Meg Kreikemeier noted this back in February on TCS. I think I linked it then, but she brings her article to my attention again. It was true in February, and it's just as true now.

She writes (quoting her own piece):

At a time when unemployment was at 6.5 percent, and GDP was forecasted to be 3 percent in 1994, Time Magazine wrote, "which would be no boom, but maybe something much better: a pace that could be sustained for a long time, keeping income and employment growing without igniting a new surge in inflation.... The circle (of spending, production and hiring) may not spin fast enough to produce a boom -- but who wants one anyway? Moderate, steady growth is better.""

Now compare it to the one Time Magazine article ("How Real is the Squeeze?") written about economic recovery under President Bush. Keep in mind that at the time the article was written GDP grew 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2004 (which was subsequently revised upward to 4.3 percent) and unemployment was at 5.6 percent.

"Jonathan Thornton finally found a job this spring after six months of unemployment. "My wife and I almost parted ways after 13 years because of the financial strain," he says. When he started work in April as a crane operator at a screw manufacturer in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, Thornton treated his wife Rita to a few little luxuries -- a day at the salon, an evening out with the girls. "My outlook has definitely brightened," he says. But Thornton's optimism goes only so far. His paycheck has grown, but the family is still just getting by.... There's supposed to be an economic recovery under way. But the numbers paint a confusing picture."

So where's the comment that "moderate, steady growth is better," particularly when the GDP growth and unemployment rate were better in 2004 than in 1993?

Well, obviously, just as the MSM is quick to forget about the legions of homeless people during a Democratic Administration, they're equally forgetful about the great benefits of "moderate, steady growth" and subpar job creation they once lauded as the Goldilocks Economy.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (2)
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That's goofy enough. Even goofier is that these unhinged moonbats think Matthews is a diehard conservative and will run as Republican.

Wardrobe Door notes the goofiness of HuffPo commenters:

The Huffington Post is spreading some rumor that Chris Matthews is considering running for the Senate in PA.

The interesting (funny) part is reading the Huffers (via National
Review) reaction to this. They assume that the former Democratic aide
is going to run as a Republican. A poster even pointed out to them
that Matthews worked for Tip O'Neil but they ignored the fact and kept
right on.

Here's some of the reactions:

"Great! Let him run as a Republican, lose, then we won't have to look
at him anymore, either on MSNBC or in the Senate. Because surely even
MsNBC won't run with an admitted partisan hack....hmmmm, not so sure
now"

"Matthews is overbearingly egotistical and would considier running for
the Senate. He is a Republican political hack as previously stated.
All kinds of support would come his way because he is a real
sucker-upper to the Bush criminal class."

But all of that pales in comparision to this comment when someone said
they were boycotting MSNBC because of Matthews loyalty to the GOP:

"If you're boycotting MSNBC then you aren't watching Keith Olbermann
and that's a shame. All the integrity and veracity that Matthews is
lacking, which should make him presidential material, is on Countdown
with Keith Olbermann."

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (22)
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He's proposing slashing the federal gas tax from 18.3 cents per gallon to 3.7 cents.

It's not just to give you cheaper gas, although that might be a nice side benefit. It's to reduce the pool of money available at the federal level for boondoggle pork projects paid for through gas-taxes.

If individual states feel the pressing need to collect additional gas-taxes to make truly necessary improvements to roadways and highway rest-stops and bridges to nowhere and all of that, they may. But they will be limited by political pressures. Right now, they're not so limited. The pool of money collected by gas taxes is essentially "free money," so there's no reason for a Congressman not to take as much of it as he can get his hands on, even to fund very low-priority projects in his district.

Do I want a 50 inch plasma flat-screen TV? Of course I do; who wouldn't. But as the money comes out of my own pocket for such a pricey purchase, I have to evaluate just how much I need such a TV, and whether or not it's worth it for the money I'd have to spend.

On the other hand, if there was a free pool of money provided for by the federal government for purchasing such a TV, and all I had to do was fill out a form to get a voucher for a new $2500 entertainment system, of course I'd do just that.

I would be buying a low-priority item only because other people were paying for it, and hence it was more or less cost-free to myself.

