Former President George Bush is at it again: making up non-existent threats. This time the target is Julian Assange and once again, Bush’s intelligence is completely wrong. According to the Denver Post:
'Six months ago, President Bush accepted an invitation to speak to the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver on Feb. 26, 2011. This week, upon learning that Julian Assange had recently been invited to address the same summit, President Bush decided to cancel his appearance,' said Bush spokesman David Sherzer in a statement. 'The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United Sates.'
Bush was less likely to find the Wikileaks editor-in-chief in Denver than he was to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As Assange’s lawyers pointed out when informed of the Bush decision, their client cannot leave Britain. He remains out on bail, on condition he not leave the United Kingdom, while it is determined whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, whose veracity is on a par with the late Saddam Hussein’s WMDs.
With the important role Wikileaks has played in stirring up Middle East dictatorships along with Twitter, Facebook and Google, some think Assange is a hero. Wikileaks has revealed a considerable amount about how the Iraq invasion was phony.
Bush, Cheney, Judith Miller, and the others sold the U.S., Britain and others on the idea that Iraq had WMDs and therefore Hussein's regime must be brought down. Now it appears that if the U.S. and Britain had only waited, given what is going on in the Middle East, the Iraqis would have removed Saddam themselves. And the so-called successful invasion isn't working out as well as Gen. Petraeus and President Obama have said. There have been numerous protests, some of them violent. This weekend the country's biggest oil refinery was blown up.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - El Bicho
Maybe it's me, but I don't see what the satire is or even what your point is about Bush's "intelligence". He didn't want to share a forum with Assange, who with video technology could have addressed the group without being in Denver.
And we didn't need Wikileaks to know a considerable amount about Iraq invasion was phony.
2 - Robert Weller
I am not responsible for the content of this article. It was changed without my permission in a manner I disapprove of.
3 - Alan Kurtz
Mr. Weller, welcome to the club of BC writers whose articles were changed without their permission and in a manner the author disapproves of. All I can say is, business as usual at Blogcritics.
4 - Clavos
Editor's note:
Blogcritics stands by the editing of this article and the decisions made in that process.
5 - roger nowosielski
Not knowing the pertinent details, I would tend to cite with the editor. Mr. Weller's past articles haven't been exactly heaven sent.
In any case, Mr. Weller is within his rights to tell us in what exact respects the content is at odds with his original intentions, so much so, I must add, that he now disclaims any responsibility for it.
The inquiring minds want to know.
6 - roger nowosielski
... side with ...
7 - Robert Weller
Attributing the report to the Denver Post was completely wrong. They weren't the first to have it, and it was on at least 30 or 40 other Websites, perhaps more. An editor who did not do a simple google check decided to attribute the statement, which was distributed throughout the u.s. by email, to one publication
8 - Robert Weller
Roger: no, my articles haven't been heaven sent. they were sent from earth. i am an atheist. i can't comment on your articles because john lennon lyrics and anarchistic nonsense doesn't interest me. but i am out of here. good luck with clavos.
9 - Clavos
Attributing the report to the Denver Post was completely wrong.
Since every publication was printing the same White House press release, it made no difference whatever who it was attributed to and you know it, Robert.
Not attributing someone else's work at all, as you had done when the article was submitted, is unethical and dishonest.
10 - Robert Weller
The statement was attributed to the man who released it. You are looking for a lawsuit. If, for example, if the White House issued a statement would I have to say the Washington Post reported it? Even though it was being reported all over the country. Calling me dishonest is libelous.
11 - Robert Weller
I suggest that all writers observe what has happened here.
12 - El Bicho
And yet that attribution has nothing to do with the article's other flaws.
13 - Clavos
You took it out of another publication, so yes, you should have attributed oit to your source. You say in your bio that you've spent years in journalism, so you know that's how it's done.
14 - Robert Weller
Are you now accusing me of not being a veteran journalist. The New York Times did not say that the statement came from another publication. Are they dishonest, also.
15 - Clavos
Are you now accusing me of not being a veteran journalist.
Nothing I've written indicates that I am.
The New York Times did not say that the statement came from another publication.
The New York Times (and the Denver Post) received the release direct from the WH, they didn't pull it from another publication.
16 - Robert Weller
FYI, bush isn't in the White House, and the statement certainly did come from Obama. I have just checked out a few BC stories and found that they frequently did not credit their sources. For example a recent story on an Assange hearing in London. No attribution, no credit.
17 - Robert Weller
What this comes down to is that you made a change in my story without my permission. If you had told me you wanted to do it I would have withdrawn permission for you to use the story. It is a basic write of journalists.
