Talk:Bill Moyers

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[edit] Anti-Moyers?

This page has more content of anti-Moyers POV than it does much of any facts of his public service, his journalism career, etc.

AMEN!

Yeah there is more text in the criticism than the rest of the page.

I agree, the criticism is getting out of hand. Go to a right wing blog if you want scandalous hearsay. I deleted the references to the Wall Street Journal Silberman op-ed because (1) an opinion piece from the WSJ cannot be reported as fact, (2) I can find no reference online to Silberman's accusations (which he claims originally were revealed to the public in 1975) outside of people referening the Silberman piece itself, and (3) the criticism section is far longer than the rest of the article. If the Silberman claims are true, fine, provide another source to confirm it and then why not add them to a page like Right Wing criticism of Bill Moyers and add a link in the Moyers page to it? Otherwise, I think a POV tag might be the way to go.--Osbojos 17:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

The best thing to do is balance the criticism with postive thing about Moyers, not try to hide criticism. Bill Mpyers is a very successful man, I find it hard to believe that there is not enough good things to say about him to balance out the bad. In the mean time I'm adding this article to my own POV attention list. -JCarriker 17:23, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I like Bill Moyers, but I don't think he's a particularly significant figure. He was a white house press secretary 30 years ago and a journalist for a few publications and programs most people have never heard of. The far right's fetish for attacking him is completely disproportionate to his actual power or accomplishments. I think having to fill the entry with a bunch of superfluous positive biographical information to balance out partisan attacks is the wrong way to go and will hurt the article overall—unless you want a wiki entry consisting mostly of irrelevant information and right-wing rage. --Osbojos 15:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Silberman's personal testimony is sufficient documentation. He was there, he read the files, and he says this is what he found, and this is what Moyers said to him. His word should not be doubted without any proof; it should certainly be given at least as much weight as Moyers's own words. Zsero 00:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
How is this sufficient documentation? I would classify it as slander. Given how eager right wingers are to perform a hit job on Moyers, why has no one else been able to independently verify this information? I could say that Moyers invented napster, but it wouldn't make it true. I won't remove your information even though I have misgivings about it's truthfulness, at least not until people reach a consensus on the talk page. For now, I've just rephrased it slightly and added Moyer's denial. Let's get some input from other people though, Does this (unverified) Silberman allegation belong here? --Osbojos 23:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
How could anyone verify it, without reading the files themselves? As for the conversation, there were only two participants, and it wasn't taped, so how could anyone independently verify how it went? What we have is Silberman's word, which is at least as trustworthy as Moyers's. If we would include a story on nothing more than Moyers's word, then we should do the same for Silberman. You've correctly included Moyers's denial, and rephrased it as a case of he-said-he-said; and that's where it should remain. Zsero 07:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course no one could verify the details of their conversation (or could they? FBI wiretap!) But other people have reviewed the Hoover files via FOIA requests. For example, see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1566630177/ref=nosim/librarything-20 or http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/foiaindex_m.htm There would be no reason to redact the Moyers memo. So if Silberman is right, I suspect someone else would have independently verified it by now. Do a google search for the terms silberman and moyers and you'll see ever reference to this memo is a very minor rephrasing or a direct cut and paste from the Silberman op-ed. Putting personal politics aside, this doesn't make you a little uncomfortable about the truthfulness of the allegation? --Osbojos 17:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Here are some insights on the right's problems with BM: Back to Bias Basics at PBS by Brent Bozell, May 2, 2007

[edit] 1964 Presidential Campaign

I believe that the edit by Ratel, erasing a passage detailing allegations about Moyers activities during the 1964 Presidential Campaign (see below) is unfair for the following reason.

Wikipedia articles are not and should not be resumes or CVs. Even if fundamental facts about a person are negative in nature, so long as the facts are truthful and relevant (and CITED), they can be included. Reasonably speaking, Bill Moyers (a respected journalist) has a reputation as an individual who would NOT use a person's sexual orientation/preference to win a political campaign. Given this reputation, I believe that the claims by Laurence Silberman, that Moyers requested that J. Edgar Hoover get the FBI to provide dirt on Goldwater For President campaign staffers and then ten years later had an abortive phone conversation regarding said request are relevant.

The passage in question:

1964 Presidential Campaign

In October 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson's top aide, Walter Jenkins resigned after being arrested for having sex in a YMCA men's room several blocks from the White House a few weeks before the 1964 presidential election. Moyers became the President's informal chief of staff.

According to former Deputy Attorney General Laurence H. Silberman, who examined J. Edgar Hoover's secret files upon their discovery in 1974, Moyers "was tasked" to have J. Edgar Hoover (director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) investigate the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity.

According to Silberman, Moyers called his office outraged and claimed the document was a "phony CIA memo". But when Silberman offered to conduct an investigation to clear Moyers' name, Moyers paused then said, "I was very young. How will I explain this to my children?", then hung-up. Moyers denies the allegations, stating, "Silberman's account of our conversation is at odds with mine."

I invite Ratel and any other editors who feel so inclined to: add other relevant facts, add further quotes from Moyers, even change wording - but not to censor.

68.192.145.56 (talk) 02:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

You are ignoring the extensive discussion of this point on this page. The consensus was not to include. ► RATEL ◄ 04:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
This is a discussion about Bill Moyers, not Bill O'Reilly. If you want to make edits regarding Bill O'Reilly, then please got to Bill O'Reilly's article and edit it as you see fit.
Here is a fundamental fact that is not in dispute, Moyers did admit that a phone call occurred. So as far historical accuracy is concerned, the passage is truthful.
The question for you, Ratel, is this, 'Why are you advocating the concealment and/or distortion of historical facts?'
Would you like to address the question, Ratel, or are you going to continue to be a WikiCensor?
68.192.145.56 (talk) 16:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey, wake up! there is a Silberman discussion on this page. If you cannot find it, you have no place editing wikipedia. Any further reversions will get your IP banned. ► RATEL ◄ 16:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've read the discussion of Silberman's mention of Moyers on this page, and don't see either well founded arguments or the consensus you claim. It is clearly a significant allegation about Moyers from a reputable source. WP:BLP: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." Period. Andyvphil (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Reputable source? Silberman, a well known uber-conservative (can you spell A-G-E-N-D-A?), is the only source! Novak just repeats it word for word. This is a piece of junk trivia that should be mentioned, maybe, in a long biography, not a short thumbnail such as this. Overweight, should be deleted. ► RATEL ◄ 22:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll leave it in until other editors remove it, since the opposing editors are no longer active, it seems. But I have cut some of the fat out of it and inserted a line about Silberman himself. It is untenable for this short page on Moyers to carry a long, one-man slur by Silberman against Moyers without a counterbalancing statement about Silberman himself, who, if you read the piece on him by Goldberg, is a highly biased source with a history that would make me doubt absolutely anything he said. ► RATEL ◄ 23:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
As mentioned in the comments in the Silberman section above, a consensus was reached that this material should not be included. This is purely an issue of wikipedia policy, NOT an issue of politics, and here's why:
1. from WP:BLP
"Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space."
2. see also Wikipedia:Verifiability#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_sources
This material is poorly sourced, as there is only one source for the allegation, and that is Silberman himself. If anyone can find an article independently verifying Silberman's allegations, then the inclusion of the Silberman allegation may be justified. However, every article I've ever encountered that makes this assertion references Silberman and only Silberman. At this point, that amounts to hearsay and slander, two concepts wikipedia strives to keep out of the biographies of living persons.
Further, the Hoover files are now public record. If Silberman's allegations are true, they should be easy to independently verify. Given the number of people who would like to damage Moyer's reputation, the fact that no one has managed to independently verify the claim is particularly telling. In short, Silberman's allegation is dubious as a matter of logic, not just as a matter of politics. As I said, verify it, and I and everyone else who doesn't think this allegation belongs in the article won't have a leg to stand on. But until/unless it can be independently verified, it has no business being included in the Moyer's article. --Osbojos (talk) 02:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Novak's parroting of what Silberman said cannot be used as independent verification. ► RATEL ◄ 03:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. First, the underlying event is well established.

Clearly the worst offender in demanding political information from Hoover was President Lyndon Johnson...when Johnson's aide, Walter Jenkins, was involved in a homosexual episode in 1964, L.B.J. suspected that a Barry Goldwater supporter may have set up the arrest. He angrily ordered Hoover to seek derogatory material on Goldwater's Senate staff to be held for use if the Senator made an issue of the Jenkins matter in the presidential campaign. Goldwater never did so.(Time,Dec. 22, 1975[5]

...the only question is how LBJ communicated this order to Hoover. Laurence H. Silberman, who does not have to meet Ratel's political approval to be considered reputable, is reliably reported (the WSJ is a RS for the authenticity of the attribution of the article to him, thus fully satisfying WP:V) to allege that he found a memo from Moyers to Hoover communicating that order. Is this an "exceptional claim"? Not in the slightest. Moyers is who you would expect to be writing the memo to Hoover. His predecessor as Johnson's chief of staff, Jenkins, "had served as Johnson's liaison to the FBI"[6] and it is not unexpected that Moyers would succeed him in that role as well. I note that Osbojos offered this link above in support of the idea that if Moyers had been involved in the misuse of the FBI it would have come out. Apparently he didn't notice that Amazon allows you to "look inside the book", and the index shows that in "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Paperback) by Athan Theoharis (Author)" Moyers shows up on p.229,233, and 239-240. Further, there are other accounts of Moyers communicating orders from LBJ to Hoover that are similarly out of step with his preferred persona. Deke DeLoach, author of "Hoover's FBI: The Inside Story of Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant", opens his book with the sentence "Messieurs [Walter]Jenkins, [Bill] Moyers" and (Clif] Carter were particularly interested in suppressing dissent from black groups." When questioned by Brian Lamb about this ("Bill Moyers interested in suppressing dissent from black groups?"- Lamb) DeLoach explained

...the Bill Moyers of then is not the Bill Moyers of today. Bill Moyers had an assignment from President Johnson to control what went on at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. And the rules committee of the Democrats at that particular time were especially concerned regarding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. They wanted to be seated as delegates. The rules committee voted that the regular delegates who have been voted on as a state were to be seated rather than the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The Freedom Democratic Party came in and sat in the seats of the regular delegates. Moyers wanted them out of there. Moyers wanted to control the situation. Moyers asked us on his radio and on his transmitter, asked us for the FBI to move these delegates out of there. We refused to do so because I thought that was sheer politics and I refused to have anything to do with it. But it was a different situation then and he was acting under the orders of the president.[7]

And all this from the briefest look into a record with which I am largely unfamiliar. It appears to me that Silberman's comment on the Moyers of this period gets relatively little attention because it is so unsurprisingly typical of the Moyers of this period. Indeed, what would truly be an exceptional claim would be if Bill Moyers or any of his defenders would claim that while "Landslide Lyndon"[8] was perfectly willing to misuse the FBI (indeed was the ~"worst ever"~ at this) and engage in other forms of borderline-to-fully-illegal politics he would nonetheless choose as his right hand minion someone too high minded to do his will. Andyvphil (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

