Nixon and the Clinton impeachment: half a motive

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Henry Hyde’s comments about the failed GOP effort to impeach Clinton have gotten a lot of publicity. On the verge of retiring, last Thursday Rep. Hyde (R-Ill.) made some attention-garnering and relatively frank statements.

 

Interviewed by ABC, Hyde suggested that he has had “second thoughts about leading the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection to the Monica Lewinsky affair because the process led to the embarrassing disclosure of Hyde’s own extramarital affair in the 1960s . . .”

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/042105_ns_hyde.html

 

“Would you do it again?” asked ABC7’s political reporter Andy Shaw. “That is a very good question. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I might not,” said Hyde . . . admitting for the first time that the impeachment of Clinton may have been in part political revenge against the democrats for the impeachment proceedings against GOP President Richard Nixon 25 years earlier.”

            “Was this pay back?” asked Andy Shaw. “I can’t say it wasn’t. [Hyde] But I also thought that the Republican Party should stand for something, and if we walked away from this, no matter how difficult, we could be accused of shirking our duty,” said Hyde.”

 

The comments generated some embarrassment and wrath among conservatives and consequent pressure on ABC, or at least perceived as such by ABC, so that it actually removed the offending material from its web site temporarily:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/clinton_impeachment_hyde_abc_yanks_422.htm

 

No surprise there. Anyone who watched the Oscars either this year or last year – the most frightened broadcasts ever, for Hollywood’s annual celebration of itself – already knows the extent of ABC timidity, apparently born out of some delusion that there is a nationwide groundswell of populist adoration for George W. Bush. But alarm over Hyde’s remarks, from any political angle, is giving them more than their due.

 

Candid though he may have been, Hyde at 81 is still one of the most senior members of Congress, and well able to remember Nixon’s downfall. Nixon gave his resignation speech in August, 1974, when Hyde was in the prime of life and more pertinently was running for Congress, which he entered in 1975. I personally remember where I was at the time, because that was the summer I spent in beautiful Bread Loaf, Vermont, at the Bread Loaf School of English. It was my first trip to Vermont and my first stay in New England, and I took a course in Renaissance drama from Bart Giamatti; any one of those factors would have made the time memorable for me. Television was not allowed, but a set was brought in for Nixon’s resignation – only the second time in the history of the school that that had happened.

 

The point here is that Nixon’s fate is a less green memory for younger members of Congress and their allies in rightwing media, think tanks, and interest groups. It happened in the childhood of the fortyish, before the formative years of thirtysomethings, and before the birth of twentysomethings. It’s not necessarily the burning issue for them that it was for Hyde and some of his peers.

 

A more pressing and immediate issue than Nixon, in the late 1990s, was that Clinton was in the White House for a second term after 1996, Al Gore looked like a good candidate for 2000, and it was beginning to be known that George W. Bush wanted to run for the GOP nomination.

 

Anyone who can read should know that George Walker Bush was putting his White House campaign in place from 1996, and more importantly that the shapers and powers around him were also doing their job from 1996 on. Regardless of the quietness with which he began his presidential campaign efforts, Bush was a very good bet to win the nomination by default if he tried seriously for it – even with his comparative lack of resume, shortness of political career, and closet of individual and family skeletons.

 

But that scenario still left the aforementioned skimpiness of merit and abundance of problems that would have to be dealt with, for the Republican Party to win the White House with Bush at the top of the ticket. I’ll treat those bogus accusations of “murder” against Mrs. Clinton some other time. For now, it is not a given that Clinton alone was the object of the impeachment strategy. That cannot be assumed. If you’re soon going to nominate a man whom you must secretly suspect to have potential for impeachment himself, then what you need more than anything else is – I hate to say this – a preemptive strike.

 

And surely every figure in Washington informed about the younger George Bush must have been at least slightly acquainted with his shadowy resume: the special treatment in re Vietnam, the years of problem drinking and highly credible rumors of other substance abuse, the rumors of at least one drug arrest with an out arranged for him by his father (then ambassador to the U.N.) through community service, the years of drift in his personal and professional life, the series of favors and special deals that made him rich and gave him his resume as a businessman in spite of companies that foundered – the list of major problems could be, and undoubtedly was, subdivided into richly detailed branches.

 

In short, literally nothing in Bush’s history could cause party supporters or sympathetic interest groups to assume that he would be immune to the pressures and temptations of high office. What to do? – Why, strike first, on the chance that it might help and couldn’t hurt. (Not that preemptive strike was the only tactic employed, but we can revisit some of the other tactics later.)

“Imaginary Crimes”: a book recommendation

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Hidden guilt – hidden even from the self – afflicts ordinary people in everyday life, with costs uncounted and uncountable, according to a book by Lewis Engel, PhD, and Tom Ferguson, MD, titled Imaginary Crimes (Houghton Mifflin, 1990). The thesis of Imaginary Crimes is simple: many adults suffer from a version of “survivor’s guilt,” a guilt not over wrong done but over the mere fact of having come out ahead in some situation or even over just having lived when others died or were harmed.

 

Survivor’s guilt has long been recognized in Holocaust survivors and their families, combat veterans and their families – this kind of guilt, with a virus-like knack for camouflage, can be transmitted to relatives – and prisoners and their families.

 

Engel and Ferguson apply this concept to less disrupted lives, even to ordinary lives. To a surprising extent, according to the authors, millions of us are liable to one or another form of this hidden guilt, of which we ourselves are unaware.