Pork happens because of this. If Alaskans really think they need a $50 million bridge connecting a town inhabited by four people to an island inhabited by two caribou and a crazy hermit who thinks he's John Elway, well, then-- let them pay for it out of their own pockets. If they're paying for it out of their own pockets, we know it actually is a priority for them to have a nice little bridge for caribou to cross, and for a crazy hermit to spray paint strange messages on, like "The man you call 'John Elway' actually swapped brains with me, and I want my goddamned Superbowl rings back."

But if someone else is paying for it, why not have this stupid bridge, no matter how useless? At least it creates some temporary jobs, pumps money into the economy, and gives you a bridge.

When people pay for stuff out of their own pockets, it imposes spending discipline of them as well as a rational scheme of prioritization. When people pay for stuff with other people's money, those limitations are completely gone.

Cut as much of this "free money" bullshit out of the system as possible and spending at both the federal and local levels will naturally come down.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (32)
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In all the different senses.

The Justice Department has determined a police-force qualification test which included a math section is racist, because, well, minorities didn't perform as well on math as whites.

The Justice Department claimed that the testÂ’s pass-fail system had a disproportionate effect on minorities because the passing rates for blacks and Hispanics were less than 80 percent of the passing rate for whites.

From 2002 to mid-2005, about 85 percent of white applicants passed the math exam, compared with 59 percent of blacks and 66 percent of Hispanics.

Ahem.

I had thought that "racism" consisted of not hiring a minority who was otherwise qualified to do a job (based on grades, experience, test scores, etc.) because he was a minority.

Now it turns out that "racism" consists of not hiring a minority who may or may not be qualified to do a job (based on grades, experience, test scores, etc.). And he should be hired anyway, just because she is a minority.

It's obviously racist to not hire a minority who has all the qualifications you seek. But the new regime (okay, it's not all that new, is it?) is simply that it's racist to not hire a minority, despite his failing to meet minimum qualifications.

Like it or not, math is a simple, if somewhat crude, method of guaging innate intelligence and problem-solving abilities. If you're not good at math, odds are you're not particularly smart or adept at abstract thinking. Sure, there are exceptions -- there are brilliant people who still don't know how to figure out the tip on a check. But it is a useful proxy to screen out the dummies.

Are the blacks and Hispanics who disproportionately fail at this test all dummies? Of course not. Many of them were probably poorly served by their schools, or poorly served by themselves during their schooling (avoiding "acting white" and all that).

Still: if you think you've got a weakness in math, pick up a frigging $15 book that will prime you on everything you need to know for this sort of test. If you're not willing to do that, or still can't teach yourself 8th grade math even at age 20 or 25, then I'm sorry, you're either lacking in initiative or lacking in brains, and either way, you're probably not very well qualified to be carrying a gun.

Update: Apparently Retard-Level Math Is Racist: Derbyshire related this bit from an article about the controversy:

"This is not a test we developed,' Jacocks said. 'We are not looking for rocket scientists. This is a basic math aptitude test.' One sample question framed a problem in the context of police work: 'On Tuesday, Officer Jones worked the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. At 10:55 p.m. he was called to the scene of an accident where he remained until 1:30 a.m. How long past his regular shift did Officer Jones work?"

Good Lord. If you can't figure that out, you simply are not qualified to carry a badge. In fact, you're not qualified to carry a parking-ticket book, because you have to make those sorts of HIGH-LEVEL ARITHMETIC CALCULATIONS to determine if someone has in fact stayed more than two hours in a two-hour-only parking zone.

Thanks to Dave.

In related news, the Justice Department officials who determined the math test to be racist are, themselves, super-geniuses with quantum psychokinetic powers. Simply as a party-trick, they're given to splitting atoms... with their minds.

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (34)
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What are they thinking? The only reason this B-level piece of crap is getting so much attention is that absurd title.

New Line's Snakes on a Plane, due to open on Aug. 18, has already produced an avid cult, "the first cult following created entirely by a movie's title," according to Canada's Maclean's magazine. According to the magazine, an uproar among the cultists ensued when studio executives decided to change the title to Pacific Air Flight 121.

Pacific Air Flight 121? Oh yeah. That's catchy.

Even star Samuel L. Jackson joined in the ruckus, saying, according to Maclean's: "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title."

It's good he didn't do so much coke in the eighties to completely lose all sense.

