Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Bush's Pro-U.N. Foreign Policy -- Cliff Kincaid -- GOPUSA
Bush's Pro-U.N. Foreign Policy -- Cliff Kincaid -- GOPUSA: "Michael New's case is still on appeal in the courts. You can read about it at www.mikenew.com. But the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, is lined up against him. "
Blogger Thought: It's not that I've flipped to support GOPUSA. Interesting to see what the hard core right is saying.
Blogger Thought: It's not that I've flipped to support GOPUSA. Interesting to see what the hard core right is saying.
FBI Denies University Bomber Tied to Terrorism -- GOPUSA
FBI Denies University Bomber Tied to Terrorism -- GOPUSA
Blogger Thoughs: "Shush, you guys", It's our Synthetic Terrorism Patsy, not real Terrorism.
Blogger Thoughs: "Shush, you guys", It's our Synthetic Terrorism Patsy, not real Terrorism.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Althouse: "There's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems."
Althouse: "There's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems."
Blogger Thought: Scalia is widely panned (as far as I can tell) for his unsupportable remark on this.
Blogger Thought: Scalia is widely panned (as far as I can tell) for his unsupportable remark on this.
George Washington's Blog: Another 9/11 Smoking Gun
George Washington's Blog: Another 9/11 Smoking Gun
In reviewing emergency personnel tapes, I found 2 interesting statements concerning flashes in the world trade centers prior to their collapse:
The captain of emergency medical services said "somewhere around the middle of the world trade center there was this orange and red flash coming out ... initially it was just one flash then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode ... and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides ... as far as could see these popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger going both up and down and then all around the building" (page 15 -- pdf file; Google's web version is here)
Similiarly, the Assistant Fire Commissioner stated I thought . . . before . . . No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. . . . I . . . saw a flash flash flash . . . [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they . . . blow up a building. . . ?” . In the same statement, the Assistant Commissioner recounts how a lieutenant firefighter he spoke with independently verified the flashes.
Then I stumbled upon two very interesting videos from the world's leading controlled demolition company, Controlled Demolition, Inc.:
Can you see the orange and red flashes all over the near side of this building in this authenticated video of a controlled demolition?
Do you see orange and red flashes at the base of this building in this demolition video by the same demolition company? (both videos are posted at the "World Records" section of Controlled Demolition's website)
Hmmmm.
In reviewing emergency personnel tapes, I found 2 interesting statements concerning flashes in the world trade centers prior to their collapse:
The captain of emergency medical services said "somewhere around the middle of the world trade center there was this orange and red flash coming out ... initially it was just one flash then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode ... and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides ... as far as could see these popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger going both up and down and then all around the building" (page 15 -- pdf file; Google's web version is here)
Similiarly, the Assistant Fire Commissioner stated I thought . . . before . . . No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. . . . I . . . saw a flash flash flash . . . [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they . . . blow up a building. . . ?” . In the same statement, the Assistant Commissioner recounts how a lieutenant firefighter he spoke with independently verified the flashes.
Then I stumbled upon two very interesting videos from the world's leading controlled demolition company, Controlled Demolition, Inc.:
Can you see the orange and red flashes all over the near side of this building in this authenticated video of a controlled demolition?
Do you see orange and red flashes at the base of this building in this demolition video by the same demolition company? (both videos are posted at the "World Records" section of Controlled Demolition's website)
Hmmmm.
Our Man at the UN: saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them
US blocks U.N. briefing on atrocities in Sudan - Yahoo! News: "saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them"
The Bush Presidency Is Imploding
The Bush Presidency Is Imploding
John LeBoutillier
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005
Some call it "second termitis" – that affliction that seems to beset all re-elected presidents.
But that usually happens later in a president's second term – and usually less severely.
Not since President Richard Nixon's Watergate demise have we seen a presidency – just nine months after GW Bush's inauguration – literally collapse from within.
The latest AP/Ipsos poll – taken last week of 1,000 adult voters – shows that only 28 percent believe the country is on the "right" track; a whopping 66 percent believe we're on the "wrong" track.