 

I cannot recommend the prose style of this otherwise valuable book, and regrettably the authors have to disguise individual case studies so much that the anecdotes come out garbled and difficult to relate to. But the basic categories of imaginary crime are lucid and informative. “Most of us believe ourselves guilty of one or more of the six common imaginary crimes described on the following pages”:

  • Outdoing – “The crime of outdoing can result from surpassing a family member in any way . . .”
  • Burdening – “If either or both of your parents seemed weighed down by life, or drained by parental responsibilities, you may suffer from the imaginary crime of burdening.”
  • Love theft – “Love theft is the crime of receiving the love or attention that another family member seemed to need in order to thrive.”
  • Abandonment – “Abandonment is the crime of wanting to separate from your parents . . . simply distancing yourself from them – physically or emotionally – can make you unconsciously feel as if you are abandoning them.”
  • Disloyalty – “The crime of family disloyalty can result from breaking family rules or disappointing parental expectations.”
  • Basic badness – “Most of us have suffered to some extent from bad messages. As a result, we sense that we are somehow inherently flawed . . . not important, not worthwhile, not lovable, not attractive, not caring, or not intelligent.”

 

The authors explain some of these categories better than they do others. “Basic badness,” for example, is less coherent than other illusory crimes but seems reminiscent of the “We’re not worthy” scene in Wayne’s World. It’s also probably widely spread among offspring of the Greatest Generation, who often received a message, however unintentional, that “Whosever wish or pleasure or convenience is consulted, it won’t be yours.”

 

This book is not pessimistic – the good news about guilt, after all, is that it indicates a conscience, a capacity to regret that better things didn’t happen to other people, especially the ones we loved.

 

The book is therefore a useful reminder and clarification of some fundamentals. Good bedside reading, a little at a time.

Little help for one Texas family

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[I am conveying this message, for what little help possible, for a Texas woman who has been through more than any one family can endure.]

 

To: BOC ADMINISTRATOR & BOARD MEMBERS

 

From: Brenda Pitts Bennett

(Mother of inmate)

701 Meadowdale

Royse City, Texas75189

bbbennett@cebridge.net

972-636-3575 

Dear Mr. Administrator,

Hello and hope you are good?I am faxing you this plea letter regarding my son, Chad Ray Bennett TDCJ # 1282720 who resides at The Byrd Unit in Huntsville where he was sent last week from Middleton Transfer Facility in Abilene? We had been told many times that Chad was on his way home yet he never made it home and we had to cancel the burial a few times.

My problem is that I and a few others in the funeral business have tried to just help us to get my son home for his fathers funeral.

I had to put the funeral off several times now because I would be told by someone at TDCJ and Rockwall County Jail that Chad was on his way to our area yet he never showed up. Chad’s dad has now been passed on now near two weeks in our wait for Chad to get here. This has made it very hard on our family as you can imagine if this was your family. And this death is just adding fire to the damages already in our lives as our 21 year old beautiful, perfect son died last year. My baby sons death happened while Chad was in TDCJ also and Chad and Chip was like twins and best friends and yes TDCJ may have changed employees since that time but we had no problems getting Chad home for his brothers funeral.

My entire family suffers with Lyme Disease which when is not treated properly ( which it is not treated properly in Texas) leaves people with Lyme in tragic health conditions and constantly fighting to hang on to life. I have begged TDCJ to study this disease and they could possibly not contribute to my only son I have left life but still no medical help has been given. My 28 daughter had 2 heart attacks from Lyme Disease and I could go on and on just so you could understand what we have to deal with.

I was told several different stories and one of them was that Chad has not been in TDCJ six months yet therefore he can’t come to his father’s funeral. I had a dear friend in the political arena to look up rules on this for me and I was told that there is no such rule.

But she was the only person who told me this. The others told us other stories such as he was on his way, etc.

But even if this woman’s story was true about the six months time limit, my son has been in TDCJ more than six months and we was told that the many months he spent in the Rockwall County Jail and the Dallas County Jail was both TDCJ time.

I cannot understand “ why “ some of your employees try to make this a hard task to get a son home for his fathers funeral? This is a shame and none of us can get any closure until my son can get home for his dads funeral.

If my son had done something that was so wrong as to be on the top ten list of “ bad crimes” I could even understand this better but my son is in TDCJ only because his girlfriend was evidently a medical assistant and she admits to be hooked on pain killers and not from having a reason to need these medications and she was doing this fraudulently. I can think just off the top of my head of at least 30 people that went to pick her medications up for her as everyone assumed she was truthful and had a disease but my son did not even pick these medications up for her he only took her bags to carry for her as she handed them to Chad.

And some could say that he was aware of his girl doing this illegally so he could have some but this is not true. My son was in TDCJ last year and he was having severe migraines, upchucking, seizures, and many other complicating health issues. WE assumed all this was happening from his Lyme Disease but TDCJ medically neglected him and through all my pleas and many private doctors pleas for TDCJ to just do a MRI were denied.

When Chad was released August 24, 04 his seizures became so… bad that an ambulance had to take him to the Hospital at Baylor Hospital where they did many testing which proved him to have brain and testicle masses and many other diagnosis’s caused from the Lyme Disease.

BaylorHospital gave Chad a lifetime refills of vikoden, Valium, morphine, etc. Another words he had no reason to need someone else’s medications. He had enough strong prescriptions of his own.

My son asked for a Jury Trial for this charge but the DA made strong accusations that Chad should take the plea of 2 years (and we later learned this had 2 paragraphs added to it which means that if my son gets in trouble again even if it is to steal a candy bar which could happen in reality because he has Lyme Disease and will live on SSI which their amount of recourses is about $500.00 a month. I fear Chad will because if he didn’t the Jury would be told by the DA that Chad had been in TDCJ before and the DA promised Chad he would get 20 years and up. My son is 30 years old and he has been incrassated about 10 years of his life for what was a bizarre charge also and you can read more of this on a web site later if you want at:  www.geocities.com/copbrutality

Of course I believe this sort of coaxing from District Attorneys should be a crime for DA’s with bigger sentences than the person who does not know the laws but my son is in jail and for not doing a crime at all and now all this trouble of him not getting to come to his dads funeral is not at all understandable!

