First DOJ IG Report on Politicization
Is here.
It shows that not just Monica Goodling, but Mike Elston and Bill Mercer and others at DOJ "crossed the line" into illegal behavior, using political affiliation in the hiring for a summer intern and AG’s Honors programs.
I’ll update as I read.
The report names Robert Coughlin–of the Abramoff corruption ring–as one of the people who may have used political affiliation in hiring–but the report ultimately does not conclude that he did.
Three career employees told us they were concerned that on one occasion Deputy Chief of Staff Robert Coughlin, a political official on the hiring committee, may have taken into account candidates’ political or ideological affiliations. One career employee wondered whether Coughlin rejected one highly qualified candidate because of the candidate’s liberal affiliations. Two other career employees wondered whether Coughlin voted to accept a less qualified candidate because of the candidate’s conservative and Republican Party affiliations. The candidate with liberal affiliations was rated highly by the career employees who interviewed him, but he did not receive an offer. Conversely, the candidate with conservative and Republican Party affiliations was not rated highly by the career employees who interviewed him yet received an offer of employment.
The career employees also told us that when they questioned Coughlin about his ranking of candidates during the group meeting in which the candidates were ranked, Coughlin stated that he was basing his recommendation on his reactions to the candidates’ interview demeanor and interview skills.
In our interview of him, Coughlin told us he never considered political or ideological affiliations in evaluating Honors Programcandidates. While Coughlin said he did not recall any details concerning the specific candidate with liberal affiliations, he recalled that he recommended the candidate with conservative affiliations because the candidate had received a strong recommendation from a previous internship with the Criminal Division and not because of the
candidate’s ideological affiliations.We reviewed the two candidates’ applications and determined both candidates had been ranked as having strong credentials, such as federal appellate clerkships or high grades that indicated the candidates were qualified. In addition, Coughlin’s stated reasons to his colleagues and to us for his decisions – the strength of the candidates’ performances in interviews and high recommendations from a previous internship with the Department – can be appropriate bases to choose between two otherwise qualified candidates. Further, our other witness interviews and our review of documents and e-mails did not reveal evidence that Coughlin considered political or ideological affiliations when making his recommendations. Accordingly, we did not conclude that Coughlin used inappropriate factors in choosing between the two candidates.
Shorter DOJ IG: Coughlin talked himself out of further legal problems, even though there were six people who found his hiring decisions suspicious.
Here’s a list of the people on the working group who originally changed the hiring practices in 2002: Andrew Hruska, then Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General,
Adam Ciongoli, then Counselor to the Attorney General; Paul Clement, then Principal Deputy Solicitor General; David Higbee, then Deputy Associate Attorney General; Howard Nielson, then Counselor to the Attorney General; and Christopher Wray, then Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. A couple of names of interest there. Hruska, Higbee, and possibly Ciongoli and Nielson made up the screening committee that year.
This is no doubt why Bill Mercer was a candidate to be AAG:
My initial reaction is that the guy is probably quite liberal. He is clerking for a very activist, ATLA-oriented justice. His law review article appears to favor reintroduction of wolves on federal lands, a very controversial issue here which pits environmentalists against lots of other interests, including virtually all conservative and moderate thinkers.
Incidentally: any bet that we find Mercer making much more politicized comments in this IG report than we found in the emails turned over to HJC? Not that DOJ refused to turn over the really damning emails, of course, but if Mercer would say this about a new hire, I’m sure he’d say worse about a US Attorney.
Incidentally, DOJ IG considers ACLU a liberal organization. What would Bob Barr say?
Here are the results from just 2002, when DOJ IG said the hiring wasn’t all that political as compared to 2006.
As the chart indicates, the Screening Committee deselected 80 (80 percent) of the 100 applicants with liberal affiliations, 4 (9 percent) of the 46 applicants with conservative affiliations, and 223 (29 percent) of the 765 candidates with neutral affiliations.
[snip]
The data indicates that the candidates with liberal affiliations were deselected at a much higher rate (15 out of 18) than candidates with conservative affiliations (0 out of 5) or candidates with neutral affiliations (11 out of 48), even though all candidates met the same criteria.
[snip]
We found that all 7 applicants who indicated that they were American Constitution Society members were deselected by the Screening Committee for interviews, while 2 of the 29 applicants who indicated that they were members of the Federalist Society were deselected.
Wingnut welfare at its finest.
And here’s some data from 2006, when Mike Elston was in charge of the process:
Overall, based on the results of our data analysis, we found that Honors Program candidates whose applications reflected liberal affiliations were deselected at more than three times the rate (55 percent) of candidates whose applications reflected conservative affiliations (18 percent) and more than twice the rate of candidates whose applications reflected neutral affiliations (23 percent).
We found a similar trend when we examined a subset of highly qualified candidates. Highly qualified candidates meeting the Fridman academic criteria whose applications reflected liberal affiliations were deselected at a substantially higher rate (40 percent) than highly qualified candidates whose applications reflected conservative affiliations (6 percent) or neutral affiliations (13 percent). In addition, candidates whose applications reflected a Democratic Party affiliation were deselected at a significantly higher rate (48 percent) than candidates whose applications reflected a Republican Party affiliation (27 percent) or who did not show any party affiliations (30 percent). Similarly, highly qualified candidates who had Democratic Party affiliations were deselected at a much higher rate (37 percent) than candidates who had Republican Party affiliations (7 percent) or who did not show any party affiliation (18 percent).
The kinds of candidates Mike Elston didn’t want (or maybe he just wanted to piss off Carol Lam):
Elston replied by e-mail that most deselections were for poor grades. He acknowledged, however, that poor grades did not appear to be the issue with this candidate, and he offered to check into the application and let Lam know whether an appeal would be successful. Elston replied later that day: “I have reviewed her application materials, Carol. I do not think an appeal will be successful. If it helps, she was not selected by the other components to which she applied.” Lam responded: “Thanks Mike. Just curious, though – I don’t see anything unacceptable in her online application that was made available to us. Do the other components see something that I don’t?” Elston replied: “Not that I know of, Carol.”