And only 39 percent give the president a positive job approval rating – the lowest of his presidency in this poll.
But the big story in this poll is the cracking of George W. Bush's once solid base: he has lost 20 percent of white evangelical men, more GOP women, and doubts are creeping into the conservative wing of the Republican coalition.
Clearly the Harriet Miers decision – just one week ago – was a massive political blunder; forget her legal qualifications, we're talking here about Bush's political strength – or lack thereof.
Picking Miers has unleashed anger on the Right
a heretofore solid base for literally any Bush decision. And with that anger comes confusion, resentment
and the inevitable Bush Family Behavior: payback for any one who dares to criticize any Bush decision.
(That is the genesis of the ongoing Plame Leak Investigation: Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece criticizing Bush's assertions in his State of the Union speech caused the White House to have to "pay him back" by attacking him. It's the Bush Family credo.)
And if Bush starts attacking fellow conservatives, then the whole thing threatens to come tumbling down around him.
Underneath it all is the festering sore of an Iraq War that is going badly – despite the poppycock put out by Mr. Bush and his minions. Let me tell you a so-far-untold story from this past summer:
A print reporter was given private time in Iraq with CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid. The general spoke on complete background. He told this reporter that "we cannot win militarily here in Iraq. The best we can do is to hold it where it is until the Iraqis take over."
Yet – in an eery reminder of Vietnam – General Abizaid did not say the same thing publicly to the Congress when he subsequently testified. On that occasion he painted – undoubtedly at the White House's behest
a rosy picture of imminent military success and Iraqi military progress.
(In fact, after three and a half years of our occupation there are barely 3,000 Iraqi soldiers we deem capable of fighting for their country.)
If our military leaders are telling two different stories – one for public consumption and another in a CYA off-the-record session with a reporter – then we are fooling ourselves. This is a war that is a fraud from the top down. And it is our troops who are suffering for it.
From the first day, the entire Iraq Campaign has been a typical case of "who cares about the troops?" – from inadequate troop levels to insufficient body armor and vehicle armor.
Iraq is the single biggest factor eating away at the Bush presidency. Gas prices, illegal immigration and other issues are hurting, too, but Iraq is the one constant that is undercutting what is left of Bush's credibility.
Prior to last week, the only people left who believed a word from GW Bush were conservatives; but the joke of Harriet Miers as "the most qualified person to be on the Supreme Court" has now begun to erode the president's credibility on the Right.
And once he loses the conservatives, he is a total goner as president.
With three years and three months left in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush faces a bleak remainder of his presidency; so, too, does the GOP, which has lost much credibility with its fiscal profligacy, sloppy Katrina spending and panoply of scandals.
The Republican Party has – at the top – become lazy, arrogant, ego-driven, fat, dumb and self-satisfied. It had better get its act in gear – and soon – or else it will be destroyed – from within as well as from without.
Wayne Madsen Report - Plame Update
Wayne Madsen Report: "October 10, 2005 -- New leads temporarily postpone indictments. Newly-discovered leads are postponing, at least temporarily, the issuance of indictments by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak scandal. On October 9, even conservatives on the Sunday pundit programs were resigned to the fact that indictments of top White House officials are imminent.
Although the Grand Jury probe of the White House scandal has been unique by Washington standards for the relative lack of leaks to the media, there are several currents that are beginning to emerge:
1. Investigators are focusing on an email between Karl Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley that referenced a July 11, 2003 conversation between Rove and Time's Matt Cooper. In a case reminiscent of Oliver North and the shredding and deletion of e-mail in the White House PROFS office automation system during Iran-contra, there is speculation that some critical e-mails involving the CIA leak were illegally destroyed by the White House.
Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales informed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at 8:00 pm on September 29, 2003 that the Justice Department was beginning a criminal investigation of the White House over the CIA leak. Gonzales did not order the White House staff to preserve all documents, email, and memos until the next day, giving the White House a full twelve hours to destroy any incriminating documents, including email. Gonzales later claimed he delayed his order because of the late hour on September 29 -- however, the White House and its operations staff works on a 24x7 basis.
