Judith Miller turned over notes she took during an interview with Vice President Cheney's aide "Scooter" Libby. These notes list the name "Valerie Flame." When special counsel questioned Judith Miller as to where she got the name, Ms. Miller replied "I believe I said the name came from another source, whom I couldn't recall."
When I spoke with an Army recruiter some 12 years ago, he asked me if I had ever suffered from any respiratory ailments. When I responded that I once had bronchitis, he - well, first he threw a pen at me. Apparently, to SFC Dunlap, the fact that I came in to talk to him after telling him at school I wasn't interested, at work that I wasn't interested, in no fewer than 10 phone calls that I wasn't interested, including a call to my dad's then-girlfriend (now wife)'s house, and when I finally agreed to come in on condition that I wasn't going to enlist and he was to leave me and my family alone, and then reported that I had once had bronchitis, I was wasting his time. After all, he had all the papers I needed to sign right there in front of me, and he had a DLAB date for me, and a MEPS appointment, and everything. Then he tried to convince me that the doctor was wrong. "I bet it was just a really bad cold," he told me. And then he said it a few more times. And then he had me say it. That way it was true, I guess.
The point I'm trying to make is that someone who is in what appears to be a superior position may use that position to lean on those in a lesser position. How often do you hear about witnesses who change their story from the time they are deposed to the time they are on the witness stand, being stared down by the one they're testifying against? Would it surprise nobody if those in the Major Offices didn't do something similar? Can we really believe that Judith Miller can't remember THE NAME OF THE PERSON who gave her the most critical part of her entire article that started this mess?
And then we look at who this involves, and we notice again that it's the office of the President, well, vice president. The reason why things don't ever ease up, and why people have been so relentless in their attacks on the President et al. is less Liberal Media, I'm starting to think, and more "They keep doing stupid things." There would be nothing for the media to complain about if these things didn't keep happening. A sideways smirk, a chuckle, and a "trust me" are nice when you need to reassure a country reeling from the first attack on its soil in 8 years; it doesn't work when that's what's been provided as the solution for every other incident.
1 comment:
I remember the story to which you refer in the beginning of this post but I remember it differently. Apparently I heard the fish story version. In the fish version it was a Marine recrutier and his two heavies that threw the pen at you when you told him something that he didn't want to hear.
PS I remember the bronchitis, you coughed up blood and had to have an inhaler. That would have to be a pretty bad cold to make you do that.
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