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Opening Paragraph

Isn't the opening paragraph the most transparent partisanship on the 'pedia today? Isn't Ritter better known for his strict adherence to chasing teenage girls through the internet? Crid 02:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Cited criticism belongs in the body. The intro cannot contain summarized controversial conclusions. Scott Ritter has been in the mainstream media three times in his life: once during his military career, again as a UN inspector, and now as an opponent to current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. In the all three instances, Ritter has been an outspoken critic of those who failed to rigidly adhere to consistency, facts and agreements. You can accuse him of seeing the world only in terms of black and white, but he has never been convicted of a crime involving teenage girls. --Peter McConaughey 05:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I live in the same area as Ritter, know the abandoned Burger King resturant where he was busted by the police. I worked in the Albany, NY -area media at the time and know all about his little "lapse." The Albany county assistant district attorney who cut him the deal was fired by the district attorney because if of it. If that alone doesn't speak volumes toward the truth, then you must be deaf. There is absolutely no doubt the reason Ritter went to that abandoned Burger King was to meet what he thought was a 14-year old girl and masturbate in front of her. The record may have been sealed, but the details were leaked to the press. The man is a pervert. Even though I am against the Iraqi occupation, I'd rather Ritter join some other side, or leave the country alltogether. Because of his lapse into perversion he is more of a liability to the anti-war movement than a gain. Yeah, maybe Ritter has never been convicted of a crime involving teenage girls, but then Hitler was never convicted of killing a Jew. Doesn't mean both didn't happen. -- Jango Davis 03:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Some interesting questions can be asked about this: A lot of people are chasing teenage girls through the internet, why don't we hear about all of them on CNN? This happened in june 2001, why did the story break in january 2003? It seems as chasing teenage girls won't get you airtime on CNN, being a critic of the regime won't get you airtime on CNN, but if you're a critic of the regime your teen-chasing will get you airtime on CNN even if it's 18 months retrospect. Sure, his brush with the police belongs in the article, but my bet is that you wouldn't have known if he wasn't a dissenter. Geir Gundersen 20:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Ritter is not known for his early career as a intelligence officer, as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, and more recently as an opponent to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. None of those things get you on national news. Ritter has received national and international notoriety by being an outspoken critic of people who fail to adhere to consistency, facts, and agreements in those three areas.

I don't understand what that means. I do understand what "his early career as a intelligence officer, as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, and more recently as an opponent to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East" means. Hilighting such things as "adherence to consistency, facts, and agreements" is vague and silly; it makes him sound like a logician. Also, he was well known as a UN weapons inspector long before he was openly critical of US policy towards Iraq.--csloat 20:21, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Having just read his book Iraq Confidential, I think I can shed some light on this. The sanctions against Iraq was supposed to be lifted as soon as Iraq had been disarmed according to the security council resolution, but the US stated officially that sanctions would last until Saddam Hussein was removed. (This would be the inconsistency and agreement part of it). Scott Ritter and the rest of UNSCOM documented that Iraq was disarmed, but the US insisted that they search for more hidden SCUDs and the like. The US would not be convinced of the disarmament, becasuse the didn't want the sanctions to be lifted. Therefore, the US had to nurture doubt about the completeness of the inspections, while doing everything they could to ensure that complete and effective inspections didn't happen. (That would be the fact part of it). At the same time the US plotted overthrow and used every opportunity to gather intelligence about Iraq through the UNSCOM, while not even sharing this intelligence with the UNSCOM. Geir Gundersen 10:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Restored POV Deletions

I have restored the sections on Ritter's legal problems and the quotes regarding Ritter's bizarre turnaround. It is beyond me how wikipedia editors can delete information just for POV reasons. Do you really think that people are going to forget about Ritter's bizarre change? Or the fact his movie was financed out of Saddam's Oil for Food money? Or that he was arrested? RonCram 01:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV is an offical policy of Misplaced Pages.

The arrest may be relevant to his character. But you can not take information from blatantly bias editorials.

Some Ritter critics, such as National Review editor James S. Robbins have suggested that Saddam Hussein's regime used knowledge of Ritter's activities as leverage to convince Ritter to change his public stance toward Iraq (see 17) but these speculations have not been substantiated by evidence.

• if you read the op-ed it sounds like a pissed off blogger

Nevertheless, Ritter's access to the media was never based on his message. Harry the Hippie has the same message, and may be even more articulate, but Ritter had man-bites-dog appeal. He was an outspoken hard-line inspector who transformed suddenly into a rather forceful apologist, and thus became instant producer-bait., this is not a source for NPOV

• The documentary is also relevant, but for a NPOV the documentary should at discussed for more than a sentence before 2 paragraph criticism, and you cant site a forum posting and assume its a creditable source. At least find a real source to base your argument
• Information on these two issues almost solely exists in the right-wing media, search in google, it gives you freerepublic, nationalreview, weeklystandard. Of the first 40 pages less than five are of reputable sources and most are op-eds. You don't want people to start quoting Democracy Now or Mother Jones as NPOV sources, so don't use these sources... ZyMOS 22:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales states that NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable".

I agree with ZyMOS that the article dwells a little too much on anti-Ritter details from partisan sources. I tried to tone that stuff down with my previous edit, and I thought the result was a pretty good step toward neutrality. I think maybe we could further trim the section about legal entanglements but keep the charge that this left him open to blackmail - it was prominantly discussed in the mainstream media and is a significant reason for his marginalization, whether the charge is true or not. As long as the proper caveat is in place ('unsubstantiated by evidence') I think it is relevent & neutral to mention it. Also, I agree that a full discussion of the documentary would improve the article, but I haven't seen it and feel unqualified to write one - I don't think we should flag the article for NPOV just because no one has written that section yet. Anyone else agree the flag should be removed with or without minor changes? Rustavo 04:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Robbins is as entitled to his opinion as Cram is to his. That doesn't make anything "bizarre" or the result of blackmail simply because they say so. The fact that some people are willing to stick to their views even in defiance of facts doesn't mean that it's bizarre to change one's opinion over time as one is reconsidering them. Quite the contrary. But if Robbins teeters on the brink of slander, that doesn't mean that it's NPOV to aid him in that. Presumption of innocence is still the basic premise of a free and fair judicial system and I don't think it is Misplaced Pages's role to aid in witch hunts or second-guess the judicial system. --OliverH 23:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think 'second guessing the judicial system' is at issue here - it wouldn't be NPOV to write that OJ was "falsely accused of murder" just because he was acquitted, and conversely, there's nothing wrong with discussing Ritter's arrests just because the charges were dropped. Regarding the blackmail accusation, I think the appropriateness of mentioning that turns on how widely discussed those accusations were, rather than whether or not they were true - if a slanderous accusation becomes a major event in someone's life as a public figure, than it should be discussed just as any other major event would be (of course, an NPOV article needs to identify an unsubstantiated accusation as such.) If the accusation was not widely known, then I agree, it is not appropriate to mention it and thus aid the slanderer.

I guess as a general rule it makes sense to err on the side of leaving that sort of accusation out unless a contributor (i.e. RonCram) can conclusively demonstrate that it was a widely circulated and expressed accusation, so I've taken it out and rewritten some of the parts referring to the documentary. I think the article is pretty neutral now, but I will leave it up to someone else to remove the flag. Rustavo 04:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Added news references to the Albany County District Attorney's handling of the case, including the firing of the assistant district attorney who cut a deal to dismiss the charges against Ritter without the DA's knowledge or approval. -- Jango Davis 16:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Restored deleted reference regarding the Albany County District Attorney's handling of Ritter's case. -- Jango Davis 04:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Restored deleted entry under Legal Problems with teh dates of both of Ritter's arrests. This is a strictly factual report. Why does the truth bother Ritter supporters so much? Oh yeah, cause its the truth! -- Jango Davis 13:28 (UTC) 27 September 2006

New Sections

OK, so I just posted two new sections in the Scott Ritter article. The first is a quick overview of his opinions, book, and film following the withdrawal of inspectors in 1998. The second is a description of his views about the WMD issue prior to the 2003 war, primarily through quotes from the book he did with william rivers pitt. In my opinion this improves the article, because it gives more info about what Ritter was saying in this period, before later sections delve into the whole controversy of why he might have been saying it. I'm kind of a noob here, so I look forward to people's edits and thoughts on my work. - Rustavo

Just made some more changes to the Ritter article. I moved the Iran comments section up so that it comes just after my Iraq prewar comments section. This seems like a more logical arrangement to me. I also edited the criticism of Ritter section and the section about his legal troubles. In the Criticism section, I tried to flesh out the change in Ritter's public statements between 1998 and afterwards, and I cut out the quotes of pundits criticizing his position changes. To my mind, this stuff wasn't very neutral, and didn't really contribute to the article - it seems better just to explain what he said and when he said it, and let the reader draw their own conclusions as to whether he is "bizzarre" or "chameleon-like" In the section dealing with Ritter's legal problems, I tried to shorten it, since it doesn't seem especially relevent to his public role, and a lot of it seemed speculative and written in such a way as to imply that he "got away" with serious crimes due to prosecutorial mishaps - even though no details of the actual charges are in the public record. Also, I'm sorry for not filling in the nature of my edits in the correct spot - I'm learning as I go along. Look forward to hearing what people think Rustavo 18:15, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I moved some of the uncritical articles out of the criticism section. Orville Eastland 15:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing speculative about Scott Ritter's attempt to molest a someone he throught was a teenage girl, but who turned out to be a state trooper. I live in Albany, NY and worked near the abandoned Burger King where he was arrested when he showed up for his "date." He charmed a local female ADA into the deal that got him off, which she was fired for because it happened without DA Paul Cline's permission, who lost the next election in part due to his lack of leadership and control of his staff in the Ritter case. You can bet if Cline knew about the deal he would have quashed it and hauled Ritter into a very public court. Ritter absolutely got away with a perverted attempt to sexually abuse what he thought would be a teenage girl. After all this, not only do I question Scott Ritter's creditibility to even claim the sky is blue, but I have to question the agenda of anyone who would dilute the truth of his crime. I'm against the war in Iraq, but I'd rather this pervert keep his mouth shut and move out of my region. I will be keeping my eye on the section about his legal problems so this section does not get furthered watered down so as to dilute the truth of Ritter's perversions. -- Jango Davis 11:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

What you question and what you read into other people's comments is completely and utterly devoid of any relevance. And for the record, the fact that you falsify statements by a DA makes YOU lose any credibility. --OliverH 18:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not falsify and statements by the DA. You must be really desperate to believe what is documented on the public record is my falsification. I have posted only what was documented in the news. I live in Albany, worked by the place Ritter was arrested, I've worked in the Albany-area media and know what was said. The DA's position on the "deal" the ADA made with Ritter behind the DA's back is evident by the DA's firing of that ADA. One must wonder what your real agenda is if you feel that you must so vociferously defend Ritter's attempt at child molestation. The readers of this record can decide for themselves who has creditibility here. My creditibility is not in question, only Scott Ritter's character and the questionable motives of those who defend his attempt at child molestation.- 05:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Except that I did not defend Ritter's attempt at anything. You just take a lot of leeway reading into what people are saying what you'd like them to say. The DA explicitly refused to confirm a link between Ritter and the firing. It might very well be that there was one, but it is not the job of Misplaced Pages to speculate on it. Much like it is not up to you to claim I do things that have no basis whatsoever in what I have said. If you can't stick to what's referencable and demonstrable, then this is not for you. Your credibility is very much in question since you now demonstrate a serious problem with truthfulness and a reckless readiness to fabricate. --OliverH 17:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

You're defense of perversion is pathetic and desperate. Cline's actions speak for themselves. He fired the ADA for cutting the Ritter deal behind his back and without his knowledge or approval that is fact. But of course, the FACTS are the one thing you Mr. Scott "Pervert" Ritter's supporters dislike. Now, when you are on the losing side of the moral high ground in the perverted swamp with Ritter, who want to squelch discussion on the discussion page because you don't like it...POOR BABY...what are you gonna do, cry now? I can "discuss" whatever I want to discuss about that pervert on the DISCUSSION PAGE. That's why it's called a DISCUSSION PAGE. Just like my fellow liberals...all for freedom of speech except when you find yourselves on the losing side of argument, then you pull out Roger's rules.

Now you're just lying about your position. You fully support that pervert and lack the spine to say so. The only creditability in question here are those who continue to defend the actions of an attempted child molester, such as yourself. The only ones I've heard defend Ritter are my fellow anti-war advocates so desperate to believe in there's a "conspiracy" against Ritter because he's against the war. That's a crock of shit. Ritter's creditability as an anti-war advocate is in the toilet because that's where his morals and character resides...in the crapper. But hey, I guess the world's perverts need their advocates too, so good for you. But the only thing a pervert-supporter can creditably prove on this forum is that he supports perverts. I think that raises more questions about YOUR creditability and character than it even does about Ritter's. I mean, what worse? An adult male who thought he'd get a chance to masturbate in front of what he thought would be a 14-year old girl, or someone who wants to defend his right to do so, like you. History will only remember Scott Ritter for his attempted child molestation. Absolutely nothing Scott Ritter has ever done before or since will be remembered. That is the legacy he leaves this world, and the world would be richer without it.-- Jango Davis 20:54 (UTC) 19 July 2006

Unfair biography of Scott Ritter

There seems to be an unfair emphasis in this biography under "Documentary" and "Legal Problems". Negative criticism of Ritter and very negative speculation about an alleged quid pro quo between Ritter's documentary's funder and the Iraqi government are included without even having citations; yet when I added some information to the biography under "Legal Problems" suggesting that CNN might have its own motives for digging up an 18 month old already-dismissed misdemeanor charge on Ritter it was later edited out; and my edit WAS sourced. So I have now added Ritter's own POV about CNN's motives as quoted from one of the CNN articles that this biography itself has already cited. I thought it was Misplaced Pages policy to include several POVs and not just one. Ritter's POV about CNN's motives surely are relevant. I also added some sourced speculation about CNN's motives for criticizing Ritter; presumably this should be at least as useful as UNSOURCED speculation about an alleged quid pro quo between the guy who funded Ritter's film and the Iraqi government.

Ritter's question about CNN's timing seems to me to be crucial. Why would CNN, a national source of major current news, have dug up a story 18 months old involving a smalltown already-dismissed misdemeanor charge? As far as I can think it must have seemed necessary to someone to try to uncover dirt to discredit Scott Ritter's opposition to the upcoming Iraq war. What other motivation might there be for the belated attention to this on major news source CNN? This is a very common tactic in the US today: if you don't like what someone is saying in public you try to find something in the person's background to discredit them and encourage the public to dismiss what they say.

And how about the timing? CNN airs these old charges on January 21, 2003, less than two months before the invasion began and as the Bush administration is trying to convince the nation it must go to war with Saddam over his WMD. But the former chief inspector, who spent 7.5 years hunting for these WMD in Iraq, had recently stepped forward and aggressively opposed the war stating, accurately as it turns out, that Saddam probably didn't have the WMD Bush et.al. alleged he had. And, if you read about Ritter you'll find he does almost everything in a passionate, gung ho manner. On September 8, 2002 Ritter personally went to Iraq and addressed the Iraqi National Assembly, pleading with them to cooperate with inspections and avoid war (see "Frontier Justice", chapter 2). It was on the day he addressed the Iraqi National Assembly that so many of CNN's negative characterizations, reported in the Toronto Star opinion piece, were made. Then, about four months later, CNN discovers major news that Ritter had these 18 month old legal charges. I think the timing of CNN's airing of the "news" of Ritter's legal problems plus the sort of comments made about Ritter by CNN personnel, cited in the Toronto Star article I also mentioned, provides a pretty strong prima facie case that CNN was out to discredit Ritter.

This biography spends four paragraphs and gives four separate citations, some from lesser and local news sources, focusing on these legal charges, but any POV which might balance and provide context for the airing of these charges 18 months after they were dismissed has been edited out . That's neutral?

And what does a dismissed misdemeanor charge about someone's having wanted an underage girl to watch them masturbate have to do with the value of someone's observations about the existence of WMD in Iraq? In general, I think I'd say it would have little to do with it, but this is a very specific case. Scott Ritter just happened to be a unique source of info about this question. He was inspecting Iraq for 7.5 years for these weapons, very aggressively and at risk of his own life (read "Endgame" or "Iraq Confideential" if you think this is an exaggeration). He was extremely gung ho and very aggressive in these inspections and was promoted to lead inspector because of his performance. It's difficult to think of someone with a more informed position to comment on the existence of WMD in Iraq. He was asked to testify in front of a US Senate committee because of his recognized expertise in this matter. Is this all to simply be ignored because of his personal sexual problems? bondjel,9/12/2006

Scott Ritter is a pervert. Anything he has to say is crap. End of discussion. Ritter discredited himself when he thought he was meeting up with a 14-year old girl to masturbate in front of her. Thank god it was a state trooper and thank god it wasn't YOUR CHILD! As far as the charges being unreported for a year and half that was because it took about that long for the local media to realize it was THE Scott Ritter, since Ritter was arrested under his first name William and only then was it picked up nationally. That's another fact the pervert's supporters like to forget. So the claim that the media ignored the charges until the time was right to embarrass Ritter is a crock of shit. Sure, Ritter is SOOO important that ALL the media outlets in America sat on this golden nugget of news as part of some vast conspiracy against Ritter. Drink your purple Kool-Aid today bondjel? Further, the charge was only dismissed because an ADA cut him a deal WITHOUT the DA's knowledge and she got herself fired for that. That doesn't really help your effort to minimize his sex crime does it? I hate the war. Never supported the war. And don't want this pervert on my side. Ritter diminishes the moral integrity of the anti-war movement. -- Jango Davis 28 Sept. 2006 3:58 AM (UTC)

Chill out. This really isn't the place for a soapbox about this. You can start an anti-ritter blog if you feel the need. Read over WP:BLP before making further changes to the page. Stick to verifiable information about what Ritter is generally in the news for. The fact that you watched him get arrested or whatever is not relevant to any of this.--csloat 04:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This is the discussion page and the perfect place for it, although I know how much those of you who support the right of people who think they're important to sexually abuse teenagers would like to shut down the truth. I've only posted verifiable facts on the article page and have responded to the wild and paranoid accusations of the pro-pervert lobby on the discussion page, such as bondjel's bizarre "hey, attempted child sex abuse is no big deal" rant above, which apparently you have no problem with because it reflects your own view as well, so don't try to tell me or anyone else you are an objective reporter here because everything you said can be applied DIRECTLY to you. In other words, don't piss on my back and tell me its raining, cause nature is just going to piss right back and give you the same weather report. Misplaced Pages opened the door with a poorly planned and poorly executed idea for open-source information and I'm walking in. Deal with it. -- Jango Davis 10:32 am (UTC) 28 September 2006

It would be wise to delete your personal attacks above Mr. Jango. Calling someone a child molester because they asked you to read the rules on Misplaced Pages is a personal attack of the worst possible sort. Please read WP:BLP and WP:NPA. And don't ever call me a child molester again. Thanks.--csloat 16:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite desperate and slightly hallucinatory. No where do I say that on this page and you claiming it doesn't make it so. You do however, appear to support Blondel's premise that minimizes the crime of Riiter's attempt at child sex abuse, so, as with Blondel, you must clearly believe that Ritter's crime is miminal, so don't read into something that isn't there, no matter how much you'd like it to be true, such as that Ritter is not a pervert who attempted twice to sexually molest who he thought who be a tennage girl. Very lame, but keep trying though. You got spunk kiddo. -- Jango Davis 10:19 AM (UTC) 29 Sept. 2006

Ah, so I'm not a child molester myself, just a desperate hallucinating defender of child molesters? One with "spunk" no less. Thanks for clearing that up. Now, will you please review WP:BLP and WP:NPA? Thanks.--csloat 20:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Completely off topic. But Mark Foley (R-FL) chairman of the House Caucus Exploited Children resigned from Congress today for sexually harassing a 16 year old male page via email. I wonder, in Jango's apt phrase, does Foley "diminish the moral integrity of the Republican movement"? At any rate, Sloat is completely correct on this one, strict adherence to WP:BLP is mandatory upon penalty of bannination. Otherwise all your Misplaced Pages are belong to lawyers. Derex 21:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jango, quit deleting the sentence "CNN reported that "Clyne refused to discuss the case, noting there is no public record of it." I'm sure you'll tell us that CNN is run by child-molesters but I'm not sure how censoring this sentence helps cover up Ritter's attempted string of brutal masturbatings.--csloat 19:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Cut it out Jango

Jango you're pushing the 3RR with this silly mugshot. I've asked you several times to read WP:BLP and to engage in the discussion here. You've stopped bothering with the discussion and you keep putting this nonsense up. I don't have a problem with a link to an article showing a mugshot, but the claim "hey look at this dude's mugshot! creepy, eh?" just does not belong in an encyclopedia. Please remove it, and please engage in the discussion, and please mind Misplaced Pages policies, esp. WP:BLP, WP:3RR, and WP:NPA. Thanks!--csloat 01:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

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