We have reset Chad’s dad’s funeral once again for Thursday (tomorrow) at 2:00 PM at Farmersville Texas with just a graveside funeral. There is only one graveyard in Farmersville and I believe it is on Main Street.

They said they have called your office a few times and that he gets the same answer from a woman there saying that it is impossible for Chad to come to his fathers funeral and there is no reason to even send the administrator anything because it will be denied.

A Moratorium named Wilson‘s in GarlandTexas on Forest Lane said they faxed and called ya’ll also but he was given similar answers. Wilson‘s embalmed my kids dad and Rockwall County Indigent paid them for this. I did not know how we could pay for more but thanks be to God there is a contributor that is giving us a graveside funeral and a lot.

I trust that you can please help to get my son home for his fathers funeral? This is more important than a usual circumstance because of losing his brother last year. This is not much for any mom to ask.

Thank you,

Brenda Pitts Bennett

http://www.lymenet.org/SupportGroups/UnitedStates/Texas/LDN.shtml

Time for Greenspan to resign

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It is time for Mr. Greenspan to retire. Things were bad enough last week, when he appeared publicly to support, at least partly, the White House attack on Social Security.

 

Time out:  yes, it is an attack on Social Security. Regardless of the choice of euphemisms, any proposal to “divert” or otherwise remove payroll taxes from the Social Security program, to send them elsewhere, is taking money out of Social Security.

 

Payroll taxes, you see, are what fund the Social Security program. So taking even part of the payroll taxes and sending them to Wall Street, or into some form of bundled private accounts that amounts to sending them to Wall Street, is taking money out of Social Security.

 

This is, on the face of it and self-evidently, the reverse of what Social Security needs. There is no “crisis” facing the Social Security program as yet, of course, and there is no “crisis” due for many years, indeed for decades. The program will not even end its break-even period for many years. The GWBush campaign to pretend that the program over-all needs urgent immediate assistance is so obviously smarmy and bogus that even the opinion polls reveal that less than half the public supports any part of the White House’s thus-far-guarded hints at what it wants.

 

In so far as there is a genuine problem looming in future, it can be fixed. That is, any future revenues shortfall can be easily addressed – by increasing revenues in the most painless, the simplest, and the most sensible way, in other words by removing the payroll tax cap for the wealthy. Payroll taxes now are levied only on the first $90K of income, a regressive tax that penalizes everyone but the wealthy. Tax the higher income brackets, and you’ve made a start at addressing any future shortfall. In fact, since that money will be earning money itself, the shortfall is postponed as well as diminished.

 

But if Social Security needs a revenue boost, the way to accomplish that is not to take money out of Social Security. And yet, what the Bush White House is proposing is (repeat after me) to take money out of Social Security. They’ve even got some of the rightwing “noise machine” arguing that the program is a “Ponzi scheme” – apparently because people keep being born and then aging. Presumably they feel the same way about education, and for that matter, churches:  new people keep getting born, and then, they put their children into schools and churches, and then, blame it, the schools and churches keep requiring support.

 

Speaking of simple taxes, Greenspan appeared today to advise the White House taxation council with his ghastly recommendation:  make our taxes even more regressive. He’s out in public talking about “broadening the tax base,” cf. those pyramid-building scenes in the old Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments, with innumerable insect-like extras pulling gargantuan blocks of rock on huge logs, to build a monument for mummies. Our “tax base” isn’t “broad” enough already, with the top two percent raking in every conceivable tax advantage, both direct and indirect, from Bush’s unconscionable tax cuts for the rich to the corporate dodges that high-powered lawyers push in federal courts at taxpayer expense, and everybody else making up the difference, through either more taxes or fewer services, or both?

 

On top of that, he’s even talking about – and this has been the dream of the nut right ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt – a national “consumption tax,” as though that were the kind of thing we need more of. Take one moment and consider this suggestion clearly. We need a federal “consumption tax,” at a time when the states and municipalities are taxing, fee-ing, tolling, licensing and permit-ing virtually every legal activity known to man, and largely because of Bush’s budget-busting? Has the man gone around the bend? Aside possibly from food in cans, is there anything we don’t already pay some kind of surcharge on to consume, to sell, or even to make? We pay sales taxes on vehicles and fuel; we pay taxes, fees and tolls for bridges, tunnels and open (ha) highway lanes; barbers, liquor store proprietors, dog groomers and a host of other small operators pay for a license just to set up shop; is there any sizeable sector of the economy that is free of “consumption” surcharges in some form, aside from the corporations and individuals able to park a chunk of their operating revenues overseas or offshore?

 

I have no personal feeling against Mr. Greenspan. He even hired one of my own younger relatives, an assistant of his. But if he is going to go along with the reverse-FDR, Warren-G-Harding-on-meth, starve-the-public, bloat-the-contractors, uber-laissez-faire-for-the- rich, ultra-control-for-everybody-else intriguing of a vilely selfish cadre in one administration, then he has lost all claim to be the voice of economic reason. You can either go along with the administration’s ghastly, intentional rotting-out of a vibrant and socially mobile middle class, or you can speak for fiscal probity. Not both.

 

It’s time for him either to reconsider, or to resign.

More from Go-ahead Jeff

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The more I look at these White House press briefings, the more I don’t understand why Helen Thomas was, apparently, the only regular reporter to catch this guy. Here is a further sampling of questions he posed. Note particularly the alert attention to nonexistent issues that could benefit the White House, the absence of any pretense of nonpartisanship, and the attack on the press:

 

[June 18, 2003]

Q Democrats in Congress are dragging their feet on the president’s free trade initiatives. Is the president frustrated by the loss of business and jobs, as result of their procrastination?

