PATRIOTic Fudge

George Bush is taking a PATRIOT Act lap around the country. The Washington Post caught his act, checked his math, and issued this corrective:

Flanked by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush said that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

Those statistics have been used repeatedly by Bush and other administration officials, including Gonzales and his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, to characterize the government's efforts against terrorism.

But the numbers are misleading at best.

An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

What's more,

But a large number of people appear to have been swept into U.S. counterterrorism investigations by chance -- through anonymous tips, suspicious circumstances or bad luck -- and have remained classified as terrorism defendants years after being cleared of connections to extremist groups.

Lovely. Plenty more here; link via Marginal Revolution.

Comments

[Stretch]

What's this? The administration is fudging numbers to make itself look better? No, that can't be right at all. They would never do that.

[tros]

Has anyone considered the possibility that the White House has been intersecting with another dimension for some time now, and Jeff Gannon is just one of the "visitors"?

[Stretch]

The Adventures of Buckaroo Bush in Across the 8th Dimension?

[CodeMonkeySteve]

The Adventures of Buckaroo Bush in Across the 8th Dimension?

"No matter where you go ... there you aren't."

[SPD]

39 = 200, folks. It's the new reality of the reality-based community.

[s.a.m.]

But the numbers are misleading at best.

I guess National Security would be compromised if you called a duck a duck! Maybe another way of calling it without compromising National Security is by refering to it as a "misstated truth."

[s.a.m.]

39 = 200, folks. It's the new reality of the reality-based community.

SPD, I'd call it "Faith Based Reality!"

[Lowdog]

Yes, in fairness, "reality-based community" is a 'bad name' for Dems, cooked up by some Repub staffer, IIRC.

[Bill Clinton]

"Flanked by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush said that 'federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted.'"

Note that he didn't say that 'federal terrorism investigations have resulted in *terrorism* charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted *of terrorist-related crimes.*.'"

So, technically, he wasn't lying, and that's good enough for me.

[Ken Shultz]

"An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security."

Maybe convictions based on secret evidence make up the difference? ...You know, the kind of evidence that only the President and his cronies are allowed to talk about.

...I'm no legal expert; but if there's such a thing as secret evidence, then convictions based on that secret evidence are secret too, right?

[Sen. Pangloss]

Look, the Federal Government can do no wrong. Learn it, live it, love it. There were WMDs in Iraq, because our flawless intelligence services told us so. And America is crawling with terrorists that can only be stopped with the powers granted by the PATRIOT ACT. Because our flawless law enforcement agencies tell us so.

Meanwhile, all of our drugs are safe, because the flawless FDA tells us so. Except for the drugs that the flawless DEA tells us are bad. Ketchup is a vegetable, because the flawless USDA said so, but it doesn't appear in the new flawless food pyramid because the flawless HHS doesn't count it as such. (BTW, even though the OLD pyramid was flawless, the new pyramid is even MORE flawless! Only the Federal Government can take something that is flawless and make it better!) And don't forget that a crop grown in your backyard for personal consumption is interstate commerce because our flawless Congress, flawless Executive, and flawless Supreme Court all said so.

You people who question the wisdom of your flawless Federal Government need to get with the program. Or else the terrorists (or rapacious capitalist robber barons, YMMV) will have won!

[SR]

Why does the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions hate America?

[jake]

I want to party like it's "1984"!