My goodness, what a lot of pointless waffle, Andyvphil! Your ramble proved precisely nothing to me, including your absurd references to Amazon and the index of some book (now if you had the text of the Moyers references, that would be different). The DeLoach stuff is not germane, just bluster to pad your weak argument. And again, the partisan Silberman on his own is not a reliable source in BLP case like this. Come up with more sources, or it must be excluded. And stop adding it back in while it is under discussion. ► RATEL ◄ 16:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
You are showing very little understanding of Wikipedia policy. Individuals are not, by definition, what Wikipedia calls "reliable sources". The reliable source for the fact that Silberman identified Moyers as LBJ's channel to Hoover is, for one occasion, The Wall Street Journal, and for another occasion Novak's column in various reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (specifically we use CNN). Nor do you possess a veto over the material that is included in the article. Andyvphil (talk) 14:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
...and one major significance of the DeLoach material turns out to be that it indicates that even before Jenkins left the scene Moyers was, with Jenkins, LBJ's primary interface to the FBI, so that with Jenkins gone Moyers is exactly whom you would expect to be LBJ's primary channel to the FBI.[9][10] Andyvphil (talk) 14:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You are erring into WP:OR here. And yes, I understand policy very well thank you, and I also recognize an attempt to smear a living person via WP when I see it. I suggest you review WP:PSTS and WP:REDFLAG. What especially offends me is that you are inserting disputed fragments of a conversation between Silberman and Moyers. That sort of stuff just does not make it into WP, whether you like it or not. If this goes further I shall report you to the BLP noticeboard, and you may be blocked (again).Note the 3RR rule does not apply to reversions made in defence of the BLP policy, but it does apply to your attempts to re-insert this junk. I'll leave your edit to see what other editors do for a while, but I'll heavily modify or revert boldly if nobody else does. ► RATEL ◄ 14:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You cannot understand policy if you think it is possible to characterize individuals as either WP:RS or not WP:RS. Further, it is not WP:OR to point out that your assertion that Silberman is making an WP:"exceptional claim" is nonsense, because it is precisely Moyer whom we would expect to be LBJ's channel to Hoover after Jenkins was canned. And your claim that reverts made "in defense of" WP:BLP are exempt from 3RR (more precisely, the exemption is for "reverts to remove clearly libelous material, or unsourced or poorly sourced controversial material about living persons") is subject to the condition that "exceptions to the rule will be construed narrowly." The statement that Silberman says he found a memo from Moyers to Hoover instructing Hoover to investigate Goldwate's staff is true, not libelous, and is neither unsourced nor poorly sourced, but fully sourced to the WSJ. I will report you if you violate 3RR, and fully expect you will be blocked in that event. Andyvphil (talk) 16:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I've tried to find middle ground here, and my current edit allows some of this stuff in, despite my reservations, and despite it all coming from a the pen of a known GOP hitman [11], printed in a right wing newspaper, and moreover from a disputed claim in an opinion column (I mean, how fringe and isolated can you get?). If you attempt to re-edit it to give it undue weight WP:WEIGHT or try to belittle Moyers on this page by minimising his public service, it'll have to go to the noticeboard. ► RATEL ◄ 15:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
No time or inclination to fix your version, which has a factual error, but feel free to do it yourself and I'll look at it tomorrow. Silberman did not mention Moyers in public in his testimony, or at any time before his article in the WSJ so far as I know. Reread the cite. Andyvphil (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
...and if you think expressing on this page the POV that Moyer's work as Johnson's minion and mouthpiece wasn't much of a service to the public is in some sense actionable, please proceed. This I gotta see. Andyvphil (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I just reverted to the last version by Ratel. The argument above is a mess, so I'll explain/justify here. 1. WSJ allowed Silberman to publish an opinion piece in their paper, that doesn't constitute independent verification by WSJ. 2. Moyers appearing in the index to the hoover files book also isn't independent verification. However, if you look inside this book and find actual evidence to support Silberman's allegation, then you'll have your independent verification. If you're so confident the allegations are correct, just verify them and I won't have a problem with the inclusion of this material. This should be a relatively easy task-if the allegations are true. 3The DeLoach statement you quote above provides partisan, circumstantial support for the Silberman claim. I'm not saying it completely lacks probative value, but it certainly does not constitute independent verification. It's as if I said "George Clooney drowns puppies," got it published as an editorial, tried to include it in wikipedia, and when challengned pointed to a quote from another person to the effect of "George Clooney is a bad guy" as independent verification of the puppy drowning claim. Again, simply verify it, that's standard procedure for responsibly evaluating contentious claims in journalism and in wikipedia. Until you do, I will continue to revert it. --Osbojos (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Actually, WSJ endorses Silberman's "Hoover's Institution - Anecdotes from the FBI crypt--and lessons on how to win the war" as a "Featured Article".[12] Were it libelous, they would be liable, so I have no reason to think that this piece had less attention from their lawyers and fact checkers than anything else they publish. Silberman's assertion of the existance of the memo is, by the way, uncontroverted. Neither Moyers nor anyone else in a position to know has, to my knowledge, denied its existance. In Silberman's account Moyers challenges its authenticity but he didn't question Silberman's ability to provide it if required. Anyway. the relevant section of WP:RS reads as follows:

===News organizations===

Further information: Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons
Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. When citing opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines, in-text attribution should be used if the material is contentious. When adding contentious biographical material about living persons that relies upon news organizations, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used.
There is no question that the WSJ is what Wikipedia policy calls a "high-quality news organization" and the assertion that Silberman found a memo from Moyers in Hoover's "secret" files has "in-text attribution" to Silberman, so their is no question of this material's suitability per policy. In fact, as I've already noted, provided "an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it."(WP:BLP)
2. Sheesh. You are the one who supplied the link to the book at Amazon. See 17:51, 31 October 2006, above. I've merely pointed out that what you did not know but could have found out about it points in the opposite direction than the point you were trying to make. Jenkins was LBJ's primary liason with the FBI before his disgrace, and at least on the occasion of the '64 Dem Convention Moyers seems to have been by a number of accounts a near equal in that function. You made a plausibility argument, that if the memo from Moyers to Hoover actually existed it would have come out under the FOIA and become a cause celebre. I am making the opposite argument, that with LBJ and Hoover involved nobody recounting the incident has paid much attention the the flunky doing unsurprising service as the transcriber of LBJ's orders. Silberman doesn't even mention Moyers in his House testimony and in 2005 Novak reports his target is still Hoover, not the ankle-biter. Find some occasion on which Moyers was too high minded fo obey LBJ's orders and I'll reexamine your assertion that it is implausible that Moyer's did LBJ's will in this instance. Otherwise your insistance on Moyers' unsullied probity is just unsupported POV. And NPOV requires all POV found in high quality RS be represented, even in BLP.
3. Again, what is at question here is the assertion that what Silberman said Moyers did is an "exceptional claim" requiring "exceptional sources",WP:V because it "seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest [he] had previously defended" [or, in this case, subsequently presented himself as a defender of]. That he had worked in favor of seating the Dixiecrat delegation from Mississipi by siccing the FBI on the mixed-race alternate delegation is precisely on point. Far from being a hostile ("partisan") witness, DeLoach defends to Lamb Moyers vigorous attempt to use the FBI to advance the political interests of his patron as appropriate under the circumstances (as he does his own refusal in this instance, since he had a different loyalty -- but see his friendly letter to Moyers after the '64 convention [13].p."179").
4. A long as you don't violate 3RR you and Ratel can continue to revert it, no matter how specious your arguments. And I can continue to add it. And that deadlock can and will continue until an unless the attention of other, NPOV, editors is brought to this issue by RfC or other dispute resolution and the local obstructive pro-Moyers claque is overwhelmed. We'll see. Andyvphil (talk) 06:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't speak for anyone else, but you still haven't convinced me this is sufficiently verifiable to be worthy of inclusion, and I'd be saying the same thing if this was a one-source hit job on someone like Dick Cheney or Bill O'Reilly. Take a moment to step back evaluate the Silberman claim as if it's being made about some public figure you highly respect, and then tell me you still think it's sufficiently verifiable.
If that remains unconvincing, then rather than engaging in an endless revert war or endless arguments about whether this is an "exceptional claim" demanding additional verification, why don't you just find independent verification of Silberman's assertion? That would sidestep our disagreement entirely, and, if Silberman is correct, I suspect this material should be relatively easy to find--perhaps as simple as reading the actual Moyers-related pages included in the index.
I consider both sides of the argument here to be a matter of reasonable, well-intentioned parties having a justifiable difference of opinion. In the future, I suggest you avoid referring to other editors' good-faith efforts to ensure the accuracy of wikipedia as "specious." A lack of civility is likely to start exactly the kind of obnoxious edit warring all parties would rather avoid. --Osbojos (talk) 07:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't call your "efforts" specious. I called your arguments specious, and if you don't want them called that, make better arguments. There is nothing implausible about Silberman's identification of Moyers as LBJ's channel to Hoover, he is in a position to know, the fact that he's made the assertion is reliably sourced, and the text I've written is NPOV. My respect for public figures doesn't depend on my believing them to be paragons of unsullied virtue. It seems quite likely that the information in the press that Moyers had authored the memo to Hoover that caused Moyers to call Silberman was a leak by Silberman. If the author of the Time piece that reported the incident were to announce that his source was Silberman I would absolutely support mentioning the allegation that Silberman was a leaker in Silberman's bio even if the allegation were single-sourced, provided that the identity of the author and the fact that he made the allegation could be established by publication in a RS. If you come up with an alternate explanation in a RS of how Hoover got his instructions, let me know. Andyvphil (talk) 08:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
...and here's the "independent verification":

Under the Johnson administration, the FBI was used to gather and report political intelligence on the, administration's partisan opponents in the last days of the 1964 and 1968 Presidential election campaigns. In the closing days of the 1964 campaign, Presidential aide Bill Moyers asked the Bureau to conduct "name checks" on all persons employed in Senator Goldwater's Senate office, and information on two staff members was reported to the White House.(Memorandum from Hoover to Moyers, 10/27/64, cited in FBI summary memorandum, 1/31/75.)[14]

Andyvphil (talk) 09:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Everything you state in (1) does not get around the fact that this is single-sourced derogatory attack on Moyers' character (especially the part about the phone conversation) that is not confirmed independently by any other party, and is in fact disputed by Moyers (the conversation). The whole thing is based on the one-eyed Silberman's recollections of memos he saw and conversations he had THIRTY YEARS after the fact! Point (3) above is pure WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:OR. Point (4) denotes an attitude to editing WP that is combative and has been reported on the BLP noticeboard. ► RATEL ◄ 07:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the realty of the phone conversation was confirmed by Moyers to Novak. And I don't quite read Silberman's recollection of it as an admission of guilt by Moyers. Guilty or innocent of writing the specific memo he might not have wanted to raise the profile of his work as a minion of LBJ. Still doesn't. As far as I know he's never said anything in public about not having written the memo. Andyvphil (talk) 08:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
You have a reading comprehension problem. I never said Moyers disputed the reality of the conversation, but that he denies Silberman's version of the contents. And of course Silberman's version is an attempt to paint Moyers as a guilty liar pushed into a corner — not surprising considering Silberman's shocking history as a GOP attack dog and the documented abuses of his position on the judiciary. In general, we still just have a situation here where two partisan soldiers disagree about the contents of a conversation, and the claim by one of the opponents that a particular memo was written, or signed by, Moyers. YOU need to get hold of further proof that the memo WAS written/signed, capiche? It shouldn't be difficult, given that a book was written about these issues. And even if you do find proof the memo was actually written, you need to formulate this kerfuffle into a short version that does not outweigh the whole of the rest of Moyer's career in the government/s. Given the brevity of the description of Moyers' public service on the WP page, I don't believe it can be done. ► RATEL ◄ 09:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
You have delusions that you WP:own this article. Turns out that Moyers is identified in the Church Committee report, on the basis of Hoover's reply, not merely by Silberman reporting finding Moyers' own memo, as the one who requested the FBI investigate Goldwater's staff.[15]. Better luck next time. Andyvphil (talk) 10:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Please stop the bad faith editing and ad hominem's. The link you provide proves nothing. ► RATEL ◄ 10:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Helping you out here: "In the closing days of the 1964 campaign, Presidential aide Bill Moyers asked the Bureau to conduct 'name checks' on all persons employed in Senator Goldwater's Senate office..."[16]. And, oh yeah, the SMOKING GUN![17] Swish! Andyvphil (talk) 10:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Those links do seem to establish that Moyers was within the chain of people that requested information on "derogatory details" (no mention of homosexuality) of anyone on Goldwater's staff, although most of the memos are missing and it looks like their existence is inferred by commentators, including Silberman. So now all you have to do, Andyvphil, is formulate this into about 1 to 2 sentences, max, without mentioning the affronting embroidery woven in by Silberman (the content of the phone call). I'm even less inclined to believe Silberman's version of that call now, given that Moyers must have known these documents were there and would come to light, and that to deny them would be futile. Please post your proposed edit here for discussion before inclusion. ► RATEL ◄ 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Your delusions of WP:OWNership are showing. Significant well-cited details are not deleted from articles to keep their svelte appearance. The relevant policy is WP:SIZE, which reads, in part:

Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose. If an article is significantly longer than that, it may benefit the reader to move some sections to other articles and replace them with summaries (see Wikipedia:Summary style).[emphasis added]

Summarize and export, if necessary (it's not, for this article) -- deletion is not an option. Andyvphil (talk) 23:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
You are not going to take over the entire page with this incident. This is POV pushing in the extreme. The page is medium length, the time spent in government by Moyers comes to ONE PARAGRAPH, and you are not going to write an essay on the page about something only one or two people have ever commented on. You clearly do not understand the concept of undue weight. The size policy is something else altogether, not applicable here. I suggest you reformulate this into a single comment, such as that Moyers was ordered by Johnson to request name checks on Goldwater's staff in 1964. Leave out all the Rush Limbaugh-ish embellishments, and the comments by Silberman about homosexuality, phone calls, and the possible reasons for the name checks, all of which are unverifiable, presumptive, speculative or circumstantial. Wikipedia is a TERTIARY SOURCE, remember. ► RATEL ◄ 23:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Apparently you haven't been awake during this discussion nor have you been examining the citations you are deleting. One of them is to TIME magazine, like the WSJ a "reliable source". Read it. Your judgement that it is unworthy of mention that Moyers' participated as Johnson's primary henchman in what the Church Committee called "POLITICAL ABUSE OF INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION"[18] is unconvincing and contrasts tellingly with your earlier contention that it was a truly black slander, back when you were contending it hadn't been proved. The nature of Moyers' work for Johnson clearly deserves elucidation in any article purporting to be a biography, and the length at which this incident is treated will not be less than the minimum needed to properly recount it. Andyvphil (talk) 08:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
This is not a "biography", it is a short page on Bill Moyers in Wikipedia. I shall wait for someone else to revert your changes, as surely they will. Meanwhile, read the undue weight rule, for you still show a blithe disregard for it. ► RATEL ◄ 09:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Wrong again. If you don't know what the "B" in WP:BLP stands for, follow the blue link. Then read WP:NOTPAPER -- there is no reason in policy to exclude WP:N, WP:V facts from this article. And it's unusual to be charged wth "betrayal of the public trust". by a Congressional investigative committee -- a paragraph mentioning and explaining it doesn't seem like a WP:WEIGHT violation to me. Feel free to start an RfC. Andyvphil (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh, rest assured, this will go to RfC if no other editor gets involved to support the rules. If you'd considered the undue weight policy carefully, you'd see that you have transgressed here: Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. You are also making the obvious WP:WEIGHT error of giving huge prominence to this incident completely out of proportion to its importance in the subject's life, or the level of awareness in the public of the incident. As editors, we are not supposed to highlight little known incidents about people's lives. You have made this one single memo, sent by the subject under command, into something of equal weight to his whole career in the various government administrations! It's only your rabid POV-pushing, as can be clearly seen in your distasteful Talk page history, that blinds you to this. I think WP:SOAPBOX was written with people like you in mind. ► RATEL ◄ 00:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Public Service" puffery

Andyvphil said: and if you think expressing on this page the POV that Moyer's work as Johnson's minion and mouthpiece wasn't much of a service to the public is in some sense actionable - I find this a very disturbing admission of POV editing and indicative of the many disputes this editor has had over partisan issues (see his Talk page). I've asked for independent input on his bad faith editing on this and other pages. ► RATEL ◄ 21:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not an admission of POV editing. It is, however, a declaration that I have a POV on the claim that anyone who succeeds in getting a paycheck signed by the Treasurer of the United States is doing "Public Service". When Moyers told Hoover Johnson wanted him to dig up dirt on the Goldwater campaign he was serving Johnson, not the public. Care to provide a link to your assertions against me of "bad faith"? I might want to refute you. Andyvphil (talk) 06:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Andyvphil, the title "Public Service" refers to Moyers' time in government, commonly called "working in the public service". To re-title that period of his life as "Working for Johnson" or anything similar is an intolerable POV edit. If you work for the government, you are in the Public Service. It's not a laudatory statement, just a shorthand. Are we clear? Secondly, your whole argument to include the paragraph on this memo seems to be that because the 30-yr old Moyers was instructed by his boss, the President of the US, to write a memo to the FBI giving certain instructions, this shows a major and notable flaw in his character and he needs to be carpeted for this in Wikipedia, and that this bagatelle is somehow worthy of mention in this extremely truncated general interest biography. Now even if Moyers did write that memo, as he was ordered, who cares? If he'd disobeyed any orders from the President, his career would have been toast. What is notable about this, if anything, is that the US was so backwards at the time that homosexuals were being entrapped and persecuted (and to a certain extent this situation still pertains, largely as a result of the sort of thinking espoused by the side of politics you seem to support). I believe you are giving this incident, of which none of us is absolutely sure, undue weight. It would be appropriate, if checked out properly and found to be true beyond doubt, of inclusion in a comprehensive biography on Moyers, perhaps to show that as a young man he was forced to do things for his President that eventually led to their falling out. Moyers will soon be publishing a biography, so let's wait for that to come out and see if this issue is covered. ► RATEL ◄ 06:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The title I've used is "Employment by Kennedy and Johnson administrations" which seems perfectly NPOV to me. Working for the government is called "public service" only by praise singers and self-idolators. No reason for Wikipedia to join that chorus -- we're not looking for a place at the trough, so far as I'm aware. And, no, I don't see Moyer's ambitious willingness to participate in using the FBI for opposition research and private security as much of a character flaw. It's the later, oleaginously hypocritical Moyers, most recently on display in the Wright interview ("When people saw the sound bites from [the "chickens coming home to roost" sermon] this year, they were upset because you seemed to be blaming America. Did you somehow fail to communicate?") that makes me want to throw my shoe at the TV. That the younger Moyers was not nearly so self-righteous has obvious value to a BIOGRAPHY(!) Andyvphil (talk) 09:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
If the term public service is so unpalatable, we can use the same format as is used on the Rumsfeld page, simply a Career heading followed by Kennedy and Johnson administrations subhead. End of issue. The rest of your bilious rant is lost on me. ► RATEL ◄ 09:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's unpalatable. And unacceptably pro-Moyer POV. Either you change it or I will. Andyvphil (talk) 09:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Moyers' 1964 request for FBI name checks — truth, weight and prominence issues

In 1964, President Johnson ordered aide Bill Moyers to ask the FBI for FBI Name Checks on 15 members of opponent Goldwater's staff. That much is neutrally verifiable. One editor (me) feels that this is enough information for the short sketch of Moyers' governmental career (currently runs to one paragraph). Dissenting editor wishes to expand this incident into another two paragraphs [edit: he has now added even more controversial and tangential material] and include unverifiable details such as speculation about the motives for the name checks, use of the word homosexuality (nobody knows whether this had anything to do with the name checks), trying to link the name checks to the Walter Jenkins arrest (this link is pure speculation by Republicans and their supporters), the disputed content of a phone call between Republican Silberman and Moyers about the memo, and the opinion of the Church committee on the name checks. All this about a name check request by another individual (Johnson) and moreover name checks that were never used or acted upon.

Including all these details would make Wikipedia a leader, where it should be a follower. Wikipedia would become the most comprehensive source of information about this memo on the internet. The section on Moyer's 6 years in government service would then largely consist of highly judgemental text about this one issue. Please consider weight and soapbox issues. ► RATEL ◄ 01:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph which Ratel is attempting to edit war out of Moyer's biography is as follows:

In 1975 Deputy Attorney General Laurence H. Silberman examined the secret files of Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover in order to testify about them to the House Judiciary Committee. He testified that during the 1964 presidential election the FBI had sought, at the direction of President Lyndon B. Johnson, to gather unfavorable information on an opponent. Silberman says that the press subsequently discovered that this was instigated by a memo from Moyers to Hoover directing him to investigate the staff of his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, to find evidence of homosexual activity. Johnson intended to use anything found if Goldwater made an issue of the arrest in October 1964 of his top aide, Walter Jenkins in a YMCA restroom a few blocks from the White House. (In the event, Goldwater didn't do so.)[1] Silberman says Moyers then called his office and claimed the document was a "phony CIA memo", but that he declined Silberman's offer to conduct an investigation to clear Moyers' name.[2] Moyers later declared "Silberman's account of our conversation is at odds with mine."[3] In 1976 the Church Committee identified Moyers as the aide who requested the FBI check Goldwater's staff and who received the resultant memorandum with "derogatory information" on two individuals, something the committee characterized as "totally improper" and a "betrayal of the public trust".[4][5]

Ratel makes a lot of allegations about "unverifiable details", "speculation", "Republican supporters", etc., but here is what the cite to TIME magazine says:

Moreover, when Johnson's aide, Walter Jenkins, was involved in a homosexual episode in 1964, L.B.J. suspected that a Barry Goldwater supporter may have set up the arrest. He angrily ordered Hoover to seek derogatory material on Goldwater's Senate staff to be held for use if the Senator made an issue of the Jenkins matter in the presidential campaign. Goldwater never did so.

As far as I have seen this not only confirms Silberman's account of the event but is in agreement with every other recounting of this event. There are no dissenting accounts in RS. None.
As to the assertion that this paragraph has undue weight merely because it equals in length the the rest of the recounting of Moyer's work in the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, the answer is to expand on any other notable things he did or that happened to him in this period. For a "public servant" (as Ratel insists Moyers ought to be referred to in this period) to be identified by name as doing something "totally improper" by a reputable Congressional investigating committee seems, to me, worth a paragraph in his Wikipedia biography. It's no more than the length it needs to be. Andyvphil (talk) 23:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that the Church Committee was referring to Moyers and identifying him by name as doing something totally improper *himself*. For Moyers to transmit the order of the President might or might not be significant about Moyers. I looked at the source and didn't find substantiation for what Andyvphil claimed. The notability here is not about Moyers, it's about an order of the President. Moyers was just a servant delivering a message and receiving the reply. Was this a major part of his career in that period? I haven't seen it yet. Assuming Silberman's testimony is true, Moyer's "crime" was transmitting a Presidential order for something unethical and sleazy. And it sounds like Moyers was embarrassed about that, "I was young." Now, if Moyer's career in this period consisted of mostly running nasty errands like that, sure. But one isolated incident? Did Moyers do anything illegal? Was Moyers himself censured by the Church committee as implied by the text above? If I missed it, where is it? What is currently in the article, a brief mention of this, without salacious and unconfirmed details, is appropriate weight or even more than appropriate. The rest smells like coatrack to me, and it's about Johnson, not Moyers. --Abd (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The TIME magazine piece was uncited and unattributed, and almost certainly based on an interview with Silberman, so it has no more probity or authority than what Silberman or any other Republican speculated at the time about what motivated the memo. The memo itself is merely a request for name checks & makes no mention of "homosexuality", so the claim that the memo from Moyers ... directing ...to find evidence of homosexual activity is clearly pure BS. ► RATEL ◄ 00:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I was asked by Ratel to have a look. The Time item is an editorial, and represents their opinion, and does more than report the news--it advocates a particular course, giving a summary of the stories. They're a responsible news source, and their editorials have weight, but it does have to be stated this is an editorial. That they should include this means that there will be real sources. They need to be found; a passing mention in an editorial is not enough. But the information is relevant as part of the background to give the historical context. So when properly sourced put the paragraph back, as part of an expansion of the section. His involvement in historic events is appropriate context, and this counts as an historical event. It's an important part of his life, and he was already notable. His later notability is based on part on his political connections from that period. It's not undue prominence. I really don't see the point of making such a to-do about it. DGG (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely, DGG. If the source for the claims in the Time editorial can be properly identified, we can reconsider the inclusion of all the extra details Andyphil wants, but within reason, given Abd's very good points made above (viz. this is a Johnson issue, & coatracking). However, if all the extra juicy stuff is simply Silberman doing what he does best again, it's not notable, probably not true, and not for inclusion under any circumstances. I found "The Attack Article" section of WP:COAT particularly suited to this situation. ► RATEL ◄ 04:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The TIME Magazine article is not an editorial. I supplied the "print" version to get it all on one page without extraneous material, but the link on the bottom of the page makes it clear that this is an "article"(note the subdirectory):"Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879566,00.html". The fact that it is unsigned is a sylistic feature of the magazine of the period. I searched for "Laurence Silberman", sorted by oldest,[19] and confirmed my recollection from the first article that comes up[20] that this was a feature of the style of the magazine at the time. And a Google brings up a confirming quote, "The trio's major innovation was to break away from Newsweek tradition, then decades old, of mimicking Time magazine, with its unsigned articles..."[21] So someone should add this fact to the discussion of TIME's stylistic changes at the magazine's Wikipedia article, lest it confuse other editors not old enough to remember an earlier TIME.
Ratel's fantasy that in 1975 TIME accepted as sufficient basis for a statement of fact in a news article a Silberman speculation, that Silberman himself never published until 2005, about why Johnson ordered Moyers to do something when Silberman was not present is of a piece with his previous unsupported assertion that Silberman lied about finding Moyers memo to Hoover. Needless to say, TIME's fact checking process did not spring into being when it started giving out bylines, and its article is a "real source". Nor do I see any reason to think the Wall Street Journal 's "featured article" by Silberman was exempt from the WSJ's fact checking process. 1975-1976 is before the advent of the internet and most of the articles in magazines and newspapers from this period are either not online or premium content and therefor presumably do not show up as Google "hits", but I don't see why I should have to dig up a third RS for Silberman's account given the total absence of contradiction except by Ratel's wishes as to what ought to be true.
As to Abd's contention that the Church Committee wasn't talking about Moyers when they said something totally improper had been done, their exact words were,

"Such participation in political machinations by an intelligence agency is totally improper. Responsibility for what amounted to a betrayal of the public trust in the integrity of the FBI must be shared between the officials who requested such information and those who provided it...
...Under the Johnson administration, the FBI was used to gather and report political intelligence on the, administration's partisan opponents in the last days of the 1964 and 1968 Presidential election campaigns. In the closing days of the 1964 campaign, Presidential aide Bill Moyers asked the Bureau to conduct 'name checks' on all persons employed in Senator Goldwater's Senate office, and information on two staff members was reported to the White House."

The Comittee didn't provide a helpful index of individuals whose actions were totally improper, but they chose to mention Moyers by name. The text at issue says Moyers performed the improper act at the direction of LBJ, so to the extent that that is extenuating we've got it covered. Andyvphil (talk) 11:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • So the Time article has no author and gets its information from who knows where, right? And this is a RS? You're kidding, right? So we're back to Silberman, the infamous Silberman, as the only definite source of most of these pejorative claims (link to Jenkins, connection to homosexuality, phone call). It's not good enough, Andyphil. ► RATEL ◄ 11:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
No, it had an author or authors but TIME did not choose to identify them. It also had sources which TIME did not choose to footnote. WP:RS policy does not require such transparency, but instead says "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy... Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market." Yes, TIME is a RS. No, I am not kidding. You can raise the issue at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard if you disagree and see what support you get. Not much, I'll warrant.
Btw, this source credits "Bill Moyers ask[ing] the FBI to find out if there were homosexuals on Goldwater's campaign and Senate staffs" to Victor Lasky, probably in his "It Didn't Start With Watergate"(1977). May just deadend at TIME, but worth a look. And Bechloss documents audio of LBJ going directly to Hoover for info about homosexuals on his own staff, mentioned here. So we've a RS saying it happened (TIME) and two RS (Silberman, Lasky) either saying the same or repeating TIME in WP:RS media with independent fact checking processes, as well as a wealth of information indicating that there is nothing unexpected about the underlying assertion. I think it's time you you to come up with some research backing your opinion rather than pulling it unexamined out of your ass. Andyvphil (talk) 12:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Andyvphil, that was incivility, and it can get you blocked. I'd suggest you apologize and strike it, promptly. The problem here is difficult enough without rampant rudeness (and rudeness seems to be multiplying on all sides). --Abd (talk) 03:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. Google books, when searched, gives multiple hits for "moyers FBI "name checks"" - all of which essentially support my edit exactly (see my edit below, highlighted). But if I search using the same string plus "homosexual", I get zip. So there is nobody outside of Silberman, who is not a RS under any circumstances, no matter where his opinion columns are published, and arch-conservative author Victor Lasky, the guy who claimed that Watergate was just "a media event" and made a career out of proving that Democrats are bad guys. I see. You have impeccable sources for this bilge. Time could only have got this, directly or indirectly, from this dirty duo. And where did they get it from? It's called "imagination" because they cite no sources, ever, except themselves. So it's essentially a nasty smear job originating from one of these characters and repeated by the other, eventually echoed in the press (especially the right wing press like the WSJ, your original "RS"), and now promulgated here by an editor with a long history of biased political editing, as can be seen in the overweight edits he has made (example diff) to the Barack Obama page recently, apparently mostly to paint the man as a dangerous Muslim.
  2. In reference to your abuse of edit summaries to make accusations of bad faith, I did not "canvass" DGG, I simply wanted an admin input here. DGG is not my pal, in fact he usually disagrees with me.
  3. You have re-inserted the disputed edit today, despite the admin DGG telling you it is inadequate as is, and you've gone further and inserted another completely outrageous edit concerning obscure seating arrangements at a Democratic convention, making the article a true attack piece. Even the Richard Nixon page gives only a brief mention to his abuse of FBI name checks, and does not even mention the underling he had write the memo for him. You are waay out on a limb here, and hopefully some sane editors will intervene to balance the page again. I'm going to stand back awhile — mainly because you have edit warred this issue to an extent that invites disapprobation — and let others comment, because my views are now very clear. For their benefit, here is my preferred edit:
Before the election, Johnson ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff, although the information gleaned was never used.[22]
Over to the other editors.► RATEL ◄ 14:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
It is telling that you want to devote part of the one sentence you are now willing to allow to the declarative unsourced statement that the "derogatory information" obtained on two members of Goldwater's staff was never used. We don't know what it was or whether it was used, merely that Goldwater did not bring up Jenkins.
Our source for that (though there are many others) is the TIME article which you keep unaccountably attributing to Silberman. As I've pointed out, we have no record of Silberman mentioning this before 2005, or Lasky before (probably) 1977, so TIME's reporting may be the only original source for all accounts of why LBJ requested this specific "name check". As such, it is perfectly adequate. As I've demonstrated it is not an exceptional claim and the account has been picked up by several prominent secondary sources that we know of without attracting any demurral anywhere. That is to say, it is not what Wikipedia policy calls a "controversial claim".
The significance of Richard Nixon's biography is lost on me. I assume Lyndon Johnson's biography doesn't make much mention of FBI name checks either. The question here is the nature of Bill Moyers' work for LBJ, and as a 30-year-old aide historical events that are relative footnotes on Johnson's ledger appear somewhat larger in his. And then there's the matter of how ill his actions match with his later image.
You continue to be highly resistant to attempts to dispel your ignorance. What you call "obscure seating arrangements at a Democratic convention" is in fact a justifiably famous historical event, a famous failure prefiguring Fannie Lou Hamer's triumph at the '68 convention in ousting the Dixiecrat delegation, important both to the Civil Rights movement and the shift of the South from Democrat to Republican. Got that?: IMPORTANT. History with a capital H. Start reading.
The edit that you supply a diff of has nothing to do with Obama's experience of Islam. Now that you mention it I do want to change the part of the paragraph that falsely implies that his stepfather was not a practicing Muslim, but in fact this edit leaves that part of the paragraph unchanged and has solely to do with insisting to the pro-hagiographic claque at Barack Obama that specifying Obama's religion as "Christian (United Church of Christ)" (which the article does) totally misrepresents it, as the UCC is 99% white (I'm relying on what Obama said for this) and very white bread theologically as well, while his particular church, Chicago Trinity, is almost entirely black and hews to the "black" branch of Liberation Theology. In light of the Jeremiah Wright controversy you would think the significance of this fact would be undeniable, but the depths of their denial is of a piece with yours.
Regarding your assertion at DGG's talk page that, "You have scoured the man's life for some bagatelle with which to nail him...", you are, as usual, wrong. What brought me to this page was Moyers' disgraceful interview of Wright, which even the usually willfully blind-to-bias PBS ombudsman had to agree with Howie Kurtz went beyond belief in offering to Wright a softball "question" suggesting that the excerpt of his "chickens" speech had led to him being "misunderstood" as "blaming America". What did I see but a two-editor pro-hagiographic claque edit warring against the last of at least three editors who have tried to give the "name check" material a mention, offering the usual bogus arguments about prior "consensus" and such claptrap. So I weighed in. And I see I'll have to be the one to add the latest rebuke from the Ombudsman as well, since the pro-hagiographs certainly will not. Andyvphil (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Andyvphil, as Ratel mentioned above, you still haven't provided a source for the assertion that Moyers was tasked with finding evidence of homosexual activity. As it stands, I have no objection to the inclusion of the substance of the disputed material so long as the "homosexual activity" portion is independently verified, or otherwise changed to a verifiable description of Moyer's activities (e.g. "name check"). You repeatedly claim that those who disagree with you either don't comprehend your arguments or that their own arguments are without substance. What you fail to understand is that
1. the Sources based solely on Silberman do not meet the standards for reliability or verifiability
2. the other sources you provide consist of circumstantial evidence that may hint that Silberman's allegation re:homosexual activity has merit, but do not actually confirm it
3. no sources outside of Silberman back up the claim that Moyers was looking for information on homosexual activity.
You're investing a massive amount of time and effort in this, but you're going about it all wrong. Just find a source that can't be traced back to Silberman that says "Moyers asked Hoover to investigate Goldwater's staff for evidence of homosexual activity." That's all you have to do. If you can't manage that then you should stop wasting your own time and everyone else's. Without verification this allegation has no business being in wikipedia. --Osbojos (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You are both wrong and confused. An article by Silberman featured in a RS, namely the WSJ, absolutely meets Wikipedia's criteria. And it's TIME(1975), not originally Silberman(2005), that says the reason LBJ sought info from the FBI was to get homosexual dirt on Goldwater's staff. Then its Silberman and the Church committee that independently identify Moyers as the individual who both sought and received the information. "Moyers asked Hoover to investigate Goldwater's staff for evidence of homosexual activity" is completely substantiated by TIME and the Church Committee without any reference to Silberman at all. Andyvphil (talk) 14:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
...ok, I take it back. TIME says that LBJ asked Hoover for dirt on Goldwater's staff and Silberman and the Church Committee independently confirm that Moyers was the one who both asked fot it and received it, but we are relying on Silberman for the assertion that it is specifically homosexual dirt that was sought. That's also what Lasky said, evidently.[23] As a matter of policy it's perfectly fine. But I'm willing to rewrite to clarify this point. And will. Andyvphil (talk) 14:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

OUTSIDE OPINION The section above is well cited, and I would consider it relevant for the reasons DGG gave above- Moyers is a political analyst, and this is part of his career in politics. User:JeremyMcCracken on May 12, 2008

[edit] Spin unspun

  • Back from a little wikibreak, I thought I'd add these two points that largely invalidate Andyvphil's (AP) edit.
  1. AP is using Silberman's WSJ opinion (from 2005) (and Novaks' word-for-word parroting of the opinion) to claim that the reason for the FBI checks ordered by LBJ was that LBJ aide Jenkins had been arrested for trying to pick up a policeman, and evidence of homosexuality should be sought on the other side. However, there is no proof that this is the case, no testimony anywhere to that effect, certainly nothing in Moyers' memo, and indeed the only totally reliable account of the business is from the memoirs of William Sullivan, the FBI's third-ranking official of the time: The Jenkins scandal broke just weeks before the presidential election of 1964, and Johnson (and, of course, the FBI) moved to prevent Barry Goldwater from using Jenkins's misfortune as political ammunition against LBJ. Jenkins had once been cleared for membership in Goldwater's air force squadron and he had accompanied Goldwater on many flights. Johnson planned to play up the relationship, and a lot more dirt that our agents had dug up on LBJ's opponent as well, if Goldwater tried to take political advantage of the situation. LBJ told his FBI liaison man DeLoach that Goldwater would find it difficult to deny that he knew Jenkins quite well personally or that Jenkins had traveled with Goldwater on several occasions. [24] Even the breathless quote from the anonymous TIME magazine piece (from Dec. 22, 1975) does not mention anything other than looking for derogatory material (which is a superfluity, since that's exactly what a name check does anyway): He [LBJ] angrily ordered Hoover to seek derogatory material on Goldwater's Senate staff to be held for use if the Senator made an issue of the Jenkins matter in the presidential campaign. Update for andyvphil: derogatory ≠ homosexual. So where does this "homosexual" stuff come from, other than from unpublished speculation by Lib-hating writer Victor Lasky [25] and its later repetition by his friend, Silberman? It's clearly bunkum.
  2. AP's edit also implies, via Silberman, that Moyers was trying to conceal and deny his involvement in the name check memo, but this is wrong according to Church Committee records. The Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents." (December 3 1975) US Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations, With Respect To Intelligence Activities [6]

Consequently, any inclusion about Moyers and the memo needs to strike homosexuality as having anything to do with the whole business, and needs to refrain from casting slurs on Moyers when the evidence simply does not support it. We should not be editing to imply that Moyers was on a gay witch hunt (as I've seen written on some GOP-supporting websites), or that he is, in effect, a lying hypocrite who tried to weasel out of his role in the name checks. If you parse Silberman's words carefully, he is very equivocal about some of the claims: Evidently, the president was concerned that Barry Goldwater would use that against him in the election. Another assistant, Bill Moyers, was tasked to direct Hoover to do an investigation of Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity. Mr. Moyers' memo to the FBI was in one of the files. There is no evidence in any of the official mentions of this incident of anything other than a straightforward name check request from LBJ via Moyers. Silberman is spinning the facts because they evidently seem plausible. Alternately, the "evidently" could be Silberman's nod to Lasky's obscure claim about a homosexual slant to the name checks. But as editors working on a BLP, we need to resist the temptation to allow political spin from opponents of the subject onto the page. I'll rewrite the section in a few days unless someone else does a good job. ► RATEL ◄ 05:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Revisiting the claim by Silberman that Moyers denied the memo's existence in a private phone call in 1975, it is strange to me that in March 1975 (see Lima link down page) it was public knowledge that Moyers had sent the memo for Johnson. Moyers is quoted discussing it with reporters. Given that there are numerous newspaper refs for the fact of the memo's existence and Moyers' acknowledgement of it, why is the Silberman quote, 25 years later, needed at all? The page should simply state the fact, perhaps footnoting Silberman's (diputed) claim of denial. ► RATEL ◄ 08:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

(a) The "Evidently" isn't so mysterious. It modifies the preceeding sentence, not the simple declarative "Another assistant, Bill Moyers, was tasked to direct Hoover to do an investigation of Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity." It's quite possible Silberman is following Lasky on this, though that you think it was "unpublished" is odd. I've suggested "It Didn't Start With Watergate"(1977), above. Anyway, Silberman when published by the WSJ is a perfectly adequate RS for this statement, and while I have no problem with attributing it there is no reason to suppress it. Rather it is desirable to mention it specifically to point out that the sources don't all say this. And if you can dig up a copy of Lasky's book you may be able to show that he misread his sources. But what sould be done then is not suppress mention of this detail of the event, but to say explicitly, at least in a footnote, that the detail was invented by Lasky, so that someone who follows the cites is put on notice.
(b) The "Lima News" story doesn't contradict Silberman unless Silberman's conversation with Moyers, and hence the "CIA forgery" denial, took place after Mar 16, 1975. And the Dec. 3 document from the Tower Committee is also too late to be of significance. You don't have any source asserting that Moyers was forthcoming before his conversation with Silberman.
(c) Still, despite your continued fulminations, I'm glad to see you've actually begun doing research. You may yet learn that it's better to discredit than to censor. Andyvphil (talk) 15:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(a) I'll work in the Silberman/Lasky stuff somehow, but only to mollify you, because I don't find it believable, well sourced, notable or even relevant, for all the reasons stated. Just give me a few days.► RATEL ◄ 15:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(b) I don't have exact dates, but nor do you. My guess is that the phone call was to protest the same gay-baiting stuff we're objecting to here.► RATEL ◄ 15:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(c) Instead of making personal comments about how I spend my time and the quality of my editing, why not go off and do the necessary work on the LBJ page please. Try to make it short and neutral.► RATEL ◄ 15:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(a) You can have as many days as you want. You just don't get to hide anything in the interim.
(b) The phone call to Silberman was in early '75. If Lasky misread his sources and invented the detail that the request to the FBI was specifically for information about homosexuality that was probably in 1977. Silberman's anecdote that what Moyers said was that the memo was a CIA forgery is nowhere specifically contradicted. To the extent that Novak reports that Moyers claims that something unspecified in Silberman's account is inaccurate, we mention that. Not going to censor details found in RS on the basis of your unsourced speculations.
(c) Not editing that page. Don't have to. The material should be here whether or not it's there or in several other articles as well. See next section. Andyvphil (talk) 22:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of details of this name check

It occurred to me that the correct place for granular details of this event is not on the page of the minion who signed the memo (Moyers), but on the page of the man who ordered it, Lyndon Baines Johnson. There's nothing there, and that's the logical place for it, not here. I'll move most of it over soon.► RATEL ◄ 08:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Details should be repeated in as many placeS as helpful. There is no reason to specify here any less about the event than is necessary to indicate why you are mentioning it, except the partisan hope that the reader won't follow the blue link or won't pick out the relevant details if he does. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_is_not_paper. Andyvphil (talk) 21:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise edit

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Moyers' actions as an aide to President Johnson are sometimes seen to contrast with his later image. Faced with a shocked response to his having written that Moyers' was "particularly interested in suppressing dissent from black groups" at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, former Deputy Director Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach,[7] said of this period, "the Bill Moyers of then is not the Bill Moyers of today...it was a different situation then and he was acting under the orders of the president". Tasked by LBJ to control what went on at the convention Moyers asked the FBI to clear the seats vacated by the white-only Mississippi Democratic Party delegation (which had walked out) of the members of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, whose challenge for the seats Johnson had quashed. DeLoach refused.[8][9]

Another action that came under scrutiny occurred later that year. In 1975 Deputy Attorney General Laurence H. Silberman examined the newly discovered "secret files" of Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover in order to testify about them to the House Judiciary Committee. Silberman found a memo from Moyers directing Hoover to investigate the staff of LBJ's Republican opponent in the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater. Johnson wanted ammunition if Goldwater made an issue of the arrest, in October 1964, of his top aide, Walter Jenkins, for engaging in sex in a YMCA restroom near the White House.[10] Silberman had not mentioned Moyers but, when the press discovered Moyers' role he, according to Silberman, made a phone call in which Moyers claimed the document was a "phony CIA memo", but declined Silberman's offer to conduct an investigation to clear his name.[2] Moyers later declared "Silberman's account of our conversation is at odds with mine."[3] Moyers confirmed to the press that he had relayed LBJ's order,[11][6] and in 1976 the Church Committee confirmed, on the basis of FBI documents, that Moyers was the aide who both requested the "name checks" and received the resultant hand-delivered "derogatory information" on two individuals.[12][13][14] something the committee characterized as "totally improper" and a "betrayal of the public trust".[15]

Andyvphil (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Ratel supplies the following alternative:

The current edit, seen below, is a pretty good compromise of all views, IMO.

Before the 1964 election, President Johnson ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff.[14][16] The Church Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents."[6] In 2005, conservative federal judge Laurence Silberman claimed that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call, an unverified claim that Moyers disputes.[17]

  1. ^ "The Truth About Hoover",Time,Dec. 22, 1975[1]
  2. ^ a b Silberman, Laurence H.. "Hoover's Institution", Opinion Journal, 2005-07-20. Retrieved on 2008-05-01. 
  3. ^ a b Novak, Robert (December 1, 2005). Removing J. Edgar's name. CNN. Retrieved on 2008-05-01.
  4. ^ http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol6/html/ChurchV6_0275a.htm
  5. ^ http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book2/html/ChurchB2_0122b.htm
  6. ^ a b c US Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations, With Respect To Intelligence Activities. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
  7. ^ DeLoach was the official FBI liason with the White House - see excerpt:[2]
  8. ^ http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1265
  9. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=5AvHGSTFO8kC&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=1968+Democratic+National+Convention+%22legitimate+delegation%22+all-white&source=web&ots=1zDSs5ihl2&sig=b9QIgc-CqIbotEAXALGSizuQMuo&hl=en
  10. ^ "The Truth About Hoover",Time,Dec. 22, 1975[3]
  11. ^ http://www.newspaperarchive.com/LandingPage.aspx?type=glpnews&search=moyers%20goldwater%201975&img=\\na0022\3101851\16192306.html
  12. ^ A "name check" wasn't an investigation -- it involved reporting whatever allegations or information the FBI had in its files, corroborated or not. The Church Committee report thus neither confirms nor disproves the statements by Victor Lasky,[4], and Silberman that the FBI was asked specifically about homosexuality on Goldwater's staffs.
  13. ^ Hoover's Political Spying for Presidents, TIME, 1975"
  14. ^ a b US Dept Justice FBI Investigation 1975. USDOJ (1975). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  15. ^ http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book2/html/ChurchB2_0122b.htm
  16. ^ Hoover's men ran name checks on 15 of them, producing derogatory information on two (a traffic violation on one and a love affair on another) "Hoover's Political Spying for Presidents, TIME, 1975"
  17. ^ Silberman, Acting Deputy Attorney General in 1975, says Moyers called his office and claimed the document was a "phony CIA memo", but that he declined Silberman's offer to conduct an investigation to clear his name. "Hoover's Institution, WSJ, 2005" Moyers responded that Silberman's account of the conversation was at odds with his. "Removing J. Edgar's name, Robert Novak, CNN, 2005"

In it, we have 1) the basic facts, stated in a non-partisan and balanced way, 2) Silberman's claims and 3) Novak's report of denial. It reads logically into the flow of the page, and there is not undue weight. ► RATEL ◄ 00:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it omits or misstates the basic facts, and misleads in every way possible. This is a "compromise" between what and what? Andyvphil (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Between the view expressed by long time editors of this page that the Silberman stuff is inadequately reliable, coming as it does from one highly partisan source, and your view. I'm afraid your tendentious editing means we must take this to dispute resolution. ► RATEL ◄ 00:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Given the incivility from the editor, sooner rather than later, probably. He's edit warring, with incivility, and I'm puzzled that he hasn't yet been blocked, that combination will usually do it. Except that a lot slips through the cracks on Wikipedia. (He's actually been blocked three times, so that it's escaping attention is even more puzzling.) Let me know if you start dispute resolution. First of all, I'd ask Andyvphil, are there any experienced editors you trust, whom you'd be likely to listen to advice from? --Abd (talk) 00:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Please sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) under the position you support, and please add a (hopefully brief and well thought out) comment. Extended commentary should be placed below, in the section marked "Discussion", though brief commentary can be interspersed.

  • Use edit as outlined above under "compromise"
    • I feel this edit is adequate and not overcritical or overweight while covering the issues -- Ratel
    • My concern here is that Andyvphil is insisting on controversial material in a BLP, presented in a defamatory way, particularly the "homosexuals" part, for which there is no objective evidence that involves Moyers, without having found editorial consensus over it. BLP is strict. All we know, on evidence about Moyers is that Moyers wrote a memo on behalf of the President. What the President's motive was, whether Moyers knew what the President's motive was, all that is, from what I've seen, pure speculation or, at best, uncorroborated. --Abd (talk)
    • I prefer the compromise edit, both because it represents a more NPOV, and because Andyvphil's proposed edits are very lengthy given the relatively low significance of the event. That said, I do think some parts of Andyvphil's edits are of benefit to the article see my comments under discussion below. --Osbojos (talk) 11:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC). Upon further consideration, unless the allegation that Moyers asked Hoover to search specifically for homosexual activity, I don't think this event is sufficiently notable to deserve any mention in the article. See comments in section below. --Osbojos (talk) 06:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Use edits advocated by Andyvphil
    • OUTSIDE OPINION Disclaimer: Andyvphil asked for my comment because I responded as an outside opinion to the previous RfC. As I look at the compromised version, it basically amounts to whitewashing the article. This isn't a BLP concern because it's cited- the BLP concern would arise from WP:V, but we have that. As for WP:NPOV (of which WP:UNDUE/WP:PROMINENCE is a subsection), it demands balance, but that doesn't mean removing bad things about a person because we can't find sources to dispute it. It seeks to stop opposing material (in this case, material that denies Moyers did any of this) from being excluded. As for WP:COATRACK concerns, this section by no means constitutes a large section of the article. One other thing, I was a bit confused by one of the web sources being an IP address; the website's name is booknotes.org, and replacing the IP with that does work: [26] This URL should be used instead. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 21:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I've improved the cite in the proposed text per your suggestion. Booknotes is CSPAN, btw. See Brian Lamb, the interviewer and CSPAN CEO. Andyvphil (talk) 17:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Some remaining issues and a summary of where we are now. Andyvphil is not so much concerned with getting it right as getting it Right, but as editors working on a BLP, we must do better.

Alleged Factoid
Reliable Source?
Notable?
Include?
Text or Footnote?
Comment
BM requested Goldwater name checks for LBJ
Y
Y
Y
T
 LS and BM agree
BM specified to seek gays
N
Y
N
-
 No solid evidence for this, BM memo seems to be missing. WP:REDFLAG WP:BLP WP:HARM#TEST
BM called LS 1975
Y
Y
Y
T
 LS and BM agree
BM denied memo
N
Y
Y
T
 Only LS's word, BM says no. He said-he said, 30 yrs after event. WP:REDFLAG WP:HARM#TEST(other editors may wish to deleted this from page in future)
Called it a "phony CIA memo"
N
N
Y
F
 Only LS's word, BM says no. BLP transgression. WP:REDFLAG WP:COATRACK WP:HARM#TEST
LS offered probe
N
N
Y
F
 Only LS's word, BM says no. BLP transgression. WP:REDFLAG WP:COATRACK WP:HARM#TEST
BM confirms name check request
Y
Y
Y
T
 From BM
Possible reasons for LBJs request
N
N
N
-
 LS & Lasky, LS uses "evidently" (ie supposedly) WP:OR. Belongs on LBJ page, if anywhere.
Name check result details
Y
Y
Y
F
 Results suggest that homosexuality not specifically sought
Church Committee confirms BM's role
Y
Y
Y
T
 On the record.
Church Committee says BM's specific actions were improper and a betrayal
Y
Y
N
-
 Cannot find this in source provided
Deke DeLoach (DD) convention story
N
N
N
-
 Obscure FBI man refuses to perform political duties for BM. His word only. If true, give him a medal, or put the tale on his (missing) wikipage. That BM was performing understandable duties as instructed by LBJ, keeping non-delegates out of delegates' seats, is not notable. A tendentious edit WP:COATRACK WP:NPOV WP:N WP:UNDUE WP:HARM#TEST

► RATEL ◄ 03:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

While for the most part I prefer Ratel's edits. I do think the facts need some context. If verifiable, I think the fact that the name checks were requested in response to the Walter Jenkins event should be included. Many readers will be unfamiliar with what an FBI name check entails or the appropriate scope and purpose of branch authority. Also, it's notable that damaging information was in fact delivered to Moyers. Thus I think the section below from Andyvphil's May 16th edit should be included, so long as a source can be found to verify that the church committee did characterize the name checks as "improper." (I'd paste the source, but the page is protected):

in 1976 the Church Committee confirmed, on the basis of FBI documents, that Moyers was the aide who both requested the "name checks" and received the resultant hand-delivered "derogatory information" on two individuals.[10][11][12] something the committee characterized as "totally improper" and a "betrayal of the public trust".[13]

--Osbojos (talk) 11:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC) See comments in "survey" section below.--Osbojos (talk) 06:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

For now, I'll address just a few lines in Ratel's table, to show how bogus it is:

Material
Reliable Source?
Notable?
Include?
Text or Footnote?
Ratel's Comment
Andyvphil's Comment
Deke DeLoach (DD) convention story
Y
Y
Y
T
 Tendentious Ratel text: "Obscure FBI man refuses to perform political duties for BM. His word only. If true, give him a medal, or put the tale on his (missing) wikipage. That BM was performing understandable duties as instructed by LBJ, keeping non-delegates out of delegates' seats, is not notable. A tendentious edit WP:COATRACK WP:NPOV WP:N WP:UNDUE WP:HARM#TEST" Better summary; Not-so-obscure FBI man (#3 at the FBI in this period behind Hoover and Clyde Tolson and the official FBI liason with the White House - see excerpt[27] - and thus Moyers' regular contact at the FBI - Deloach was also the individual who later hand-delivered the name-check information to Moyers) declined to evict Fannie Hamer and other members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party from the seats of the Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention. The MFDP's presence on the floor for one day (the next day the seats had been removed) was the culmination in 1964 (in 1968 the Hamer delegation succeeded in ousting the segregationist delegation) of the work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC) on the Freedom Summer project, most famous for the murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman(see Mississippi Burning) Martin Luther King had met with Lyndon Baines Johnson to appeal to him to seat the MFDP, but LBJ -- intent on keeping the Democratic Solid South one last time despite having signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- insisted on giving the MFDP only two non-voting observers, Hamer and one other. But when the Regular (white-only) Misissippi delegation walked out sympathetic delegates gave the MFDP members credentials so that they could take the empty seats. And Moyers ordered DeLoach to have his agents evict them. Ratel has called this episode "Democrat party squabble about seating at a Democrat Convention"[28] but actually it's History with a capital H. And since DeLoach's memoir is published by what WP:V calls a "respected publishing house" rather than self-publication it absolutely, per policy, qualifies as a WP:RS .
Church Committee says BM's specific actions were improper and a betrayal
Y
Y
Y
T
 Ratel says "Cannot find this in source provided" Fact:

"Such participation in political machinations by an intelligence agency is totally improper. Responsibility for what amounted to a betrayal of the public trust in the integrity of the FBI must be shared between the officials who requested such information and those who provided it...
...Under the Johnson administration, the FBI was used to gather and report political intelligence on the, administration's partisan opponents in the last days of the 1964 and 1968 Presidential election campaigns. In the closing days of the 1964 campaign, Presidential aide Bill Moyers asked the Bureau to conduct 'name checks' on all persons employed in Senator Goldwater's Senate office, and information on two staff members was reported to the White House."[29]
Possible reasons for LBJs request
Y
Y
Y
T
 LS & Lasky, LS uses "evidently" (ie supposedly) WP:OR. Belongs on LBJ page, if anywhere.

"Moreover, when Johnson's aide, Walter Jenkins, was involved in a homosexual episode in 1964, L.B.J. suspected that a Barry Goldwater supporter may have set up the arrest. He angrily ordered Hoover to seek derogatory material on Goldwater's Senate staff to be held for use if the Senator made an issue of the Jenkins matter in the presidential campaign. Goldwater never did so. "TIME, not Silberman or Lasky, Monday, Dec. 22, 1975

Andyvphil (talk) 11:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

  1. Andyvphil, I see you have changed the source link for the "totally improper/betrayal" statement from [30] to [31]. Care to explain why? Is http://www.icdc.com a site we should regard as reliable? And can you show where the improperness and betrayal are linked directly to Moyers, or is the Committee referring to the hundreds of people involved in using the FBI for political purposes over the years?
  2. I simply do not find the Convention incident notable. It's complex, it's too trivial for this short page, and if it reflects on anyone, it's LBJ. It may be history, but not with capital H, because neither Moyers nor the incident is even mentioned on Fannie Hamer's wiki page. You won't get my vote on that one. ► RATEL ◄ 11:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. Ok, I see you have now added another line to your table about the homosexuality issue. Note: I am not against including the reason for LBJ's request the fact that Jenkins was arrested (since Osbojos supports it), but I am against saying that Moyers asked the FBI to look for homosexuals, which is what you originally wanted to insert. The TIME mag quote does not support it either. My concern about including it is one of weight. This is beginning to be a major negative edit, involving him as a foot-soldier following orders from a very powerful man whom he could not control. It also only made up a fraction of his career. We cannot ignore that. ► RATEL ◄ 12:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
1. The icdc version puts it on one page and its text can be copied, as opposed to the aarclibrary pdf. But the site has various drafts (check the directory) and I will continue to cite aarclibrary in maintext, since that is clearly the final printed version. As I said before, the Committee doesn't provide an appendix of the individuals who engaged in "totally improper" behavior but its description of what consitituted that behavior is very clear (I should think the bolding I supplied is dispositive) and Moyers is one of the first of the very few it specifies by name in this section of the Report.
2. LBJ was a notorious micromanager but there is in this instance no testimony that it was anyone other than Moyers who tried to order the FBI to hustle the MFDP off the convention floor. And that is in any case irrelevant. The question isn't who had the most responsibility for keeping Mississippi blacks unrepresented until '68. Johnson, obviously. The question is what Moyers was willing to do at this stage of his life on LBJ's behalf. It's Moyers' biography. And since DeLoach refused, Hamer wasn't dragged off the Convention floor by the FBI. Probably would have made even her Wikipedia bio if Moyers had his way. And the incident is mentioned at Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. But try reading more widely than Wikipedia. Anyway, I'm not expecting to get your vote. There is none so blind as one who does not wish to see.
3. I revised to include the third line because it was so quick and easy to demonstrate that you were so clearly wrong -- and determinedly oblivious to a source repeatedly pointed out to you -- in suggesting that LBJ's reason for asking for the information was in question. Whether the FBI was specifically asked for information about Goldwater staff homosexuality is a different line in your table, and it's something I'd already moved to a footnote, specifying that only some sources say so,[32] since my best guess is that it came from Lasky and, since I haven't seen Lasky's citations, it's possible that Lasky misread his sources. Or not. Andyvphil (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Andyvphil, this is a biography of a living person. As such, Wikipedia sourcing standards become even more rigorous. Your description above displays, definitely, a bias, a preconception of what is notable about Moyers, and you've acknowledged this elsewhere, saying that it was important to you, as I recall, to expose Moyers as a hypocrite, because of his wimpy questioning of the Rev. Mr. Wright of recent Obama-connected fame. We should all be very careful about such bias, for it can lead us to place undue weight on events. Asking the FBI for a name check on political opponents is generally considered improper behavior. For an aide to pass on a request when so ordered by the President is not necessarily improper. It's not the place of an aide to determine what is proper Presidential behavior, unless it is totally outrageous, and this didn't quite get to that point. (I.e., if it had been an impeachable offense, clearly illegal, yes, an aide should refuse, if the aide realizes it. But it was improper, not illegal.) Moyers was willing to serve the President. That required him accepting some things that he probably thought wrong in some way. Aides are not peers. If you sincerely want Wikipedia to be improved by adding material about Moyers, I highly recommend seeking consensus. And remember, your motive to discredit Moyers, which is blatant, can lead you astray. Making the article balanced is quite proper. Placing undue weight on facts is not allowed. In all this, there are subtle judgments to be made, and how Wikipedia makes these decisions is through consensus. If consensus can be found here, fine. If not, there are escalating processes to discover it. The earliest steps are often seeking the participation of knowledgeable editors. I'm here because your main nemesis here asked for that, with a request to DGG. If we can narrow this down to one small issue at a time, it will be much easier to find consensus. When it starts to become a shotgun, about all we can do is say "No!" The article is now protected as a result of your edit warring, and, frankly, I'm surprised you have not yet been blocked, it's not like you have not been warned (you've been blocked three times, and you have been uncivil). It's a BLP article, so there is bias for removal of negative information. If you want negative information in the article, you'll have to find consensus for it.--Abd (talk) 14:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
You haven't specified any problem with sourcing, so there is nothing for me to reply to on that point.
You misquote me, of course. My words are on this page, so there is no excuse for it. I would never use such an inapt term as "wimpy" to describe Moyers interview of Wright. Try "fawning". The fully deserved rebuke by Kurtz, and its slightly muted echo by the PBS ombudsman, still deserve to be and are not on the page.
And only you and Ratel have previously used the word hypocrite, though the shoe fits. Or poseur. My low opinion of Moyers does indeed contribute to my noticing that the evidence in favor of my point of view is, contrary to Wikipedia's core content policies, missing from this page. WP:NPOV:

"As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The neutral point of view policy is often misunderstood. The acronym NPOV does not mean "no points of view". The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it 'POV'."

WP:BLP is an elaboration on, not an exception to, WP:NPOV. Which also reads, in part:

"If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it."

I already have DeLoach making a Nuremberg defense of Moyers in maintext, so I don't see why you feel the need to repeat the point. It's the suppression of the other POV, the Church Committee's declaration that what he did was totally improper, that violates Wikipedia core policy.
Since you keep repeating your ad hominum smear about having been blocked, let me say that I have three times been blocked by admins using a template accusing me of violating the three revert rule and in no case had I actually done so. The last time, when I reverted an editor who had violated 3RR an admin who was involved on the opposite side of the content dispute blocked us both, with fine impartialty as to who was guilty and his own conflict of interest, on the grounds that I hadn't replied anew on the talk page to the 3RR violator who had in fact posted nothing on the talk page for me to reply to. The previous time I left off reverting a tendentious edit at three and returned to Wikipedia to find that I was accused of resumed reverting as an IP sockpuppet. When that was disproved -- the ip was 700 miles away -- the clueless admin fell back on asserting without any evidence that the ip might be a meatpuppet and insisted on continuing to block us both as well as the 6RR violator. And the first time I was blocked it was by an "edit warring" vigilante who, dissatisfied with the 3RR process, set up an "edit warring" noticeboard in his user space and in this case blocked three editors, two of whom had, as I recall, two reverts, and none of whom had four. He actually said of blocking me that I didn't deserve it, but that he did it becuse he would otherwise be accused of partiality. What this proves is that the judgement of some admins deserves the same contempt that the judgements of some editors deserve. Andyvphil (talk) 22:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
...and the article is protected because Ratel compounded his attempt to edit war this material out of the article with a lying post at WP:RFPP: [33] Andyvphil (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Andyvphil, you call me a "liar", you call Mr Moyers, who may be reading this page, a "poseur" (NOTE: BLP provisions apply to Talk pages too), and your long defence of your blockings turns the page into a forum, which you must not do. You then say that you have "contempt" for the judgement of some admins and editors (editors like us, I am invited to infer). You also admit to editing with malice, and trying to publish little known and single-sourced material (please read the General notability guideline) onto a page purely to damage a subject's reputation. I believe your contributions are sailing dangerously close to earning you a permanent block. ► RATEL ◄ 01:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't just call you a liar. I cited it, and have now reprinted it below. And it's bizarre to assert that by replying to ABD's repeated ad hominum attack that I've gone off the subject. Review Point of privilege#Point of Personal Privilege. And my opinion that Moyers is a poseur was also a response to a mischaracterization both of what I'd said and of its significance. I am certain that if you were in charge here I would be denied the right of reply, but that is not the case. Andyvphil (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I totally agree with the sentiments Abd expresses above. While this is not supposed to be a hagiography, it's definitely not allowed to be a hatchet job either, no matter how much we may like or dislike Mr Moyers. Jimbo has made himself perfectly clear on that. I happen to like Moyers because of his superb work with Joseph Campbell. I live outside the USA and do not vote in US elections, so I have no vested interests. Just making my position clear. To address your points, Andyvphil:
1) The icdc site link is someone's personal webpage, not usable. Find the exact quote in aarclib and we'll have a look and discuss further.
2) You are wrong, the incident (Moyers telling the FBI to unseat MFDP) is not on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party either. Not notable, should not be included for that and other cited reasons.
3) After Osbojos' comment, I'm not averse to saying why the name checks were sought (Jenkins arrest), but it may be better footnoted. ► RATEL ◄ 14:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
1. The quote is already properly cited to aarclib in my edit. You can't figure out how to click on the "next page" arrow? Sheesh.
2. You don't know what "notable" means. Read WP:NOTE. nb: Refers to article subjects, not content.
3. "better footnoted"? Oh, yes, anything to make the telling less intelligible. Andyvphil (talk) 23:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. Why should I, or any other reader, be forced to read through pages of dense text looking for the citation? Provide a page number!
  2. As I said above, your DeLoach edit will fail because of numerous problems, just one of which is Notability, specifically in that it has NOT received "substantive coverage in multiple independent reliable sources" as required in the General Notability Guideline. Is that impossible for you to grasp?
  3. By saying that I am trying to make the material less intelligible, you are breaking the WP:AGF rule. That's another black mark, Andy <shakes head>. ► RATEL ◄ 01:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
1. I started off giving you the quotes on one page of searchable text. And the quotes are within the first few pages at the aarclib cite. If you want to disqualify your opinion from consideration go ahead and don't bother to read the source.
2. And as I said in as many words, you are confusing an article creation guideline with a content guideline. I haven't attempted to research how many reliable sources examine Moyers' role in managing the '64 Dem Convention for LBJ because DeLoach's book and Booknotes is enough. WP:NOTE: "Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article." Motivate me. Mention in how many RS will cause you to drop your objection to the paragraph?
3. WP:AGF:"This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry and lying." The evidence against you is not limited to your lying.[34] Andyvphil (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Claiming that an editor is lying will almost certainly be considered blockable incivility unless it can be not only proven but shown as necessary. So, my intention is now to look at what evidence Andyvphil gave (one reference) of lying. It better be good, Andyvphil, or, I suspect, you are toast. Perhaps if you promptly retract it before I go to all that trouble -- or someone else does -- the whole thing might be defused. I've *already* seen enough blatant incivility that, were I not involved and I had the admin bit, you'd be blocked -- if you did not desist upon warning.--Abd (talk) 04:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
You want more than one reference per instance of lying? Well, I've supplied the link twice. Does that count? As to necessity, Ratel's accusation of an AGF violation surely entitled me to present the evidence specified by the policy as exculpatory. Here, for a third time, is Ratel's lying post:

====Bill Moyers (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)====

Temporary Full-protection - An edit war exists with one tendentious, hostile, uncivil editor refusing to debate the issues, ignoring consensus, making daily reverts, and editing in poorly sourced material that attacks the subject's ethics and character. ► RATEL ◄ 15:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


This is a tissue of falsehoods, and while not every falsehood is clearly a lie (some are possibly, if one stretches AGF, erroneous opinion or ignorance) I've highlighted an unequivocal lie for your benefit. As to your impartiality in looking at the evidence, the way you weighed in to say it was ok for Scjessey to call me a racist[35] makes it clear that you ought never get an admin bit. Too many Bozos have it already. Andyvphil (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. The aarclib pdf file citation [36] is NOT searchable from what I can see, and since page numbers are given I cannot understand why you are not supplying one! Is it that you cannot find the "totally improper" quote there? If you cannot cite it properly, it's out, without debate.
  2. While Notability does refer to topics, the Notability page refers to undue weight for topic contents, and you have still not shown that the anti-Moyers minutiae you have sniffed out (and are attempting to insert against consensus) can possibly bypass the undue weight rules. You are ignoring the fact that under the undue weight rule, this subrule exists: Verifiability is only one content criterion. Neutral point of view is a core policy of Wikipedia, mandatory, non-negotiable, and to be followed in all articles. Concerns related to undue weight, non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited. The two are different questions, and both must be considered in full, in deciding how the matter should be presented in an article. In addition to that, the DeLoach stuff exists in one place only (his book and an interview about his book, which means technically it exists in only one place), unless you can prove otherwise. Can you? If not, out it goes without further debate. I also note that the DeLoach book is published by the infamous Regnery Publishing house, which makes the book a questionable source in any event. What does BLP say about such sources? Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used.
  3. I'm asking you for the last time to stop your incivility. If you do not, I shall take it up with an admin. ► RATEL ◄ 04:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
1. Sheesh. Of course the aarclib scan isn't searchable. That's why I both copied from and cited the icdc copy. At aarclib the characterization as totally improper and a betrayal of trust is on p.226, and the names of those requesting in such "political abuses" begin on p.227 (Roosevelt, Eisenhower(unspecified aide), Robert Kennedy, Johnson - large footnotes, short page) and p.228 (Moyers, Marvin Watson). Are you really unable to find your bottom with both hands and a map or are you just funnin' me?
2. Like the WSJ, Regnery is a "questionable source" per Wikipedia policy only in your fevered imagination. Like Silberman, DeLoach is the person to whom Moyers spoke and is with Moyers the only possible ultimate source for what was said. BLP does not exclude such material, merely requiring that it has appeared in reliable sources. All that is left is your assertion that Moyers request that the FBI strongarm the MFDP off the convention floor is insignificant. And your ignorance in thinking that this was just some minor kerfuffle about seating arrangements[37] should long since have been dispelled.
3. It's a little late for you to complain about the tone of the exchange which you established at its start.[38] Andyvphil (talk) 17:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Instead of complaining about who started it, from now on all parties will be civil to one another. How does that sound? Gamaliel (talk) 18:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Survey conclusion

After the latest egregious incivility from Andyvphil ("Are you really unable to find your bottom with both hands and a map") and since all editors have said their piece, my tally makes it 3 editors voting to retain the existing edit, with the inclusion somewhere on the page of the Jenkins arrest, and one editor who wishes to add several further obscure and "derogatory" details about Moyers to the page. That's called consensus. Debate is over, and any further edit warring on the Moyers page will simply be taken to Arbcom. ► RATEL ◄ 00:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Ratel, didja really have to add the digs? Let it go. Don't try to prove another editor's incivility, others have eyes and can read. It just provokes more response. This has nothing to do with whether or not the other editor was actually uncivil. Let others less involved deal with the incivility. I've been under massive attack by sock puppets and SPAs and *mostly* just let it blow by, beyond calling a spade a spade when it's relevant; I make reports to WP:AN/I or WP:SSP only when it is truly disruptive. I tend to treat myself as if I were an administrator (which all editors were at one time, when the earth was young), i.e., I don't use process (in my situation, that is complaint rather than actual button pushing) to punish incivility when I'm the target of it. You might notice that I intervened, to some extent, here, precisely because I wasn't so involved. I made an AN/I report about the edit warring, which was the most serious thing. Why that did not result in action is beyond me at this point. Admins can be overloaded, is all that I can say. For now, the article is protected. What that means in practice is that edits will need admin approval, and admins will look for consensus. Incivility is a really, really stupid way of trying to gain consensus. So, if an editor is uncivil, they can rant and rave and only create more fodder for their own blocking, if nobody responds except perhaps to say, "No, that proposed edit is improper." It is not necessary to explain why unless the reasons are obscure. I probably should have taken the report to WP:BLP/N instead of to WP:AN/I.... --Abd (talk) 00:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
This has a snowball's chance in Hell of going to Arbcom. And, no, a thinly based majority isn't "consensus". I note that the original RfC garnered two editors, both of whom disagreed with you, so I've refreshed it. The idea that you can declare "debate over" is typical of you. As wrong as your idea that I am edit warring and you are not. You can find admins who will see edit warring in a few reverts, but you will find they tend to find reasons to block both sides. Andyvphil (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
One canvassed vote is not sufficient. Consensus remains. Let it go. ► RATEL ◄ 23:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I would add that that one voter doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the disagreement (he claims there are no WP:V issues), or understand that WP:BLP calls for heightened verifiability for controversial claims. --Osbojos (talk) 01:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Ratel, we don't take disputes to ArbComm just like that. There is a whole process, and ArbComm is the last stop on the line. (Well, there is another stop, called StartYourOwnDamnWiki. But hardly anyone goes there. Andyvphil is irritating, but, yes, a short comment period doesn't necessarily establish consensus, but it can certainly show lack of it. There is no consensus at this point for the insertion of *some* of the material proposed, and there is indeed, as Osbojos points out, an increased level of verifiability necessary for controversial claims with the biographies of living persons. But we can't say what tomorrow's consensus will be, no door is closed. "Edit warring" to remove controversial material from a BLP, as long as it is at all reasonable, and definitely Ratel's position is within that territory, isn't likely to result in block unless it is clearly contrary to consensus. Edit warring in the other direction is much more likely to be blocked. So, given this, I'd suggest everyone relax. If someone wants to continue to rant and rave and foam at the mouth, well, eventually the dog-catcher will arrive and take him away. Whatever side he's on. The article protection can be extended if needed, and it does not prevent improvement of the article. What we can agree on here can rather easily be incorporated. What is over is the possibility that simply by reverting enough times, one can control the text, at least for part of a day. To Andyvphil, if you want to improve the text from your point of view, there is a clear path: first of all, be civil and polite. I like Bill Moyers, but not enough to support concealing anything verifiable -- and balanced -- about him. Insulting other editors is not a great idea if you are trying to find consensus with them. Seek consensus, with civility, and you might be able to accomplish something more than just getting yourself blocked. --Abd (talk) 04:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, since Abd feels all editors must agree to obtain consensus (which is clearly not going to happen here), I'll succinctly put my objections to the main remaining issues: 1) the inclusion of the condemnatory words by the Church Committee (CC) and 2) the Deke DeLoach (DD) seating affair.
  1. The CC's words related to the actions of many people over many years. As far as I know, none of the WP pages relating to these people carry the CC judgements, so why should the Moyers page, unless a POV is getting pushed?
  2. The DD affair about convention seating amounts to a relatively unknown incident that DD claims happened. Now immediately that raises red flags: we are not supposed to be reporting little known facts on BLP pages, especially so if the fact is derogatory. If you don't know that, you ought to read the rules more carefully. And quite apart from that, the page on Regnery Publishing shows that it is simply a right wing front organisation e.g., the same people who published the Swift Boat smear. Read the Regnery Publishing talk page. Everyone knows that Regnery is one of the major purveyors of books by right-wing attack dogs like Anne Coulter and G. Gordon Liddy. What they choose to publish about one of their greatest enemies, Moyers, is not for inclusion here, when it comes only from one man, Deke Deloach, who only became deputy director of the FBI in 1965 (so he was not "#3 at the time"), and who, according to Ronald Kessler in The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, once attempted to blackmail Senator Carl T. Hayden. This is not a reliable source. And even if by some miracle this incident actually did happen, it is simply not notable prima facie, because Moyers was merely a conduit for LBJ's orders, and because the order was not enacted. ► RATEL ◄ 05:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
The Church Committee actually named very few as having solicited totally improper acts of the FBI. Here's the list again: p.227 (Roosevelt, Eisenhower(unspecified aide), Robert Kennedy, Johnson) and p.228 (Moyers, Marvin Watson). DeLoach changed titles in this period, but was #3 throughout. See the inside front flap of his book.[39] Your assertion that the actions of subordinates are "prima facie not notable" is simply silly, as is your suggestion that info in books published by Regnery can, per policy, be ignored. I'm interested in your assertion thiat this incident is "unknown". What accounts of this period in Moyers' life omit it? Andyvphil (talk) 17:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
For more on DeLoach, see this.
...This source says DeLoach was 4th highest FBI man as of Aug 1964. [40]
And here is Moyers giving Hoover the ok to spead dirt on Martin Luter King, something RFK had previously prohibited. Make sure you read the footnote. [41] Andyvphil (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
And that source says: "Lyndon Johnson, acting through Moyers, had now given Hoover a green light to discredit King..." which is what we've being trying to tell you. Q.E.D. Maybe you should add this stuff to the LBJ page, if you actually want to improve Wikipedia. Just a suggestion. ► RATEL ◄ 14:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I've never denied that LBJ was acting through Moyers. For the umpteenth time, my edit exemplifies the NPOV in that it quotes DeLoach making exactly that point. It's the jump from the observation that Moyers was LBJ's agent (even in his, so far as we know, independent actions such as requesting the FBI clear the convention floor of MFDP members) to the assertion that what Moyers did for LBJ has no place in a biography of Moyers that is indefensible. Osbojos admits that if what Moyers did for LBJ was "counter to his public persona" it belongs in this article. Oddly, he then goes on to assert that merely doing something the Church committee described as totally improper doesn't rise to that level unless compounded by the specification that Moyer's request for derogatory information specified homosexuality as the deogatory information desired, and never mind that Lasky and Silberman say exactly that and no source says otherwise. It will be interesting to see if he thinks that Moyers telling the FBI that "it was both his and the President's opinion" should "go ahead and disseminate" its hit piece on MLK (Judgment Days, by Nick Kotz, Houghton Mifflin (not Regnery), 2005, footnote, p. 234), something Kotz characterizes a "authorizing Hoover to spread defamatory information throughout the government", rises to the level of being "counter to his public persona". Andyvphil (talk) 23:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the abrupt change of opinion, but now that I've had a little more free time to carefully consider the issues at hand, I realize I was failing to see the forest for the trees. I agree with Ratel that the Church Committee "improper" characterization is not referring to Moyers specifically--the language appears in the introduction to a section detailing "Examples from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations illustrat{ing} failure to distinguish between political and nonpolitical intelligence."

Regardless, if the "improper" reference were referring to anyone, it'd be Lyndon B. Johnson, not Moyers. Not only is this event not mentioned on the LBJ page, but mention of Johnson--let alone Moyers--isn't even made on the Church Committee page. If this finding isn't notable enough to be mentioned in the CC or LBJ pages, it's hard to justify including it on the Moyers page. In fact, the only reason this event would be sufficiently notable to be included on the Moyers page is precisely because his taking part in efforts to ferret out homosexual activity runs so counter to his public persona, and, as far as I can tell, everyone participating in the talk page discussion agrees that the only source for the homosexual activities detail is Silberman (and his accompanying verifiability problems). Unless it can be verified that Moyers asked specifically for evidence of homosexual activity or some other equally uncharacteristic request--as opposed to say, damaging information in general--it's hard to see how the Hoover incident is notable enough to merit inclusion here.

The Deloach allegations, in addition to being non-notable, fail for lack of verifiability for much the same reasons the Silberman allegations failed.

Thus I don't believe either proposal--Andyvphil's or Ratel's compromise--can justifiably be included in the article. --Osbojos (talk) 07:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. However, how much fuss has been made about this incident? I don't know, but it's possible that the fuss is notable, in a way similar to the Swift Boat Veterans incident is in the Kerry bio. Would this be in the Moyers article? I don't find the answer obvious. In any case, what was in the text, for example, the text claiming or implying that the Church Committee condemned Moyers, was inappropriate. Suppose the President sent a telegram to the FBI asking for the name check. Would this be a notable incident in the career of someone who delivered the telegram? Probably not. Moyers, it appears, may have regretted being involved in quite a number of different situations with Johnson, but the ethics violation here would be ascribable to Johnson, not to Moyers, at least not based on what I've seen. The President asks his aide to ask the FBI for a name check. Who is in charge? If it was a crime being requested, then Moyers would have had an obligation to refuse. But for the President to ask for a name check, then, wasn't a crime and it probably isn't one now. It was unethical, that can certainly be argued, but it is not unethical for an aide to the President to deliver a request as ordered. I noticed before that the Church Committee document didn't make that unethical charge against Moyers personally, but against the action of querying the FBI, and it was an example of Presidential actions, not of the actions of aides to Presidents. But if there is a major charge levelled at Moyers, notable in itself, I could see that this could be described in the article, but that charge, unless proven by reliable source, can't be stated as fact. The "fact" is that the charge is being made. And I'm not at all sufficiently familiar with this to have an opinion yet. --Abd (talk) 03:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Likening Moyers responsibility for his actions as LBJ's chief of staff to that of someone who delivered a telegram seems simply wrong to me, and is in any case not the point of view of the Church Committee, which would not have named Moyers had they agreed with you that he was just an errand boy. Not saying you can't include that POV on the event -- as I've noted, I've quoted DeLoach making exactly that defense of Moyers' other request of him -- but it's not a reason to exclude the other POV. Btw, Moyers wrote about this event in Newsweek, March 10, 1975, an article called "LBJ and the FBI", but I haven't found more than a few scattered quotes yet. Andyvphil (talk) 14:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Ratel's Position - At the risk of turning horse carcass into leather, the expanded edits (as asserted) are overreaching and seem to attempt to re-write history (or, at the very least, embellish the truth a bit). I don't see how the citations support the text, nor do I see the text having overcome WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE concerns. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. User Andyvphil seems to have earned a serious block for edits elsewhere, so perhaps he'll think better of edit warring this issue, given the clear consensus against the inclusion. ► RATEL ◄ 22:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)