New McCarthyism? Same As The Old McCarthyism
There was a bloodthirsty howl from the vendetta prone Bush apologists when they thought they could deflect the ongoing criticism of The Decider by gathering up their pitchforks and torches declaring the New McCarthyism demanded that the head of CIA analyst Mary McCarthy be brought to them on a platter of self-righteous indignation.
Guess what? She didn't do it.
It turns out that the New McCarthyism was not much more than the Old McCarthyism. Just another witch hunt. No doubt they'll blame the "librule" media for making them jump to the conclusion that CIA analyst Mary McCarthy was a "vile traitor."
What clinched it for the those fine folks who extol the virtue of getting their facts straight, who wish we all were more like Sgt. Joe Friday of "Just the Facts, Ma'am" fame? ::Gasp:: They had all the evidence they needed. Mary McCarthy had donated to John Kerry and the Ohio Democratic Party!!
Yes, the Ohio Democratic Party, so long known to be full of subversives and terrorists. Not to be confused with the Ohio GOP which boasts a convicted Governor, an indicted leading fund raiser, a disgraced and graft-infested workers' compensation bureau, a Diebold voting machine fixing Secretary of State, a soon-to-be indicted Abramoff crony Congressman, a sobbing Senator and the disgusting veteran bashing Jean Schmidt.
I look forward to this bitch's multiple felony count indictment. I only wish we still had the death penalty for such things.Hey, you know what clears her in the court of public opinion (since nobody will be prosecuting her), at least those that read beyond the headlines and haven't already condemned this lady who served her nation for 20 years? Another leak!
Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.
Though McCarthy acknowledged having contact with reporters, [just contact is a fireable offense at Langley] a senior intelligence official confirmed yesterday that she is not believed to have played a central role in The Post's reporting of the secret prisons. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing personnel matters. [My emphasis.]They let her go 10 days before her retirement became final. Apparently she had been away from the office since early February, using unspent earned vacation days if I can hazard a guess at facts not in evidence. She's keeping her pension BTW. In addition to her reputation and emotional well-being, she lost a week's pay.
Nobody arrested her. Nobody has referred her case to the Justice Department. Nobody who knows what the hell they're talking about is accusing her of telling anybody about the locations of any secret prisons. Nobody is even saying she knew where the prisons are/were. Secret prisons that anybody with a sense of right and wrong, of what American ideals ought to be, sure as hell should have exposed as the clandestine locations where governments like the old USSR would send nonpersons -- never to be heard from again.
Deep in the Post's article, page 2, at the end, we hear from the experts who remind us that since nothing was disclosed to Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Dana Priest regarding coded intercepts, sources, methods, or the identity of an undercover agent, even if she did what the Esmays thought she did, no crime was committed.
Several national security law experts said yesterday that, looking at what has been publicly disclosed so far, prosecutors would have a difficult time building a criminal case against McCarthy. Any information obtained during polygraph examinations is essentially useless to prosecutors, since generally it is inadmissible in criminal courts.
In addition, federal espionage laws do not outlaw all disclosures of classified information, at least not specifically. Instead, a collection of separate statutes prohibits unauthorized disclosures of certain categories of information -- such as intercepted communications or codes -- and violations often hinge on important details that are still unclear in the CIA prisons case.
Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University, said he does not think the Post article includes the kind of operational details that a prosecutor would need to build a case.
Innocent until proven guilty is still the criteria for establishing
whether someone committed treason, mmkay? No admissible evidence,
no breach of a statute -- no crime.
This is America. We crushed the Nazis, we buried the
Soviets. And now were going to throw all that away, become the
kind of people we fought so hard to eliminate because some nutjobs
attacked us in spectacular, made for TV fashion? They attacked
New York and the subways were on time the next day. They attacked
the Pentagon and they held a press conference inside the building
before the smoke cleared.
Pick up a newspaper. Every damn day there are terrorist
attacks. More now than ever despite reelecting the guy who stood
on a mass grave in Manhattan and swore he'd get the bastards "dead or
alive." It was our turn to get hit, law of averages, especially
when Cheney's terrorist task force never bothered to meet.
Fear drove the Old McCarthyism, and many, many lives were recklessly ruined. The new McCarthyism almost claimed it's first victim. Let's hope it's the last."It's the fact of the thing that they're trying to keep secret, not to protect sources and methods, but to hide something controversial," he [Director Blanton] said. "That seems like a hard prosecution to me."
