Karl Rove on The Huffington Post

Bush Officials, RNC Praise Obama's Afghan Knowledge And Surge Strategy

2009-12-01T12:05:03Z

Two prominent Bush administration officials are publicly praising President Obama for his decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

In an incredibly rare occurrence, the Republican National Committee hosted a conference call on Tuesday in which the featured speaker, Dan Senor, a former Bush spokesman in Iraq, applauded the White House and said he was "quite encouraged by the president's decision."

"It sounds to me based on what we know that it is a very good decision and I applaud him [for it]," Senor said. "If you would haves said to me that a year into this administration that he would have doubled our troop presence in Afghanistan... Plus not reduced our troops meaningfully in Iraq. And if you had told me he would have fired General [David] McKiernan and replaced him with General [Stanley] McChrystal (a surge proponent)... I would have had a hard time believing it. So I am pleasantly surprised."

Senor wasn't finished with the flattery. While stressing that he would have preferred that Obama had made his decision sooner, he ventured to call the president "an expert" on Afghanistan, owing to the length of deliberations. "He is clearly educated about it," Senor said.

Senor also urged critics of the president to be patient in allowing his Afghan policy to play out -- a proposition that will definitely be tested in the months and years ahead. "There will be a rush to compare 2010 to 2009 and say it is not working," Senor predicted. "The real comparison should be to compare the summer of 2011 to the summer of 2009."

Noting that the additional 30,000 troops will reportedly be deployed to Afghanistan by May 2010, Senor said: "If that is the case that is terrific. I think you will see improvements in Afghanistan quite quickly."

The former chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq wasn't the only one-time Bush hand to lavish praise on the current president. Appearing on NBC's "Today Show" Tuesday morning, Karl Rove said that if reports of a 30,000-plus-troop surge were true, it constituted "a definitive action."

"And if the president does do that, I'll be among the first to stand up and applaud," Rove said.

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"Courage And Consequence," Karl Rove Memoir, Coming Out In March

2009-11-18T12:37:05Z

NEW YORK — Karl Rove's memoir has a title, "Courage and Consequence," and a release date – March 9, 2010.

Rove, the mastermind of George W. Bush's two successful presidential runs and a top White House aide, signed in 2007 with Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster that has published best sellers by commentators Glenn Beck and Mark Levin.

Rove, Cheney, Gingrich and Kristol Fail To Rally 9/11 Trial Foes

2009-11-18T12:29:18Z

On Monday, Karl Rove sent a tweet to his 92,000 followers: "Don't sit out: 9:30am 11/18 Dirksen Senate Bldg Rm G-50 to oppose Atty Gen's testimony on trying terrorists on U.S. soil." On Tuesday, Newt Gingrich dispatched a similar message to his 1.2 million Twitter devotees: "Join @keepamericasafe at 9:30am Wed at Dirksen Senate Bldg to protest Holder's testimony on bringing terrorists to US." Keep America Safe is Elizabeth Cheney's new hawkish group--neocon godfather Bill Kristol is one of its three board members--and on Tuesday it tweeted followers:

Karl Frisch: The Right-Wing Media's Election Analysis Just Ain't That Good

2009-11-07T17:10:21Z

Back in 2001,
conservative media figures were
adamant. Democratic Party victories at the ballot boxes during
the off-year elections had little national significance.

Fox News contributor
Dick Morris said at the time, "[I]f you have a Republican president, people are
going to vote Democrat, and if you have a Democrat president, they're going to
vote Republicans." Proffering further spin of the GOP losses, Fox News
contributor Mort Kondracke said, "We have no way of knowing" how the 2001
outcome would affect the 2002 midterms, a sentiment echoed by conservative
writer Michael Barone, who declared on CNN, "I don't think that the issues and
personalities" in the Virginia and New Jersey races "are going to be congruent
with very many" races in 2002 or 2004. Then there was Laura Ingraham on Fox
News' Hannity & Colmes noting
that "[b]oth sides are going to spin this," before offering her own spin: "[T]o
call this some kind of watershed moment against Republican views is
nonsense."

For anyone watching
Fox News in the weeks leading up to
this year's off-year election, it should have been apparent what was
afoot on the conservative network.

