Sunday, May 27, 2007

Another old answered story rehashed - UPDATED

Update 5/30: there is an article in the print-only Washington Jewish Week on this subject. I've made a major re-write to focus on the points of interest and remove misinformation based on the faulty reprint at BVBL.

The version BVBL had when I captured it was apparently re-typed, and introduced most of the errors I caught. My suspicion was reasonable given BVBL's lack of a source and the typos that BVBL had written it, but he just copied it poorly.

Of course, because I worked from the bad version BVBL had, it led me to bad assumptions. While those were the result of the BVBL version's errors, I should have waited to confirm the language of the actual article. So while I was right that the version at BVBL was not an original newspaper article, as everybody now knows, I was still "wrong" because there was a real original, it's just not the one that appeared at BVBL.

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BVBL has taken to posting unsourced "newspaper articles" provided with no date, faxed to him by unnamed people, purporting to be written by a famous lawyer, which BVBL admits can't be accessed online, but which mention the current race for the 51st convention, and remarkably says almost word for word stuff written AT BVBL the past two months.

Now, it is possible that all of this is really true. With BVBL, you just never know, once in a while there are true things posted. In fact, I have a call into the lawyer in question, so we should know in no time what the truth of the matter is. (Update 5/30: I received confirmation, but BVBL's version has errors not in the real article).

I won't say much more tonight, except to summarize three things:

1. the argument made is derivative and specious. There's nothing new.
2. Update: It was in Washington Jewish Week, but not yet the online edition. I hadn't thought of who the author's target audience was, and assumed it would be the convention delegates. I was wrong.
3. The article repeats the disproven charges of error by Gill in his disclosures. I researched and and took the time to write at least two comments covering aspects of this which I posted over at BVBL. Those comments were deleted. But the facts are that Faisal Gill had a high-security clearance, was fully qualified to have that clearance, fully disclosed as required by law ALL of his associations, and was cleared after an investigation of EXACTLY the concerns raised by the "two senators". See "Faisal Gill Qualfied for This Position".

The article contains some really good stuff that is true:
On the surface, Gill is about what one would expect from a GOP candidate. Conservative on all big issues, lawyer, Navy JAG Corps. Gill even has the requisite Washingtonesque government job history, a former director of intelligence policy for the Department of Homeland Security’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate. Surely a man with extremist affiliations would not hold such a sensitive job?
It could have stopped there. It's right about Gill's qualification, and it is absolutely right that a man with "extremist affiliations" would not hold that job. And in fact, the investigators made that clear in their report. Gill was completely investigated and was found to be MORE than qualified for the position.
We must remember that accusation by the government does not equal guilt, and even terrorists deserve legal representation. Lawyers who step up to represent unpopular defendants deserve praise for helping our system function.
That is surely true. Not just about lawyers, but about so much else.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charles,
The Gura screed is still up on BVBL. What do you expect? The truth! If you do, you will be sorely disapointed. I love to read all of BVBL's "gossip" but it's just that, "gossip". For you to expect more than plenty of big whoppers or any fact checking, fogettaboutit. Why you even try to reason or engage in argument with Greg , is beyond me. It's his little thing on his little blog and he won't brook with anyone who wants to disagree.
Anyway, with all the third party cookies Greg puts on his guests' computers (or maybe it's just mine), he must be making a fortune. Thus, for him it seems to be good business to manufacture controversies. Last time I checked web sites got money for dumping third party cookies. More visitors to his blog. More money in his pocket.
What I can't figure out is why Faisal Gill and Steve Chapman simply don't hire somebody to make a forensic image of BVBL and then hire some scrunge fact checkers to look for all of the potential whoppers. It's my opinion that Greg likes to hide behind the skirts of New York Times V. Sullivan and I'm no First Amendment expert, but a continuing pattern of whoppers, might likely have some impact on Chapman V. BVBL. The one thing Greg has going for him in the lawsuit is that between Faisal and Steve, if they concentrated real hard, they might light up a three watt night light blub. But Greg should condsider, that Faisal does have all that Muslim money behind him and Faisal could go north of the Potomac and hire some real First Amendment lawyers. I hear they got some real good ones up there. If that happens, I hope Greg's lawyer is a bigwig First Amendment lawyer too. The case could drag on for years. Old Arab proverb, "May you be blessed with 1000 illegitimate lawsuits."

Charles said...

I have found times when BVBL was quite open to argument, and even open to changing opinions.

I think he would be now, but I think he is operating in "political mode", rather than "discussion mode"

I don't expect to change his "opinion" because I don't think he has an opinion, just a strategy. I DO think that strategy included getting people to come to his site off the web search, so I decided to answer the charges at that location, so people who used the web got the truth.

This of course was not part of Greg's strategy, and that I believe is why he deleted all my comments, rather than simply telling me to stop commenting or just locking me out.

To delete comments from a blog which are not offensive, obscene, false, or off-topic is virtually un-heard of amongst the discussion blogs.

But BVBL is not a discussion blog, it is a political activist blog. I just wish BVBL would be honest about that and note in it's comment policy that opposing opinions will be deleted.

Anonymous said...

Charles,
Quit making excuses for Greg. He's a big boy. He is seemingly making some bucks off of his little thing. If folks can't see that, it's their problem. But it is pretty bush league to trash your comments and not give you an opportunity to get them back. I'm suprised that more of his flacks haven't been over to your blog to harrass you.

Charles said...

I've gotten quite a few new hits, probably not what was intended. But most of the BVBL readers I think are quite happy now that they are in their own little insulated world, unbothered by inconvenient facts.

Anonymous said...

Charles,
BVBL banished J. Young for awhile but he's been allowed back. Greg needs you and James to offer up as red meat for his regular group of malcontents and xenophobes. Without anyone to yell at, what would his folks do? He would loose readership and money.Remember he needs big numbers of hits to charge for his services. Did you see how he was crowing when he got a ton of hits over at "hamsandwich"? In my opinion, the more hits on his blogs the more money in his pockets. This is America, after all, we allow people with tallent to use their tallents to make money and Greg is undeniably a tallented writer and computer guy. His family has to eat.

Do you really miss BDB screaming for you to go play with your trains? But I'll bet BDB misses being able to scream at you. He seems from his posts to be one angry guy. BDB will need someone to vent his spleen on. You'll be allowed back after Greg thinks you have been "punished" enough.

Charles said...

This is hardly punishment. It's a relief, because it's tiresome to read but I felt I had to correct the lies, especially when people would pretend that no response meant there was no answer.

But now no response means BVBL banned people who responded. I made a big stink so that google searches would show that, and so the blog community would understand. Now I don't have to answer, I don't have to read, BVBL has a teeny drop in readership, people over there lose out on some fun, and I seem to have gotten more hits the last few days than ever before, not that I care.

Meanwhile I don't really think they miss me over there. I think it did bother them that people had answers. The echo chamber is more comfortable without sound barriers. They can now exist in their isolated world believing everything they say is right, and everybody agrees with them. Kind of like our Senators right now.

Too bad, at the time Help Save Manassas needs Greg more than ever, he's consumed with destroying a man who would be his partner against the Illegal Immigrant bill.