 

[June 26, 2003]

Q Two questions, please. Earlier in the year, the president announced a plan to competitively source over 400,000 federal jobs. Democrats in Congress are attaching language to appropriations bills for each of the agencies to prevent that. Is that something that the president would veto if those bills came to his desk with that language in it?

MR. FLEISCHER: On competitive souring?

Q Yes.

 

[December 22, 2003]

Q I have a six-point question. Does the president share the view of millions of Americans who pray for him every day that hard-left groups like the ACLU and Americans for Separation of Church and State are waging a war on religion, and particularly — in particular, Christianity?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, I think you’ve heard the president’s views when it comes to religion. He’s spoken out very forcefully on this issue. The president is someone who believes in the right of all people to freely express their religious views. And he is someone that believes in religious tolerance. The president believes that we should welcome people of all faiths, and that those of faith should not be discriminated against. Those are the president’s views, and he’s talked about that repeatedly.

Q In particularly, I’m trying to evoke a statement from the president, who’s a deeply religious person, to a bewildered and angry majority of Americans who see their freedom of religion being infringed by the courts and a shrill minority.[N.b.: This isn’t the only time this speaker has alluded to nonexistent attacks on Christmas by an unspecified minority.]

 

[January 23, 2004]

Q Thanks, Scott. Some of the president’s most ardent supporters were disappointed that he didn’t say more in his State of the Union Address about the out-of-control judiciary. While the Pickering appointment was well received, what’s the president going to do to break the logjam of the obstructionist minority in the Senate on his judges that are still being filibustered?

MR. MCCLELLAN: The president continues to urge a minority of Senate Democrats to quit playing politics with our nation’s judicial system. The Senate needs to move forward and give all nominees an up- or-down vote. That is their constitutional responsibility. The president has put forward highly qualified nominees, and the Senate — a minority of Senate Democrats have chosen to play partisan politics and obstruct the process. Meanwhile, there are some judicial emergencies that need to be filled, and one of those was the vacant seat that Judge Pickering is now filling.

Q In the 6th Circuit in particular, there is a judicial crisis where the caseloads are far in excess of the average of the other circuits. Will the president recess appointment just to fill those vacancies?

 

[November 8, 2004]

Q Thank you. With all the reaching out that’s going on around here, the president said Thursday in his press conference that he was reaching out to the press corps.

What did he mean by that? And why would he feel the need to reach out to a group of supposedly nonpartisan people?

MR. MCCLELLAN: I think that was a tongue-in-cheek comment that the president made at the beginning of the press conference. He was showing his outreach efforts by holding that press conference the day after the election was decided.

Q Has he decided to let bygones be bygones and —

MR. MCCLELLAN: Look. Look. You heard — you heard from the president —

Q — (inaudible)?

MR. MCCLELLAN: You heard from the president at the news conference. The media certainly has an important role to play in keeping the American people informed about the decisions that we make here in Washington, D.C. He has —

Q Despite the role that they tried to play, the president won anyhow. Is there some kind of rapprochement that’s going on?

On domestic security, Iraq and the White House — from “Jeff Gannon”

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From the transcripts, there is little doubt that “Jeff Gannon” tried to deflect any criticism of the White House re Iraq or domestic security, by any means:

 

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[November 5, 2003]
Q I know that you said you hadn’t seen the Rockefeller memo that Jim referred to, but I have, and it clearly outlines a Democrat plan to exploit the information gathered by the committee to undermine the president’s reelection chances. Under those circumstances, would the White House consider halting the transfer of documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee until a Senate ethics panel investigates the matter?

MR. MCCLELLAN: We have been and will continue to work cooperatively with the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is our position. We want to assist them and help — we want to be helpful in their efforts to review the intelligence relating to Iraq. That’s exactly what we plan to continue doing. Again, I just have not seen that specific memo. I’ve seen the news reports. But, you know, we would hope that people are not trying to politicize an issue of such importance.

Q Doesn’t the implication of the memo cast a whole new light on the Niger controversy and all of the things that have ensued after the remarks of Joe Wilson?

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[March 22, 2004]
Q Does the president have any regrets about his “new tone” policy now that one more Clinton holdover has betrayed his administration?  [this is about Dick Clarke]

MR. MCCLELLAN: I’m sorry, does the president have —

Q Well, does he have any regrets about the new tone that he wanted to set in Washington, now that these people from the previous administration, from another political party, have taken the actions they have done?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, let me just — I mean, without getting into specific areas there; just broadly, the president has always been someone who’s worked to elevate the discourse, and worked to focus on where we can advance on common ground issues of great importance. There are many common challenges that we have, and the president believes it’s important to reach out and work together to address those priorities. Certainly it’s difficult to change the tone in this town. But the president —

Q Don’t you see it as a little one-sided here?

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[March 24, 2004]
Q On the issue of the credibility, a staff report of the 9/11 commission was released yesterday, and in it it said that they had not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim that they offered Osama bin Laden to the United States in 1996.

This is despite a speech by President Clinton to the Long Island Association in 2002 where he said, and I’ll quote, “I did not bring him here because we had no basis” to hold him. And he also went on to say, and he “pleaded with the Saudis to take him,” unquote. Do you think something like this undermines the credibility of the conclusions that the commission is going to reach in matters like this?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, one, I haven’t had a chance to look at the commission report. We certainly are working very closely and cooperatively with the commission so that they can get to the bottom of this matter, and —

Q It was in their opening statement, before any witnesses testified yesterday. That’s why I bring it up.

MR. MCCLELLAN: And they made the claim that —

Q Yes, that there was no evidence to support the Sudanese claim that they offered Osama bin Laden to the United States in 1996.

