to me! It sticks to you!

The subject: the absurd demand of partisans that I explain what I mean when I say something, and the bizarre insistence that I must "explain" how what I say in one instance is coherent with other things I say in other instances. That is absurd!

As far as the Plame situation goes, I have NEVER offered an opinion about it at all. Why? Because it is complicated. It involves legal questions. And I know so very much about the law that I know that I do not understand it in this case. That is why I blog: to not explain issues in my particular professional field, a field in which I am not especially interested. Why is this so surprising?

I do not understand the issues involved in the Plame leak or the domestic surveillance issue, as I have repeatedly stated. All I know is that the Plame case is difficult, but that the leak there is not important. Likewise, the spying revelations are a mystery to me, but it is clear that that the leaker in this case is a traitor who should be shot for compromising national security in a way which is impossible to actually describe intelligibly, but which is nevertheless very real. American jurisprudence is very advanced. That is why it is so hard to explain.

But it is the leaker of the domestic spying program information who must be judged the most harshly. How is it this person's prerogative to determine the morality or legality of what she or he was asked to do? That is outrageous! In our system of democracy, we do not want individuals who believe that they have been ordered to do something illegal to speak out.

What could be more un-American than for a person in the government who believes that she or he has been told to violate the law to say so to a member of the press? That is just sick! If the president has made a judgement about what is legal and what is right, who is some "government employee" to contradict him? Who does this government worker serve, anyway, the president or the "nation"?

If we have reached a point in which individual members of the government are so debased as to risk their careers and lives simply because they think the Constitution is being violated, I must weep for America. Blithe yammering about how it didn't really hurt just makes them look all the more partisan.

41 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

'I mean when I say something, and the bizarre insistence that I must "explain" how what I say in one instance is coherent with other things I say in other instances. That is absurd!'

I'm new to the internets and blogs and have never posted before but don't understand why others are so uncivil to you. It's not like you ever fully state a position or a position clearly so it's unfair to expect you to explain yourself.

It's your blog and you can blog as you want to.

As for the Plame outing. What's the big deal? It's not like anyone signed an oath or anything.

12:55 AM  
Blogger ntodd said...

What's with all these posts about blogging and not explaining? Have we run out of speed stapling and nostrils?

5:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Altmouse, do you too live in that bastion of liberalism, Madison WI?

9:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am very glad to have the matter explained to succinctly and clearly. I'm quite sure all those 'partisans' who have been yammering at you for explanations will quiet down now.

9:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Astounding ignorance. Take the first person's comment about Plame? "It's not like anyone signed an oath or anything."

Of course, those government officials did sign an oath and, apparently, violated it.

Ms. Altmouse's argument is the more absurd and disingenuous however. Ms. Plame was a WMD expert working on non-proliferation during, and I quote administration’s now ubiquitous mantra, the same one he uses to explain use of the NSA in domestic spying, “a time of war.”

I’ve yet to hear anyone deny that Ms. Plame’s foreign contacts, her clandestine sources of information on WMD, were utterly compromised by the administration’s outing. I’ve yet to hear anyone argue against the idea that those lives’ were jeopardized by the administration’s feckless act of personal vendetta. No one that I know of has argued that compromising agents and their contact diminishes our ability to recruit new informants. It seems a simple logical deduction that if these things are undisputed then our national security was compromised, and for what reason?

What is unclear is how Ms. Altmouse can be so incensed with the one and not the other. NSA’s ability to filter virtually all electronic communications worldwide is a well-known “secret.” Was it CBS’s 60 Minutes or PBS’s Frontline broadcasts that detailed those domestic and foreign-based capabilities some years ago, or was it both? So what is the informant’s crime, disclosing that the Administration has bypassed the legislative process and usurped power otherwise not provided it in the Constitution? Or was it simply the disclosure that the administration is violating the law?

As I understand it Ms. Altmouse is a respected officer of the court. If so, certainly she cannot be of the opinion that our laws apply only in the absence of mitigating circumstance.

10:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do believe the oath comment was in jest...

11:09 AM  
Blogger Lotus said...

Al -

Does the word "sarcasm" mean anything to you?

11:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

larrye said:

Does the word "sarcasm" mean anything to you?

Only when I know the writer, otherwise it doesn't translate well to text messaging. But I digress.

"Yammering" is one of Anne Coulter's favorite partisan derisions. Could it be, or have I simply overlooked the obvious? (If it looks like a ditzy blonde duck and quacks like a ditzy blonde duck it probably is a ditzy blonde quacker?)

11:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pooh = Al try here.

I stand corrected, yet again...

I guess it pays to read the URL. Parody blogging is a new concept for me.

(I don't have time to read the real thing let alone the parodies. Must learn to pay closer attention.)

1:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Girl, what's wrong with you?

Are you so insecure that you don't want to take a stand? And NO, the law is not complicated; it is lawyers with the collaboration of corrupted partisan brain dead judges that make it complicated.

If you were a man, I would call you a gutless wonder. You are an academic living inside an ivory tower so, I excuse you.

I will bet that you come from an upper middle class to very upper family and that you are single and under sexed.

As a lawyer you are an advocate. Please advocate or life gets boring. You must fail your students who advocate; given they are not on campus to advocate but to learn. Then why get involve in this highly oratory profession?

At last, principles are simples and complicated. You might have forgotten this fact through your education. The pillars of our principles (rights) are held by the knowledge that some persons who are willing to fight and put their life/job on the line for what is right for human kind.

