Talk:Frederick H. Fleitz

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Material added by Quentimastis about this individual is inappropriate. This is a private person and there is no reason to publish information about his family and personal life. Numerous aspects of this item are also incorrect and biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.231.249.141 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 28 August 2006 UTC

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Wholesale deletions about a political appointee who has thrust himself forward into the political debates of the day are not appropriate. Frederick H. Fleitz is no longer a "private person," and the fact that his actions are discussed in numerous newspaper articles and blogs indicates that whatever role he has played in the Plame Affair and debate over Iraq is of general interest. It's also ludicrous to impugn neutral recountings of allegations as "biased." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quentinmatsys (talk • contribs)

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Even if the facts are correct, you must give sources according to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Since you did not do this, I removed the disputed material again. Han-Kwang 07:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

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Numerous aspects of the statements by Quentinmatsys are inaccurate. Fleitz is a private individual. He has been a Congressional staffer for just a few months, arguably not a political appointee. Before that he was a civil servant with the Federal Government and never served in a Schedule C post. There has never been a press item on allegations of Fleitz's involvement in the Plame affair, only leftwing blog allegations. These rumors are without foundation, which is why the press never published them. The allegation that Fleitz's work at State had something to do with Plame is a new and false allegation. What is Quentinmatsys' source for this? Moreover, why Quentinmatsys insists on publishing personal information about this individual's family is hard to fathom. First of all, most of this information is incorrect. More importantly, however, these people deserve their privacy.

The Wikipedia editors are to be commended for acting to enforcing the Wikipedia rules on Living Persons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.162.155.135 (talk • contribs) 30 Aug 2006

Biased account

The changes to the Fleitz article cite fairly biased and partisan sources, Dafna linzer and Doug Jehl, both of whom are well known for their hostility toward the Bush Administration and Fleitz's former boss, John Bolton.

While I did not remove this information, I have added additional material to make this a balanced entry.

Adding lengthy excerpts like that makes the article completely unreadable, so I've trimmed it back significantly. I'm afraid we can't editorialize about the sources in that fashion within the article itself (if the other sources are biased, is National Review supposed to be a paragon of objectivity?). Also, sources are needed for the positive press about his book, discussed in the second paragraph. --Michael Snow 05:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfair edits

Your edits removed all but one of my sources but kept the biased NYT and WP sources. You also removed references to the e-mails Fleitz produced that refuted claims that Bolton retaliated against a State Department employee. This is hardly "adding balance" to the story. Either this stuff is added or the biased material and account you added should come out.

Moreover, if this is an encyclopedia, why are you trolling for dirt on this guy?

I removed the National Review editorial because it's an editorial and because it's redundant. Editorials are designed as opinion pieces, not reporting, and are thus generally poor choices to cite for factual propositions. In this case, the relevant passage is largely duplicated in Lowry's piece. Lowry is more in the nature of a column than a news story, but columnists have been known to do reporting - given the context, Bob Novak comes to mind - so I used that with some trepidation as a source for what he testified. If somebody can dig up Fleitz's actual testimony and provide a proper cite for it, that would be even better.

The emails weren't removed, they were moved to the external links section. That's for two reasons: 1) They've only been used to make inferences and interpretations that go beyond a neutral point of view, and 2) Lack of establishing authenticity for something purporting to be primary source material. PNAC doesn't report news, they do think-tank style lobbying and advocacy, and they don't strike me as an appropriate source to be using for the content of emails between government employees, in the absence of information about how they came into possession of this information.

Also, charges of bias are not particularly productive. Pointing out factual inaccuracies would be much more useful, if you're capable of demonstrating any. --Michael Snow 23:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Your changes are OK. Thank you for the work you put into this.

Article is Very Biased

Citing sources such as the Washington Post shows the leftist tilt of the article. To be fair, pretty much all of Wikipedia adheres faithfully to Left Wing ideology, but this is a particularly bad article. I won't edit it because only leftists are able to edit Wikipedia without being called vandals, but the article remains quite biased and unfair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.216.213 (talk) 20:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Updating

This is part one of an update to this item which will include research about this individual recently published in three books. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeke1999 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Indiscriminate revert