The Civil Division also attempted to obtain from Elston the rationale for the deselection of certain candidates with strong academic records before it submitted any appeals. Elston responded to the Civil Division that the “vast majority were cut for poor grades. I cannot speak to the individual applicants you named at this point.” However, when the Civil Division pointed out the excellent academic credentials of a deselected candidate who was sixth in his law school class and was currently clerking for a federal judge, Elston responded: “There was a committee (which was not made up of exclusively ODAG staffers) . . . so I am not in a good position to give you reasons others may have had for their decision.” This candidate had been an intern with the Public Defender Service and had written a paper on the detention of aliens under the Patriot Act. After this exchange, the Civil Division appealed the deselection of this candidate, along with other candidates. Elston denied the appeal of this candidate without explanation.
Because god forbid we have men and women who were sixth in their law school class working for the Federal Government.
Apparently, the destruction of the materials related to the hiring process (noted in the thread below) occurred after a contentious December 5, 2006 meeting at which it became clear the politicized hiring was a problem.
We had difficulty reconstructing the decisions and reasoning of the Committee members with regard to specific candidates because virtually no written record of the Screening Committee members’ votes and views remains. The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. Elston’s staff assistant told
us that her office did not have room to store the hundreds of applications and, because they contained personal information about the applicants, she placed them in the burn box for destruction shortly after the review process was completed in early 2007. The staff assistant said she did not recall consulting Elston or anyone else before destroying the applications.
And given the early 2007 timing, the destruction of these materials may well have taken place after HJC started asking for evidence of politicization at DOJ.
But I’m sure it’s not related.
William Ockham pointed out this one below:
For example, Fridman recalled that one candidate was at the top of his class at Harvard Law School and was fluent in Arabic. McDonald’s written notations indicated that she had concerns about the candidate because he was a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations and that she had placed the application in the questionable pile. Fridman said he wrote on the application that this candidate was at the top of his class at Harvard and was exactly the type of person DOJ needed.
I hope this person recognizes himself and sues DOJ.
Jeebus! Talk about getting out of Dodge:
McDonald declined to be interviewed during our investigation. When we first contacted her in September 2007 for an interview, she was a Counsel to the Associate Attorney General. She initially agreed to a tentative date for her interview, but she later asked us to postpone the interview while she retained counsel. We agreed. After McDonald retained an attorney, and after allowing time for the attorney to familiarize himself with the matter, a new date for the interview was set, October 25, 2007. However, at 5:15 p.m. on October 24, McDonald’s attorney e-mailed our investigators to advise them that his client was canceling the interview. The attorney added that McDonald was no longer employed by the Department.
We learned that McDonald had resigned from the Department, effective October 24. On the evening of October 23, she had told her supervisor, Acting Associate Attorney General Katsas, that the next day would be her last day at the Department.
Elston begins to realize he’s in trouble when he realizes he was rejecting Arab speakers:
We asked Elston about another deselected Honors Program candidate who had graduated from Yale Law School, had been a member of the Yale Law Journal, graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College, was clerking for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, had studied Arabic, and had worked with a human rights organization. Elston said he looked for people with Arabic language skills and that he also knew the judge this candidate was clerking for, so he believed he would have been enthusiastic about this candidate. Elston could not explain why the candidate was deselected and said he was “starting to get concerned that some ‘yes’ pile [applications] got in the ‘no’ pile.”
Shorter Elston: "I’m all out of plausible excuses for rejecting these people."
OIG gets snarky:
We note that Elston’s statement that the Criminal Division does not prosecute sex offenders is incorrect. The Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division prosecutes violations of federal law related to producing, distributing, receiving, or possessing child pornography, transporting women or children interstate for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity, and traveling interstate or internationally to sexually abuse children. In addition, this Section has jurisdiction to prosecute cases of child sexual abuse on federal and Indian lands.
Of course, one of the reasons why Elston and the rest of the clique claimed to have fired Daniel Bogden was because Bogden wasn’t enthusiastic enough about prosecuting obscenity
Who could have imagined? I’ve been arguing for over a year that all the Hatch Act violations in the world will be just swept under the carpet now that everyone who committed those violations has left government.
However, because both McDonald and Elston have resigned from the Department, they are no longer subject to discipline by the Department for their actions. Nevertheless, we recommend that the Department consider the findings in this report should either McDonald or Elston apply in the future for another position with the Department.
See. it’s okay to politicize hiring, so long as the people who do so are cycled into corporate sinecures after they’ve thoroughly reloaded the civil service with wingnuts.
So Mukasey, who was hired because the Department had obviously been politicized, took five months to get around to writing a memo to tell people to stop.
Attorney General Mukasey issued a memorandum on March 10, 2008, requiring all political appointees to acknowledge that they have read the Department regulations that hiring must be merit based and that political affiliations cannot be considered.
Nice job, Chuck.
Thanks ew.
digg
Finally IG Glenn Fine seems to be ready to open the floodgate. More reports to follow soon, I fervently hope. What I’ve read so far is both disgusting & horrifying. Over @ FDL mothership CHS points out that files were “disappeared” within DOJ before FIne & CO could even get to them for the investigation.
White House – no email
DOJ- no personnel docs
At what point can you get people for destruction of evidence when they’ve been thorough with the destruction and keep the liars lying through RICO tactics?
Only when you have a Congress with the spine to pursue it.
This has been another episode of ’simple answers to simple questions’.
Wow. What an excellent line of bullshit. I may have to cross-stitch that onto a pillow.
Off-topic a bit, but did anybody notice the effort that the Bushies are putting out to spin yesterday’s attempt to rewrite the evidence in the Guantanamo cases? They are all talking about adding evidence to support their cases, but what is really going on is an attempt to REMOVE evidence from the records of the cases before they go before a civilian judge, so that no opening can be made to challenge conditions of confinement. Somebody smarter than me needs to be looking at this.
Ew Thanks for all you do
In Elston’s defense, I think exclamation points should be a pet peeve of everyone.
dugg
Cockroaches all, each and every one.
Here’s the one that I consider to be the most damning:
For example, Fridman recalled that one candidate was at the top of his class at Harvard Law School and was fluent in Arabic. McDonald’s written notations indicated that she had concerns about the candidate because he was a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations and that she had placed the application in the questionable pile. Fridman said he wrote on the application that this candidate was at the top of his class at Harvard and was exactly the type of person DOJ needed.
Clearly, she/he’d have posed serious threat to the information contamination carried out by the Ledeen, Franklin, Hadley, Cambone, Luti, Perle, Wolfowitz, Chertoff, Fisher, etc cabal.
Anyone fluent in Arabic would rapidly have recognized things seriously amiss in DoJ.
No doubt some corporate headhunter somewhere should be sending a very large bouquet to thank these fools for ensuring that a corporation could snap up such a promising young prospect, since government service wasn’t an option.