There are rumors that critical email and other documents relating to the cover up of the CIA leak and the White House Iraq Group's 'work up' on Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA wife may have been destroyed during the twelve hour interval betwe"
Although the Grand Jury probe of the White House scandal has been unique by Washington standards for the relative lack of leaks to the media, there are several currents that are beginning to emerge:
1. Investigators are focusing on an email between Karl Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley that referenced a July 11, 2003 conversation between Rove and Time's Matt Cooper. In a case reminiscent of Oliver North and the shredding and deletion of e-mail in the White House PROFS office automation system during Iran-contra, there is speculation that some critical e-mails involving the CIA leak were illegally destroyed by the White House.
Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales informed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at 8:00 pm on September 29, 2003 that the Justice Department was beginning a criminal investigation of the White House over the CIA leak. Gonzales did not order the White House staff to preserve all documents, email, and memos until the next day, giving the White House a full twelve hours to destroy any incriminating documents, including email. Gonzales later claimed he delayed his order because of the late hour on September 29 -- however, the White House and its operations staff works on a 24x7 basis.
There are rumors that critical email and other documents relating to the cover up of the CIA leak and the White House Iraq Group's 'work up' on Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA wife may have been destroyed during the twelve hour interval betwe"
CNN.com - Former FBI director: Clinton�undermined Saudi bombing probe - Oct 10, 2005
CNN.com - Former FBI director: Clinton�undermined Saudi bombing probe - Oct 10, 2005: "Former FBI director: Clinton undermined Saudi bombing probe"
The Police State Is Closer Than You Think
The Police State Is Closer Than You Think: "The Police State Is
Closer Than You Think"
Closer Than You Think"
Suburban Guerrilla � This Week�s Episode of Able Danger
Suburban Guerrilla � This Week�s Episode of Able Danger: "frankly astonishing info "
Miers and Brimstone - Let's stop pretending there's no religious test for nominees. By Christopher�Hitchens
Miers and Brimstone - Let's stop pretending there's no religious test for nominees. By Christopher�Hitchens
Blogger Thoughts: Hitchens takes an instance of outrageous Bush Administration behavior, and finds a way to bludgeon the Dems.
Blogger Thoughts: Hitchens takes an instance of outrageous Bush Administration behavior, and finds a way to bludgeon the Dems.
Telegraph | News | Anti-semitism warning from Chief Rabbi
Telegraph | News | Anti-semitism warning from Chief Rabbi: "'there have been times, the first in my memory, when it has been uncomfortable to be a Jew in Britain'."
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps I'm uninformed, but I thought the major danger was for hapless Brazilians or for innocent Muslims.
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps I'm uninformed, but I thought the major danger was for hapless Brazilians or for innocent Muslims.
FrontPage magazine.com :: Soros Fingerprints on DeLay Frame-up by Richard Poe
FrontPage magazine.com :: Soros Fingerprints on DeLay Frame-up by Richard Poe
Blogger Thoughts: If true, hats of to Soros.
Blogger Thoughts: If true, hats of to Soros.
FrontPage magazine.com :: When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism by Dennis Prager
FrontPage magazine.com :: When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism by Dennis Prager
Blogger Thought: Prager explains it all... how predictabe....
Blogger Thought: Prager explains it all... how predictabe....
Audio: A New Member of this Blog, Lisa Ghariani
Announcement:
It is with great enthusiasm that I am announcing that Lisa Ghariani has agreed to add posts to this blog. Lisa is an activist and free lance journalist who is currently working with the OKBIC and former Rep. Charles Key on the Murrah Bombing investigation. She lives in OKC and has a colorful web site (http://www.possibilityx.com/lg/main.htm) chronicling stories with photos, humor and satirical comments. Lisa is not a spokesperson for OKBIC, so her opinions do not necessarily represent the views of the members of the OKBIC.
====================================================
Hello,
I'm glad to see there is still interest concerning the Oklahoma City Murrah bombing investigation. I will be more than happy to answer questions and try to separate the truth from fiction surrounding this tragic event.
