Layers And Layers Of Fact Checkers
on November 12, 2012 at 3:02 pmThe Petraeus story continues to make no sense (just because the FBI is doing a potential criminal investigation in which Petraeus was not a target is no reason for the Attorney General to fail to inform the president that his DCI had some potential security issues as soon as he knew) but I love this:
The sources said agents followed department guidelines that generally bar sharing information about developing criminal investigations. The FBI is also aware of its history under former director Herbert Hoover of playing politics and digging into the lives of public figures.
Is there no depth of the evil of that skinflint Republican president in the minds of the leftist media? Now it turns out that he usurped J. Edgar’s role.
And yes, I took a screenshot. It’ll be interesting to see if they memory hole it, or provide an erratum.
[Update a while later]
OK, according to a commenter, they memory holed it. And indeed they did (just reclick the link above).
But as I said, I took a screenshot.
Sure enough, it’s been corrected, without noting the previous version.
Now we know how many ABC news clowns it takes to screw up a major story. Four.
These people are barely historically literate; why are they employed?
They are employed BECAUSE they are barely historically literate.
I have the saved the entire original article, with Hoover reference.
The FBI is also aware of its history under former director J. Edgar Hoover of playing politics and digging into the lives of public figures. As one official said, the rules are designed to protect people (both private and elected officials) when negative information about them arises in the course of a criminal investigation that is not a crime.
They have jobs because they got a degree in lying from Columbia that says they will kiss as many as__s as it take to fake the news.
Don’t forget that when Bill Frist and the Senate Republicans were threatening to use the “nuclear option” to prevent Democrats from filibustering George Bush’s supreme court nominees in 2005, ABC News reported that Senate Republicans had famously filibustered the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
When conservative bloggers objected, ABC News changed the language in their report so that it said that “Republican Senator Strom Thurmond and fellow conservatives” had filibustered Civil Rights Bill (obscuring the fact that Strom Thurmond and those “conservatives” were Democrats — though Thurmond became a Republican later in his career).
J. Herbert Hoover invented the vacuum cleaner, right?
J. Edgar’s legacy isn’t entirely gone. Apparently the whole thing started because Jill Kelley took time out from sexting Gen. Allen to complain to a nut-job FBI agent friend (the sort of agent who sends topless pictures of himself to harassment complainants) about emails coming from Broadwell. Knowing that he was a right-wing nut, the FBI tried to keep the agent away from the investigation, so he decided it was a big Obama coverup and leaked the whole thing to a GOP congressman, who took it to Eric Cantor, who alerted FBI director Mueller.
And now all the other nuts are sure that it was a cover-up. For the FBI agent it’s mission accomplished — he wanted an Obama scandal so badly that he wished one into existence!
The scorecard so far: Petreaus, Broadwell, Kelley and Allen were weak, tawdry and foolish. The agent was hysterical, incompetent and inappropriate. Obama, Holder, Mueller and Cantor handled a mess like grownups.
You’re the one proposing a conspiracy theory, but regardless of how it all came about everyone on top knew about it (if Obama didn’t he should have fired a number of people by now.) So all this stuff happened over a year ago, but the resignation still happened at the time it did. You just can’t get around that.
Ken, Everything Jim said is in today’s news papers, and Jim is not suggesting a conspiracy. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that all this stuff happened a year ago. I think the following timeline is consistent with both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times accounts of what happened:
http://theweek.com/article/index/236282/the-david-petraeus-affair-a-comprehensive-timeline
Yes Bob, but everything surrounding it is subject to conspiracy theories. Jim talked about motivations… thus conspiracy.
Thanks for the link Bob, but it is not nearly the whole story.
Jim, I must admit that the stories are pretty good even if the story tellers lack a bit in credibility. So a “hysterical” agent happens to clobber two generals for genuine wrong-doing. What’s the problem? Why do you think that’s a bad thing?
The agent’s conspiracy theory was bogus, and his leaking the investigation accomplished nothing, except possibly to end his career. He succumbed to a bad case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
The country would have been better off if Kelley had never brought the emails to his attention. There was no crime, and no security breach, just people acting badly in their personal lives.
There was no crime
Adultery is a crime punishable under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Military officers are held to a higher standard than politicians.
And covering up a crime for political reasons, as you recommend, is also a crime. See “Watergate.”
If the timeline is accurate, the affair didn’t begin until after Petraeus retired so the UCMJ wouldn’t apply to him.
Someone commented recently that retired military officers are technically subject to prosecution under the UCMJ. I’m not sure how much of a technicality that is, but the CIA has its own rules. An employee who puts himself in a position where he’s vulnerable to blackmail would have to disclose that activity (and lose this clearance) or conceal it and commit a crime. Unless the rules don’t apply to directors, in which case my opinion of the CIA sinks even lower.
Anyway, the original subject of the investigation was anonymous threatening/harassing emails being sent through a government computer system.
I believe misuse of a government computer system is a crime in the real world, if not in Jim world.
It was reported in the news that Broadwell used gmail (ie used google) for the harassing email. I saw no reports that a government computer system was used.
Gmail was also used, using drafts, for the love letters. It seems surprising to me that the director of the CIA didn’t use encryption.
There’s nothing in Petraeus’s background that would give him any expertise in encryption. Being made head of the CIA doesn’t confer that kind of knowledge automatically.
Bob Mueller, head of the FBI, is (or at least was) reportedly computer illiterate. The country’s in the very best of hands.
The agent’s conspiracy theory was bogus
Which is that?
Other facts regarding confidential events in N. Africa are beginning to leak out. We are seeing tip of the iceberg here. The various socialites and their relatives may be more than they seem.