The magazine said that in the end, not only did the producers restore the original name but that they "recently returned to Vancouver to film new scenes with profanity and gore, bringing the final product closer to the kind of garish B movie its name suggests."

Okay, I'm sold. I must see this movie.

Posted by: Ace at 08:14 AM | Comments (26)
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Libby denies any higher official order to leak Plame's name in his filings:

Mr. Libby does not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures concerning Ms. Wilson by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or anyone else.

His filings also demand a raft of documents from the CIA, State, etc., the government won't want to give up. This could be one of those cases where the prosecution loses a case because the government refuses to comply with a defendant's legal right to have sensitive and classified information to his defense. For crying out loud, if we let actual spies off the hook for that reason, there shouldn't be any reason Libby can't get himself off by the same route.

Except, of course, the entire media and most of the judiciary considers Libby a greater threat than Aldrich Aames.

He also intends to determine conclusively what Fitzgerald is often vague about -- whether or not Plame really was covert and whether or her "outing" actually hurt national security. He intends to call her as a witness-- sweet.

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald claimed in his own filings that Libby had leaked a "key judgment" of the National Intelligence Estimate that stated that Iraq was "vigorously" attempting to procure uranium. This was seized upon by the MSM as evidence that Libby was leaking false evidence overstating the NIE's take on Iraq, as that was not a "key judgment" of the NIE, but rather only mentioned in the NIE. But Fitzgerald changed his filing to say that Libby had been authorized to leak "key judgments" from the NIE and the NIE also mentioned that Iraq was "vigorously" pursuing uranium.

In other words, the MSM seized upon Fitzgerald's findings as proof that Bush Lied, People Died. But then Fitzgerald realized his wording had been sloppy, and ammended his filing to clarify this implication away.

The New York Times was informed of this by Fitzgerald's office. But they did not correct immediately as most other news organizations did. Their excuse for letting a false story stand for one full day longer than it should have?

Yesterday, Mr. Fitzgerald filed a letter with the court correcting his original filing to say Mr. Libby had been authorized to disclose "some of the key judgments of the N.I.E., and that the N.I.E. stated that Iraq was vigorously trying to procure uranium." This revised account of his filing undercut a basis of the Times article — that Mr. Libby testified that he had been told to overstate the significance of the intelligence about uranium.

Although Mr. Fitzgerald formally filed his corrective yesterday, accounts of it were provided to some news organizations on Tuesday night, and were the basis for news articles yesterday. The Times did not publish one, as other organizations did, because a telephone message and an e-mail message about the court filing went unnoticed at the newspaper.

You can bet your sweet ass that if Fitzgerald's phone calls and e-mails to the NYT had the effect of making the story worse for Bush, they would not have gone "unnoticed at the newspaper."

Posted by: Ace at 07:09 AM | Comments (77)
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It's cute when non-lawyers try to play Mattlock.

Moussaoui to FBI: I Plead the Fifth

Debater JUDGITO wonders how the government could have reasonably expected Moussaoui to tell the FBI everything he knew about Al Qaeda's plans. "Doesn't the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination apply in this case and, if not, why not?"

An intriguing question.

The defense has made this point, arguing that Moussaoui was under no legal obligation to confess anything.

Mike at LeftFielder.org agrees. He can't see how increasing "MoussaouiÂ’s legal liability because he refused to confess his crimes and fully cooperate with the FBI" would not be a violation of the Fifth Amendment. (The Old New Englander notes that the government attorney caught improperly coaching witnesses in the Moussaoui case has invoked her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.)

The relevant clause of the Fifth Amendment reads: "no person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...."

Okay, this is a somewhat technical bit of the law, so I get that non-lawyers don't get it. But I don't understand how non-lawyers can spout off so confidently about matters of which they know absolutely nothing at all.

I can't swear with 100% certainty that my explanation is the proper one, because I haven't been following the Moussaoui case. However, I do know the crime of conspiracy well enough, and I'm reasonably confident the explanation I'm going to give you is correct.

First, the definition of conspiracy. It may surprise you that the crime of conspiracy is very simple and short: you are guilty of the crime of conspiracy when you agree with one or more persons that a specified crime be committed, with the intent that that crime should be committed.

