Am I being name-checked? As the apologist for the MSM? A great responsibility. There's no way to go back through their on-air broadcasts, but MSNBC's online news archive has plenty of references to Fast & Furious. Hope you don't mind if I don't take Breitbart's word for it--his reputation for truthfulness is not exactly stellar. By the way, has it been proven that F&F is unequivocally responsible for the agent's death, as Breitbart claims?
@Walt Taylor: You're engaging in a bit of misdirection, Walt. I singled out The NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams, as did the Big Journalism article, and you point instead toward the entire MSNBC website. As for MSNBC itself, Brent Bozell's Media Research Center (Newsbusters) has sufficiently documented lack of Fast and Furious coverage by on-air MSNBC personalities such as Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow.
You also engage in misdirection by attributing the linked article to "Breitbart." Andrew Breitbart didn't write the article, Mary Chastain did, so if you're going to make accusations of poor journalism, it should be at her, not at Breitbart. After all, I don't snarl "Sulzberger" when I see inaccurate crap in The New York Times; I blame the particular journalist who wrote the article, and the editor above him who let it be published.
In any event, you're avoiding answering the question, so let's frame it as a hypothetical, so you'll have fewer qualms about answering it:
IfThe NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams has failed to televise a Fast and Furious story in the last year, to what would you attribute that failure?
@Walt Taylor: And as for Fast and Furious itself, no one, not even the Justice Department and ATF, is disputing that Fast and Furious weapons were recovered at the Brian Terry murder scene. Yet the Justice Department and FBI have not been forthcoming about the ballistics of the bullets that killed Terry, and in fact the Brian Terry investigation has been sealed at their request. Not a good sign when "the most transparent government ever" engages in such tactics.
Terribly sorry for the misdirection, old chap. I see now I should have said "Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism website has a reputation for truthfulness that's less than stellar." I hope this has pointed you back in the right direction. And I did overlook the specificity of your reference to NBC Nightly News and not to the entire news organization. Sloppy reading on my part. It should be pointed out, though, that I don't snarl; that's Fox-talk. I merely observe superciliously.
The reason I "avoided" answering your question is that you didn't ask me one. You instructed me to do something, which I decline to do, since I am not an apologist for the MSM, and have on several occasions acknowledged that their liberal bias shows. My primary point has always been that such bias seems to me to be cultural, and not a conscious implementation of the liberal master plan to create a totalitarian state. My secondary point is that you have a tendency, probably exacerbated by your choice of reading matter, to overreact to what you see as examples of this bias, such as the silliness surrounding the crazed Muslim terrorist stalking the streets of Hollywood.
So, to sum up: my "misdirection" was inadvertent, and I apologize for any confusion caused by it; I am not a spokesman for the MSM, and merely encourage a calmer attitude on your part; and, almost forgot, I think there obviously has been some skullduggery as well as a whole lot of stupidity re: F&F.
And on the topic of avoided questions: how about Breitbart's website's claim that Fast & Furious is responsible--not might possibly be responsible--for the agent's death? Such distinctions matter to those of us on the left, as well as to our judicial system.
(Sorry for the verbosity: on my first, strong, cup of coffee.)
@Walt Taylor: The nearest I can see that Breitbart & Co. have claimed that Fast & Furious is responsible for Brian Terry's death is this passage:
Too many people have died, including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, because of this operation.
The law recognizes that there are degrees of culpability and responsibility in the commission of a crime. In the case of Brian Terry's death, the person/persons who pulled the trigger have direct responsibility for the crime. At one remove is the person(s) who furnished the weapons to the killers: the straw buyers. At two removes is the organization that allowed (encouraged?) those straw buyers to act without interference: ATF/Justice Department. The fundmental question is this: Had ATF not allowed those straw purchases, would Brian Terry still be alive? Probably. I'd say that the Justice Department has a lot to worry about, and within the realm of legal jurisprudence Breitbart & Co. are correct to say that ATF/Justice is responsible - - albeit indirectly - - for Terry's death.
@Walt Taylor: Two (not one) AK-47 clones from Rumania were found at the Terry crime scene. Both were traced to Fast & Furious straw purchases. A possible third weapon, an SKS, may or may not exist, and is the subject of inquiry by Congress and is the probable reason for the Terry investigation being sealed: the SKS is theorized to have been in possession of a DEA or FBI informant present at Terry's death.