 

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[April 16, 2004]
Q The White House declassified the August 6, 2001, PDB for the 9/11 commission investigation. Will there be others? And have there been other PDBs that have been declassified?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the September 11th commission has talked about some that maybe they would like to see declassified. You might want to direct some questions to them. Those are always issues that certainly we talk with the commission about in direct discussions. And we always talk with them in a spirit of trying to make sure they have all the information they need to do their job.

Q But it’s you that make the decision to declassify it?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, if there are requests that are made of us, we’ll work with the commission and discuss those issues with the commission. I’m not going to get into discussing specific issues that may be going on at this point. But we always work with them to accommodate their needs.

Q One more question on that.

MR. MCCLELLAN: We try to be fully responsive. Well, we have worked to be fully responsive to all their requests, I might point out.

Q Are PDBs from the previous administration, are those under consideration to be declassified?

 

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[April 28, 2004]
Q Is there any agreement between the White House and the 9/11 commission regarding the president’s and the vice president’s remarks tomorrow; that is, not revealing them to the public and only including them in the report; or should we expect to see commissioners on television tomorrow afternoon characterizing those remarks?

MR. MCCLELLAN: I don’t know what the commission’s plans are following the meeting. I know that when they met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, that they put out a statement afterwards and pretty much let that speak for the meeting. But I don’t know what their plans are for tomorrow.

Q Is Commissioner Gorelick going to participate in this tomorrow or is she going to recuse herself?

MR. MCCLELLAN: We’ve been told that all 10 commission members will be present tomorrow.

 

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[April 29, 2004]
Q Some Republicans on Capitol Hill believe that the work of the 9/11 commission won’t be complete until and unless Jamie Gorelick testifies before the commission on her role in building the wall between intelligence and law enforcement. Is that an opinion shared by the White House?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Look, the president — you know, I think even at the beginning of the meeting he made some brief remarks — he didn’t have a prepared opening statement or anything like that, but certainly made some opening remarks for being — and essentially, I think, he thanked them for the work that they’re doing, talked about how he appreciated what they were doing and that their work is very important to what we are doing to protect the American people. And I think that the president looks at this and doesn’t believe that there ought to be finger-pointing. We ought to all be working together to learn the lessons of September 11th and make sure that we are doing everything that we can to protect the homeland and win the war on terrorism. That’s the way he looks at it.

Q Well, the Justice Department keeps releasing documents. They’ve released another — they declassified 30 pages yesterday that reinforce the idea that —

MR. MCCLELLAN: I think the president — yeah —

Q — Ms. Gorelick has more that she could offer to —

MR. MCCLELLAN: No, I understand that’s what the Justice Department did.

We were not involved in it. I think the president was disappointed about that.

Q The president was disappointed in the Justice Department for releasing that document?

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[April 30, 2004]
Q Yesterday the White House criticized the Justice Department for releasing the Gorelick memos. You said the president doesn’t believe that there should be finger-pointing. This indicates that you know there is something in those memos that is potentially damaging to Commissioner Gorelick. Why shouldn’t this information be made public?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Jeff, I think that there’s work going on by the 9/11 commission to look at all issues related to the threat from terrorism prior to September 11th. And I said yesterday that it’s important for the commission to look at everything that can help them complete their work.

And, you know, I think what I was referring to on the Justice Department, I addressed yesterday, and I think I will leave it there. I think the president made his views known.

Q Okay, fine. It was Senator Cornyn and also Senator Graham that requested that information be released, in a letter to them a week ago. So it wasn’t the Justice Department that was just acting on its own to do that; it was from a specific request from the Senate. And Senator Cornyn believes that Commissioner Gorelick should testify in front of the 9/11 commission. Why shouldn’t Commissioner Gorelick have her chance to publicly apologize to the 9/11 families?

 

 

MR. MCCLELLAN: Go ahead, Jeff. You had one.
[June 15, 2004]
Q Thanks. Why hasn’t the administration made more of the U.N. inspector’s report that says Saddam Hussein was dismantling his missile and WMD sites before and during the war? And doesn’t that, combined with the now-proven al Qaeda link between Iraq — between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization unequivocally make the case for going to war in Iraq?

 

 

Go ahead, Jeff.
[July 15, 2004]
Q Thank you.

Q A Calhoun. (Laughter.)

Q Forgive me if my colleagues — forgive me if my colleagues have already touched on this subject, but last Friday the Senate Intelligence —

MR. MCCLELLAN: Three if we don’t shout all over each other and we have a civil discourse.

Q I have a question.

MR. MCCLELLAN: I’m coming to you, Helen.

Q Last Friday the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that shows that Ambassador Joe Wilson lied when he said his wife didn’t put him up for the mission to Niger. The British inquiry into their own prewar intelligence yesterday concluded that the president’s 16 words were, quote, “well founded,” unquote. Doesn’t Joe Wilson owe the president and America an apology for his deception and his own intelligence failure?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, one, let me point out that I think those reports speak for themselves on that issue. And I think if you have questions about that, you can direct that to Mr. Wilson.

Q Well, we spent so many weeks here dissecting the 16 words that are now absolutely true. Don’t you think —

Q How do you know that?

Q Excuse me, Helen. Don’t you think that America deserves the opportunity to have this information brought forward as well?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, I noticed some media reports on this very issue over the weekend —

Q There are very few of them.

 

[One notes that he even got to elbow the esteemed Helen Thomas aside.]

 

Bush team works over Richard Clarke (timeline)

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(Clarke’s Jan. 25, 2001, memo to Condoleezza Rice, now public, supports his testimony.)

 

Former security advisor Dick Clarke, from both the Clinton and the Bush administrations, testified before the 9/11 Commission March 24, 2004, also appearing on talk shows and CBS’ 60 Minutes.  He also had a book coming out, critical of the White House approach to terrorism before and after 9/11.  The White House and its “noise machine” were kept hopping that week. Here’s the quick timeline:

 

March 22, 2004 (1:10 pm:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040322-5.html

Cheney, interviewed on the phone by Rush Limbaugh:

“Q All right, let’s get straight to what the news is all about now, before we branch out to things. Why did the administration keep Richard Clarke on the counterterrorism team when you all assumed office in January of 2001?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I wasn’t directly involved in that decision. He was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cyber security side of things, that is he was given a new assignment at some point here. I don’t recall the exact time frame.

Q Cyber security, meaning Internet security?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, worried about attacks on the computer systems and the sophisticated information technology systems we have these days that an adversary would use or try to the system against us.

Q Well, now that explains a lot, that answer right there explains — (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, he wasn’t — he wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff. And I saw part of his interview last night, and he wasn’t –

Q He was demoted.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was as though he clearly missed a lot of what was going on.”

 

[In other words, Clarke was motivated by sour grapes. But for those thinking that demoting a counterterrorism specialist might indicate lack of concern about terrorism, Condoleezza Rice had a different answer; see below.]

 

March 23, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040323-5.html

Bush speaks briefly with reporters, says “I’m worried about terrorist groups targeting America. And we take every threat seriously in this administration. Nearly every morning that I come to work, I talk to George Tenet, FBI Director Mueller and others about the threats to the United States. And there’s still serious threats because of what we stand for. There are still people who want to harm our country. And so — whether it be an Hamas threat, or an al Qaeda threat, we take them very seriously in this administration.”

 

March 24, 2004 (4:30 pm):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040324-3.html

Condoleezza Rice, interviewed by network reporters , says “The fact is that I have heard that Dick Clarke has apparently said that he thought the attack was coming in the United States. He never communicated that to anyone.”

 

March 24, 2004 (5:30 pm):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040324-2.html

Condoleezza Rice, interviewed by wire/print reporters, calls Clarke’s testimony “a kind of shifting story.”  Says “The President was being briefed by George Tenet at least 40 some — 40 plus of his briefings dealt, in one way or another al Qaeda, or the al Qaeda threat.

During the threat period it got really urgent. That’s when I was on the phone with Colin and Don, and Don was moving the Fifth Fleet out of port, and when Colin was buttoning down embassies abroad. And when we actually did have Dick Clarke come in and — Andy Card and I did — and on July 5th convene the domestic agencies to say, even though all the threat reporting is about some threat abroad — because it was the Persian Gulf, the G8, possibly something in Israel — bring the domestic agencies together, let’s make sure that they’re buttoning down. The FAA issues alerts. The FBI issues warnings. So it’s pretty urgent and important.”

Rice also says Clarke “wasn’t demoted,” dealing with Limbaugh’s remarks, above.

 

March 24, 2004 (6:30 pm):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040324-4.html

Condoleezza Rice, interviewed by Tom Brokaw, says “Tom, I just don’t think that the record bears out Dick Clarke’s assertion. In fact, on January 25th, in response to a question from me to my staff to tell me what we should be worrying about, what we should be doing, he sent us a set of ideas that would perhaps help to roll back al Qaeda over a three-to-five-year period. We acted on those ideas very quickly. And what’s very interesting is that, while Dick Clarke now says that we ignored his ideas, or we didn’t follow them up, in August of 2002, in a press interview, he said that we had, in fact, acted on those ideas. So he can’t have it both ways.”

 

March 25, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040325-15.html

White House press secretary Scott McClellan says Clarke “has a growing credibility problem.”

 

March 28, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040328.html

Rice herself appears on 60 Minutes, says that “shortly after we came into office, I asked the counterterrorism team — which we kept in place from the Clinton administration in order to provide continuity and experience — we asked them what policy initiatives should we take.

We got a list of policy initiatives; we acted on those policy initiatives. We felt that we were not in a position to have a comprehensive strategy that would not just roll back al Qaeda – which had been the policy of the Clinton administration – but we needed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda. And we put that work into motion. And, in fact, that produced a comprehensive strategy several weeks before 9/11.”

 

March 30, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040330-7.html

GWBush announces that Rice will testify publicly before the 9/11 Commission after all, after Rice insists all week that “constitutional” considerations prevent her doing so (see above).

 

March 31, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040331-4.html#5

Scott McClellan says “We’ve made our views very well-known. I think most Americans view Dick Clarke and his contradictions as yesterday’s story.”

            However, one questioner takes a sterner line:

“Q Okay, the second question, on Richard Clarke. A lot has been made about Dr. Rice’s testimony, whether she would testify. But not a lot has been made about the perjury charges that Bill Frist made on Friday, on the Senate floor. He said, basically, that Mr. Clarke had two different stories under oath. Isn’t that perjury, and shouldn’t he be prosecuted for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, those are decisions that others make, obviously. I think that this is a decision that was made by Senate leaders. They made a request of us, and our role is to look at those issues and see what could be declassified.

Q The question is about the declassification —

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that was a decision —

Q — if they should —

MR. McCLELLAN: Can I finish? That was a decision by congressional leaders.

Q But if he did have two different, contradictory statements under oath, shouldn’t he be prosecuted for perjury?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not going to get into speculating about that.”

 

[For the record, little noises about nailing Clarke for “perjury” went nowhere.]

What is going on with the federal Air Marshals?

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The narrative below was forwarded to me by a respected expert in aviation security, who says it was sent to him in turn “by one of the very few people in TSA I hold in the highest esteem, for honor, integrity, and true understanding/knowledge of aviation security concepts.”

The message starts by commenting that references to freedom and democracy in the SOTU speech seem not to apply to U.S. Federal Air Marshals.