I think that’s exactly right. No one with the relevant expertise in Arabic or Islamic thought, culture and politics was allowed near our senior administration officials. Except displaced local warlords and shady, expatriate bidnessmen with a shed full of axes to grind and plenty of reason to lie, cheat and steal for their own betterment.
The American taxpayer wasn’t just sold a horse with no teeth. It has no legs or tail, either, and no matter how many quarters you endlessly drop in its box, it won’t move up or down.
Insanity gone wild. Committed to getting it wrong
Dougy Feith didn’t like fluent Arabic speakers, either. Underlings who know too much are too likely to point out the boss is incompetent, his policies won’t do what s/he publicly claims they’ll do, and that s/he has completely missed the point of a conversation.
Amazing what having an anti-intellectual, non-reader, C-student with a morbid fear of accountability and an exaggerated sense of entitlement can do to dumb down the entire federal government. It’s like having a bank president who can’t count, and hates numbers, meetings and selling things to people they don’t need and can’t afford. Not much to do besides bicycle, hack at golf and leave everything but the speechifying to the hired help.
It will take two presidential terms to course-correct the brain drain, corruption, de-unionization and ill-thought out outsourcing of this one administration. No wonder the have mores are so satisfied, and so sure none of them will ever see the inside of a jail cell.
We are not in the club.
George Carlin (George was/is one of my Gurus)
“You have no choice, you have owners”
You have to be asleep to have The American Dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw
Andrew Hruska is the very woirst person to be dealing from inside the DOJ dealing with corporate crime…and is hardly a person that should be involved in “deselecting” people based upon articles they had written as undergraduates. Take a look at his own writings as an apologist for corporations!
Metropolitan Corporate Counsel “Why Compliance Doesn’t Work”
Wall Street Journal Online “Debating the Government’s War on Corporate Crime”
New York Law Journal “What’s Really Going On in Corporate Charging Decisions?”
After leaving the DOJ, Hruska defended major financial service and industrial companies against enforcement investigations by the his former Federal employer, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern and Eastern Districts of NY, the NY State Attorney General, the NY County DA’s office, the SEC, the IRS, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, the NY Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. Department of Labor and the NYSE.
Hruska represented securities firms, commercial banks, insurance companies and brokers, hedge funds, and major industrial companies concerning criminal and civil enforcement in the areas of securities, antitrust, false claims, foreign corrupt practices, taxation, international trade sanctions, and immigration restrictions. He defended several international companies in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations. He defended medical device manufacturer, Guidant Corporation, against a civil fraud suit brought by the NY Attorney General. He counselled an accounting firm and a major pharmaceutical against claims of fraudulent activity in healthcare insurance activity.
Interestingly, Hruska served as the Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, overseeing both the criminal and civil divisions, so many of his actions involve former employees and colleagues, and appearing before judges that he formerly worked as a prosecutor. He was hired quickly by the same corporate sectors that he was prosecuting just months before.
Esther Slater McDonald graduated from Pensacola Christian College (an Independent Baptist institution that is not accredited and very fundamentalist). She got her law degree from Notre Dame.
I guess that explains why Monica Goodling liked her.
If the politically correct people were hired under a cloud, can their employment status be reviewed within Civil Service SOP? As stated sometime ago, many
Corrected post:
If the politically correct people were hired under a cloud, can their employment status be reviewed within Civil Service SOP? As stated sometime ago, many appointees are being converted to full time positions so the Federalists/Bush ideology can remain.
my
sorry, runaway trackball.
meant to write:
My question exactly. IIRC previous discussions here, the hirers are the Hatch Act violaters and the hirees are protected by it. Indirect means will be needed to encourage them to leave, the very ones uses against career liberals who are now gone: transfers, retraining, etc.
But IANAL. Bmaz, what do you think?
BSRH @ 22 was a reply to Bushie@19 and not to herself.
Interesting and a little surprising, to me anyway, that there appear to be noticeably more “liberal” applicants than “conservative” ones. I wonder if that is really the case, or if that determination itself is profoundly skewed in such a manner that when they later claim they hired “equal numbers from each category” they were really fudging because even the “liberals” they chose were pretty conservative. Something seems wacked out about this to me.
You’re a lawyer, bmaz.
Of the folks you went to law school with, how many of the liberals went into something like public service or some other lower paying specialty?
ANd the conservatives? Govt lawyers get paid shite compared to what their colleagues get paid, right?
Oh, generally, that is absolutely right. But this is an honors program to which even the top conservative people you describe would be attracted in an administration that was notorious for taking care of their own. The corollary is that a lot of people of my ilk would not have gone near them with a ten foot pole even if in normal times they would have. So, it is that kind of adjusted context I posited that though. Not saying I am right, just musing.
On a more striking note: Laura Rozen reports (via Roll Call but no link);
Wow. I am not sure whether that removes him from McCain’s Veep list or puts him at the top.
Obama just won PA, I guess.
I wonder if Ridge had any ties to the weapons laundering going through Albania…?
And why was Bush there again last year?
That was Laura’s question too; and a darn good one from both of you. That is pretty much a million dollars for Ridge in two years. Not chump change. On the scale of Goops, Ridge didn’t seem like that bad of a guy on a personal level. Speaking of Pa. why is Rendell never substantively mentioned for VP for Obama?
I think he’s among the B class of potential candidates, but he has a diahrea of the mouth problem, which is totally not Obama’s style.
Now that i accept and can understand. I kind of like the guy though.
And Pretzel @39, I did not mean that sharp response necessarily at you, I am just sick and tired in general of the timidity of Democrats and the willingness to allow themselves to be framed in the denigrating false lights painted by Republicans. We just keep accepting and adopting the playing field provided by the opposition instead of seizing the ground ourselves. The more you do that the deeper ingrained and self perpetuating it becomes. It has to stop.
>
I seem to remember a snarky-sounding comment recently from Rendell re: Obama wanting “just money,” not bodies, at some political rally.
Well,he was a very strong Hillary backer, brought out the machine for her in the primary, and did some surrogate attacks on Obama. I would guess that is why. If Hillary would have won the primary, he would be on the short list, probably.
Yep. Short list is for perfect candidates like Sam Nunn and that General Jones dude. Jeebus, we are in a world of hurt.
God help us. Somebody please put a gun to the Sam Nunn idea.
I keep thinking of Atrios’ disdain for the “committed independents”. Who the hell doesn’t know which side they are on by now? I can kind of forgive the low info types. But I can’t stomach the ones that are just so much better than to belong to either party. They are above it all, and it’s so much better to just snipe at all sides from a safe perch. (apologies to any real independents, I’m only referring to the ones for which independent means “My only ideology is that I will always adopt the position that is between both sides, regardless of what that actually means to policy or reality.)
Ack. End of rant.
i know who these people are. Too conflict-avoidant to take any kind of stand, usually because it’s unfashionable in their particular social circle at that time. (like the guy who works with defense contractors who have drunk the koolaid and will be ostracized if he says anything remotely progressive)
Or, as my surfer friends would say – No Balls. Go Big or Go Home.
Hey, tell your surf homeboys to quit beating up those poor paparrazi photographers! Or not….
Well, here’s why I fall into that unhappy group.
Years ago where I live, the old-school, Main Street, fiscally responsible Repubilcans were (in some cases) more environmentally progressive and responsible than the old labor-union, ‘log everything in sight’ local Dems.
More recently, the Dems caved — in the name of ‘economic development’ — to housing developers, mining interests, logging interests, and a plethora of extractive, destructive, polluting interests. Oh sure, the Dems say all the right words. But you can’t count on them when the votes come — just as with FISA, they sneak in loopholes and shrouded corporate favors at the 59th minute of the 11th hour because they have No Balls.
None.
In addition to the dearth of cajones, too damn many of them hired jackasses as staffers, who put more energy into where they’re having lunch on any given day than they put into policy formulation and implementation.
So with the Dems hopeless, and in some cases the Republicans more competent I (and others like me) threw our hands in the air and said, “Screw it! If the Republicans will at least protect the environment, we’ll deal with abortion some other way.”
Clearly, that turned out to be self-deafeating.
But sticking with the Dems was simply ‘rewarding malfeasance’, and how on earth that constitutes a useful vote is beyond me.
So please don’t solely attribute this voting behavior to stupidity or fecklessness.
Speaking for myself and a few others that I know, it was 100% driven by desperation.
Was I thrilled about voting for Republicans?
Doesn’t matter.
I just wanted people who’d keep their word and do their damn jobs and hire some competent staff.
After a few years of that, it became crystal clear that too many Dems were feckless weenie tools who thought that ’saying the right thing’ was the same as governing. [Give me strength!!] And when it also became clear that the GOP was corrupt to the core, I simply got fed up with voting. Period. End of discussion.
Then along came the remarkable Howard Dean — no bullshit, strategic thinker, who could actually risk losing for the sake of principle. So I paid attention again.
So voting “Republican” is not necessarily always a sign of morbid stupidity.
Sometimes it’s pure exasperation and sheer desperation in an attempt to get someone with a brain and enough cajones into office to accomplish something.
As of 2008, there’s no way in hell that I’m voting for any Republican, at any level.
But the Dems seriously need to clean up their act.
I don’t expect elected officials to be saints, angels, or superhuman.
But with environmental issues, fuckups are incredibly costly — once the damn horse is out of the barn, those Frankensteins get big real fast.
Fundamentally, we have a complex society and our politics hasn’t kept pace.
At this point, since the Republicans are too abysmally corrupt to be worth ten seconds of my time, I’m counting on the Dems to haul ass and kick some shit.
Because heaven only knows, every single day we fall farther behind on global warming issues.
And if the Dems hadn’t been such wimps in 2000, Al Gore would have been president and we might have acted in time.
Whether we can play catchup fast enough at this point is still uncertain.
Beautifully stated.
Second what Boo said.
It’s time for more and better and more competent Dems.
(Howie Klein and ActBlue are two of my ‘heros’. Whole other topic; another time, after July….)
But appreciate kind words, since I seem to have flung my quivering heart right up on the web page… sigh….
ditto Boo
ditto EW
Thank you ROTL…
just got an e-mail from chris carney’s campaign with the subject header: “republicans for carney”. in it a nice woman told me all about how his values are so like her values, and urged me to join her and her fellow republicans in supporting his re-election.
campaign carney picked a verrrry bad day to send me this e-mail.
i believe i will use all 7 of mr. carlin’s words in my reply.
You might forward that to Howie as well.
hey ew,
already did, and he replied he’ll likely write something up.
Little whets Howie’s appetite like thwacking Carney.
All absolutely accurate. But IMO a lot of that was caused by a phenomenon which seems to emerge & repeat in so-called ‘national security crises’ situations IE those who rise up & give voice to the facts in such times very often pay the price for their righteous indignation by losing – leading to a weakened voice for truth & a stronger contingency of the cowering survivors. Eric Alterman’s book on presidential fibs shows this happened with Viet Nam & it occurred before during the reign of McCarthy & it happened to a lot of Dems before the truth of the Iran-Contra scandal started to emerge & the Bush Cheney Syndicate exploited it in securing their ‘mandate’ in the 2002 mid-terms. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to engage friends & acquaintenances in some depth on the war in Iraq only to be shut out with responses like “I don’t care about quibbles” & “Just look at the facts: no attacks since 9/11″ & “That’s in the past- what matters now is going forward”. Good decent Russert-thinking burghers & typical citizen electors all of them. I think it may be somewhat the same with global warming- a preference for living in wilful blindness that surely those in charge are far more knowledgeable than anyone they’d ever get to know personally & an apprehension that even a peak into the issues would shatter that comforting illusion combined with a concern that most folks cannot reasonably expect to get on with their lives were they to learned otherwise.
Am I correct to assume that is a rhetorical question?
How could he not be?!
Whoops! Apologies to EW, bmaz, and others!
I apparently misread (in my haste) an item at TPM that led me to erroneously believe evidence had been revealed that implicates Ridge.
I certainly don’t mean to junk up threads with info that has no verifiable basis.
Apologies for garbage on the thread 8
——————-
On the upside, it appears I can now stop gnashing my molars in frustration over Sen Leader Harry Reid. No doubt there’s plenty of kabuki in the background. but this news is encouraging.
Their notion of “liberal” can be pretty elastic, though. There is that Wharton graduate on p. 89: though pretty clearly conservative he was “deselected” for having “an open mind” and belonging to both the ACS and the Federalist Society.
The news about Ridge’s failing to register as a foreign agent is surprising. He could not have missed the requirement, certainly not when he was paid nearly half a million a year for it. The exceptionalism of the Bushies is numbing. Guess we’ll need a new batch of prosecutors who aren’t at the bottom of their Regent “Law” School class.
