Sipsey Street Irregulars: Plumbing the considerable depths of ATF spokesman "Baghdad Tom" Mangan's 'unawareness.'

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Plumbing the considerable depths of ATF spokesman "Baghdad Tom" Mangan's 'unawareness.'

"I am 'unaware' of everything you are talking about!" -- ATF spokesman "Baghdad Tom" Mangan.

There is no credit to us, but Mr. Wagner, the author of the story below, is on both David's and my email list, and has been for some time. Plus, "Unaware" Mangan's "non-denial denial."

“There is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who gets the credit.” -- Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Mr. Emerson was no doubt correct, but I wouldn't be human if I did not admit that the studious and seemingly complete avoidance by the press and other bloggers -- most spectacularly and without excuse by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit -- as if we were Orwellian unpersons, chaps my considerable ass.

Phoenix-area gun store, ATF sting may be linked to border shootout.

Tom Mangan, an ATF spokesman in Phoenix, said he was "unaware of any guns allowed to go south of the border," either intentionally or inadvertently. "I am not aware of any internal investigation that's going on regarding Project Gunrunner."

Mangan is doubly "unaware"?!?

Well, of course. As a professional flack, Mangan is nothing if not skilled in the art of the non-denial denial.

Non-denial denial is a phrase that became popular in the wake of the Watergate scandal, referring to an equivocal denial, particularly one made by an official to the press. London's The Sunday Times has defined it as "an on-the-record statement, usually made by a politician, repudiating a journalist's story, but in such a way as to leave open the possibility that it is actually true."

A "non-denial denial" is a statement that seems direct, clearcut and unambiguous at first hearing, but when carefully parsed is revealed not to be a denial at all, and is thus not untruthful. It is a case in which words that are literally true are used to convey a false impression; analysis of whether or when such behavior constitutes lying is a long-standing issue in ethics. -- Wikipedia.

I rather suspect that before this is over that we will be plumbing the considerable depths of "Baghdad Tom's" unawareness.

9 comments:

Cybrludite said...: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/114170/; February 1, 2011 at 4:20 AM
Don said...: Just saw the story on NewsMax, Free Republic and a couple other sites, so its definitely gaining traction...

Here's the letter I just received from one of my Reps, Sen Saxby Chambliss...

Thank you for contacting me regarding allegations of misconduct by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) in the transportation of weapons across the border, and the death of Border Patrol Agent (BPA) Brian Perry.

Recently, I was contacted with information regarding this situation. I directed the individuals who had this information to the Senate committee that provides oversight for BATFE, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

I anticipate the committee will move forward in a constructive way, ensuring justice and ensuring operations on the borders are concluded in a satisfactory manner. I will continue to monitor this situation, and keep your thoughts in mind as we move forward.

I appreciate hearing from you.; February 1, 2011 at 4:55 AM
Anonymous said...: The scandal has made Instapundit; February 1, 2011 at 6:00 AM
Erkl Holder said...: "I know NUSSINK!" =
Sgt. Schultz of Hogan's Heroes.; February 1, 2011 at 8:21 AM
Anonymous said...: Wow, Chambliss couldn't even bother to get Agent Terry's name right?

Sad.; February 1, 2011 at 9:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Still more balm for your chapped butt: a discussion is underway at ARFCOM.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1145029

Critical mass cannot be far off. :^)

MALTHUS; February 1, 2011 at 9:50 AM
Anonymous said...: This isn't about what is "right" or "good" it is about what "they" want. The dead agent matters only as an affectation and ornament which they can use, so that they can..... Get what they want.

I've watched them lie before and nothing happened to the liars but promotions and career enhancements.

I think that they now believe whole heartedly that they can do anything they want and if that continues, it can only be answered with force because all other means have been cut off. You may be certain that they will do so and will use the "law" as their justification.

There will be no formal declaration of war. We are long past that. They have simply chosen to engage, hoping that we respond so that they can "protect" us further.; February 1, 2011 at 12:16 PM
Anonymous said...: And we all know what eventually happened to Baghdad Bob.; February 1, 2011 at 3:58 PM
CowboyDan said...: "And we all know what eventually happened to Baghdad Bob."

I didn't, so I looked him up on Wiki. He's living in the UAE with his wife & children.

U.S. troops captured him at a roadblock; he was questioned and released. That's what Wikipedia says, but that article may need to be updated.; February 1, 2011 at 5:45 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Plumbing the considerable depths of ATF spokesman "Baghdad Tom" Mangan's 'unawareness.'

9 comments:

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