Your reasoning is intriguing, I will check up on your site from time to time. If you keep this washy washy behavior, you will loose me as a reader.

Go blondie

4:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Altmouse--

Just dropped in to give you a quick heads-up on the latest talking points from Gglen. Until further notice, we're to take NO POSITION on the PLAME leak, but we're to condemn the NSA leak.

Got that? Good, because it gets more complicated. Anyone who doesn't condemn the NSA leak is a PARTISAN, if and ONLY IF they have condemned the PLAME leak. Otherwise, they are (get ready, this is a mouthful) MORAL RELATIVISTS.

We, on the other hand, are NON-PARTISAN. If challenged, point out that you've taken no position on the PLAME leak.

As always, if you are challenged or if anyone accuses you of being part of a wingnut echo chamber, accuse them of hypocrisy and throw in something about national security. You can also call them FUCKING STUPID RETARD FUCKBRAINS, but keep that in your personal e-mail replies, so it doesn't come back to haunt you.

Play your cards right on this one, and Gglen might link to you.

4:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'Anyway, I'm off to make sure Maklin gets the memo.'

Don't forget to be a good guest and take something with you. Flowers, whine?

5:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

MEHS--

Maklin's a guy. He uses his wife as a front. The thought of my giving a guy flowers is revolting, though oddly compelling.

5:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That John Hindbaker is a total idiot who thinks that he is smart. So Many people think they are smart or cute and actualy are as smart as a box of rocks.
I am just pissed I wasted my time reading his crapola.

Go suck up to your master Bush and drop out of site.

Don't let the gate hit you on the way out.

6:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In our system of democracy, we do not want individuals who believe that they have been ordered to do something illegal to speak out.

Where the hell do you come from? Nazi Germany or Gulag Russia? WHAT DO YOU DO WITH FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

You better believe I want these people. Those are the true Americans. It is every citizen duty to do so, in America.


Who does this government worker serve, anyway, the president or the "nation"?

In American democracy, a government worker works for the NATION and not the president.
If you were a military officer you would have learned that the HIGHEST DUTY OF AN OFFICER IS TO KNOW WHEN TO DISOBEY AN ORDER.

I DEEPLY BELIEVE THAT AS A TRUE AMERICAN, ANY VIOLATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION CONSTITUTES SUCH PREMISE.

6:57 PM  
Blogger NYMary said...

Err, all you calling Ms. Altmouse a Nazi might want to check out the disclaimer in the right sidebar....

7:30 PM  
Blogger ntodd said...

I can't decide who's dumber: Althouse, or the people who think this site is for real.

8:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As an independent non-partisan, I have no opinion on Altmouse's hypocrisy.

However, if I were to have an opinion, it would most likely be one that wholeheartedly supports her position.

8:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ntodd said: I can't decide who's dumber: Althouse, or the people who think this site is for real.

Alright, have it your way. I'm telling Flory. You're as good as off the hummer list. So there.

8:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nymary,

Oops, thanks to point it out, it should be bigger. I stumble upon this site today and she just got my blood going. I take everything back.

It is a dangerous game though. Bad way to do anti rightwing propaganda.

Sorry my mouse.

8:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ntodd said...

I can't decide who's dumber: Althouse, or the people who think this site is for real.


I love polls. Althouse.

11:35 PM  
Blogger Pooh said...

This site needs a "Fish counter", and chalk two up to this thread alone...

11:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't decide who's dumber: Althouse, or the people who think this site is for real.

Yes.


Alright, have it your way. I'm telling Flory. You're as good as off the hummer list. So there.

Excuse me?

This is a serious non-partisan blog. Those kinds of comments belong over on that silly Aritos site.

And flory does not know what you mean by this *hummer*. Isn't that a car? Was NTodd going to buy a car?

11:50 PM  
Blogger Dick Durata said...

I don't see why we can't just get together and support Alt* in the quest to be profoundly, and unconventionally obtuse, and to have a sister site that laughs in the face of convention, or vice-versa. To me, it's the best of all worlds, even if it does make my head hurt sometimes.

12:58 AM  
Blogger ntodd said...

Alright, have it your way. I'm telling Flory. You're as good as off the hummer list. So there.

Shit. I guess it's just me and my ranch dip from now on...

5:39 AM  
Blogger Bas-O-Matic said...

Alright, have it your way. I'm telling Flory. You're as good as off the hummer list. So there.

Shit. I guess it's just me and my ranch dip from now on...

I find this exchange somewhat unsettling.

And very, very partisan.

7:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

NTodd's comments are distressingly partisan. Please tell me he's flirting with deletion. Deletion is such a tease.

7:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, crap! Did I post that on the comment board? I thought I was in e-mail. Altmouse, I'd like you to pretend that the above comment was in a private e-mail. Because i tbogg or The Editors see that, they're going to be really, really mean to me. They're partisans, you know.

7:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

big worm--

Almost missed ya there, pardner! You get the memo from Gglen yet?

7:57 AM  
Blogger NYMary said...

Please tell me he's flirting with deletion.

He flirts with everything else....

8:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

flory said: Was NTodd going to buy a car?

I don't know about the car, but he always looking for a ride.

(Perhaps Ms. Altmouse would consent to being a designated driver, or one of her friends?)

10:04 AM  
Blogger Pooh said...

Al Swearengen did Atrios sick you on this sight? How dare you acuse our dear blogress of 'giving rides' just to 'increase her traffic'.

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