18 - Alan Kurtz
I note that Robert Weller has reset his BC profile to "Not Available." That's a decisive step, considering the following, which appears prominently on each BC writer's Scrive Dashboard.
WARNING: Changing your username changes your URL forever, and should not be undertaken lightly. Once changed, you may not change it back.
In other words, Robert Weller has burned his Blogcritics bridge behind him.
Since last summer, I've kept an informal tally of BC authors who've quit blogging here in disgust over their encounters with BC "editors." I may have missed some, but I know of at least six (including me and Mr. Weller).
The other four writers on my list left without fanfare and prefer to not publicly discuss their disgruntlement. Having gleaned the backstory of their exits via individual emails, I shall of course respect their privacy and name no names.
Nevertheless, I can at least disclose the total number of articles that we six contributed to BC, and it's impressive: 1,812. (Perhaps we can call our collective disaffection The War of 1812.)
Naturally BC loyalists such as Roger Nowosielski (#5) will, without knowing the pertinent details, reflexively side with BC's "editors" in such disputes, particularly when it involves an author whom the loyalist disdains.
But other, less prejudiced readers may wonder about the quality of "editorship" that consistently shoots itself in the foot by alienating prolific writers. It goes without saying that Blogcritics has the right to pull the plug on any contributor for any reason, or for no reason. With the 1812 authors, however, BC drove us away not intentionally but rather out of willful obliviousness to basic authorial courtesy. It's something to think about.
19 - John Lake
Anyone seeing G.W.Bush in the light of day will be amazed this man could ever have risen to the presidency, and could ever have weileded any influence or power. He is an insecure, nervous man, without a shred of what some call wisdom.
He refused to negotiate with anyone beyond the singing and dancing small men from Asia. It is not suprising Bush would go to lengths to avoid having to discuss anything of importance.
I may have missed something in viewing the current article, author unavailable, picture the same. However I will take the opportunity to link to an article I wrote on Bush, which reflected considerable effort, and which I humbly feel we could all profit from review:
an exhaustive list of Bush impeachable offenses
20 - John Lake
I see, Robert Weller make have taken some shortcuts (by no means certain) and the editors made some changes, for better or for worse. Something we need tolerate.
21 - Christopher Rose
Alan, writers come and writers go, that's just a fact of life. That isn't to be complacent about the matter in either general or this particular case though.
There are many reasons to be frustrated with many things within Blogcritics and I for one have a longer list than most.
That said, posting a comment about those issues on an article is not going to achieve anything.
In this particular case, about which I know only the information in this thread, Robert Weller seems to have an issue about attribution and, rather than try to resolve it, has thrown a tantrum.
The accuracy and professionalism of someone who claims to have been a journalist for such a long time but has not yet learned how to handle problems - nor the correct usage of the word "write", as we see in comment #17 - seems odd to me.
As a matter of fact though, writers don't have to give their permission for articles to be changed for reasons of accuracy, maybe even any reason at all; that happens all the time at all kinds of publications, offline and online.
People who want to have total control of their work always have the option to publish their own site.
22 - Alan Kurtz
That said, posting a comment about those issues on an article is not going to achieve anything.
Christopher Rose (#21), are you threatening to delete my comments, as you have so often done before? There's no need to threaten me, just go ahead and do it! Your threats do not intimidate me, nor do your deletions.
23 - Christopher Rose
Alan, how you might arrive at the perception that pointing out that posting a comment about the futility of seeking changes in Blogcritics editorial policy in the comments space isn't going to achieve anything equates to threatening to delete a comment of yours is something only you can know.
My, admittedly limited by the strained nature of communication in this intangible way, perception of that response is that you are being either paranoid or stupid. As I have read other stuff by you, I know you're not stupid, so unfortunately I am left with paranoia as the only basis on which to understand your behaviour.
For the record, I never threaten to edit or delete anything by anybody. I do sometimes advise people that if they carry on as they are, they are going to get edited or deleted, so they then have the opportunity to manage their own behaviour, as people such as troll, and indeed myself, would like to see.
Similarly, I have no interest at all in trying to intimidate you.
Do you think you can actually absorb these facts this time?
24 - Alan Kurtz
Editors are a privileged class--privileged by their censorial power over writers and commenters. In my opinion, however, Blogcritics' editors are privileged not by virtue of having earned it, but merely by having achieved it, through means that are anyone's guess.
25 - troll
...technorati would do well to reconsider the idea of an ombudsman for BC
I suggest Alan Kurtz take on the job