Oklahoma City recently experienced a suicide bombing just 100 yards from the stadium at OU which was hosting a game. The stadium was packed with 84,000 fans at the time who were not allowed to leave the stadium. This act was carried out by yet another angry white boy. This was ironic timing because Charles Key, Chris Emery and I were speaking in South OKC about the Murrah bombing at the exact moment when this happened. The news media did an abrupt turn-a-round and basically refused to cover the story. The media acting in concert with David Boren immediately played down the act so as not to reduce attendance at the football games. I thought I would mention this story because it brought back so many memories for those of us who were in OKC shortly after the Murrah bombing. I was called the day after the event by a friend of mine in the journalism dept at a local college. I went to work for CNN who had set up a temporary bureau close to ground zero. I remained employed as a courier and escort for about 90 days until the story faded from the news. During this time I was privy to see the behind the scenes, day to day operations at CNN.
What peaked my interest was one story that CNN was reporting about the surveillance video tapes that were seized by the FBI and what was on those tapes. Shortly after running the story orders came down the ranks to pull the story due to National security concerns and the tapes faded into history... The Judge who presided over the Mcveigh and Nichols trials had the tapes sealed by a court order and they have yet to be released to this day. Sources working with the OKBIC anonymously who helped copy the tapes indicated that there were a total of 22 such tapes taken from the area following the Murrah Bombing on April 19, 1995.
Ten years later the American public is still not allowed to see those tapes and put to rest all the hype surrounding this case. Who was John Doe # 2? This has been the subject of speculation for many years. Although there are many conflicting theory's I have concentrated my investigation on what I call "hard evidence." This is the type of evidence that will hold up in a court of law, Grand Jury or a Congressional hearing.
Currently I am focusing my attention on two suspects who were recently implicated last April by Terry Nichols himself. One has to conclude that if he decided to finally say something after all of these years that this information should be followed up on even if the FBI has "closed the case" as Jeff Lanza a spokes person for the FBI reportedlast May.
Lastly, I was asked to say something about my visit to Crawford Texas where I met Cindy Sheehan and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. I have been very out spoken about ending the quagmire in Iraq and I'm currently organizing protests in Oklahoma City. After sifting through a virtual mountain of documents that clearly show the current administration had a pre-conceived policy to invade Iraq that began as soon as GW Bush was sworn into office. Part of this plan I feel was to implicate Iraq in terrorist activity. Around this time support came from top administration officials for Jayna Davis and her "the Iraqi's did the Murrah bombing" theory. One only has to read the blurbs on her book and the foreward to determine that something strange was going on here. The book was poorly written and the investigation itself reads like a B movie screenplay. I do give her credit for her tenacity dealing with the DOJ cover-up but I personally feel the crux of her theory is not Congressional hearing material.
CNN.com - Attorney: Rove didn't circulate CIA operative's name - Oct 10, 2005
CNN.com - Attorney: Rove didn't circulate CIA operative's name - Oct 10, 2005: "Attorney: Rove didn't circulate CIA operative's name"
Blogger Thoughts: As pointed out on the Daily Show, and many other places, if Rove talked about Joe Wilson's wife, it is just as incriminating as saying Plame.
Blogger Thoughts: As pointed out on the Daily Show, and many other places, if Rove talked about Joe Wilson's wife, it is just as incriminating as saying Plame.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Video: (wmv, 43 Meg not for dial up) short history of how zionism created israel
Internet Archive: Details: Israel: The crime: "short history of how zionism created israel"
Thanks to Senator Clinton, and a majority of our Congress, government efforts to monitor information (http://vdare.com/francis/anti_semitism.htm) such as this have begun. Plans are in the works to make free speech such as this restricted or illegal (http://www.politechbot.com/2005/09/27/replies-to-adls/, http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/newbill.html).
Thanks to Senator Clinton, and a majority of our Congress, government efforts to monitor information (http://vdare.com/francis/anti_semitism.htm) such as this have begun. Plans are in the works to make free speech such as this restricted or illegal (http://www.politechbot.com/2005/09/27/replies-to-adls/, http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/newbill.html).
Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)
Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)
More hypocrisy: At least 8% those who think Miers is "A bad or terrible decision" think Bush should "Continue to support Harriet Miers."
Read it all!
More hypocrisy: At least 8% those who think Miers is "A bad or terrible decision" think Bush should "Continue to support Harriet Miers."
Read it all!
ABC News: Scalia Says Confirmation Too Politicized
ABC News: Scalia Says Confirmation Too Politicized
(text of link follows)
1) Conservatives (many of which might be called fake) are on-record as preferring a nominee in the mold of Scalia.
2) As shown below, Scalia presents this (which sounds anything but conservative):
"Scalia said he will miss the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Miers wants to replace.
"If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it's been Sandra and I will miss her," Scalia said."
(I wonder if Scalia has read articles about "social glue" like this: http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/KleinCreatingSocialGlueCommunities.pdf. If so, I would welcome more discussion from him and his insights on the topic.)
So an important attribute, according to Scalia, is a O'Connor's capability to provide "social glue"? The senate evidently needs to add another area to their confirmation questions.
Is social glue what gave us Bush v. Gore? Is social glue what gives us Bush Cronyism? Is social glue Rove's secret sauce? If so, I'm sure I'm against it.
Here's what I found in a quick internet search about Scalia from http://www.n-philes.com/forums/printthread.php?t=12152&pp=40:
He blamed Chief Justice Earl Warren, who presided from 1953-69 over a court that assaulted racial segregation and expanded individual rights against arbitrary government searches, for the increased political role of the Supreme Court, citing Warren's political background. Warren was governor of California and the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1948. "You have a chief justice who was a governor, a policy-maker, who approached the law with that frame of mind. Once you have a leader with that mentality, it's hard not to follow," Scalia said, in response to a question from the audience.
Isn't a political background where one hones skills to apply "social glue"?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Scalia Says Confirmation Too Politicized
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, often extolled by conservative Republicans as their ideal model of a judge, said Monday the confirmation process was too politicized and that he wouldn't want to experience it again.
When asked whether he thought he could be confirmed again by the Senate, Scalia said: "I don't know. I wouldn't want to go through it today, I'll tell you that much."
Scalia, who was confirmed by the Senate on 98-0 vote in 1986, was interviewed by NBC's "Today" show. He was thought at one point to be a candidate for chief justice when William H. Rehnquist died. President Bush nominated John Roberts, who was confirmed by the Senate on a 78-22 vote last month.
Bush has said he would nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Several conservatives have complained that current Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is not enough like Scalia and Thomas, and are opposing her nomination.
Scalia said he will miss the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Miers wants to replace.
"If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it's been Sandra and I will miss her," Scalia said.
On another issue, Scalia said he is adamantly opposed to televising Supreme Court sessions.
"We don't want to become entertainment," he said. "I think there's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems. I don't like it in the lower courts, and I don't particularly like it in the Supreme Court."
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has introduced legislation in the Senate that would allow sessions of the high court to be televised. The court has allowed the audio recordings of sessions to be released, but it has refused to allow cameras into its hearing chamber.
(text of link follows)
1) Conservatives (many of which might be called fake) are on-record as preferring a nominee in the mold of Scalia.
2) As shown below, Scalia presents this (which sounds anything but conservative):
"Scalia said he will miss the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Miers wants to replace.
"If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it's been Sandra and I will miss her," Scalia said."
(I wonder if Scalia has read articles about "social glue" like this: http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/KleinCreatingSocialGlueCommunities.pdf. If so, I would welcome more discussion from him and his insights on the topic.)
So an important attribute, according to Scalia, is a O'Connor's capability to provide "social glue"? The senate evidently needs to add another area to their confirmation questions.
Is social glue what gave us Bush v. Gore? Is social glue what gives us Bush Cronyism? Is social glue Rove's secret sauce? If so, I'm sure I'm against it.
Here's what I found in a quick internet search about Scalia from http://www.n-philes.com/forums/printthread.php?t=12152&pp=40:
He blamed Chief Justice Earl Warren, who presided from 1953-69 over a court that assaulted racial segregation and expanded individual rights against arbitrary government searches, for the increased political role of the Supreme Court, citing Warren's political background. Warren was governor of California and the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1948. "You have a chief justice who was a governor, a policy-maker, who approached the law with that frame of mind. Once you have a leader with that mentality, it's hard not to follow," Scalia said, in response to a question from the audience.