In the two weeks
leading up to their November 3 elections, Conservative Party congressional
candidate Doug Hoffman (NY-23), New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate
Chris Christie, and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell appeared on Fox News and
its personalities' radio shows at least 16 times for live
interviews lasting a total of 114 minutes and 36
seconds.

As leading Republican
politicians and activists celebrated
Fox News' role in pushing just the right
message and helping their electoral chances, two Fox News employees
spent time fundraising and recruiting volunteers in support of GOP-backed
candidates. Fox News host Mike Huckabee used network airtime to collect email
addresses for his PAC, which in turn used the addresses to
recruit volunteers for GOP candidates on Tuesday's ballot, including McDonnell
and Hoffman. Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Karl Rove was shilling
for the Republican Governors' Association to help Christie's bid in New
Jersey. All the while, Fox continued
to feature his spin of that same
election.

So, Fox News gave
Republican candidates a huge platform to communicate with conservative activists
and voters while Fox News employees recruited volunteers and raised money for
them.

What else did Fox need
to check off the list before Election Day? How about telling people how to vote
and pre-spinning Democratic Party losses before a single ballot had been
counted? Check.

One Fox News graphic
actually
stated that if the GOP were to win the gubernatorial races in
Virginia and
New Jersey -- races
with no direct influence over congressional efforts to reform health care -- it
would mean "no gov't-run option" in health care reform.

Sean Hannity, Fox
News' apparent GOP get-out-the-vote captain, went all out advising his radio
listeners how to cast their votes, telling
one caller to his radio show, "Don't forget -- go vote for Christie tomorrow in
New Jersey.
All right?" and his New
Jersey audience in
general, "get to the polls" and "stop Obama-care in its
tracks." On his Fox News program, Hannity told
Hoffman, "I hope I'm on the air this time tomorrow night and I'll be able to
declare you the winner." Marching to Hannity's tune, CNN's Lou Dobbs declared
Hoffman was "change [he] can believe in" while Fox News' Bill O'Reilly piled on
predicting a Hoffman win.

But what if --
right-wing media fear of fears! -- Democrats were to pull off a victory in
New Jersey? Well,
there'd be just one thing to explain it -- cue the ominous music -- Voter
Fraud.

Rush Limbaugh warned
his audience that "fraudsters" at ACORN, SEIU, and the New Black Panthers would
try to affect elections on Tuesday and that
"tomorrow's going to be a dry run for Democrat mischief and malfeasance, getting
ready for 2010 and 2012." Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com took the
bait, baselessly -- and predictably -- accusing progressives
of trying to "steal" the New
Jersey governor's seat. As did
Wall Street Journal columnist
John Fund who fabricated
evidence of voter fraud in New Jersey and anonymously
sourced voter fraud innuendo. Completing the circle, Limbaugh
echoed
Fund's baseless accusation warning of an "ACORN factor" and a "vote fraud
factor."

Fox News hosts and
political analysts capped off Election Day celebrating and
shilling for conservative and GOP candidates. When the dust
settled, Republicans had won the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests while
Democrats had won the open New
York congressional seat -- a
seat targeted by tea-partiers and not held by a Democrat in nearly 150
years.

While Fox News' Brit
Hume acknowledged
that "Barack Obama was not a central issue" in New
Jersey -- exit polls decisively
showed he wasn't an issue in any of the targeted races -- others in the
conservative media were blind to the readily available exit polls. Hume's Fox
colleague O'Reilly said the
New Jersey governor's
race was a referendum on Obama. El Rushbo dismissed the exit polls entirely, saying
the governors' races were all "about Obama" and that the election results show
"[t]here is no question this is an anti-Obama
vote."

Fox
& Friends graphics
described
the election results as "shockwaves," "winds of change," a "Republican revival,"
and a "blueprint for success." In a truly odd attempt at spin, Fox News declared
that the results meant "Obamacare" was dead, while its sister network, Fox
Business, claimed
the markets "like[d]" "Big GOP Wins In NJ &
VA."

So, exit polls said
Obama had nothing to do with Democratic losses in New Jersey and
Virginia, where,
incidentally, the GOP nominees downplayed
their right-wing positions -- and this is good news for
Republicans?

What about Hoffman,
the unambiguously right-wing Conservative party candidate in New
York who conservative media
types spent weeks
hyping? How would Fox News and company spin his loss of a
seat, again, not held by a Democrat in far more than 100
years?

In an attempt to paint
Democratic Party victor Owens as a conservative, thus explaining away his win in
a historically GOP district, right-wing bloggers sought to
highlight the "under-reported fact" that he "campaigned
against the public option" even though Owens had expressed support for a public
option since September.

Limbaugh blamed
"party bosses and these big thinkers like Newt [Gingrich]," who "screwed the
whole thing up," while leaping to the defense of Sarah Palin, who had championed
Hoffman. Limbaugh asserted
that Palin "is not damaged at all" by the loss of her candidate. And in an
about-face only fitting for someone of Limbaugh's ego -- errr ... stature -- the
conservative talker switched
his stance on "moral" victories, which he'd lambasted Democrats for in 2006,
declaring Hoffman had a "good
showing."

So, yes, if one thing
is clear after the 2009 off-year election, it's this: Conservative media figures
haven't a clue when it comes to election
analysis.

Oh and one last note
on Tuesday's election, did you hear the nasty anti-Obama election night story
that Fox News concocted out of thin air? The conservative cable outlet reported,
remember this is not true,
that President Obama watched an HBO
documentary about himself, rather than following the election
results. A story so grand -- gosh the president is such a narcissist! -- that
the fact-challenged liberal media bias hunters at Newsbusters wet themselves
over it before eventually conceding that Fox News had "misreported" the incident
-- a nice way of saying "made it up."

I guess, in addition
to the analysis, they haven't a clue when it comes to reporting
either.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair,
a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around
the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Rove Criticizes White House Response To Elections: "A Contemptuous Gesture"

2009-11-04T16:51:39Z

Karl Rove wasn't too happy about the way the White House dismissed the Most Important Off-Off-Year Elections In United States History, and amid a weird counterfactual analysis in which he reverse-extrapolated a few races in three states and applied them to the 2008 election results, he let Fox News viewers know it, saying:

ROVE: Actually, it was almost contemptuous of the process. And who's kidding themselves? I've been inside the West Wing. Every president on every election night is watching the returns. And so, [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs, by going out there and saying, 'Well, it may have mattered to the American people and the people in Pennsylvania and Virginia and New Jersey, but it didn't matter to President Obama,' left a...well it was tone deaf. It would have been better if the president's spokesman had gone out there and said, 'We got the message, we understand the concerns of Americans and we're going to work to assuage their concerns. And instead it was a dismissive and I thought it was almost a contemptuous gesture.

WATCH:

Oh, well, then! Let's take a trip back to the year 2007, where we'll find Rove being dismissive, and -- I guess? -- contemptuous!

Rove downplayed the significance of the 2006 elections, where the Republicans lost both the House and Senate. He cited Republicans' corruption scandals and excessive federal spending and earmarks.

He said it was a "normal off-year election" and had little to do with the unpopularity of President Bush and then-GOP majority Congress.

"If you look at the sweep of American history, the White House party has lost an average of 28 seats in the House and five in the Senate. We lost 30 in the House and six in the Senate," Rove said on Fox. "We lost. There's no doubt about it, but it was a close loss."

So, if and when that sweep of American history returns to reduce Democratic congressional majorities in 2010, will it be "contemptuous" to dismiss it, or will it merely be "Rovian?" And is there really a lot of daylight between those two terms?

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Martin Lewis: Chris Christie Rips Off Monty Python, Troupe Threatens Suit

2009-11-01T18:17:24Z

UPDATE, 11:12 p.m.:
Having been exposed for their copyright theft and facing a possible lawsuit from Monty Python, the Christie campaign moved into damage control mode at high speed on Sunday night to try and limit the political fallout from their illicit action. Within an hour of the story appearing, the Christie commercial using pirated footage of a Monty Python skit was scrubbed from the campaign's website and their separate campaign site on YouTube. The only evidence left was the tell-tale wording on the clip's YouTube page "This video has been removed by the user"

Monty Python captured the video before it was removed. The Christie campaign should now be expecting the Spanish Inquisition...

Watch the ad:

----------

Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief. The 47-year-old lawyer, who was controversially appointed by George W. Bush as a U.S. Attorney in 2001 on Karl Rove's recommendation after being a top Bush fund-raiser in the 2000 election, has created an election commercial that steals copyright-protected material from British comedy troupe Monty Python -- without permission or credit.

The official campaign advert -- titled "Deja Vu" -- attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie's official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie -- a lawyer for 22 years -- nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Alerted to the theft of their copyright, members of Monty Python are most unhappy. Michael Palin, who appears in the clip pirated for the advert, is especially displeased that his likeness is being used by the Republican candidate without permission.

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after -- not that of Michael Palin."

Monty Python's Terry Jones says that the troupe is strongly considering suing the Republican for his copyright infringement:

"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either...," Jones said.

There is a long history of Republican politicians stealing content by entertainers for their political advertisements and rallies. Three months ago, Jackson Browne won a financial settlement and apology from Senator John McCain for the politician's unauthorized use of his song "Running On Empty" in the 2008 election. Other musicians who have successfully protested the theft of their music by Republicans include Jon Bon Jovi, Don Henley, John Mellencamp and rock bands Foo Fighters and Heart.

Christie is no stranger to the world of crime. As the New York Times reported on September 23rd this year, Christie has family ties to the notorious Genovese crime family. As a child, he mingled at family parties with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara -- the brother of his aunt's husband -- described by the Times as "a fearsome and ranking member of the Genovese crime family: twice convicted of racketeering, sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, and linked by investigators to several grisly murders, including one in which a victim was strangled with piano wire."

(A United States Senate sub-committee investigating organized crime in the early 1980s attributed three murders to Fiumara, including the 1967 slayings of two brothers of one of his co-defendants in the 1980 trial. In 1983, Lt. Col. Justin Dintino of the New Jersey State Police called Fiumara "a callous killer who has resorted to violence with little provocation," and said Fiumara had ordered the murder of the godfather of one of his own children.)

Asked what he had learned from his family connection to Tino "The Greek" Fiumara, Christie says: "It just told me that you make bad decisions in life and you wind up paying a price. Really, for most of my life, he spent his life in prison. That teaches you a lot."

Asked in 2007 about the presence of organized crime in his home state -- such as the Genovese mob in which one of his family members is so prominent -- Christie said: "the Mafia is much more prominent on HBO than in New Jersey."

With Monty Python about to sue Christie for his copyright theft, he may have more in common to discuss with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara at his family Thanksgiving this year.

Joe Trippi: Rove's Misread of Tuesday's Elections

2009-10-30T14:21:52Z

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal Karl Rove presented a thoughtful opinion piece on how to read the results of elections to be held Tuesday in Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Regardless of Rove's projected outcomes in these elections, he makes the mistake of seeing the results, as most of Washington will see them, through the lens of partisanship, and he measures the outcome, only as Washington has come to measure all outcomes, in terms of partisan advantage.

According to Rove:

Voters have lived under Democratic rule for nine months, and many of them, especially independents, don't like what they are seeing. Tuesday's election will provide the most tangible evidence of how strong a backlash is building - and just how frightened centrist Democrats should be of 2010. For Republicans, it looks as if hope and change are on the way.

I have a different view of what Tuesday's results may tell us and not because I am a Democrat.

To Rove "us" is the Republican party and "them" is the Democratic party. This isn't just Rove's problem - most in both party establishments view the political world this way - with just as many seeing "us" as Democrats and "them" as Republicans. But this view masks what is truly happening - and makes the establishments of both parties blind to what is coming in 2010.

Voters are increasingly seeing themselves as "us" and both parties in Washington as "them." They are not going to discriminate between the two parties in 2010. The results next Tuesday will likely demonstrate the voter's frustration with those in power, regardless of party. Far from signaling a backlash against Democratic rule and hope for the Republican Party, the results on Tuesday will signal that in 2010 incumbents in both parties, of all ideological stripes should be frightened.

Take off your partisan glasses on Tuesday night and this is what you will see.

In Virginia, where Democrats have held the Governor's office for 8 years, I agree with Rove that Republican Bob McDonnell is likely to win. Republicans will see this as a sign of resurgence. That would be a mistake. Question: If George Bush were still President does anyone think Bob McDonnell would have any chance in Virginia today? The reality is that something else is at work here. And the results in New Jersey and New York will expose exactly what it is.

Virginia's race for governor does not include a viable third candidate outside of the two major parties. The races for governor of New Jersey and for Congress in New York's 23rd district do have independent or third party candidates who are shaping the outcomes.

