Scott Ostler's Knucklehead Of The Week

[gh]

Perhaps Scott will be getting a call from back East soon, after comparing The Prez's Copenhagen effort to Charlie Brown trying to kick the football:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1A0DLL.DTL

[Davidokun]

Fortunately, there are no moderators of the press.

[2 cents]

Fortunately, there are no moderators of the press.

Well, fortunately or unfortunately, there are moderators of the press...

[Davidokun]

Care to provide an example?

[2 cents]

There are so many I cannot begin to do justice, no pun intended, to them all.
The U.S. Supreme Court has 9 individuals who could be said to be moderators.
The U.S. Government is another.
Of course there is a heavy presumption against the validity of prior restraints.
My point is that the freedom of the press in the U.S. is not absolute, and there are moderators enforcing this.

[Davidokun]

None of them may act in the arbitrary manner of certain forum moderators.

Further, no one from the Government will be contacting Mr. Ostler for criticizing the actions of this, or any other, President.

[tandfman]

Ostler's a bit off track on this one. The essence of the Charlie Brown football thing was that in spite of a long history of unsuccessful attempts, he kept doing the same thing repeatedly, thinking the result this next time might be different, trusting someone who had lied to him every time before.

Not at all analogous to Obama in Copenhagen. Neither he nor any of his predecessors had ever made a pitch to the IOC, nor had the IOC broken any promises to him or any of his predecessors. Unlike Charlie Brown's umpteenth try at kicking that football, Obama had never even thought about doing this before.

[2 cents]

None of them may act in the arbitrary manner of certain forum moderators.

Further, no one from the Government will be contacting Mr. Ostler for criticizing the actions of this, or any other, President.

Oh, they might not succeed for very long, but they damn well can and have:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm

As for your second sentence, perhaps you don't remember presidential candidate Obama telling Maureen Dowd how sensitive he is about his ears after she wrote something about them.

[Davidokun]

Oh, they might not succeed for very long, but they damn well can and have:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm

Have they really?

Wikileaks

As for your second sentence, perhaps you don't remember presidential candidate Obama telling Maureen Dowd how sensitive he is about his ears after she wrote something about them.

Are you serious?

[2 cents]

Apparently you cannot read. I know the website is up now. IT WAS SHUT DOWN BY ORDER FROM A JUDGE in 2008. This was to refute your nonsense about the press having no moderators. Learn how to read.

As for the Dowd reference to Obama's ears, it is to point out to you that you have NO IDEA what journalists are contacted regarding their content by politicians or the government.