I made a substantial edit where I removed a bunch of poorly sourced text, and added RS text. All of these changes were reverted.[1] The changes should be restored immediately. The only opposition in the edit summary were to part of my changes (the simple description that Fleitz run an anti-muslim far-right conspiracy organization). That text should be restored as well, but if that text is the only disputed part of my edit, then all the other text should be restored and the discussion should center on this one part of the content. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans, next time, please ping me if you object to my actions. I would be fine with restoring all of your changes but I'd like the lead put back to status quo ante. As I said in my edit summary, it's WP:UNDUE to describe the politics of the organization the subject heads in the lead, and putting it in the lead implies that the subject holds those views without a source. creffett (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it means precisely what the text says: that he heads an organization defined by those characteristics. It's a clear-cut NPOV violation to omit what kind of organization it is, in particular when the name of the organization (Center for Security Policy) suggests it's some kind of academic organization. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

One problem with the current lede is that it is inaccurate. It starts Frederick H. Fleitz (born 1962) is an American government official ... ." He is not currently an official. I will edit for accuracy. NPguy (talk) 22:37, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Can the lead describe the organization that he is CEO of?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Can the lead note include a brief description of the think tank that he is CEO and President of (the bolded text): "Fleitz... has been the President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, a far-right, anti-Muslim think tank." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:46, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for starting an RfC, no objection to the wording. creffett (talk) 14:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes. It's a NPOV violation to not reflect how RS describe the organization that he runs. We would never hesitate to describe and organization as "conservative" or "progressive" if it were described as such by RS. The description of the think tank is particularly important given that the name of the think tank on its own gives readers the false impression that this is just a normal academic organization (Center for Security Policy). It's clearly pertinent context. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• No. As discussed above, I believe that describing the organization's politics in the lead like that is undue weight and implicitly suggests that the subject holds those views, plus the org is wikilinked from the lead and its politics are covered in its lead. I have no objection to calling the organization a "think tank" in the lead, though I will say that "Center for Security Policy" is a textbook think tank name (from my perspective it's pretty obvious it's not an academic organization, but I recognize that doesn't apply to everyone). I also wouldn't object to mentioning the think tank's politics further down in the article, it's the placement in the lead that I have the biggest problem with. creffett (talk) 14:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. To omit this expected content would disserve the reader and would not be encyclopedic. Comparable articles give appropriate descriptors in the lead section (e.g., Kay Coles James: "she was named president of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank"; Neera Tanden: "the President of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C."). I see no Wiki policy-based reason for withholding this from the reader. Neutrality^talk 16:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Neutrality, I recognize the point you're making, but I have one issue with that comparison - "liberal" and "conservative" are not especially contentious labels, whereas "far-right" and "anti-Muslim" seem fairly contentious to me. creffett (talk) 19:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think it's contentious that CSP is far-right or anti-Muslim. These are descriptors that are reflected consistently by a multitude of RS. It may be viewed as unflattering, but that's not a reason to exclude otherwise well-sourced contextual information. (I note also that some readers might also think that "liberal" or "conservative" are unflattering descriptors, yet we use those anyway, as we should.) Neutrality^talk 19:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• No It's undue and when described as such it tends to poison the well for the reader. Suggestions such as this come across as if the intent is to persuade readers that the BLP subject is a terrible person right out of the gate. Are there nuances that are lost in such a description? Such openly hostile characterizations should be avoided in the opening sentences of a BLP. Springee (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Remember, WP:NPA - objecting to the accuracy of the wording is one thing, but accusations against the motives of other users, like suggesting that the "intent is to persuade readers that the BLP subject is a terrible person right out of the gate" is completely out of line, especially given that as far as I can tell you don't disagree with the accuracy, applicability, or broad usage of the description. --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, but While most might agree with the characterization as far right and anti-muslim, it might also seem prejudicial. However, "conservative" probably doesn't go far enough. Are there other alternatives, e.g. "controversial" and "right-wing"? NPguy (talk) 22:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• No per Springee Idealigic (talk) 21:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, although there is some room to tweak the wording. "Center for Security Policy" doesn't mean anything to readers; we need to summarize what it is according to what most mainstream reliable sources say about it. This summary, as far as I can tell, does not seem inaccurate, and our responsibility is to summarize things accurately, not to censor them. If people think this summary is inaccurate or incomplete, that would be a valid argument, but presuming it is accurate and reflects how it is generally described, "it makes the CSP look bad" isn't a valid argument to censor it - by that standard we could not say that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in the first sentence of his article, since obviously reporting that fact is prejudicial! --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.