In New Jersey, Rove is correct in pointing out that, incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine has been at 42% or above in just 6 out of 59 polls in the race conducted since January. And Rove is correct in pointing out that this condition is usually terminal for an incumbent. But it would be incredibly blind to see a GOP win in New Jersey as a sign of renewal and strength for the Republican Party. Even with an incumbent governor who cannot rate much higher than 42% of the vote, the Republican nominee Chris Christie can't seem to poll much higher and, as of today, the race is a dead heat because independent candidate Chris Daggett is pulling votes away from both major party candidates. And, as Rove points out, the Republican Governor's Association's only attack that has worked against Daggett is that if you vote for him you might get Corzine. In typical two party mind sync it won't be long before Democrats start arguing to the same people that if you vote for Daggett you might get Christie.

If Corzine wins on Tuesday, it would be a mistake for Democrats to breathe a sigh of relief and view it as a sign of voters returning to the party fold - and, if Christie wins, the GOP would make a mistake to read such a victory along with a win in Virginia as a rejection of one party for another - or as evidence of renewed strength for their party. Though no matter which of the two outcomes the mandatory partisan spin will claim differently.

The reality is that in terms of 2010 Republicans and Democrats should view the emergence of independent Chris Daggett and the antipathy that both major party nominees engender in New Jersey as a sign that both parties may be in trouble in 2010. Incumbents from either party should be ready for surprises from the voters at the polls in November a year from Tuesday's results - out with the old, and in with the new, may be in regardless of party.

New York's 23rd Congressional District may be the race in which the outcome could be the most surprising and the most misread. If Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman wins in New York's 23rd district this Tuesday the GOP will claim victory and say that Hoffman was a disgruntled member of their party who ran as a third party candidate only because the GOP didn't pick him - and alas their mistake was corrected by the voters and the GOP will welcome Hoffman into their fold. This is pure folly. If Hoffman wins it will be a rejection of both parties in a contest in which the hand picked party nominees and the party campaign committees themselves have spent millions of dollars, and many of those dollars are now being spent to attack Hoffman.

But it's too late - Hoffman may not pull it off - but even if he doesn't, and one of the major party candidates wins by a slim margin, his emergence in the race at all is a signal that 2010 is likely to be a very different election.

What we are seeing in 2009 is that incumbents or the "in" party in each race is having trouble holding on, and that where voters have a choice outside of both major parties enough voters are choosing the independent or third party candidate to rattle both major parties and effect the outcome, if not win the election outright.

I am a Democrat and have been a Democrat all my life and I want Democrats to win in 2009 and 2010. But Republican, or Democrat, it would be a mistake to not see that both of our parties are in trouble and that many of our incumbents in 2010, in both parties, will be in jeopardy.

The Republicans may have two gubernatorial victories on Tuesday and they may claim a victory in NY's 23rd - or they may win none of the three contests. In the best and worst cases the mistake will be to see a partisan victory or the results as a rejection of a single party.

What voters are ready to tell anyone who will listen is that they would like to reject both parties right now if they could. They are trying to find a way to say to both parties, "We want you to change or get out of the way." Both party establishments are in denial. Both party establishments are hard of hearing. And, both party establishments are likely to see the results on Tuesday as Karl Rove sees them - a victory of one party over another. That is the real danger in 2010 and beyond for both parties.

Greg Mitchell: Leaked: Sneak Previews of Upcoming Valerie Plame/CIA Hollywood Film!

2009-10-28T13:55:11Z

Like everyone who covered extensively the CIA leak case, Judy Miller and the Scooter Libby trial, I am anxiously awaiting, with appropriate skepticism, the pending release of the first Hollywood treatment, which has the wonderful title, if you remember the scandal, Fair Game.

Casting seems swell: Naomi Watts as Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as Joe Wilson, for starters (among my favorite actors and reasonable lookalikes, to boot). Director: Doug Liman, who has helmed everything from Swingers and Go to the first three Bourne films. He also has a tantalizing connection, being the son of former Iran-Contra hearings chief counsel Arthur Liman (remember him?).

