If there is a silver lining to this corpo-evesdropping scandal it is that people as inflential as these HP Directors are not used to being on the receiving end such disrespectful treatment. This might cause them ro talk among themselves about rhe larger implications of these types of things. People on the lower end of the totem pole have roughly equivalent violations against their privacy - and much worse - done to them all the time in modern corporate America.

“Pretezting” definitately sounds like one of those fake terms that Bush admin officials and the ideologues use with practiced insouciance, so as to seem as if it were a normal term.

Have you noticed the times when you see a WH official or a pundit discuss something with a practiced faux-sincerity - complete with a manufactured sense of bewilderment at those in the media who demur?

Now - you can easily imagine those same chaps casually using a word like 'pretexting' - pretending that it's a standard well understood and commom term.

Creating 'intelligence' to support a pre-existing policy is now widely acknowledged , by all factions, to be something the WH does - with it's post 9/11 mindset.

This is often falsely described as 'new' or 'novel' by both enemies and adherents.

Actually - this is an old practice - It used to be called 'making stuff up' or 'lying.'

But - what is new is that a formal sounding methodolgy has been attached to the practice.

This is similar to the way 'fraud' can be a deviancy defined down by calling it 'pretexting.'

Sample focus group questions:

1. Do you think fraud is justifiable under certain instances to protect Corporate officers ?

Vs.

2. Do you think 'pretexting' is justified at times when it is the only means of protecting a valuable asset that seems to be threatened?

Think of the re-engineering of the word “tools” as a substitute for the less popolar word “torture.”

“Tools,” in this sense, is related to “pretexting.” It is a torturous linguistic fraud designed to perpetuate the fraud that torture is a tool that works and a measure of 'pretexting' must be used with the public to maintain its support.

Ex: From yesterday's NYTIMES:
--
“ John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who as a Justice Department official helped develop the administration's early legal response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said the bill would provide people on the front lines with important *tools*. ”

When you're fighting a *new kind of war* against an enemy we haven't faced before,“ he said, ”our system needs to give flexibility to people to respond to those challenges.“

In June, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a provision of the Geneva conventions concerning the humane treatment of prisoners applied to all aspects of the conflict with Al Qaeda. The new bill would keep the courts from that kind of meddling, Yoo said.

”There is a rejection of what the court did in Hamdan,“ he said, ”which is to try to judicially enforce the Geneva conventions, which no court had ever tried to do before.“

The proposed legislation takes pains to try to ensure that the Supreme Court will not have a second opportunity. ”The act makes clear,“ it says in its introductory findings, ”that the Geneva conventions are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights."
---

Yoo said this is a rejection of the court's ahistorical attempt to “judicially enforce the Geneva conventions ....”

Doesn't Yoo know about the Congessionally passed and Presidentially signed War Crimes Act of 1996????

Also- Wasn't Geneva passed by Congress and signed by the President?

What does Yoo think aboout Article 6 of the US Constit???

Is Dunn Done?

http://www.chron.com/disp/s...

Ask Mick.

Did you watch that show om ABC? We heard about it, but passed - knowing it was a waste of angst, but a disgrace nonetheless.

Comments has no problem with pointed partisan drama, but why be so disrespectful with such a raw topic.

Comments does not believe anymore those who claime to be sincere when they say this is how they honestly saw events that day or how the interpret events. Rather - we think it is a well thought out alternative revistionist history that they themselves don't truly believe, but they think pretending to believe will have a benificient echo chamber effect - by creating wedges and either/or splits to marginalize their domestic foes.

Some conservatives may regret their enthusiasm for the 9-11 ABC movie.

Comments did not see the “Path to 9-11” but we regret that - because we are fascinated by this stuff - they way people try to create a narrative - In this case, the way conservatives, after smarting for years over liberal Hollywood meme domination , began to try to change the rules of the game.

Unfortunately, they chose a raw topic - one that is still raw and is still affecting people we know in all sorts of ways, so it's hard to be philosophical about what the right is doing , in this respect.

But they will lose this contest - “The Path To 9-11” - widely considered a rightest revisionist hatchet job - will lead to the greenlighting of liberal versions of 9-11 that would not have been greenlighted otherwise.

Now, the studios and producers will be able to cast versions that are more anti Bush as part of a general national conversation/ debate.

Too bad it has to be over this topic - normally we would be amused by a few cinematic cheapshots at the expense of the Albright (another ironic Dickens-esque sounding name) and the others

One other irony - Conservative who defended this movie (which we never saw) would bring up 'liberal' movies like Farenheit 9-11, and others , etc.

But - wait a second . Those were not made by broadcast networks - to be put on the public airwaves.

They were made privately - pure capitalism.

What happened to the conservatives? They think propaganda (they privately know Bush was weaker than the movie is said to portray him) is ok on public airwaves, but privately financed partisan polemics are not - so long is they tweak the Leader?