What was that McClellan phrase?

Oh, that's right "a certain journalistic standard that should be met."

Apparently Newsweek is the only institution in the country expected to meet any kind of standards. God knows the Senate gets a pass. This from Galloway's defense of himself before HUAC HSGAC today:

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are--let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war. . .

I think I'm going to start using that phrase--"let's be charitable and say..." As in "let's be charitable and say our country is run by a bunch of bloodthirsty criminals with absolutely no sense of accountability, ethics, or conscience.

(And as an aside, I would give my eye teeth for a president that could use the word "traduced" in a sentence.)