Here's another example from Scumbag's watch:
Posted on 01/07/2006 8:38:11 PM PST by lainie
For whatever reason, the Clinton's wanted the Wen Ho Lee case to go away.
The "one other example" Rush couldn't remember was:
ELIAN GONZALES!! I'm sure he'll remember in due time.
Here's another example from Scumbag's watch:
bill, as in clinton?
That would be a neatly sewn up package, except that last I checked, the FBI and Marshal Service are exclusively run by the executive branch.
Yep, that's gotta be it.
Yes, the ommision of Elian was Rush's mistake.
The Clinton administration tried Randy Weaver and Harris on conspiracy and murder charges. They promoted Potts.
The Clinton administration "did" plenty wrong concerning Ruby Ridge.
DoJ post mortem indicates that Wen Ho Lee was likely not the leaker, and that whoever the leaker was, got away.
But the trigger was pulled on GHWB's watch.
My own recollection, which isn't sparkling on this dimly-lit issue which I followed with only moderate and interrupted interest, is that Clinton eventually came down on the side of the PC snivelers who were going around saying that Lee was badly done unto just because he was Chinese-American. It's a contention that people familiar with PRC intelligence-gathering methods and appeals sneer at, but IIRC, the Clinton Administration came down, in the end, on the side of shutting down Trulock and the security people who were on Wen Ho Lee's case. Correct me if I am wrong.
I understand Rush's argument (without passing on its accuracy) that Clinton tried to use the Wen Ho Lee case for a "Sista Souljah moment" politically, and that the Clinton Administration really gave a rat's ass about the people's liberties because that's the general attitude of Leftists and collectivists anyway. But I think that Clinton's record on the case in point was a lot more serpentine and sinister than Rush can lay out between (numerous, long, swarming) commercial breaks. It was, after all, part of the much larger story, which will someday be the most notorious in American history.
Put blame on the Bush administration for what the FBI and the Marshal Service did, fine!
But you miss the point.
The Clinton administration prosecuted Weaver and Harris. The Clinton administration promoted Potts.
The Clinton Administration is responsible for promoting the abuses that happened at Ruby Ridge. That's what we were all upset about in '93 and '94. Let's not forget that.
So in that important sense, Rush was right.
The Clinton's "did" Ruby Ridge.
Wen Ho Lee downloaded classified information from his computer at work to his computer at home.
DoJ post mortem concurs.
Last week the Government abruptly abandoned its case against Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos scientist who was originally charged with high espionage. After holding Lee in prison for more than nine months, the Government agreed to a single charge of “mishandling nuclear secrets” and no additional jail time. As reported in The New York Times on September 14, 2000, District Judge James A. Parker “stunned” the Government at the sentencing hearing “by implicitly singling out Attorney General Janet Reno, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and senior officials in the Clinton White House for what he said was a questionable indictment, for misleading him about Dr. Lee's supposedly deceptive behavior and then for ignoring his urgings that the government ease the ‘demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions’ under which Dr. Lee was being held. . . . ”
Judge Parker said he felt so deeply troubled by the government's consistent pattern of abusive actions that he expressed to Dr. Lee his dismay that the government had unleashed the full force of its powers so arrogantly. "I have no authority to speak on behalf of the executive branch, the president, the vice president, the attorney general, or the secretary of the department of energy," the judge said, but "as a member of the third branch of the United States government, the judiciary, the United States courts, I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner you were held in custody by the executive branch."
At another point, the judge added that he felt he had improperly denied bail to Dr. Lee because he was misled into thinking that Dr. Lee posed a threat to national security. "I tell you with great sadness that I feel I was led astray last December by the executive branch of our government through its Department of Justice, by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and by its United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico.” He continued that those Government officials involved “have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.”
I know that the Clinton administration mishandled the situation and perpetuated the abuses. But in 93 & 94, many of us were upset about the murders of Sammy and Vicki Weaver, which did not happen on Clinton's watch. That's what the term "Ruby Ridge" is about. Everything else is partisan politics.
No, Ruby Ridge was a BATF screwup/malefaction directed by Pres. Bush, as part of their continuing operation aimed at right-wing extremists in Idaho.
Remember, BATF tried to entrap Randy Weaver, who btw was innocent of the original allegation in the ATF complaint: that he'd manufactured a short-barrelled shotgun, a Class II weapon, w/o a license. In fact, when the gun barrel was remeasured by a non-weaselling, non-ATF measurer, it was found to be 18" long precisely, and therefore a legal weapon.
Now, BATF wanted to entrap Weaver to force him to act as an informant on a right-wing group some of whose members he knew. This was grossly wrong and malum in se, but it was SOP in the government's drive to exterminate these groups and put all their leaders in prison. That was a political push outside the scope of the BATF itself, one that was authored at a level high enough to require approval from Pres. Bush himself.
They of course had no direct part of the operation. Neither did the Bush I administration.
True, and not-true. Bush I did have responsibility both for the overall project I just described, and for the tactics to be used in combating these groups -- and in handling people that it intended to "use", like Randy Weaver.
It was the Clinton administration directly who supported the actions after the fact. Reno quickly promoted Potts.
Yes, I concur. They treated Louis Freeh pretty well, too.
Oh, I have no problem with Rush's assessment that Clinton and every crony in his administration used these issues, and lied, and did wrong & nefarious stuff. What grates on my last nerve is that similar abuse was perpetrated by the republican administration of Bush I. Even if Rush's was one (or several) honest mistakes, this thread has my dander up for pooh poohing the murder of these people! Someone tells me Randy was indicted or did something wrong? So what! It was his wife and child that were murdered by the FBI! And that, Bill Clinton had nothing to do with.
And I question the sanity of anybody who honestly believes that the FBI operations go on without the president's knowledge.
Some have theorized that the Elian Gonzales debacle cost Algore the White house. I wonder how much Ruby Ridge cost George the elder in the 92 election?
Poppy Bush's resignation from the NRA was at its root a shoving match over the policy I claim the Bush Administration was carrying forward. Ostensibly, it was over Wayne LaPierre's comment about "jackbooted thugs", but actually it was over the dissent over ATF policy.
That policy was Bush's. His resignation underscores the fact that the policy was his, it was his conscious election, and by resigning from NRA he claimed ownership of the policy.
That elucidates Bush 41's moral burden in the Ruby Ridge affair, IMHO.
It is also helpful to ask whether the policy extended back into the Reagan Administration, and if so, who was Reagan's Treasury Secretary who promulgated it? His last SecTreas was James Baker III, a Bush intimate of the first circle who, before becoming SecTreas, had been Reagan's White House chief of staff.
No, Ruby Ridge was a BATF screwup/malefaction...
No. Now both Rush and myself are being taken out of context. Rush was reeling off Clinton abuses. That was the context of Rush's "did" statement. The Clinton administration "did" promote Potts. The Clinton administration "did" prosecute Weaver and Harris. The Clinton administration "did" commit abuses about Ruby Ridge....the Clinton administration "did" Ruby Ridge".
....directed by Pres. Bush, as part of their continuing operation aimed at right-wing extremists in Idaho.
Yes, about the Ruby Ridge operation, it did occur on Bush I's watch. I said it did. As as far a direct involvement, you claim that Bush I was directly involved in the operation.
Document that.
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