On January 23rd, the liberal media covered the release of a “remarkable” study by “two nonprofit journalism groups” that "found" the Bush Administration "issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks." The study, from the impressively named "Center for Public Integrity" is here. Lefties, of course, loved it--hailing the document as "definitive."
Naturally, the media and the nut-roots missed the real story: both failed to report that the study was conducted by ultra-liberal activists and funded by Billionaire anti-Bush zealot George Soros; both forgot to fact-check the findings. Fortunately, several bloggers and honest journalists investigated and detailed numerous errors and exaggerations--plus a suspiciously selective memory.
Why am I recycling last week's news? Because I pointed out some of the study's flaws commenting on a post on ConnieTalk--but discovered today that my comment had vanished, presumably erased by the far-left Connie, who apparently isn't tolerant of opposing views. Regular readers will recall an identical incident last summer in connection with the Mercury Rising blog--one of many published by self-proclaimed liberals who are totalitarian in practice.
I didn't save a screen shot of my posted comment, but I did preserve the text; for the record, here's what I said:
Both you and the study are wrong in several respects:Obviously, Connie can't claim my comment contained inappropriate language or was an ad hominem attack.
1) The Administration always cited multiple reasons for the invasion apart from WMDs--including, in particular, freeing the Iraqi people.
2) I concede we haven't found any significant WMDs in Iraq. But it wasn't just Bush who thought Saddam had WMDs--but so did almost everyone, including Bill Clinton, John Kerry and French President Chirac.
3) Your focus on a "concerted effort" is misplaced when applied to intel. Intel is never black and white; never 100 percent. There's always doubts and contradictions. Intel officers have to exercise their best judgment without unanimity, and once they've done so form a syllogism from the data. That's not manipulation.
4) Contrary to the report's claim, it's likely that Saddam was trying to buy uranium in Africa--everything Bush said in the SOTU was true. A Senate Investigation agreed.
What's my point? Only this: that progressives have become so thoroughly "de-coupled . . . from reason" that in today's politics "paranoia primarily enters stage left." It starts with the single-minded Soros (who calls bringing down Bush the "central focus of my life") and the ever-credulous media, continues in Congress and flows all the way down to Connie T. An honest liberal, Dave Schuler, correctly concludes that pleased progressives are:
going beyond what the report says and voting their hearts, saying what they believe to be true rather than what can be proven to be true. The difference is that the Bush Administration bears the burden of responsibility.The truth may be out there--but lefty fingers have blocked, possibly permanently, millions of ears.
MORE:
Early Thursday morning, reader OBloodyHell independently re-posted my comment on ConnieTalk. I happened to see it and, this time, took a screen shot:
By noon this morning, OBH's comment also had vanished, a fact noted by other commenters (just in case, screen shot here).
As I have said repeatedly, the left talks the tolerance game but in practice cannot abide genuine debate: "Tolerance is a lighter yoke when one excludes adversaries from the start--and tolerate only those with whom one already agrees."
Connie's blog brags:
I am the media. You are the media. We are the media.Every word of this is a lie. Add Connie to the list of intolerant lefties.
We take the REAL news you send us, and verify it.
MORE & MORE:
Connie appears to have struck again.
11 comments:
Interesting. Connie erases dissenting viewpoints.
I'm not surprised.
She's claimed their software automatically strips out anything with more than a certain minimum number of links in it, presuming "it must be spam"
So clearly, her goal is to elicit mindless diatribes, not actual dialog, since attributions supporting ones' claims cannot be included.
I'm testing this claim by reposting it a third time without any links.
Done. I sorta pointed them here for the original, hopefully that doesn't cause a horde of libiots to descend on you and fill your e-mail with wrath and bile.
OBH:
Hope you took a screen shot.
Yep. I'll accept their claim of plausihle deniability, though.
Such stuff does happen. I used to have all manner of problems posting on VariFrank, it kept rejecting, straight out, the most trivial posts. The spam filter (which appears to have been eased back) was just set to a ridiculously high level of blocking -- I think it was, among other things, actually objecting to the "hell" in my nom-de-net.
OBH:
If you email me the screen shot, I'll post it here.
I asked Connie as well. No response, which is hardly surprising.
I have been questioning them in their message forum and apparently am bothering them as someone shut down my thread.
They insist that their software flagged it and only the user who posted it can see the response.
That, however, does not address the post minus the hyperlinks and they have yet to answer that question so I started yet another thread.
http://connietalk.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=241
PB:
I don't get it--what can the user who posted it see? I can't see anything I posted on her January 28th thread.
PB:
I won't register on her forum; tell me what CT's thread says.
Does it say users can see only their own comments or both their own and the comments of others? Does it explain why some comments are posted -- viewable by the person posting and others -- but, after a time, erased such that they become invisible to all? Or, to repeat Iowa_John's inquiries:
"Does this program go through and take comments down after they've been posted?
I'll add a second question. Did you or someone associated with your site manually remove NOFP's comment?"
Did Connie supply an answer or explanation?
As a final denoument in re this specific thread, I will point out that as I post this, your comments as well as mine (extensive) which followed remain on that thread.
I've (today) posted a number of comments, some challenging, all polite, in a number of her threads, and have screencaps of the challenging ones. I'll let you know in the followup thread how that works out.
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