Open Threads

Richard Bennett points to this story, showing that the Idaho kidnapper was a blogger:

Convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III spent months on the Internet documenting his internal struggle over right vs. wrong. Then, four days before two Idaho children he is accused of kidnapping disappeared, he wrote: “The demons have taken over.”

It was one of the last entries in Duncan’s Weblog before the 42-year-old North Dakota man was arrested and charged this week with two kidnapping counts. Authorities believe he took 9-year-old Dylan Groene and 8-year-old Shasta Groene from their Idaho home shortly before their 13-year-old brother, mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death May 16. Police say Duncan also is a suspect in the killings.

Richard also points us to the actual blog, which has this final post:

My blog entries lately are erratic and full of a lot of B.S., for that I apologize. I am just trying to put down what is in my head, regardless. As far as “taking people with me” well, I don’t know if that is right or wrong. In fact, I don’t know much any more what right and wrong even is. My view is either everything is right (in some regard) or everything is wrong (in some other regard). The question (one I am struggling with at this point) is, “Does it matter?”
Does anything matter? My mother is crying right now, because her son is in trouble again. She tried to raise a good son, and she knows her son has a good heart, so why does he do these things? She is probably more hurt and confused than me. Does it matter? It hurts me to know these things, but DOES IT MATTER???

Pretty scary. I wonder who will be the first member of the elites or the MSM who will use this blog as definitive proof of the deviant nature and nefarious deeds of all bloggers? Smart money is on James Walcott. Better yet, which blogger will be the first to try to decide the political affiliation of the kidnapping pervert and use that as prrof of the evilness of said party?

Kidnapper a BloggerPost + Comments

Talkleft links to this Newsweek piece stating Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source:

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute “personal consent” from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.

Tom Maguire , whose motto of late has been ‘All Plame, All the Time,’ has no update yet.

The Plame Game ContinuesPost + Comments (17)

Via OTB, I see that Kos has decided to rid his site of the lunatic fringe:

Today I did something I’ve never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I’d never had to do.

I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarassing conspiracy theories.

I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones — Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can’t imagine what f—ing world these people live in, but it sure ain’t the Reality Based Community.

So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake — this is a purge.

The right wing of the blogosphere is agog, with the usual condemnations and/or statements “I used to read Kos, but…” I still read Kos. Every day. I even have a handle there- ‘John not Juan Cole,” for the obvious reasons. In fact, I read as many lefty sites (perhaps more) than I do righty sites, if only to keep up on what is going on on the other side of the fence.

Do I agree with Kos? On about one out of every 15 issues, he and I see eye to eye on things, and that hasn’t changed since back in the days when the Daily Kos was a wee tiny site and it was me, Tacitus, Steve Soto, Glenn Kinen (whatever happened to Glenn?), Kos, and a few others flailing away at each other mercilessly. Like James Joyner, I also wrote for Kos’s other site at the time, the Political State Report.

I stopped visiting both at some point, but went back a couple months after I went hopping mad insane at Kos for the whole “screw ’em” imbroglio. Other than the usual partisan vitriole I dished out during the election years, that was the one time I was so damned angry I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

At any rate, do I find the comments section at Kos to be a swirling fetid cesspool? Sometimes. Same goes for Little Green Footballs. And every damned forum I can think of, including here. But I don’t blame Kos or Armando or Hunter, and I don’t blame Charles Johnson. I do blame myself, because I go off the damned deep end too much.

The point of this post was not a trip down memory lane, but to just note that they are cleaning house over there. Good. One Democratic Underground, one What Really Happened (aka Jews Really Did It!), and one anti-war.com is enough. If you are a Republican, and you want to know what the other side is thinking, you should be reading the Daily Kos, and not just dismissing it as evil leftist trope.

The Kos PurgePost + Comments (22)

This is too funny:

A film festival being organized by left-wing director Michael Moore has some right-wing competition.

A local activist and a conservative group from Texas said Wednesday they were putting together an alternative to the Traverse City Film Festival, which Moore and residents of this Lake Michigan community are organizing.

“People are fed up and tired with the extreme left-wing radical fringe

The Battle Against ‘Evil’ Must Be Fought on All FrontsPost + Comments (29)

Via those crazy Kossacks, this story about the Cleveland Plain Dealer holding back on stories:

Plain Dealer Editor Doug Clifton says the Cleveland daily is not reporting two major investigative stories of “profound importance” because they are based on illegally leaked documents — and the paper fears the consequences faced now by jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Lawyers for the Newhouse Newspapers-owned PD have concluded that the newspaper would almost certainly be found culpable if the leaks were investigated by authorities.

“They’ve said, this is a super, super high-risk endeavor, and you would, you know, you’d lose,” Clifton said in an interview Friday afternoon.

“The reporters say, ‘Well, we’re willing to go to jail, and I’m willing to go to jail if it gets laid on me,'” Clifton added, “but the newspaper isn’t willing to go to jail. That’s what the lawyers have told us. So this is a Time Inc. sort of situation.”

Both Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper faced jail on contempt charges for refusing to identify confidential sources, but Time agreed to hand over Cooper’s subpoenaed notes when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the reporters’ appeal. Cooper later agreed to testify to a grand jury, saying his source had given “express personal consent” to be identified.

Clifton declined to characterize the two stories, saying only they were based on material that was illegally leaked.

Clifton’s revelation that the PD was holding two investigative projects was actually first published in a column he wrote June 30 about the Miller and Cooper case. While the column garnered positive reaction, he said, almost nobody picked up on the disclosure tucked into the end of the piece.

“As I write this, two stories of profound importance languish in our hands,” Clifton wrote. “The public would be well served to know them, but both are based on documents leaked to us by people who would face deep trouble for having leaked them. Publishing the stories would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn’t an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will go untold for now. How many more are out there?”

Rather than join in the chorus (or what will soon be a chorus) of wailing and beating of breasts, let me just say this:

Quit whining, you sniveling wimps.

And go do your damned job and stand up for what you believe in, for chrissakes. I don’t think Judith Miller should be in jail, but the law is not on her side, so she is doing what she thinks is right. So should you whiners, and if you have information that was leaked to you that are of ‘profound importance,’ and you don’t publish it because you are ‘afraid of jail,’ you don’t deserve my support or sympathy. You deserve my scorn.

If you think something is right, moral, and proper, you ignore the damned law and face the consequences. Some old guy who lived near a lake wrote about this once.

Don’t pay attention to ‘what could happen’ to you- do what you think is right. Thank goodness all journalists aren’t this spineless.

Plame Fall-out?Post + Comments (14)

The season premiere of Monk is tonight. Set your TiVo®.

MonkPost + Comments (12)