Isn't a political background where one hones skills to apply "social glue"?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Scalia Says Confirmation Too Politicized
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, often extolled by conservative Republicans as their ideal model of a judge, said Monday the confirmation process was too politicized and that he wouldn't want to experience it again.
When asked whether he thought he could be confirmed again by the Senate, Scalia said: "I don't know. I wouldn't want to go through it today, I'll tell you that much."
Scalia, who was confirmed by the Senate on 98-0 vote in 1986, was interviewed by NBC's "Today" show. He was thought at one point to be a candidate for chief justice when William H. Rehnquist died. President Bush nominated John Roberts, who was confirmed by the Senate on a 78-22 vote last month.
Bush has said he would nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Several conservatives have complained that current Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is not enough like Scalia and Thomas, and are opposing her nomination.
Scalia said he will miss the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Miers wants to replace.
"If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it's been Sandra and I will miss her," Scalia said.
On another issue, Scalia said he is adamantly opposed to televising Supreme Court sessions.
"We don't want to become entertainment," he said. "I think there's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems. I don't like it in the lower courts, and I don't particularly like it in the Supreme Court."
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has introduced legislation in the Senate that would allow sessions of the high court to be televised. The court has allowed the audio recordings of sessions to be released, but it has refused to allow cameras into its hearing chamber.
In New Book, Ex-Director of the F.B.I. Fights Back - New York Times
In New Book, Ex-Director of the F.B.I. Fights Back - New York Times
October 10, 2005
October 10, 2005
In New Book, Ex-Director of the F.B.I. Fights Back
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 - Settling a score, Louis J. Freeh, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under President Bill Clinton and in the first six months of the Bush presidency, asserts in a new book that Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, was "basically a second-tier player" who had little access to power and was in no position to issue credible warnings in advance of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"If he was rushing around the executive branch trying to make a case that we were in imminent danger of a terrorist attack on our shores, he wasn't trying to make that case with me," Mr. Freeh writes of Mr. Clarke in a memoir to be published this week called "My F.B.I.: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton and Fighting the War on Terror." The publisher is St. Martin's Press.
In his own book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," published last year, Mr. Clarke describes himself as a herald of the dangers of terrorism and paints a scathing picture of Mr. Freeh and the F.B.I., criticizing the former director and his agency as ignoring the possibility of terrorism in this country.
Mr. Freeh says that incidents involving the two of them that Mr. Clarke describes in his book never occurred and that the Clarke book can be fairly described as "bad facts and no access."
Mr. Clarke was traveling over the weekend and did not respond to messages left on his office phone and his cellphone.
Mr. Freeh's accounts in his own book of the events leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the bureau's antiterrorism activities add little to his public testimony before investigating panels and articles he wrote about the topic.
Far from ignoring terrorist threats, Mr. Freeh writes, the F.B.I. under his directorship was "all but obsessed with terrorism and its proponents."
But the bureau was hamstrung, Mr. Freeh says, because Congress never provided sufficient money for a good computer system, a strong counterterrorism staff or Arabic translators. In terms of technology, "we were in the Dark Ages," he says.
While "you can always do the job better in hindsight," Mr. Freeh writes, "I'm proud of the way I ran the F.B.I."
Mr. Freeh also uses his book to fan the flames of his incendiary relationship with Mr. Clinton.
"With Bill Clinton," Mr. Freeh writes in a chapter called "Bill and Me," "the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones, never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting, it was leading him in the wrong direction, and he lacked the discipline to pull back once he found himself stepping into trouble. Worse, he had been behaving that way so long that the closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."
Mr. Freeh describes how he argued unsuccessfully for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Mr. Clinton's fund-raising practices during the 1996 campaign and says he could never communicate with the president because "with him, it always seemed to be personal."
It was the campaign finance issue and conspicuous leaks of Mr. Freeh's private memorandums on the subject that led to the complete deterioration of the director's relationship with the president.