And that's it. You don't have to actually go through with the crime. You don't have to be the one it is agreed will commit the crime. You can all go home and never discuss it again and take absolutely no action to commit the crime, and yet you're all still guilty of conspiracy.

Because the crime of conspiracy is merely the agreement among two or more people that a crime will be committed. Just the agreement. Not the crime.

There is slightly more to it than that. Most conspiracy statutes or caselaw requires some specific action be taken in "furtherance of the conspriacy," but that's more of an evidentiary safeguard. That rule is there to separate the people who just spout off without any real intent of committing a crime -- say, you and me, talking over beers, agreeing that "someone should break into Barbara Boxer's Senate office and fill it with dog crap," without ever really intending to do anything of the sort -- from those who really are agreeing that one or more of them should commit a crime, with the actual intent to do so.

So, if we agree we should fill Boxer's office with dogcrap but none of us actually goes out and buys gloves (to keep from leaving fingerprints) or begins going to kennels to ask how much dog-poop they could provide for $300, we can't be charged with conspiracy.

If we do take those steps, however, we can be so charged, as those steps demonstrate a real intent to commit the crime. But note: We don't actually have to commit the actual crime of buglary and aggravated dogcrap depositing; we just have to agree to do it, and take a prepartory step towards that goal. And that prepataory step does not have to be illegal in and of itself.

So: If you and a friend agree that one of you should go have sex with a horse (in one of the few states where that's actually a crime), and you buy some animal tranquilizers and carrot-flavored condoms, you're guilty of conspiracy to commit unlawful sexual assault on a horse, even if neither of you then does a damn thing more about it. No horse gets sexually assaulted, but it doesn't matter: the crime in conspiracy is the agreement to commit the crime, not performing the actual crime itself.

If you commit the actual crime, you can just be charged with the crime. Plus you can be charged with conspiracy on top of that, because conspiracy is its own crime, not a "lesser included offense" of another crime.

I assume that federal law defines conspiracy to commit terrorism as a death-penalty eligible offense. I can't imagine it's not.

So, moving on:

Zacharias Moussaoui was found guilty of conspiring (merely agreeing to) commit terrorism, thus becoming eligible for the death penalty. While he didn't actually commit terrorism, and seems to have dropped out of the scheme at some point, he nevertheless took the required acts in furtherance of the conspiracy (taking flight lessons, collecting aviation maps, etc.) and thus is guilty of conspiracy to commit terrorism and can be put to death just for that.

Now, here's the part about "not revealing this plan to the authorities."

Because conspiracy is a crime merely of intent and simple verbal (or written) aggrement between parties to commit a crime, it has a special, not-in-any-other-law safety hatch built into it. Someone can beat a conspiracy rap by proving that he abandoned the conspiracy.

But note that even if you take no further actions to further the execution of the actual plot after agreeing to commit a crime (and intending the crime be committed, and taking acts in furtherance of the conspiracy), you are still, after all, guilty of committing the crime of conspiracy in the first place. So you just can't commit the crime of conspiracy and then simply not involve yourself in the actual crime-conspired-to-perpetrate and say "But I'm innocent." You're not innocent. You may be innocent of actually committing the crime you conspired to commit, but you already are guilty of conspiracy to commit that crime.

However, if you can prove you truly abandoned the conspiracy, you can effectively call a mulligan on your original conspiracy and no longer be guilty of it.

But abandonment is not simply sitting idly by while your fellow conspirators continue to plot and plan and evenetually execute the crime you previously conspired to. Abandonment requires you take active steps to thwart the crime before it is actually perpetrated.

Usually this means you have to rat out your co-conspirators to the police. You don't necessarily have to walk into the police station and confess your guilt, but you do have to, say, at least write an anonymous letter to the authorities that "On April 28th Joe and Steve will break into Barbara Boxer's Senate office and fill it with stinky hound-mounds."

The rule is designed to help combat crime, by allowing those already guilty of conspiracy to help prevent the crime by incentivizing them to come forward.

But you have to come forward. Again, it is not enough to simply take no further action. You're already guilty of conspiracy once you agree to the crime and take a single step in furtherance of it; "abandonment" means you take active steps to undo what you already have done.