Very little has leaked out, so to speak, about the film (maybe because Robert Novak is gone), and the publicity machine has hardly been beating any drums. It's based on the Plame memoir, of course. Lists of cast members online seem to suggest not many real life figures are portrayed, although David Andrews plays Scooter Libby, and Ari Fleischer and a Cheney secretary show up as characters.

But now there are a couple of reports, including a review from one of those infamous "test screenings." Let's hope this film doesn't get sadly buried like the fictionalized Rod Lurie version, Nothing But the Truth, inspired by the Judy Miller case.

First, let's go back five weeks to a posting by Liman at the popular blog which he directs, 30 Ninjas. It's gotten surprisingly little play. And I quote:

I auctioned off a preview of Fair Game at a celebrity auction and got the funniest collection of people together to watch the movie. It wasn't your standard audience for a movie. Only six people attended the screening. Of those six, one was a contract employee of the CIA and one was Scooter Libby's appeals lawyer, Alan Dershowitz! It was kind of funny, given that we are trying to be as factual as possible on this film, and these are some of the people who can best judge how closely our film adheres to the facts.

As much as it's obvious to me what the White House did, we don't show it in Fair Game if we don't have facts to support it. I think Oliver Stone takes a different tack, in which, if he believes something to be true, even if he doesn't have the facts to support it, he'll go ahead and put it in his movie as though it's fact. I know in my heart that Dick Cheney orchestrated this whole thing, but I don't know that for a fact, so I'm not going to say that in the film. I'm going to make this a strength of the movie. In Fair Game, when they take on the White House, it's scarier because you don't really know what's going on inside. Just as Spielberg lucked out in Jaws because his shark didn't work and he discovered that the less you saw it the scarier it was, we feel that the less you see of the workings of Cheney and Bush, the scarier they will be.

So it will be interesting to see if he successfully "shows" that Cheney was behind it all without really showing it -- or perhaps it will fall flat. Stay tuned. Liman has said this is not an "art" film but aimed at a large audience.

Just this week arrived an anonymous review of the film from that test screening, which naturally must be taken with a grain of salt (for one thing, films are often changed after getting feedback at such events). But the attendee calls it "a tremendous, thought provoking film," a 9 on a scale of 10, with great performances by the leads.

As for plot: "We're led to believe that the order of the leak was made by Karl Rove to Scooter Libby (played by a hilariously serious David Andrews), and the rest is history. Plame's career is destroyed, her marriage (and life) nearly go along with it, and a major investigation into corruption in the Bush White House is launched, ultimately leading to the fall of Libby." More:

"The film clocked in at roughly 1:50, and paced tremendously well. There was a side-plot they spent a bit too much time on involving an Iraqi family and Plame's valiant efforts to save them from the invasion, but that was really the only downfall of the film. Watts is excellent, at least as good as she was in Eastern Promises, and Penn is as good here as I've seen him. It's directed by Doug Liman who did an excellent job of it, and I believe he also served as DP, so kudos to him as I often forgot the camera was even rolling. Truly a wonderful human drama with political suspense that should interest anybody no matter how they vote."

Interestingly, in an earlier blog post, Liman wrote about the new challenges, since he made Bourne Identity, of people attending test screenings who then go out and blog about the unfinished film, perhaps putting its fate in the hands of some random 17-year-old.

He concluded, "There's no built-in audience that we're going to lose if some teenage boy blogs that it wasn't cool enough. In this case, just as the blogs could hurt us, they could help us. But at the end of the day, the people who finance movies would be much happier if there was a way for nobody to write about an unreleased film because the scary thing is that you just don't control what gets written. But 'buzz' aside, marketing aside, I'm still trying to make Fair Game the best movie it can possibly be, and it's my judgment that learning from a live audience's reaction to the movie will help me do that."

Greg Mitchell wrote about the Plame case extensively in his book "So Wrong for So Long." His latest book is "Why Obama Won." He is editor of Editor & Publisher and can be reached at: gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com

Will Durst: Poking the Cobra

2009-10-26T10:27:12Z

Now is the time for all good men to put their hands together, pull them apart and rapidly put them back together again, and repeat, to give props to the President for not curling up into a fetal position with a "Kick Me" sign taped to his butt. You know. Like a Democrat.

He's taking it straight to his perceived enemy, calling both Fox News and Rush Limbaugh radical and out of the mainstream, making the two crazier than a preacher at a whorehouse with a parishioner working the door. Because that is exactly what they say about him. Methinks there may be a bad case of "can dish it out but not take it" going around.