 

Here’s the narrative:

“Earlier that same day [day of the speech], several Federal Air Marshals traveled from across the country (on their own time, at their own expense) to observe history in the making: Michael Chertoff, their new DHS boss and a fellow law enforcement official, was involved in a part of the democratic process that all Air Marshals are sworn to protect. When the confirmation hearing was over, many of the Air Marshals were (unknowingly) filmed by the media shaking Judge Chertoff’s hand, and as a direct result U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service Director Thomas D. Quinn opened formal investigations into their activities (the investigations began last Friday afternoon and target several “rank and file” Air Marshals, and at least one senior management official).”

 

For background/context, “This comes a little over two weeks after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rescinded a requirement that all employees sign security waivers that would have permitted searches of DHS employees homes (in violation of the 4th Amendment prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure) for even the most minor of job infractions. It would seem that Director Quinn not only wants to control what the Air Marshals wear at all times, he also wants
to control what Air Marshals say and do on their own time. Even if it means violating their 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech, and their rights as US citizens to witness their government in action.”

”One may wonder why Director Quinn would make such a decision. The answer is simple. Director Quinn probably used the same powers of deduction that have led to dangerous hotel policies, media disclosures of sensitive security information, and the “Men In Black” dress code that places us (as in the U.S. or We The People) in mortal danger (Federal Air Marshals rely upon
the element of surprise, and operate undercover to prevent large groups of terrorists from identifying and overpowering Air Marshals and using their guns to hijack airliners). These are also the reasons why anyone and everyone having anything to do with civil aviation, law enforcement, and the war on terrorism in general, have demanded his resignation. Perhaps Director Quinn decided that Air Marshals should not have access to their duly elected representatives because they might tell someone about his improprieties and failure to protect the flying public. Someone, perhaps Judge Chertoff, maybe even the President of the United States, should let Mr. Quinn know that he does not have the authority to violate anyone’s 1st or 4th Amendment rights.”

“More importantly, they should tell him to pack his bags and leave office because he’s FIRED.”

”The United States has had enough of imperious public officials who decide to do things the proper way only after three or four thousand Americans are dead. The main lesson learned from the 9/11 Commission Report was that institutionalized failures in US law enforcement and intelligence agencies allowed the terrorists to successfully murder thousands of Americans.
Thomas Quinn has created an institution of failure that will do anything and everything to protect the inept, and punish the conscientious. Thomas Quinn needs to be fired. Immediately.”

 

Some thoughts to add, here. One is that undoubtedly the Air Marshals program has the same problems with incompetence and cover-up from the top that other “security” programs have. The other, however, is that undoubtedly Chertoff will require extraordinary security protection. Aside from the policies he has supported, a New Jersey law client of his was directly connected to questionable entities in the Middle East and may even be related to the late Mohamed Atta. (See Allan Duncan’s questions on these points.)

 

Some people in the administration may even have recognized that big crimes are often partly inside jobs, which would explain why the guardians are being guarded. Still, I sympathize with the writer’s obvious sincerity. Thousands of individuals in government and elsewhere are working genuinely for safety measures, and they are being continuously insulted by the massive pretenses of the “war on terror.”

The SOTU speech: tweaking, omissions and Orwellianisms

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Since I’m going to be on Meria Heller’s radio program today, I wanted to clarify my thinking about last night’s State of the Union address beforehand. Two major points, re the speech: (1) few surprises; and (2) heartbreak.

 

The heartbreak must be fought. So – let’s start with those items in the SOTU that offer a little humor, namely the presidential tweaking. Clearly, with the White House slaughtering innocent people in Fallujah, sending US troops into a combat zone from which they cannot escape without mental harm, and trying to bulldoze domestic opposition and genuine news reporting, this was a time for some . . . First Softening.

 

Not all the language adjustments are new, but the White House Tweaking Team is obviously on the job:

·        The word “oil” is not used – and I mean, not ever – it’s been replaced entirely with the word “energy.”

·        In a couple of clear references to the Baby Boomer generation, the term “Baby Boomers” was not used – replaced with “our generation.”

·        The word “Christian” was not heard – replaced with “faith.”

·        As predicted, “privatize” or “privatizing,” “privatized” etc were not mentioned in re Social Security; the word of choice was “personal.” (just once)

·        And in some references to health care and lower-income workers among others, the word “insurance” was used only once – replaced with “coverage.”

 

No mysteries here; you can see why they don’t emphasize the word “insurance,” for example. Mentioning “insurance” might remind people of “insurance companies.” And if the public starts thinking about insurance companies — Someone might ask how much money insurance companies are raking in from their investments, why they’re being allowed to hike up their rates on doctors, and why they’re not being forced to provide genuine coverage.

 

Can anyone compute the actual wealth of the US insurance industry, give or take a trillion?

 

Substitutions aside, on to some key omissions: No reference by name to Osama bin Laden, for obvious reasons. Weirdly, only a couple of refs to “the European Union” (as standing with us) – and NO reference by name to Europe, China, Japan, Africa, Latin America (including Mexico), Canada, or Australia (or Antarctica, or the poles, of course). Thus when Bush mentioned other countries that have elections, whom did he name? – Great Britain (also not named in the speech), the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Canada? Not on your bippy. He linked us with Afghanistan, the Ukraine (though the words “exit polls” did not come up), and Iraq.

 

I checked my observations in the transcript this morning. Sure enough: it’s analogous to the old David Levine cartoon of a New Yorker’s view of America, with Manhattan extending out to about Kansas etc. – This is indeed GWBush’s view of the world, owing to his obsession with oil: a polar conflict between us (with US oil companies breaking their previous records for profits, in 2004) on one side, and barriers to our FREE access to global oil reserves on the other, for the next forty years.

 

In 2003, the Wall Street Journal ran an article estimating that the world’s oil reserves will run out in 40 years. On second thought, I’m not going to deal with the Orwellian references to “freedom.” As I have written before: one nation has no right to invade and remake another nation, because there is no such right.

