[Nick Danger]

You think getting Saffuri ongoing face time and photo ops with the President and Cabinet members is part of some sting?

No, it's more subtle than that. It's what the statisticians would call a "known bad." You watch the known bads to build a model of what unknown bads look like. In order to do that, you have to let your known ones run around and be bad a little bit.

Your Ashcroft incident is a perfect example of that. So he goes in there and he tries to influence them. You act as though removing him from the picture would improve things. No. You're better off with the devil you know. After he leaves you can say, "OK, so that's how the bad guys would want us to behave." The guy you need to worry about more is the guy you didn't know was bad. Don't assume he isn't around, because he is.

[Sabertooth]

*You think getting Saffuri ongoing face time and photo ops with the President and Cabinet members is part of some sting?

**No, it's more subtle than that. It's what the statisticians would call a "known bad." You watch the known bads to build a model of what unknown bads look like. In order to do that, you have to let your known ones run around and be bad a little bit.

So, now you're saying it's ok that Norquist was making common cause with known badguys, because it's all part of some strategery?

In any case, you're splitting hairs here:

Saffuri didn't get "ongoing face time and photo ops with the President and Cabinet members is part of some sting," that Saffuri got "ongoing face time and photo ops with the President and Cabinet members is part of some more subtle thing statasticians call a 'known bad.'"

Your Ashcroft incident is a perfect example of that. So he goes in there and he tries to influence them. You act as though removing him from the picture would improve things. No. You're better off with the devil you know. After he leaves you can say, "OK, so that's how the bad guys would want us to behave." The guy you need to worry about more is the guy you didn't know was bad. Don't assume he isn't around, because he is.

Your defense of Norquist has morphed from "booga booga" to "the devil we know."

This is all starting to sound like a real life episode of "Spy vs. Spy."

Were Sami Al Arian's campaign photo op with President Bush and subsequent White House visit in 2001 (which Norquist lied about on Hewitt's show) also part of the "devil you know" surveillance program?