Roland Burris introduced two (non-contradictory and hence consistent) pieces of truth in two different time frames. First in the impeachment hearing, he told us that yes, he had talked to the Blagojevich team about his interest to be appointed to the U.S. Senate. Second in the follow up affidavit, he told us about Blagojevich's team asking for money, which he declined to provide. That second piece of truth is what I call background noise. Since the solicitation was refused and no money changed hands, then there is no basis to establish any quid-pro-quo. I continue to see "no harm, no foul."
Can someone in Illinois argue that it's not background noise? Yes. The impeachment proceeding was all about the Blagojevich team, "hitting up" the potential Senate nominees for money. So, for those investigating Blagojevich behavior, these calls can raise an eyebrow and can be considered germane. However, they impeached and removed the Governor already! They already ran him out of town on a rail! The affidavit from Roland Burris now makes no material difference to the outcome of the proceeding. My point was that at the Burris end of matters, that campaign solicitations are background noise. What means more in a Blagojevich investigation means less in a Burris investigation -- and why start one? Partisanship and adolescent maneuvering can be the only motive, since news to date has not revealed to my eyes any real, actual basis or grounds for same.
It may be that casual slander is "close enough for media work." The partisans and the adolescents can only run this drumbeat by relying upon the media to be sloppy and inexact. Back in the old days -- like February 10, 2009 -- perjury had a definition, which we can still look up. According to the Random House Dictionary via Dictionary.com, perjury means "the willful giving of false testimony under oath or affirmation, before a competent tribunal, upon a point material to a legal inquiry." In short, a finding of perjury requires the presence of inaccurate testimony, given under oath. The Latin roots of the word suggest "swearing falsely."
Now separately, the American Heritage Dictionary has first the legal definition, and then a second definition that is not marked Law (and hence perhaps more vernacular): "2. The breach of an oath or promise." I think that "lying under oath" is the understanding that most Americans have at street level, but that second definition offers the only hope for Burris' Republican opponents (and the mainstream news media) to have a leg to stand on for their current, silly drumbeat.
I believe that we can toss out any reliance upon that definition 2, for reasons that (1.) it's not the legal definition of perjury; and (2.) if it were, and if we applied that standard consistently, then we would have the problem I alluded to above. Every witness from every proceeding, if they failed to explain (e.g.) the last ice age, would have failed to meet a standard that requires "the whole truth." It is an unrealistic standard to hold for witnesses. Every person who ever went through a courtroom likely failed to explain (e.g.) the origins of the universe, and hence ALL witnesses would be guilty of perjury under that standard. As we think it through, we fail to find a standard that is reasonable to enforce.
I believe that Roland Burris can stand or fall based on the legal definition of perjury, and that adherence to that would cause us to put away that charge as of now in revelations about Burris. No one is accusing him of lying under oath; the most that Republicans can say is that Burris didn't (on the day of his appearance) tell them "everything he knows." But, it is understandable that he would know first about his own interests, and only second about those of others like the Blagojevich team. The revelations above look natural, and pass the smell test, to me.
What does not pass the smell test is the media, drumming along with a sloppy, inexact, "casual slander" definition of perjury. What if the American public could require "the whole truth" of the news media? How much trouble would Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather be in? How much more would we know about Falun Gong persecution, election theft, the 9/11 attacks, motivations for war, and whatever else they swept under the rug? In addition to software development, I am the founder responsible for the China Support Network (CSN). With the Chinese democracy movement, we have an overhang of unfinished business from the 1980s. (This year marks 20 years since China's Tiananmen Square massacre and the beginning of CSN.)
Very arguably, America has unfinished business from the 1960s (getting to the bottom of political assassinations), from the 1980s (my work), and from later in the tenure of Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather. From the 1990s, we never got to the bottom of the Oklahoma City bombing, nor the first bomb attack on the World Trade Center. And, above I mentioned some more unfinished business -- Falun Gong persecution, election theft, the 9/11 attacks, and motivations for war.
As I said above, "Every day in every way, the news business does not tell the public 'everything it knows.'" Therefore, they are hurling that brick at Roland Burris not from the high ground, but from the low ground. As for myself and the bricks that I hurl at the media, "accessories to genocide" is a shoe that fits. "Perjury," however, requires an oath -- and I realize that Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather were not administered any oath as they took the anchormen's seats. So, I do not use perjury as a brick against them.
There are other words that could apply to the media -- propagandizing, misleading, bamboozling the public -- but perjury, no. The media only commit perjury if we use standards of casual slander that are "close enough for media work."
1 | 2