And I'm saying that, if those drug cartels had not been armed, they would not have been in the Arizona desert that night, yes.
You're being particularly slippery here, Bob. The topic was whether the cartel people would have been at that place at the time if they hadn't had F&F-supplied weapons, the larger question being just how responsible the govt was for the agent's death. As you say, there are degrees of culpability. Breitbart The Website doesn't seem to make that distinction. Being armed with more facts than me, I had hoped you would shed some light on the specifics. At one point you imply that the F&F guns were responsible for the cartel people being there, then you back off and say you were merely stating that we shouldn't have sold them the guns. Are you a Romney supporter, by any chance?
@Walt Taylor: I'm not trying to be slippery about this, Walt. More information about the possible motives of the people involved in the killing of Terry can be found here. Discussion of the possible third gun and the speculation about a DEA/FBI informant on the ground at the murder scene are discussed. Yet another example of the MSM not covering an important story.
A newsroom comprised entirely of leftists/liberals is no more capable of ideological objectivity than an all-white newsroom would be of racial objectivity, or an all-male newsroom of gender objectivity.
Captain Louis Renault
"Round Up the Usual Suspects."
The Drawn Cutlass Philosophy
Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect, and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security, it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
The Foe
When I am free to walk the streets of Mecca or Medina as the agnostic I am and receive nothing but curious glances, I will believe Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.
Sign On. You Know You Want To.
A Few Words From Some Founding Fathers
All Men Are Created Equal. (Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father)
But Differ Greatly In the Sequel. (Fisher Ames, Founding Father)
Jeff Cooper's Rules of Gun Safety
All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
Bob's Addendum To Cooper's Rules
A Gun is not a Toy. Don't Play With It.
Bob's Theory of Hush Puppies
Bob's Theory of Hush Puppies: The best hush puppies are oblong shaped, rather like dog turds. The worst ones are spherical, like balls. The spherical ones are usually made from the recipe on a pre-packaged box of hush puppy mix.
Restaurant Ratings
My restaurant ratings, mostly intended for BBQ restaurants, will be on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. Unlike most reviewers, I don't intend to play games with the rating scale by introducing fractions such as "2 and 1/2" or "4 and 3/4," I've always considered that stupid and a signal that the reviewer is trying to avoid making an honest 1-5 judgment.
Here is the breakdown of the ratings:
1 out of 5: waste of time, crap, unable to finish eating; apathy by staff/ownership
2 out of 5: edible, but no effort to impress; staff/management going through motions; desultory.
3 out of 5: average; reasonably good food, moderate effort by staff/management
4 out of 5: good; tasty, well-prepared food, staff alert, restaurant clean.
5 out of 5: great; excellent food, cooked fresh. Staff attentive and proactive, management responsive to complaints. Restaurant spotless.
On Self-Reliance
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
13 comments:
More coverage, though restrained, on the Corzine thing. But when a Democrat does something it does stay quiet. Republican, all hell breaks loose.
Am I being name-checked? As the apologist for the MSM? A great responsibility. There's no way to go back through their on-air broadcasts, but MSNBC's online news archive has plenty of references to Fast & Furious. Hope you don't mind if I don't take Breitbart's word for it--his reputation for truthfulness is not exactly stellar. By the way, has it been proven that F&F is unequivocally responsible for the agent's death, as Breitbart claims?
@Walt Taylor: You're engaging in a bit of misdirection, Walt. I singled out The NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams, as did the Big Journalism article, and you point instead toward the entire MSNBC website. As for MSNBC itself, Brent Bozell's Media Research Center (Newsbusters) has sufficiently documented lack of Fast and Furious coverage by on-air MSNBC personalities such as Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow.
You also engage in misdirection by attributing the linked article to "Breitbart." Andrew Breitbart didn't write the article, Mary Chastain did, so if you're going to make accusations of poor journalism, it should be at her, not at Breitbart. After all, I don't snarl "Sulzberger" when I see inaccurate crap in The New York Times; I blame the particular journalist who wrote the article, and the editor above him who let it be published.
In any event, you're avoiding answering the question, so let's frame it as a hypothetical, so you'll have fewer qualms about answering it:
If The NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams has failed to televise a Fast and Furious story in the last year, to what would you attribute that failure?