I think your comment about self-selection for jobs in this administration is right. Few progressives would have chosen to work for this administration, though I would concede that might be less true of recent graduates who hadn’t yet spent their “two years before the mast” in business or government. So they left/right applicant pool would have been seriously skewed to the right.
Just as Karl Rove utilized every resource of the federal government to promote Bush and, secondarily, GOP interests, he missed no one – not the Cabinet member, the park service police officer or the intelligence analyst – who spoke out of turn. Retribution was swift and merciless. Sadly for democracy, Rove has now turned his talents to “preserving” the digital legacy of Bush’s regime, thus giving us a new definition of black hole.
Rather amusing, isn’t it, that Ridge “forgot” to register although working for one of the biggest lobbying firms, for a client who coincidentally is home to a weapons dealer moving Chinese weapons to a questionable firm iin Florida.
This is some of the “worse-than-Iran-Contra” stuff right here.
Excellent point. Large DC firms have adminstrative staff who attend to such things for their rainmakers: eg, keeping current their bar memberships and affiliations. Registering them as an agent for a foreign government would be routine for them.
If it was not done for Ridge’s work for Albania – and neither he nor his firm would have missed the half million a year from a single client – something is seriously amiss. That this – and the timing of its exposure – coincides with the Albania/China/Pentagon arms procurement scandal is not likely to be coincidental.
Perhaps the payback cycle has begun, and the mistreated and shunted aside are beginning with collateral figures like Ridge, who, though mildly competent (if a laughingstock for his politically motivated, color-coded “alerts”), was not among the administration’s worst of the worst.
The more I read about the abominations in the Bush administration, the sicker I get. I never recall political affiliation being mentioned once in the hundreds of personnel decisions I participated in during my career. But then again the Air Force I served in doesn’t sound like the current one either.
How many more days (KO) until we are rid of these people.
Was the Air Force Academy in your day a haven for Christian fundamentalists?
No, but the misogyny was pretty rampant.
Did you hear the program about the book called “The Family” on the Diane Rehm show this morning. The books is about the “avante garde fundamentalist”, the “biblical capitalist” who started and continue to according to the author have a great deal of control on our country’s focus and who attend the “National Prayer Breakfast”
This was a frightening story.
“The Family”
11:00Jeff Sharlet: “The Family” (Harper)
It’s one of the most influential and least well known organizations in the country. The Family, also known as The Fellowship, consider themselves followers of Christ, and individuals responsible for changing the the world. An in
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/06/24.php#20950
I didn’t listen to Diane Rehm this morning, but have heard of this Fellowship and the National Prayer Breakfast. Hillary Clinton, I believe, used it as a way of establishing her bipartisan credibility once in the Senate. Something tells me a Mediterranean Jewish village peasant would think them all followers of Caesar and not the Word.
Frightening and enlightening all rolled into one. Amazing how these “elite fundamentalist” “biblical capitalist” hide behind the “alleged” teachings of Jesus Christ. Aye yi yi
Jesus would be turning over the tables at that National Prayer Breakfast
JC wouldn’t be allowed in to one of those “prayer” breakfasts. Religious profiling, not to mention visa problems. Nor do I think he’d get past Dulles’ Neanderthal-like “security” staff’s questioning. If they send to the brig Italian lawyers who visit their soon-to-be northern Virginian fiances “too often”, they’d certainly do the same to a Middle Eastern visitor who keeps turning the other cheek and who doesn’t look at all like Max von Sydow or Jeffrey Hunter.
The “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov — an unmatched take-down of what institutionalized Christianity has become.
Once the screeners heard about his “money changers” position, he’d be relegated to the “free speech zone” reserved for Code Pink.
Just keep in mind that, had he not gone whole hog for McCain, Lieberman would likely be at the very top of Obma’s list. Seriously.
Well that gives me a total of one thing to thank Lieberman for, I guess. Funny that McCain would never be stupid enough to put Lieberman on his ticket. Explain to me again why the “progressive” blogosphere made fun of Kucinich, Gravel, Feingold…
I expect the DFH’s to support the eventual Dem candidate, and I know we don’t have a chance in hell of having a real progressive as a candidate, but didn’t we at least used to put up somewhat of a fight first?
I think I might have a bad attitude today. I should probably get off the blogs for awhile and watch some tennis.
As i said above, i have been crabby all morning. Started out just against McCain, but it is taking root….
Well, some of your best stuff comes out when you’re crabby. So you’ve got that going for you.
Objecting to money changers at the seat of power and religious veneration? Yup, can’t imagine a visitor with those views getting a US visa from BushCo, even though the tale is manipulated by a writer a generation or two after the event.
“Money changers” were an essential part of the Temple’s operation, helping many who worshiped there — villagers in a currency-poor economy, occupied by a foreign army, who made a rare visit to the big city — match their “sacrifice” or contribution to Temple operations to their limited means. The tale was written after the Temple and its hold over official religious symbolism – along with much of Jerusalem – had been razed. The context being a battle for religious loyalty among the survivors of Rome’s “pacification” – using a surge of legionaires – of Judea.
On the off chance you’re not familiar with it, here’s a link to Mikey Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Weinstein’s book is a scary read.
Only the WaPoo would consider it news that the Bush inJustice Department illegally uses political factors in making career hires. Only they would miss that George Bush has done this throughout the entire federal government.
George and Dick have remade the federal government into their vision of the worst CEO-centric excesses of the private sector. They’ve given us a gutless board asleep at their board meetings (Congress), hired salesmen to audit themselves (the judiciary), and outsourced the company’s crown jewels (warmaking, intelligence gathering, tax collection, ad nauseum). And they’re walking away with their bonuses intact (FISA hoovering and immunity).
They have made real Ronald Reagan’s fantasy misdescription of the federal government: The nine most dangerous words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Correctly translated, it means I ruined your government through my lies, incompetence and outsourcing, and by allowing the private sector to regulate in their interest instead of yours, all on your dime. Now I’m goin’ home and you can’t touch me. Naah.
Nor
also NYetimes.
EOH: suppose you believed, “The world is globalized; I’m among the elites and nation-states are passe, the function of money is to ‘create wealth’ via investment, and I have all the SuperDuper InsideKnowledge that the ignorant, unwashed mobs don’t possess. ‘Public private partnerships’ include planning oil/resource wars in conjunction with oil multinationals to keep oil out of the clutches of the Soviets, the Iranians, and anyone else who doesn’t kowtow to me.”
