Re: tallman, get over it!

Ah, again we come to your last impenetrable line of defense: plausible deniability.

Let me just get this straight. What he said could technically considered to be an honest mistake, but you took it seriously in the light of Cheney's (and the administration's) continued history of manipulating the media too their advantage and LYING! to the public to make their point? I guess that's a reasonable stance...

But doesn't that sound familiar to you?

The issue of whether or not Cheney was LYING! is important, but your continued refusal to recognize the irony in your initial post only weakens the case. You combine an absolute skepticism of every tiny detail put forth by the administration with a severely uncritical analysis of your own findings, and we're supposed to find that convincing?

So were you LYING!? Were you maliciously misleading 4degreez visitors by selectively quoting and editing down that interview? Was it ethical to leave out the caveats and qualifiers that you considered and rejected before you reached your conclusion? Does the fact that someone like myself disagrees with you (i.e. that I "dissent" from your statement a la the NIE dissent that you once quoted out of context) mean anything?

Doesn't all this sound familiar? I ask again, why is it acceptable for you to play it loose with the facts, leave out qualifiers, and selectively quote Cheney?

I don't think we can go much further with this discussion. I think I've made my point. There is a case to be made, but it simply isn't as melodramatic as you would like it to be, and your continued efforts to whip people into a frenzy over an administration that's prepared to think the worst of a man like Saddam Hussein are only weakening your case.

Frustrating, isn't it, to have your entire case shrunken down to one seemingly insignificant post (similar to, say, reducing the entire argument for war down to a few details about WMD)? I'm going to stop being a dick now because I think I've made my point, unless you really don't understand what it is I'm getting at (but I think you do).

~tallman