All in all, all this partisan hand wringing from the so-called liberal media will mean little, it all hangs on what Fitzgerald does.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B3E65822F-C874-4175-8 AC2-EE63D65F3C18%7D&siteid=google

Rove: CIA leak came from Novak
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:38 AM ET July 15, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Presidential confidant Karl Rove told a federal grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative from Washington columnist Robert Novak, according to a Friday media report.

Rove testified that he later informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke during the summer of 2003, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified person it said was briefed on Rove’s testimony.

Rove said Novak, a conservative syndicated columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times, contacted him and offered the information, the AP reported, and then published the information several days later.

I’m aware of how Trout Unlimited works and I am in favor of any attempt to protect the habitat of various species. However I would prefer to go one step farther and protect the habitat of all of the animals and plants in the environment, not just amp up the numbers of desirable game animals. My query to you was tongue in cheek (hence the emoticon) but it does have an element of real concern. I work to protect the environment because I love the animals and plants. (I worked as a naturalist in a state park for a number of years and my bike shop and 2 homes are all super energy efficient). My question is; are you in favor of conservation to help the environment or just make hunting and fishing more convenient? If it’s the latter, that’s fine, it’s your right to hunt and fish, but then any environmental work doesn’t stand on its own merit.

I don’t have a problem with hunting. I was a hunter as a young person and I allow hunting on my property. As a matter of fact I feel that this area has FAR too many deer. There are browse lines on all of the woods around, there are almost none of the standard forest floor wild flowers, I am forced to put up 5′ fencing around all of my 100 fruit and nut trees. Unlike where Harold lives 99.9% of the people around here hunt, it is by far the main religion in these parts, despite my efforts to introduce biking.

As far as the environment goes you can’t look at problems in the 70’s and say that they were caused by the Democrats and now things are better thanks to Republicans. Some of the very best environmental laws were bipartisan, passed by a Democratic congress and signed by Nixon. Democrats don’t own the environmental issues; there are plenty of good steward Republicans.

BUT, this administration at EVERY turn has worked against any environmental clean up.

Air: One of the biggest air pollutants is the sulfur emitted from coal burning plants in the Midwest. During the black out of 2003 the University of MD was doing air quality monitoring and got a quick view of what would happen with out the power plants spewing pollutants. With in 24 hours Sulfur Dioxide levels dropped by 90% and ozone declined by 50% Day time visibility increased by 25 miles due to a 70% decrease in light scattering particles. (Discover magazine Nov. 2004). The current laws order plants to clean up but allow them to do so slowly to avoid economic impact. When they do any expansion or improvements they must then also install pollution controls. This administration passed Clear Skys which says that the power companies no longer have to install pollution controls. It is painfully clear that the administration has changed a law that was working (far too slow for my tastes) to one that doesn’t work at all. The only ones who benefit are the owners of power companies. I would be willing to pay more for electricity to clear the air.
Forests:
Healthy Forests allows timber companies to cut in protected forests in the name of making them more fire resistant. Not only can they take dead wood but also live trees. They are merely given a permit to timber what we have decided was special and should not be cut. What would help would be to clear the undergrowth, it’s expensive but about all that will work now that we have prevented small burns for the past half century that would have cleared the under story with out endangering the main body of the forest. Healthy Forests doesn’t do this.
Water:
Mercury limits were set by Clinton, guess who thought these were too stringent.
Wetlands:
The administration didn’t change the laws to allow development in wetlands, they merely changed the definition of what a wetland was. Guess what way they moved the definition.
Energy:
There is a cartoon of a sinking ship in the background, dogs fill a life boat. One dog stands up and says. “I vote that we eat all of the food right now”. This is the energy policy of the Bush administration. When we are approaching a shortage of oil his view is that we should drill everywhere possible to get to the last oil we can. It would be easy for America to cut its oil intake by up to 25% with in a decade. With proper insulation, passive solar design, and simple energy saving devices most houses could reduce their energy consumption by one half. (My bike shop uses less than $100 of propane a year to heat, and with my house in MD I was able to retrofit and reduce the energy consumption by 90% over the previous owner). The only possible energy policy that will work is one that stresses conservation not glutting the market with new oil
You may or may not think that ANWAR is important, but it’s only one more example of the myopic view of this administration.

I’ve already yammered on for far too long but I could go on much more about the total disregard that this administration has for anything environmental.

Basically, we have an issue of a news anchor reporting something true, but using a spurious piece of evidence to do it (when in fact there was a ton of legitimate evidence supporting the contention as well). So, the conclusion by the MSM, and apparently yourself is, the issue, bush dodged the draft, suddenly becomes false.

Not the kind of logic I employ but hey, if it works for you, more power to you. This is one of the classic intellectually dishonest ways to argue a point. Poison the well.

As for conservation, an issue I didn’t address at all (aside from my extremely erratic typing skills or lack thereof) I don’t have an issue with hunters or guns. So trying to place me in some category that makes it comfortable to argue the tired old liberal versus conservative thing doesn’t work on me.

Finally, regarding your classification of the MSM, I have no idea why you would leave Faux out of it. They’re certainly just as legitimate a part of the MSM as the Washington Times or NPR. However, at least it appears we can agree that Fox is one of the most egregious prevaricators of news going. As for the rest of the MSM, for the most part, they’ve pandered to this administration in ways that boggle the mind (yes, post Tomlinson NPR included).

For exmaple, NPR reporting on the Rove issue this morning was utterly without shame. NPR “reporters” parroted the republican line of reasoning giving almost no time to the opposing side, dare I suggest, the side that seems to stick to the germane facts of the issue.

Balance isn’t achieved isn’t by reporting both “sides”. Balance is acheived reporting the facts, regardless of whose ideology those facts may offend. This is something that has been nearly totally absent from the MSM for more than ten years now (at least).

Just my take.

Apparently, if we just use ellipses to cast doubt on opinions we disagree with, instead of pointing out errors or hypocrisy…