Assuming that they actually believe the view I’ve just outlined, then what they’ve done has a certain chilling, cold, frozen logic to it. Under that strange ‘logic’ they are extremely competent, in the sense that they’ve fulfilled many of their key objectives, despite public outcry and the contempt of millions.
Big Oil signing ‘no bid contracts in Iraq’?
They’ve just met their objectives.
IMHO, ‘what goes around comes around’, but these people almost certainly don’t feel one bit upset by what they’ve done. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn they’re rather proud of it, and see those of us who object as rather quaint.
Oh, I think much of what this administration has done is precisely what it sought to do. And I don’t much believe in “what goes around, comes around.” The whole point of much of politics and business is to prevent that very thing. Which is why Scooter’s not in jail and why Cheney never will be.
reply @34,
I believe Gov. Rendell came out early in support for Sen. Clinton. It may take a little while for the Dem’s to vet him properly if they were to consider him.
Also, having him on the ticket could endanger PA. He has the reputation of being very liberal and could hurt any non-committed votes.
God forbid we piss off any of those freaking “uncommitteds”, that wishy washy undefined less than 10% that ought to properly control everything we do. And, furthermore, yes, the mere mention of Rendell being a “liberal” ought to forestall any consideration of him. How did he slide into office in Pennsylvania all those times with such a mark of satan attached to him? Oh my. Hey, just exactly what is a liberal anyway since you brought it up?
Rendell did come out early for Hillary. Supposedly he was one of the first to say to her “it’s over’
No offense taken,
As for Gov. Rendell, I’ve been a staunch supporter of his since his days as Mayor of Philadelphia. He has been very progressive in enacting legislation that has helped many Pennsylvanians, especially the elderly and children. I work for an Area Agency on Aging and over the past 12 years I’ve seen programs enacted that have become major lifelines in protecting Pennsylvania Seniors and in creating a much healthier environment for them.
He’s had major budgetary battles with the Legislature, which is controlled by the Republicans, in which he’s won some and lost some. He’s losing some battles now that will hurt many seniors in the future.
I can take losing battles if you are fighting, so I hope that he is doing that. And, again, I am just crabby from the fight over framing a whole bunch of things right now. Perception matters and the medium is sometimes the message, and we keep operating in the opposition’s. It is infuriating. Sounds like soom worthy and cool stuff you are doing, excellent work.
“Perception matters” unfortunately marks Gov. Rendell’s entire governship. He’s always been at odds with the Legislature and truth be told if he wasn’t from Philly (or Pittsburgh for that matter) he would have never survived his first term. The moniker “Fast Eddie” has always been hung around his neck.
As for me personally, I’m on the financial end of the process. But our clinical people do a fantastically wonderful job for their consumers. They are the ones who do the excellent work.
Thanks.
OPR is coequally involved. This is a ludicrous study, at first glance. Fn22 p.22=27/115:
“We used the top 20 law schools in 2002 as ranked by U.S. News and World Report: Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, New York University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, Duke, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Cornell, Georgetown, University of Texas, University of California at Los Angeles, Vanderbilt, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Southern California, and Washington and Lee.”
This study seems to examine defective rejects rather than hirees, and it looks only at the young lawyer programs.
I could see the EPA of Johnson quaking at the prospect of DoJ’s hiring one reject in which the study “questioned” DoJ’s bias, (p.86=91/115, IG/OPR question follows:):
“We asked Elston about a deselected Honors Program candidate selected by ENRD who was in the top 10 percent of his class at Lewis and Clark University, was an articles editor for an environmental journal, and had worked for Earthjustice and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center…The candidate indicated in his essay a strong interest in working in environmental law, including that he wanted ‘to serve as part of the team charged with enforcing the world’s most comprehensive environmental laws, and with defending the crucial work of our environmental and resource management agencies.’
“Elston commented that while he did not know anything about the organizations that the candidate worked for: [Elston quote follows:]
” ‘the impression I’m left with after a quick look at this is that this is someone who had come to the Environment Division…with an agenda, not with an open mind as to the best way to enforce the environment, environmental laws…’ “
Bush, Cheney, and StephenJohnson would be worried about EPA enforcement; Henry Waxman’s May 19, 2008 memo to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform addresses a related matter, with respect to the refusal of EPA to produce documents that would reveal efforts by that triumvirate (B,C,+J) to block implementation of a currently pending CA law much like the one that brought Detroit into the world of pollution control valve (PCV) devices two decades ago, the infamous foot-dragging of car manufacturers to redesign carburetors for retrofitting with PCVs.
Excellent point about the analysis of rejects in lieu of examining those who were hired against the total applicant pool. I also liked the bit about using US News’ top 20 ranking rather than the DOJ’s own. A confederacy of dunces.
Doesn’t that pretty much describe the Bush “administration’s” hiring criteria?
I figured the focus on the political appointees’ “pre-screening” activities was for the express purpose of providing cover for the various “Department components” (except probably Criminal Div but we’re gonna let them off the hook; and Civil Rights Div but we’re saving them for later) and a pretty transparent attempt to pin all wrong-doing on people who have left DOJ — voila! problem solved!
Besides the tweaks in the Recommendations section (with pats on the back all around for making changes in 2007 and a couple cheers for Mukasey), Fine seems willing to wash his hands of the whole mess:
So even though Fine spent 3 pages laying out the particular sections of the CFR, USC, and case law that “prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations”, and admits that (at minimum) McDonald and Elston did exactly that, he doesn’t think McDonald and Elston should be prosecuted? We should just think twice before giving ‘em another job in DOJ? Somebody please tell me that last sentence was snark????
Nice job, Chuck.
Anyone in NY think there’s a chance of a primary challenge for that weasel next time he’s up for reelection?
Anyone heard much about this resolution that will come up for a vote this week?
Congressional Resolution Demands Bush Act on Iran.
A non-binding resolution to demand that President Bush impose “stringent inspection requirements” on trade with Iran – language that leaves the door open for a military blockade – will likely come to the House floor this week, according to sources close to Congressional leadership. The legislation, H.Con.Res.362, which is paralleled by a similar Senate bill, has gained bipartisan support rapidly, with more co-sponsors signing on by the day. Once it hits the floor, it’s bound to “pass like a hot knife through butter,” a staffer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office told Chelsea Mozen of the nonprofit Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.truthout.org/articl…..h-act-iran
My understanding was that it actually called for a blockade, is being pressed by AIPAC, and has, through tremendous lobbying and pressure, gained a lot of support.
bmaz, thats what I read too.