Mr. Freeh writes that from the outset of his tenure, he insisted on an arm's-length relationship with Mr. Clinton, going so far as to return the pass he had been given that would have allowed him to come and go from the White House without signing in and out.
"It might have come as a surprise to the man who hired me, but I didn't take the job of F.B.I. director so I could roll over and play dead whenever it became convenient for the White House," he writes.
Describing Mr. Clinton's actions that led to his impeachment, Mr. Freeh writes, "Just when I thought things couldn't get any more outlandish, along came Monica Lewinsky and turned the White House into a theater of the absurd."
Bush's Veil Over History - New York Times
Bush's Veil Over History - New York Times
"But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001..."
October 10, 2005
"But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001..."
October 10, 2005 Bush's Veil Over History
Washington
SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.
But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.
Before that executive order, the National Archives had controlled the release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which stipulated that all papers, except those pertaining to national security, had to be made available 12 years after a president left office.
Now, however, Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy. (Although Mr. Reagan's term ended more than 12 years before the executive order, the Bush administration had filed paperwork in early 2001 to stop the clock, and thus his papers fall under it.)
Bill Clinton publicly objected to the executive order, saying he wanted all his papers open. Yet the Bush administration has nonetheless denied access to documents surrounding the 177 pardons President Clinton granted in the last days of his presidency. Coming without explanation, this action raised questions and fueled conspiracy theories: Is there something to hide? Is there more to know about the controversial pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich? Is there a quid pro quo between Bill Clinton and the Bushes? Is the current president laying a secrecy precedent for pardons he intends to grant?
The administration's effort to grandfather the Reagan papers under the act also raised a red flag. President Bush's signature stopped the National Archives from a planned release of documents from the Reagan era, some of which might have shed light on the Iran-contra scandal and illuminated the role played by the vice president at the time, George H. W. Bush.
What can be done to bring this information to light? Because executive orders are not acts of Congress, they can be overturned by future commanders in chief. But this is a lot to ask of presidents given the free pass handed them by Mr. Bush. (And it could put a President Hillary Clinton in a bind when it came to her own husband's papers.)
Other efforts to rectify the situation are equally problematic. Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, has repeatedly introduced legislation to overturn Mr. Bush's executive order, but the chances of a Republican Congress defying a Republican president are slim.
There is also a lawsuit by the American Historical Association and other academic and archival groups before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A successful verdict could force the National Archives to ignore the executive order and begin making public records from the Reagan and elder Bush administrations.
Unless one of these efforts succeeds, George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination. Their rationales for waging wars in the Middle East will go unchallenged. There will be no chance to weigh the arguments that led the administration to condone torture by our armed forces. The problems of federal agencies entrusted with public welfare during times of national disaster - 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina - will be unaddressed. Details on no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected corporations like Halliburton will escape scrutiny, as will the president's role in Environmental Protection Agency's policies on water and air polluters.
This is about much more than the desires of historians and biographers - the best interests of the nation are at stake. As the American Political Science Association, one plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, put it: "The only way we can improve the operation of government, enhance the accountability of decision-makers and ultimately help maintain public trust in government is for people to understand how it worked in the past."
FreeRepublic.com Owner: ''Pat Buchanan is a Traitor'' - Forums powered by Reason and Principle
FreeRepublic.com Owner: ''Pat Buchanan is a Traitor'' - Forums powered by Reason and Principle
Blogger Thought: Just look at some of the replies and celebrate.
Blogger Thought: Just look at some of the replies and celebrate.
GannonGuckert interviewed Amb. Wilson BEFORE the WSJ article ran
AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth: "GannonGuckert interviewed Amb. Wilson BEFORE the WSJ article ran "
Newsday Shields Long Island Readers From 9/11 Skeptics
911Truth.org ::::: The 9/11 Truth Movement: "Newsday Shields Long Island Readers From 9/11 Skeptics"
Happy Dragonfly
Found this little happy dragonfly - loved his eyes and generally chilled demeanour. Zoom in and check the hairy lip! (...think he missed a bit when shaving!!)
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