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Overheard
July 17, 2007 9:19 AM
Liberal blog-meister Arianna Huffington WRITES that on the Amtrak high-speed Acela train from New York to DC Thursday web she overheard Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol on the phone talking about Iraq and messaging.
Writes Huffington: "'"Precipitous withdrawal" really worked,' I overheard him say, clearly referring to the president's use of the term in that morning's press conference. 'How many times did he use it? Three? Four?' he asked his interlocutor, and the conversation continued with a round of metaphorical back-slapping for the clever phrase they had 'come up with.' "
This is a geographic hazard when one works in Washington, DC -- you might accidentally run into people who are snooping.
My best example of this -- with me as the snoop, naturally, came just after 9/11 when I had jury duty and I overheard an adviser to Andrew Cuomo talking to him about how potentially strong then-Gov. George Pataki was going to seem when he ran for reelection. (Cuomo was weighing a run. He ran, but eventually dropped out.)
I wrote at the time (CLICK HERE): that on Sept. 20, 2001, "Rhoda Glickman stood in a Washington, D.C., courthouse building where she had been called to jury duty, and talked on her cellphone, trying to explain to a seemingly reluctant listener that the New York political landscape had changed as dramatically as the city's skyline.
"Glickman worked as special assistant to former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo, who is planning to take the very job from New York Gov. George Pataki that Pataki took from his father, Mario Cuomo, in 1994.
"But that challenge had become far more daunting, Glickman explained on the phone, since Pataki had performed so ably as governor since the Sept. 11 crisis.
"'Andrew,' Glickman said into her gray Motorola cellphone, 'what you have to understand is that they're going to run commercials with images of Pataki pulling out bodies.'
"Glickman vividly summed up the strange new world of post-Sept. 11 politics: Politicians once thought vulnerable may now seem indispensable, to an electorate still reeling from the shock of an attack within our borders."
Small town.
-- jpt
July 17, 2007 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (4)
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Sorry, James, but you're comparing apples to oranges, and Ms. Huffington isn't at fault. One cannot reasonably expect privacy and confidentiality when one is blabbing on a cell phone in a public place, oblivious to whoever is within earshot. (The Supreme Court refers to it, I believe, as a "reasonable expectation of privacy.") To compare Ms. Huffington's "reportage"--eavesdropping by any other name--to wiretapping, authorized or not, is simply unwarranted.
Posted by: chuck | Jul 19, 2007 11:46:16 AM
Chuck & Spock, but isn't it interesting? Complaints from the left are that President Bush is violating the U. S. Constitution when the NSA listens to terrorists overseas who might happen to be talking with Americans here at home. Yet in the case of Ms. Huffington, apparently it's not enough to just overhear someone, she actually tells the whole world (sorry, that might be exaggerating...her readers) what she overheard!!
Posted by: James Danley | Jul 17, 2007 4:19:03 PM
chuck - so true - People are obnoxious with the phone. They cry privacy but yet scream so everyone hears their private talk. I find even more disturbing that a politician or accomplice would talk loud like that. Stupidity !!
Posted by: spock | Jul 17, 2007 2:15:53 PM
Like all other cities in the US, D.C. isn't so small that you can't help but eavesdrop on others' conversations on their ubiquitous cell phones. It never ceases to amaze me how oblivious most people are when they use their cell phones in public: they continue conversing at a normal voice (or even more loudly if the connection is unclear), believing they have the same degree of privacy they would have at home or in the office. And they decide to discuss some of the most intimate, as well as mundane, personal details without caring who is within earshot. They don't seem to realize--or care--that where they conduct their conversations make those very conversations part of public life. It serves Mr. Kristol right to have his phraseology mocked for blabbing about his "success" in public!
Posted by: chuck | Jul 17, 2007 10:33:01 AM
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