So yes; As a general rule, you do not have any duty to report someone else's crime. You cannot, generally, be arrested simply because you know of a crime, or a crime to be committed, and keep silent. (You don't have the right, on the other hand, to lie to LEO's when they ask you questions; that's obstruction of justice. But that won't get you the death penalty.)

Further, you do have the fifth amendment right to not incriminate yourself.

However, if you want to escape a conspiracy rap of which you are demonstrably guilty, you must abandon the conspiracy by taking active steps to stop the coming crime from happening. Or else you remain guilty of conspiracy. And in this case -- as it concerns terrorism -- the death penalty is on the table.

Moussaoui's lawyers' defense, I imagine, is that he did "abandon" the conspiracy, simply by not taking part in any further actions, or telling the other Al Qaeda plotters he no longer wanted to fly a plane. But that is simply not what the law requires for abandonment. For abandonment, he was required to go to the police and tell them of the plot, or, barring that, take it upon himself to prevent the plotters from hijacking the plane.

Obviously, he didn't.

In fact, when directly asked questions about Arabs taking flight lessons, etc., he lied about it.

So he is not actually being put to death (as I hope he will be) for "not confessing to the police."

He is being put to death for the death-penalty-eligible crime of conspiracy to commit terrorism, and failing to establish the only defense available to him, abandoment of conspiracy. He's eligible to the death penalty due to the crime itself; his defense is that he abandoned the conspiracy, but the prosecution is proving he did not abandon the conspiracy according to the law because he never took a single active step to thwart it.

Anyway, a long explanation, but that is what's going on here, I'm sure. It's not that he's being charged with keeping silent, it's that he's offering a defense which requires he actually tell the cops about the crime in advance, and as he didn't do that, the defense is inapplicable.

Or, putting it another way: Prosecutors, by proving he lied or kept silent, are not establishing an element of a crime. Rather, they're disproving a necessary element of his only conceivable defense.

Nits: I said that you essentially had to go to the cops to abandon a conspiracy. That's not quite true; I said it for simplicity.

You can also claim you abandoned a conspiracy, say, by refusing to provide the high-power plasma torch to commit a bank-robbery you've already agreed you should commit, assuming your co-conspirators can't get one themselves. By refusing such aid necessary to carry the crime off, your defense lawyer could argue, probably successfully, that you took the necessary steps to thwart the crime.

Assuming, of course, they just don't go out and get their own plasma torch, and go on to commit the crime without your assistance. I don't know in that case if you could prove abandonment; certainly your lawyer would have a more difficult time.

Or you could say to your co-conspirators, "I think this is wrong, and if you actually go ahead with this, I will rat you out the cops." That may or may not actually stop the crime, but certainly it's a geunuine effort to keep the crime from going forward.

But co-conspirators rarely do anything like this, so the "abandoment" defense is more theoretical than real.

Other nits are bar-exam classics I forget the answers to. Like, if you agree to commit a crime with someone, but he's just pulling your leg and has, himself, no intent that the crime be committed, can you still be charged with conspiracy, because you had the real agreement and intent? Can there be a conspiracy of one in that case? Can't remember; obviously, that's moot as regards Moussaoui.

As Moussaoui can produce no emails in which he pleaded with his Al Qaeda confederates to give up the plan, or denied them any necessary aid to commit the ghastly mass-murder, or even told the truth when directly questioned to by cops, he never abandoned the conspiracy, and thus is guilty of it, and thus, God willing, will be exterminated like the cockroach he is.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (71)
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From the What the Eff Department Of Incredible Liberal Bias:

Productivity normally rises and falls with the business cycle. Coming out of recession, companies make do for as long as possible with the staff they have on hand. In the current upturn, corporate America has exercised unprecedented hiring restraint in order to make up for excesses of the bubble years, says Morgan Stanley chief U.S. economist Richard Berner. The upside of the "jobless recovery" was that by producing more with fewer workers, companies drove up productivity. Inflation stayed low. U.S. growth continued to outpace our major rivals, Europe and Japan, by a huge margin.

But now pent-up demand for workers looks ready to bust out. Growth in job openings is outrunning growth in the number of people with jobs. That could lead to a surge in employment—and slow the rise in output per worker. Berner is predicting that the U.S. productivity growth rate will slip back to about 2 percent this year and next.