Kate Martin, executive director of the Center for National Security Studies, said that "even if the espionage statutes were read to apply to leaks of information, we would say the First Amendment prohibits criminalizing leaks of information which reveal wrongful or illegal activities by the government."
UPDATE: Link fixed to Washington Post.
I dunno, Mark. The old McCarthyism was really concocted by a lone, demagogue, fear-mongering Republican Senator, who used American anxiety about Soviet Communism to build his own political power. The new McCarthyism is brought to serve the installation of an imperial presidency and the destruction of the founder’s 230-year government of checks-and-balances, of, by and for the people. The fact that this treason is promulgated by people who claim to be “liberal” and others claiming to be “conservative”, indicates how different and dangerous this particular flavor of political theater really is.
This McCarthyism is the product of partisan warfare not just simple megalomania. And it’s insanity it based more upon partisan hatred than the more rational fear of a foreign enemy.
Mark, the "She didn't do it" link goes to Dean's World.
Y'know, we should really start up a Dean's World Watch blog. Lots of good material there.
Appropos of nothing at all, I wanted to mention that we finally got around to watching Good Night and Good Luck.
OK, it's actually very appropos.
Terrific movie.
Cool Movie. I got a copy as an Easter Present and just watched it too.
It should be required in all journalism courses.
(Thanks shep. Link fixed. That's what I get for writing at 4am.)
I dunno if I could stomach reading Dean on a regular basis. Too much derangement for my delicate system. I can only take him with an ample supply of Guiness at hand.
Much more fun just to come across him by coincidence on a google search for something wingnutty to quote, like last night, and then blast him with it. That's how I found out he was hosting a neo-nazi's blog a couple of years ago (long since deleted but preseved for posterity.)
For instance. If you google "Dean Esmay dickhead" you end up at Doubleplus Ungood! How neat!!! Using yahoo with his name and hitler, you end up at this delicious piece.
If anyone sees him write something particulary noxious, by all means let me know. He's already quit commenting on other sites I lurk at (except here and Rose's). I guess he got tired of feeding my trollishness. Just can't resist slapping him on an open forum.
I dunno if I could stomach reading Dean on a regular basis. Too much derangement for my delicate system. I can only take him with an ample supply of Guiness at hand.
I still read the gent every day. Somedays, it's just a flyby. Yesterday though, there was a blooper so big that my head almost exploded, and I had to post something on my blog to release the pressure.
When you get that tone of knowitalligness combined with such an astounding lack of knowledge about the subject at hand, the universe needs levelling.
If you google "Dean Esmay dickhead" you end up at Doubleplus Ungood! How neat!!!
Heh. Dunno how that happened, I think the strongest term I've used in referring to him is "excitable". Oh, and "ragemeister".
"I think the strongest term I've used in referring to him is 'excitable'. Oh, and 'ragemeister'."
You are too kind, ++.
More like one wave short of a shipwreck.
Dean doesn't just want to be right. After all, who among us doesn't want to be right? It goes beyond that: he wants to be recognized as being right. He wants the last word. Again, who among us doesn't want that? It's just that his need is really very intense and driven by something deeper.
My guess? Having read his stuff for years, I imagine that it might go back to his relationship with his father whose approval he really, really wants and needs.
At the same time he feels some sense of betrayal by the man (although they seem to have reached some level of understanding recently). Having been betrayed, he takes it out on conventional authority figures, i.e., "liberals," medical authorities, etc. I think that's where the anger comes from.
Of course, all of this is just my opinion. I might be wrong.
But I've known Dean for a long time -- long before he went online. We used to work together. We used to socialize together and our wives even hit it off together.
But somewhere along the line I ended up on his shit list, got banned from his blog and he stopped talking to me. He'll claim that I crossed the line and became a traitor when I said I liked Fahrenheit 911. I dunno.
It's too bad. He's a bright guy who just can't seem to get past the anger and hatred.
"Of course, all of this is just my opinion."
It makes perfect sense. Not to mention what it must be like to need so to be right and then be proved so terribly wrong. Did you "scold" him before your falling out?
Not so much scold as poke him with a sharp stick -- that's one of my particular weaknesses. I think I did it one time too many and he blew a gasket and cut me off. Ah, well. I apologized but it was too late.