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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Apr. 24, 2006 When Bill Clinton was president, one had to parse his words very carefully. "I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time – never." Aside from whether a reasonable person would include oral sex in a definition of a sexual relationship, I would like to point out that the second sentence is nearly impossible to parse correctly because it is, in effect, a triple negative. We do know that he suborned perjury, having prepared, in writing, false statements for Monica Lewinsky to mouth. But then, he could say he never TOLD anyone to lie--it was not an oral telling, but a written false affidavit. One could also say that he didn't tell anyone to LIE NOT A SINGLE TIME--perhaps he meant to say he told someone to lie MORE THAN ONCE. But then the third negative, "never," is thrown in, which hopelessly confuses any reasonable interpretation of Clinton's statements. Could it mean he told someone to lie multiple times on many different occasions? Who can tell? But now we have John Kerry making statements which require some careful analysis. When asked about the Mary McCarthy CIA leak, he replied: "Well, I read that. I don't know whether she did it or not so it's hard to have a view on it. Here's my fundamental view of this, that you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent [in the Valerie Plame kerfuffle] in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, D.C., here." First, Mary McCarthy was fired, it is reported, for leaking classified information, NOT FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. There is, in fact, some doubt that what she leaked was true. The Europeans have not, despite much investigation, been able to demonstrate that the USA was sending terrorists to prisons in European countries. Second, there has been no official charge by the PlameGate prosecutor that Valerie Plame was a covert agent or that her identity as such was leaked. Third, the declassification of documents by President Bush was not to support a lie, but to correct erroneous statements made by Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband. But, miraculously, he does make a correct statement, which is that his preceding remarks do underscore what is wrong with Washington! What's wrong with Washington is that there are way too many people eager to spread lies to damage President Bush. He also correctly notes that thee is insufficient public information to have a reasonable view about the situation, but that that doesn't stop him from pontificating about his conclusions. A reasonable person could, however, make some unassailable points: 1) Mary McCarthy has confessed to leaking classified information. 2) Unlike President Bush, Mary McCarthy does not have the authority to declassify that information. 3) That information possessed, if true, great potential to harm our war efforts by making it more difficult to get information from terrorists. 4) If not true, it may have been speculation on McCarthy's part, it may have been disinformatin planted by loyal CIA personnel to entrap the disloyal leakers like McCarthy who remain in the bureaucracy from the Clinton administration, or it could have been simply a rumor that her department was investigating. Either way, Kerry was simply not correct: Whether a leaker leaks correct or false information is not a deciding factor in their guilt or innocence. Rats! I just made th emistake of stopping to think. Why do I care what this loser says? Now why should I send this? ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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