Here’s some references for others:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…..8;aid=9377
http://groups.google.com/group…..423a71f09a
slippery slope these so called “non-binding” resolutions. Was the 2002 war resolution “non binding”?
H.Con. Res 362
http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=hc110-362
Just completely ignores the latest NIE( national intelligence estimate) on Iran
One of the interesting things about Fine’s report is the criteria he used for defining highly qualified applicants. For the 2002 Honors program, he used a very stringent set. You had to met all four of these:
• Attended a top 20 ranked law school,
• Was in the top 20 percent of the class,
• Had a federal judicial clerkship, and
• Was a member of the law review.
Only 71 (less than 8% of the 911) applicants were in that group. Looking at the data for other years, it is reasonable to assume that group would have had a 100% acceptance rate (don’t forget, these folks had already been picked by various DOJ components). Instead, the acceptance rate for the group was slightly less than for the total pool of applicants (63% vs. 66%). That’s largely because only 3 of the 18 identifiably liberal applicants in the highly qualified group were selected.
Sounds like a lot of hoopla at DOJ to disguise the overtly subjective hiring criteria. Something State is also known for.
As for the “highly qualified” criteria, it seems to leave out quite a lot. How about the top 5 students, or top 1-5% at the top 50 law schools? State supreme court clerkships instead of only federal? Jessup, mock trial, criminal advocacy and client counseling winners at national competitions? Those who also had military or civilian criminal justice experience and those who couldn’t afford to clerk for a year or two and still pay law school debts. But then, Bush doesn’t want “excellence”; the competition frightens him. Imagine earning one’s way through life and career instead of being to the manor born. He just wants loyalty.
One hopes that a President Obama’s DOJ would look for excellence, and excellence in spite of adversity, with a keener eye.
I don’t think that implication is that those criteria are the only possible ones for qualifying, or the only one that should be used by a selection committee. It’s just that an IG has to pick some set of criteria to measure against; and those are a sufficiently reasonable proxy for quality that one can examine the extent to which applicant quality is taken into account.
The numbers WO gives certainly say, pretty clearly, that applicant quality was simply not a consideration for acceptance. Even had liberals been accepted at the same rate as the general pool, the rate at which these 8% were accepted would only have been 10% higher than average.
I thought Ciongoli’s name sounded familiar.
He’s the guy who helped prepare Alito, then went to work as Alito’s law clerk at the S Ct. Looks like he went briefed in on how Alito should rule, about what, for whom and whyfor.
All that in addition to his prior work restricting the 9/11 Commission access to people and documents (I wonder if it was his idea for Cheney to go hold Bush’s hand during the commission questions?)
And Wray must have really had a hard time finding time for both torture field trips AND salting DOJ with underqualified, obstruction oriented, pro-Republican crimes and cover up, puppets.
Shocking.
What’s next… all heads should role.
Mukasey says he sorry… WTF?
Where’s the report on Gonzo?
72 – Right now, my hopes pretty much end at “Excellence at Executive Amnesty” for the Obama DOJ.
Does anyone really believe for one minute that McNulty didn’t know what Elston was up to? And that McNulty’s boss didn’t know either? And that McNulty’s boss’ boss . . .
empytwheel @41
logorrhea = “a diarrhea of the mouth problem”
If Bush was Corporate Prez, the Board would immediately fired his arse
They have fuckin’ gamed the system, played out the clock, fiddled and diddled and have harmed the justice system.
Nancy, impeachment is back on the table!
I wonder if Fine produced a draft, then Mukasey got the commission to walk OPR into the project. Better appearances than publication of a redacted version, especially when Judge Bates is concerned about how to review Conyers’s committee’s subpoenas, whether congress deserves to have the right to subpoena Miers, Bolten.
ot
Interesting one hour watch and listen
http://www.informationclearing…..e20155.htm
Is deselecting the same as a wardrobe malfunction?
Ew
http://rawstory.com/news08/200…..etap-bill/
Feingold, Dodd planning filibuster of wiretap bill
FEINGOLD BASICALLY SAID THIS ON DEMOCRACY NOW TODAY
Thanks for the link.
One line of speculation I’ve read has been that the Senate will strip out the retroactive immunity. Bush will veto. Then the Senate and the House will be able to say that they passed stronger surveillance bills that Bush vetoed.
Feingold talked about “censuring” Bush today on Democracy Now. He talked about “impeachable offenses”
Feingold transcript on Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/24/feingold
AMY GOODMAN: What role did the telecommunications companies play in writing this bill?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, they clearly wanted this immunity. They think they should be let off the hook, regardless of what the current laws require. I think, and many of my allies on this think, that the courts should decide it based on the law.
Sadly, the administration has been very behind the telephone companies’ desire to have this immunity, maybe even leading the charge, because there is an additional benefit to them if this immunity goes through. It may block our ability to directly challenge in court the violation of the Constitution that the illegal wiretapping program represents.
The President takes the position that under Article II of the Constitution he can ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We believe that that’s absolutely wrong. I have pointed out that I think it is not only against the law, but I think it’s a pretty plain impeachable offense that the President created this program, and yet this immunity provision may have the effect not only of giving immunity to the telephone companies, but it may also allow the administration to block legal accountability for this crime, which I believe it is.
And, you know, the United States Supreme Court, even though seven out of the ten justices—seven out of the nine justices were appointed by Republicans, they just recently repudiated the President again on excessive executive powers when it came to the detainees. Here, they may do it also, and it would be a very significant ruling. And yet, the administration may well be able to block accountability on this in front of the courts by this legislation that Democrats are going to allow to go through.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, explain exactly what you think is an impeachable offense.
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, you know, this is one of the things that’s been debated over the centuries, but I believe that when—it has to do with the rule of law and the very structure of our system of government, in other words, not just the issue that many have been concerned about, misleading the country into war, the Iraq war. That was a terrible thing, and, you know, some say that’s an impeachable offense. But to me, when the law is clear, when it’s absolutely clear that there is a clear statute and the President creates his own idea of a law and says he doesn’t have to follow the duly elected laws of the land, to me, that’s right at the core of what the founders of this country meant when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.