@Walt Taylor: And as for Fast and Furious itself, no one, not even the Justice Department and ATF, is disputing that Fast and Furious weapons were recovered at the Brian Terry murder scene. Yet the Justice Department and FBI have not been forthcoming about the ballistics of the bullets that killed Terry, and in fact the Brian Terry investigation has been sealed at their request. Not a good sign when "the most transparent government ever" engages in such tactics.
Terribly sorry for the misdirection, old chap. I see now I should have said "Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism website has a reputation for truthfulness that's less than stellar." I hope this has pointed you back in the right direction. And I did overlook the specificity of your reference to NBC Nightly News and not to the entire news organization. Sloppy reading on my part. It should be pointed out, though, that I don't snarl; that's Fox-talk. I merely observe superciliously.
The reason I "avoided" answering your question is that you didn't ask me one. You instructed me to do something, which I decline to do, since I am not an apologist for the MSM, and have on several occasions acknowledged that their liberal bias shows. My primary point has always been that such bias seems to me to be cultural, and not a conscious implementation of the liberal master plan to create a totalitarian state. My secondary point is that you have a tendency, probably exacerbated by your choice of reading matter, to overreact to what you see as examples of this bias, such as the silliness surrounding the crazed Muslim terrorist stalking the streets of Hollywood.
So, to sum up: my "misdirection" was inadvertent, and I apologize for any confusion caused by it; I am not a spokesman for the MSM, and merely encourage a calmer attitude on your part; and, almost forgot, I think there obviously has been some skullduggery as well as a whole lot of stupidity re: F&F.
And on the topic of avoided questions: how about Breitbart's website's claim that Fast & Furious is responsible--not might possibly be responsible--for the agent's death? Such distinctions matter to those of us on the left, as well as to our judicial system.
(Sorry for the verbosity: on my first, strong, cup of coffee.)
@Walt Taylor: The nearest I can see that Breitbart & Co. have claimed that Fast & Furious is responsible for Brian Terry's death is this passage:
Too many people have died, including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, because of this operation.
The law recognizes that there are degrees of culpability and responsibility in the commission of a crime. In the case of Brian Terry's death, the person/persons who pulled the trigger have direct responsibility for the crime. At one remove is the person(s) who furnished the weapons to the killers: the straw buyers. At two removes is the organization that allowed (encouraged?) those straw buyers to act without interference: ATF/Justice Department. The fundmental question is this: Had ATF not allowed those straw purchases, would Brian Terry still be alive? Probably. I'd say that the Justice Department has a lot to worry about, and within the realm of legal jurisprudence Breitbart & Co. are correct to say that ATF/Justice is responsible - - albeit indirectly - - for Terry's death.
Probably? Are you saying that incident would not have taken place if that one weapon had not been gotten from the Fast & Furious operation?
That's not rhetorical, that's a real question. I'm not nearly as well-read as you on the subject.
@Walt Taylor: Two (not one) AK-47 clones from Rumania were found at the Terry crime scene. Both were traced to Fast & Furious straw purchases. A possible third weapon, an SKS, may or may not exist, and is the subject of inquiry by Congress and is the probable reason for the Terry investigation being sealed: the SKS is theorized to have been in possession of a DEA or FBI informant present at Terry's death.
And I'm saying that, if those drug cartels had not been armed, they would not have been in the Arizona desert that night, yes.
@Walt Taylor: "I'm not nearly as well-read as you on the subject."
Well, obviously I didn't get my facts from The NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams.
"if those drug cartels had not been armed." Are you saying that there was no other source of arms for the drug cartels besides Fast and Furious?
@Walt Taylor: Nope. I'm saying that the US government should not have been complicit in arming them.
You're being particularly slippery here, Bob. The topic was whether the cartel people would have been at that place at the time if they hadn't had F&F-supplied weapons, the larger question being just how responsible the govt was for the agent's death. As you say, there are degrees of culpability. Breitbart The Website doesn't seem to make that distinction. Being armed with more facts than me, I had hoped you would shed some light on the specifics. At one point you imply that the F&F guns were responsible for the cartel people being there, then you back off and say you were merely stating that we shouldn't have sold them the guns. Are you a Romney supporter, by any chance?
@Walt Taylor: I'm not trying to be slippery about this, Walt. More information about the possible motives of the people involved in the killing of Terry can be found here. Discussion of the possible third gun and the speculation about a DEA/FBI informant on the ground at the murder scene are discussed. Yet another example of the MSM not covering an important story.
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