Why should we care? Productivity growth is economic magic. It effectively sets the speed limit for inflation-free growth, because the more each worker produces, the faster companies can grow without raising prices. So a productivity slowdown would signal an end to the harmonic convergence of high growth and negligible inflation that America has enjoyed virtually uninterrupted for nearly a decade.

The basic point of the article is, as far as I know, accurate. I object to the tone. And I question the timing.

The MSM -- especially super-liberal elements of it, like Newsweek and the NYT -- are only interested in running negative stories about the economy.

When housing prices rise, property-owners are happy. They get more money for rent and sale, of course.

When housing prices fall, property owners are sad, but renters and buyers are happy.

Obviously.

But the press seems to selectively report the "happy" end of things when, say, Clinton is in office -- Property Values Skyrocket! Homeonwers Ecstatic! -- and the negative side when a Republican is in office -- Property Values Skyrocket; First-Time Home Buyers Cannot Afford Decent Housing; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.

Whenever property values rise, you can write either story; they're both equally true. Homeonwers happy, renters sad.

Which of those two stories a reporter writes depends only on his sympathy for, or animus towards, the administration in power. He can always choose to write either an upbeat or downbeat story; each is always true. It's only partisan bias that makes him choose one or the other.

As is the case with this story.

Newsweek only admits now that what has been going on the past three years -- superb productivity gains, resulting in a true strengthening of the economy, growth without inflation -- was a good thing, now that it may be about to end.

Before, Newsweek bemoaned the lack of gangbusters hiring -- the "jobless economy" we've heard so very much about -- without acknowledging the upside of modest (but good) job growth was that companies were growing sensibly and strongly with respect to hiring, not overhiring in a way likely to provoke a bubble and the inevitable bursting of that bubble.

Only now that that it looks like companies are hiring a lot more people do they admit that the "jobless recovery" (which wasn't jobless at all, but whatever) was fundamentally sound.

I've noted this a bunch of times before: The MSM is only willing to acknowlege the economy is strong in stories predicting it is about to weaken. Only when the scary prediction of a collapsing economy is discussed will they admit the economy is currently actually strong.

Bush can never get the political benefit of a strong economy, because the media will never admit it as such until it has passed. Only when the business cycle turns, as it it one day will, to a recessionary period will the MSM then admit the economy had been strong.

In order to contrast what had been good to what is now bad. Without ever acknowledging things were good at the time.

And so it goes.

Productivity and job growth are always at odds. (Or almost alwaysat odds, absent some major outside change in basic productivity, as the information revolution was.) When producitivity grows, it is all but inevitable hiring will be lower, as that is, after all, the basic math of thing. Productivity means more output with less workers, after all.

When job hiring explodes, or wages grow, productivity will naturally suffer.

It's a yin-yang thing.

But the press always, relentlessly, single-mindedly emphasizes the negative side of whatever trend is in motion, and will continue doing so until the public finally listens to them and elects Hillary! to the Presidency.

Then, once again, we will only read or hear about the positive sides of the economy -- Productivity Rises! if the economy isn't producing many jobs, or Hiring Explodes! if America is producing jobs at the expense of producitivity.

So, productivity gains with modest hiring growth was a good thing all along.

Funny that Newsweek only gets around to mentioning this as many economists thing this "economic magic" is about to end.

Thanks to Robert R.

The Republican Tax: I've said this before, but I think we've got to accept we will always, as a country, have to pay a "tax" on having a Republican president in office, because the media, through relentlessly negative coverage of Republcian economies, will sabotage consumer confidence and thus reduce the actual strength of the economy (not just the perception thereof) a fraction of a percent or so.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (42)
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From H.L. Mencken:

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Found at Andrew Sullivan's House of Hysteria.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (52)
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After catigating the President for making a statement he should already have known was false, based upon the "unanimous" findings of a report sent to the Pentagon, the WaPo reporter makes a curious statement, much later in the article:

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

As Confederate Yankee notes, the article deliberately uses the word "unanimous" in a misleading way. The one team were unanimous within their team that the labs weren't related to bioweapons, but other teams had determined the trailers were used for just that.

That's like saying the country voted unanimously for Kerry in 2004 -- among Kerry voters, that is.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (34)
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