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Iraq Study Group Mulled Year-Old Spam
Over at the National Review's blog, The Corner, Cliff May apologizes for posting a year-old anonyous forwarded email as news. May, let's note, was an adviser to the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group.
In his defense, May says it was shared with him by another adviser to the ISG, a U.S. ambassador. All the ISG experts, May explains, "[are] on a list-serve where we circulate what we view as significant articles and argue over them." May says the ambassador had forwarded the year-old anonymous e-mail to the list.
That's right. An expert advising the ISG shared a year-old anonymous chain e-mail with the group. And the group apparently argued over it.
Anyone feel like forwarding the conversation thread that followed that one? Might be instructive.
Cliff May is a pompous asshole and if his readers believe his crap, they are all as dumb as a bag of hammers.
"Yes, the letter was bullshit propaganda but it came from a Very Important Person so I am absolved of any responsibility for posting it. The Marines might actually believe they are winning the war so the TPM Muckraker was wrong to criticize me."
Who in their right mind would ever take anything Cliff May says seriously?
December 28, 2006 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some apology. Sort of like, "Sorry I came to the party naked, but since we're on the subject, you really shouldn't be wearing white after Labor Day."
December 28, 2006 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear God in heaven, they used Cliff May? Cliff MAY ...?...who insisted everyone in Washington knew Valerie Plame's identity and probably didn't apologize when Fitzgerald's findings were the polar opposite of that.
Why would I even be surprised that clown would use an anonymous e-mail as a source of info?
But damn..it's depressing. As the above poster said, it's hard to imagine anyone who's rational taking him seriously.
Some "surrender monkeys", eh?
December 28, 2006 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm really really sorry I got caught." not
"I'm really really sorry I have *nothing* to add to discourse about the Iraq Occupation."
oh yeah, and read my comic, because if you don't the terrorists will win.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Taking_Stock
December 28, 2006 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
If May is telling the truth, it was probably David Mack who forwarded the spam email. I think he's the only "retired U.S. ambassador who served many years in the Middle East" who is a member of the ISG expert working group.
December 28, 2006 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Notice the "third person" usage in the e-mail purportedly from a marine over in Iraq.
This e-mail was probably a plant (Centcom?) that was circulated by someone not serving over in Iraq, thus the usage of "they" instead of "we" when referencing U.S. marines on the ground in Iraq.
December 28, 2006 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who in their right mind would ever take anything Cliff May says seriously?
Posted by: Mrs Panstreppon
wolf blitzer gives him airtime; may also makes appearances on msnbc; and of course, fox. may is considered a serious person among the chattermonkeys in washington dc.
which tells you everything you need to explain how we got to where we are.
December 28, 2006 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could have been worse, they might have emailed the US Government's bank account details to Nigeria.
December 28, 2006 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's instructive, though: Elite Discourse is no different from your inter-office email list, complete with crap circulars. I'm sure that Clifford and pals send each other links to YouTube and pictures of kittens as well.
December 28, 2006 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
He, like me, is a member of the “expert working group” of the Baker/Hamilton Commission
Dear God in Heaven ... /Cliff May/! "Expert working group"?
I'm speechless.
December 28, 2006 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Honorable May;
I write as attorney for Mr. Phillipe Balzac, Esq, who recently deceased concurred his inheritance, from a lifetime selling yellowcakes to Nigerian orphans, should be spent enriching you.
To accomplish this, please send your bank account number and a cheque for $100,000,000,000.00, and we will transfer his entire estate of $3.64 into the account upon receipt...
December 28, 2006 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, Cliff has a new interesting...um...theory he's passing along today at The Corner:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzA0N2ZmY2Y5NzRjMWRmZTFlNjc4NzNmZWUxYmYyZjE=
It seems a story appearing in a Kuwaiti newspaper (see, in Cliff's world, the Arab press is notoriously inaccurate, except when it's not) which describes a Syrian nuclear program, jump started with what Uday and Qusay smuggled out of Iraq...which is why the ISG found no evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program!
What a perfect little wingnut rumor package, like the "mystery ships" we were tracking before the war, that had all those Iraqi WMD that Blix couldn't find, until our military pointed out this was just bunk. Oops!
But this story explains it all! Um...with the possible exception of why, if you were smuggling materials to start a nuclear weapon program, you wouldn't think to move the most critical ingredient of all- uranium, which the Iraqis had tons of. Oh. Oops again.
You know, these people used to make me mad, but now I just kind of feel sorry for them. On the other hand, I think it's now clear to everyone that people this far out in la-la land should never again have any influence on actual public policy.
December 28, 2006 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you think this "Study Group listserv" cliff reads includes items like the National Intelligence Estimate from the fall, or the Special IG report on waste, fraud and complete collapse of the Iraqi police force ... or just third-hand wet-dream forwardings of this kind?
you've got to ask yourself whether this really is the first "virtual war" in that those deciding how to fight it are determined to win it on the Interwebs rather than the ground.
December 28, 2006 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to hear confirmation from someone else on this alleged listserv. May's excuse stinks of bullshit. Otherwise, why not name the person who sent it?
December 28, 2006 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sorry I smell like piss but you know how it is..." - GET SMOOCHY
December 29, 2006 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cliff May gets on television because he has entertainment value. That's the only reason ANYTHING gets on television.
Some--even most--people think that if it's on television, it's information. Therefore, if Cliff May's face appears in pixels, he's to be taken seriously as a purveyor of information.
Producers of television have been mining this soft seam in the American psychic substrata since the medium was born.
December 29, 2006 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
You can't win a war when the people making the decisions are being punked by propaganda. Of course, Bush put the ISG report in the circular file, but does anyone think he's listening to better information?
December 29, 2006 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
The ISG was Baker. Everybody else was window dressing and secretaries. It's purpose was to try to un-do the fiasco that BabyBush has made without getting US thrown off of the Oil fields, a classic Jim-Baker-to-the-rescue. It's secondary value was as a stall. They held the report back and dragged it out til after the election and there was nothing in it that we didn't know when they started, meanwhile, hundreds more of our troops and thousands more Iraqis have died. If they can keep dodging and weaving, they may be able to keep the war going til 01/20/09, Bush can leave office without "losing" the war.
Certainly, there is a component of the struggle going on online, But there is nothing that has any leverage over Bush/Cheney, not even Poppy Bush's Fixer. Until we put hundreds of thousands, millions of people on the streets, disrupting business as usual, not just in DC on January 27 but every major city and with increasing frequency (and during the work-week), we will be just as effective as the reams of spam we all get; select, delete, forget.
December 29, 2006 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Couldn't agree more with CV's post. GW and the chickhawks running the Iraq Disaster learned everything they know about warfare from armchairing Vietnam. They need to see street action. Major, almost monthly days of protest built a political base and everntually forced Pres. Ford to declare the war over. Ford's death provides a timely opportunity to remind Americans that public protest, not the Democratic Party or the feeble stirrings of prominent people, ended the Southeast Asia adventure. It's the only thing that will end the Mideast disaster, too. Where's the New Mobe?
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