 

One heartbreaking note, and I’ll try to keep this brief, regarding Bush’s statement about no “timetable” for withdrawing from Iraq. (Stop reading here, if you have a weak stomach, or a conscience.) I once read a novel in which the (woman) author narrated a child-abuse tactic: the abusive mother/parent spanked/whipped the child, while telling the child to stop crying. – “Stop that, or I’ll give you something to cry about!” – So the child, by a massive effort of will and hope, forced itself to stop crying. – And the mother kept whipping/spanking the child.

 

Sad to say, I believe I have also observed some of this in real life. It is such a violation, a self-evident violation of trust and personal faith and decency, that every human being can feel it as such at a gut level. 

 

This unbalanced aggression is the parallel to Bush’s Iraq occupation. The Iraqis who are trying to fight the occupation know perfectly well that if they stopped fighting, if they demonstrated perfect peacableness for a day, a week, a year – Bush still would not refrain from the ongoing aggression. (He announced that he would proceed with the invasion –

Even if Saddam were to leave Iraq!)

 

This is no space to psychoanalyze Bush’s brittleness, selfishness and cruelty, though clearly he needs some help. (My own guess is that he is taking infinite revenge against all the “smart people” during Vietnam and afterward who belittled him.) Be it said that as an American, I am ashamed of Bush, and I want the world to know it.

 

I am ashamed of the big newspapers, too. Bush threw out another sop to the Washington Post last night: he is extending the “No Child” standardized testing to high schools. Among corporations that will benefit is The Post Co., which owns Kaplan and its subsidiaries and has already recouped several hundred million in operating revenues from the Bush brothers’ “education reforms.” For the record, I am an educator, and we have enough testing, test-prepping and tutoring already. All this prepping and tutoring does not “raise standards”; it skews standards.

 

But it’s not the WashPost’s reporting on the education bill that worries me. It’s the Post’s lack of genuine reporting on Bush, his brother Jeb, his family’s gains from the “war on terrorism,” that so-called war itself, the opposition to the invasion, the handling of 9/11,

and Bush’s ongoing central aims: (1) to invade the Middle East, and (2) to reverse the New Deal. Speaking of that, one of the biggest Orwellianisms in the speech, aside from calling a war of aggression pro-“freedom,” was GWBush’s quoting Franklin Roosevelt.

The White House and I

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The White House and I

Going through old emails has turned up several questions I sent, or attempted to send, to the White House or to some office within it. To date, none have been answered. That is, no one in the administration got back to me, and also they have not been answered in the wider press. Readers might find them interesting.

Note:  These are NOT all the messages I have sent, requesting information/response. They are only messages I could retrieve easily, after having the operating system on my computer replaced more than once, over the past two years. They are arranged in chronological order:

“Hello. I am working on a freelance article and phoned in three questions week before last.

            They pertain to the fact that a brother of the President’s was linked to companies with interests in the World Trade Center, including one which did security work there as well as at Dulles Airport and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

            Can you tell me whether the companies’ work will be investigated, and whether any pertinent records will be made public?”January 29, 2003

 

“Hello. I am a freelance writer in the DC area, and I have a quick question.

            Can you confirm or deny that Andrew Card outed the name of CIA operative Plame?

 Thank you.  Margie Burns”         September 29, 2003

 

“I am a freelance journalist in the DC area, and I have a question regarding the ‘outing’ of CIA operative Plame.

Can you confirm or deny that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was involved in the leak to Mr. Novak, either directly or indirectly?  Thank you.

            Margie Burns”                October 9, 2003

 

“I am a freelance journalist working on an article. Can you tell me whether Engineered Support Systems receives advantage in obtaining federal contracts from the fact that William H. T. Bush is on its board of directors?

            Margie Burns”                October 28, 2003

Hutchison Whampoa lands security contract, 2006

 

“Hello. I am a freelance journalist in the DC area, working on an article, and I have a few questions about Cheung Kong’s and Hutchison-Whampoa‘s strategic investment in Critical Path, connected to Marvin Bush, and Grace Semiconductor’s contract with Neil Bush.

            1) When these Chinese companies made these deals, were the companies in any way trying to influence White House policy toward China? Is the White House going to comment on the financial benefit to Mr. Bush’s relatives from these deals?

            2) Could you clarify the extent of Marvin Bush’s financial interest in Critical Path? Could you clarify whether Purnendu Chatterjee is still manager and general partner of Mr. Bush’s Winston Partners?

            3) Could you clarify the exact amounts projected to go from these Chinese companies to the president’s relatives?

            4) Did Cheung Kong/HWL or Grace Semiconductor have any influence on recent White House statements about China and Taiwan?

            Any information appreciated. My deadline is tomorrow.

 Margie Burns”               December 13, 2003

 

“Hello. I am a journalist in the DC area, and I have a question for Dr. Condoleezza Rice, pertaining to a recent article in The Hill. The article suggested that Ms. Rice might become the next president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

            Can she confirm or deny the report?  Is she considering taking the position, or conversely has she ruled it out?

            Thank you very much.”               March 9, 2004

 

“I am a journalist working on an article pertaining to what is called “Arab Road” in Arizona, as discussed by Rep. Tancredo.

            Can the White House comment on undocumented aliens from the Middle East who have been seen and sometimes apprehended coming across the Mexican border into Arizona? 

            Thank you.

 Margie Burns”               July 30, 2004

 

Note:  previously, the automated reply (Autoresponder@WhiteHouse.gov) came back from the White House with the same subject line:  “Question re Andrew Card,” “Question for Dr. Rice,” etc. Now the White House has altered its web site, so that every automated reply comes back from president@whitehouse.gov with “(no subject)” in the subject line.