Friday, June 20, 2008

AP dissembles and deceives for the gazillionth time

Since I expect to hear from their lawyers if I do, I have decided not to do it.

I won't be cutting and pasting anything from this story. The Associated Press has served notice that it will harass bloggers until they stop, citing 'fair use' and pretending the bloggers are somehow stealing their 'product' to make money.

Most bloggers don't make any money, and the ones who do are not the ones who are using AP material. They are writing their own, very well, and that is WHY they are making money.

The AP, though, is desperate to 'protect its content' from the 21st century. So no cut-n-pastes.

I can link to Yahoo News, though, and so here it is. It's a story about Scott McClellan's appearance on Capitol Hill today to hawk his book some more - er, to testify before the house judiciary committee and tell them everything he doesn't actually know about the White House's activities.

His most shocking charge? The White House was 'secretive'.

He's just whining that he didn't get on the A list most of the time.

The AP's contribution to the sleaze, though, is their deliberate misrepresentation of the Libby case. McClellan complains that the White House told him to say to the public that Scooter Libby was not involved in the Plame affair. The story then points out the both Rove and Libby had in fact discussed Plame with reporters.

But we know, and the story even MENTIONS a few lines later, that it was Richard Armitage who 'leaked' the fact that Plame was in the CIA, and those reporters were actually asking Rove and Libby if THEY had heard that she was in the CIA.

They already knew, courtesy of Armitage, who kept this fact to himself for too long but did reveal it to Fitzgerald THREE WEEKS into the two year long investigation.

So Fitzgerald claimed to be asking a question for which he already HAD, and KNEW he had, the answer. But he kept on, spending tax dollars like water, determined to catch out SOMEBODY in the White House.

And eventually, Libby was caught telling two different stories about the same event, unfortunately contradicting some sworn testimony and thus falling afoul of his own oath to tell the truth.

Libby was NOT convicted for leaking Plame's name. Armitage did that. Fitzgerald did not assert that ANYONE from the White House leaked Plame's name.

This story says Plame 'claims' the White House 'quietly' revealed her name in order to get back at her husband for his perfidy. It also says McClellan agrees.

But the fact is that ARMITAGE leaked her name, and after he did it, it was LEAKED. You can't have multiple leaks of the same information in different weeks. In the first case it is a secret, and in the second it's PUBLICLY KNOWN. The reporters were trying to get White House people to say it, but they already KNEW.

This story very carefully and deliberately shades the truth in order to continue the myth that the White House 'got revenge' on the Plame/Wilson dynamic duo. This is simply NOT SO.

The other inconvenient facts are forgotten as well, such as the fact that she had been deskbound in Washington for six years and no longer qualified as a secret agent under the law that forbids mentioning their names. Her 'operative' career was long over, and she was outside the window of protection. Fitzgerald overlooked this, as does AP here.

Bottom line is, McClellan is still trying to sell his book. Nobody who didn't believe this carp before is going to suddenly be convinced by McClellan's whiny grievances. He puts on display the truth, that he didn't know much and wasn't invited to as many meetings as he thinks he should have been.

Not to mention Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the "tough grandma" of Texas politics who failed to unseat Rick Perry as governor and probably begrudged this failure to lack of support from Bush, is the proud mother of little Scottie. Blood is thicker than decency, especially in Washington.

All told, sickening behavior from Scott and invidious twisting of history by AP combine to induce nausea on a number of levels. Ick.

No comments: