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Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
Condi treats State like it is the EPA or the NIH:
WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.
If those pesky facts get in the way, simply edit the facts!
Seriously, I still don't get this. Someone asked me the other day what it would take for me to change my mind about the Bush administration. You know, the Dow is still lower than it was when he took office, we are just now back to the SAME number of jobs as when he took office, terrorism is up, AIDS is spreading faster, crime is up, teenage pregnancy is up, the deficit is out of control and whenever there is an empirical fact coming from the government it has to get redacted. By what metric, exactly, has the Bush administration accomplished anything aside from "misplacing" $9b in Iraq and passing a slew of corporate givaways, civil rights restrictions.. or in many cases BOTH AT THE SAME TIME?
I mean, shouldn't "The MBA President" be all about clear metrics that track progress?
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RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," Well thats par for the course.
"But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism."
Well it seems like if they don't give us bad news GW's approval rating stays up.
RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
This is fricking ridiculous but its completely expected from the Bush regime whos entire game is not truth and reality but rather deception and specious bullshit.
If you voted for Bush you should be so proud of shit like this, dont let the truth get out about . . .
the budget
the "War" on terrorism
the intelligence community
the medicare prescrip drug crap
so on so on so on . . .
and these are the people that like to balk at "revisionist" history and "activist" judges and so on.
Its one thing if I DISAGREE with the decisions of an administration but said decision was made in and honest and open and truthful and rational matter, its entirely another when that administration just edits and filters any real facts and paints everything with positive information that is false or misleading (and often PAYS outside so called "independent" "journalists" to do it).
RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
I heard this issue discussed on NPR this AM and its still just absurd. Several people from the state department were interviewed and said that we cant use metrics like the "number of attacks" because that is not an indication of overall terrorism. They went on to elaborate, for example AQ was getting stronger for many years and thus a great threat while not necessarily carrying out attacks.
To this I say, no shit, so what? Of course we dont use one metric to reflect/juudge something else (number of attacks to overall strength of AQ), but we can certainly use that metric to judge AGAINST THE SAME METRIC FROM PAST, etc?
WTF? Is it just me?
No we dont use the number of thunderstorms in a given year to tell us how windy it is overall? No we dont use how many boxes of corn flakes are shipped to tell use how much corn was grown? But we can use corn flakes 2000 versus corn flakes 2004? Cant we?
The basic conclusion of all the folks interviewed that agreed with the policy of removing the metrics from the terrorism reporting was that that stuff just doesnt reflect overall terrorism (and it was flatly stated several times, it might look bad as well). SO THE HELL WHAT? WE CAN STILL TRACK SUCH THINGS AND USE IT TO REFLECT WHAT IT IS, THE NUMBER OF ATTACKS and so on?
RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
I agree.
And while we are on rants - why does my 401K keep losing money quarter after quarter? How many years do we give this President a free ride on that? The $500 dollars the government borrowed to give me a tax break pales to what I have lost (not to mention what I have not made) in my mutual funds.
RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
Next thing you are going to say is because it has been getting .1 degree warmer every year since the 40's that the planet is getting warmer!
RE: Because, you know, real metrics are dangerous
This is a lame reference coming up, I admit it, but my kids were watching Mary Poppins the other day and the proper British father was in an argument on the phone and quickly rambled off "kindly do not attempt to cloud the issue with facts", its a great scene actually, and I laughed out loud at that line, perfect then and now.