So, I’m not calling for impeachment. I’m not saying that that’s something that’s realistic or the right thing for Democrats to do at this point. What I’m saying is the idea of a law that will prohibit the courts potentially from ruling on this is against the rule of law and also protects the President from a historical record that I think should show that he did something that was at least impeachable when it comes to these warrantless wiretaps.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, last year, you called for President Bush and Vice President Cheney—it was just about a year ago—to be censured, not impeached, but censured. Do you think they should be impeached now?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: I think they should be censured. I think the idea of going through an impeachment process at this point is obviously not going to happen and a sort of a futile exercise, because there’s simply not the will to do it. But I think a censure resolution that essentially lays out the same case, that for the first time since Andrew Jackson says this president has actually violated the laws of the land and has disregarded our system of government, is a very important step. I know it won’t happen. I know it’s not going to be brought up. But I do think it would be the appropriate step and at least set the stage for pulling back on these excessive claims of executive power that were made by this president. The next president has to renounce these kind of claims, and I think a censure resolution would help that.
Not gonna happen. There is not reason to think that, after the Senate voted down immunity in even less real forms in February, they’re now going to reject it. There simply aren’t enough Senators who give a damn abotu rule of law.
And what EW says too!
Keep in mind what cboldt has told us about the procedure. Filibuster is not what it used to be, what Feingold can accomplish from what he said is talk for one hour during a maximum of a 30 hour period. The key is still Obama, Reid and Durbin laying the whip to the caucus. Filibuster won’t do squat in the long run unless several Senators are going to help and are literally going to maximally monkeywrench every conceivable point. There is no discussion of such an all out effort, so this is kind of meaningless.
letting folks know
Hey, be advised, that is my interpretation of cboldt, but I think he is right (and I think I have gotten the basics from what he laid out right). I am certainly no definitive source though. Here are a compilation of his comments on this issue:
I agree with your interpretation of cboldt.
So two thirds of those voting can shut down a fillibuster is that right? With the exception of certain “matters”
A week ago this time I thought the real hope might be squeezing a comma into the Senate Bill so it had to go back to the House and buy time to pull a few Reps back over. But 107 is not a few.
somewhat OT, but about politicization of our gubment
from Raw Story
mcjoan has this up over at Kos: E-mail from Sen. Reid –
“Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor.”
extraordinary circumstances
And Obama will vote for that. The question is whether or not Reid and Durbin are going to bring the wood in whipping their caucus on this. The history of these jackals is too poor for me to believe any of their posturing until they back it up. Let’s assume they do, there are some absolutely horrendous other things in the bill that ought not to go through. The whole thing ought to be punted until the next administration.
Completely agree.
It would be nice if some Senator would mention blocking US citizens who were fluent in Arabic really crippled our attempt at arrest/kill Osama. The legacy media might even pick up on that.
This goes to the parallel OT thread here on Obama’s complicity in the House Dem leaders’ shepherding the FISA capitulation through to the Senate & the impending resolution demanding sanctions on Iran & the now ongoing Iran blockade:
Why would a notoriously sure-footed smart guy like Charlie Black – McCain’s Brain after all & a hell of a lot bigger one than Rove ever was to Bush – suddenly go off the deep end against an entire career of making the smart behind the scenes move – & force the spotlight on himself – & say something so outrageous his own guy comes out almost immediately & denounces it as effectively incomprehensible & rejects the suggestion in the clearest firmest monotones – as if it was all so unexpected of Charlie to do such a thing?
Why would Pelosi & Hoyer so sure-footedly shepherd the FISA capitulation through the House after being so apparently pleased by the pre-existing House bill? Why would Reid cooperate in putting it on the Senate agenda so quickly? Why would a smart constitutional cookie like Obama not take this clear opportunity to show one-ness with the liberals & progressives in his base & go off endorsing Blue Dogs over progressives in nomination battles?
Is it possible that a very scared to the point of being desperate Bush & Cheney might come to realize that unless they did the FISA telco immunity deal before Congress breaks for this summer the chances of any such deal happening after the Conventions & with Congress critters scattered across the country in full election gear are effectively nil? And if so – what would they have to bargain with?
And if the Israelis were confident that Cheney could still talk Bush into Bomb Bomb Bomb – Bomb Bomb Iran mode in defiance of the NIE – after all he’s already talked him into doing – then why would they be engaging in such bellicosity as their current war games? And why would Bolton be talking up an Israeli strike which given the NIE would meet with the sort of rejection at the UN that Mohamed al Barahei’s recent comments suggest when he spoke of such a strike setting the entire region on fire & forcing his resignation?
Could the Iran resolution & prospective blockade be opposing sides in the same drama? Could it be that Flynt Leverett’s desire for a ’grand bargain’ is playing out right now between the lame duck 43rd POTUS & the presumptive impending 44th?
Just asking.
I have had very similar thoughts. Some back door deals taking place.
National Intelligence Estimate being completely ignored in H.Con Resolution 362
http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=hc110-362
We don’t know the half of it…
I suppose this is the kind of context that EW’s going meta on Ghorbanifar time line permits us. But defining, recognizing, proving or testing the validity of meta-analysis is a ambitious endeavor. That is not deny that movements can have overriding spirits.
With the rash of IG reports, a kind of executive branch self-disclosure, some kind of grand bargain has to be in the offing where one aspect is in an attempt to minimize W’s ultimate culpability. This much like the fact that Feith, Rove, Libby, Fleisher, Gonzales, Haynes, Meir etc. are no longer being a part of the administration attempts to isolate and minimize culpability. Its really not so much of a “the buck stops here” approach now is it? Still we can only speculate from the effects or, cheers, its firewalls & grand bargains then.
And then there is a strategic question that arises from rkilowatt’s observations in the Ghorbanifar II thread concerning the petro-anglo-oligarchy’s use of royal families in managing the global oil trade. Obviously there is some historical truth there and it makes W’s focus on some kind of representative process in Iraq all the more curious, especially if his vision is of the kind of democracy that seems to be emerging here in the “homeland” with new sovereign powers being vested in corporate constituencies. Is this a true strategic shift?
Finally, I would still really like to know if anyone has any clear sense of whether continued inquiry into the operations of Francis Brookes with the INC would amount to a worth while endeavor or not?
A “subpoena” for Feith
http://www.rawstory.com/news/m…..42008.html
But the NIE IS referenced in Sen Bayh’s subsequent parallel bill:
http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=sr110-580
Oh surely not even the half of the half.
Oop- that was in response to Loo Hoo @ 115.