Conservative commentators are retaliating by lobbing charges of extreme partisanship at the President. Claiming he totally ignored his campaign promise to be "a uniter, not a divider." Oh wait, that wasn't him. That was the other guy. Sorry. You remember the last guy. Now there was someone who reeked of non- partisanship. At least I think that's what it was.

No idea what the right-wing radio dudes expected Barack to do in response to their incessant taunting and baiting: clap his hands over his ears and make la- la- la noises until the bad people stop talking nasty about him? Lie down on a fire resistant humanely braided Persian rug and whimper himself to sleep? Or pull a John Kerry, who while being swift boated in August 04, spent the entire month on his back waiting for a big old tummy rub. You know. Like a Democrat.

Though he lacks military service, Barack Obama seems to grasp the concept of "target acquired." Obviously, this sustained adversarial offensive is all part of a choreographed campaign to marginalize critics. An effort to paint the GOP as a wee bit of a sliver of a party, chock full of pro-rape, white, Southern ditto-heads and fringe licking extremists. Following the script perfected by that fabled wartime tactician: Karl Rove. If you're going to steal, take from the best.

It must be said that refusing to appear on Fox News does seem to fly in the face of the President's official policy to open a dialogue with all evil-doers. Which normally, he does. Iran. Hamas. North Korea. Syria. Everyone it seems, except Rupert Murdoch. "If we want fair & balanced, we'll get our fair and balanced from MSNBC thank you very much." Not very Peace Prize-ish if you ask me.

Its a tricky game this riling the rabble that Obama is playing. You got to be awfully careful when you poke the cobra. Fortunately he's got the extra long pointy sticks that are David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel to do the dirty work. Another problem is both sides know that as the rhetoric ratchets up, so do the ratings. But studies prove helping Limbaugh hurts Republicans with Independents, so it's a calculated gamble. On the order of picking the Raiders to cover, on the road.

A final concern is all this fresh flummery could cause Rush to bloat up to dirigible size and then explode, which some experts say may force the evacuation of the entire Eastern Seaboard due to fears of Oxycontin contamination. But most importantly, Obama needs to keep in mind the advice my father regularly spouted after his third six pack: never get in a fight with an ugly person, he's got nothing to lose. You know. Like a Republican.

Will Durst is a San Francisco based political comic who writes sometimes. This is one of them.

Catch his new one man show "The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion," appearing at a performing arts center near you.

Lorelei Kelly: Commander in Chief: Yes He Is

2009-10-22T09:48:30Z

It has long been lamented that national security no longer stops at the water's edge. This expression derives from a Cold War consensus that pitted democratic capitalism against communism. It bound elected leaders and most of the American public together in a common cause. It disappeared in 1991, and has yet to be replaced by a compelling new framework. Simplicity is no easy task in a world of blurred boundaries and rapid communication. Lacking clarity, "security" has become vulnerable to fear profiteers who depend on an "us versus them" mindset. A glance through recent attacks against President Obama for exercising his commander-in-chief prerogative bears proof: Today, national security doesn't even stop at the gutter's edge.

It's like a bad dream "Groundhog Day" repeat: the Cheneys, Frank Gaffney, Bill Kristol, Karl Rove. They have been all over the place lately, criticizing President Obama's decision making style, even starting a new organization to carry the cudgel, (get the critical scoop on it at National Security Network). They are suggesting that he doesn't respect the military, is too deferential, lacks resolve.

The biggest jaw-bender, however, is that he's taking too much time to review our policy in Afghanistan. WHAT?!! This from the very same people who scorned in-depth analysis in 2003--during the run up to the Iraq war. In fact, back then they ignored military advice. I remember the last briefing I went to in 2003, just before the US invasion. It was with Army strategists--who laid out 140 tasks that were obligations for any occupying nation. Ignored. Like the rest of the credible information that was based on experience and reflection. I don't think I'm alone in believing that a roomful of toddlers with a typewriter could have written better memos in 2003 than this same gang of hectoring neoconservatives.

Today, America has a commander-in-chief who shows respect for the military by understanding the accurate division of labor in security policy. He and his team (and an increasing number of voices on Capitol Hill) know that, in today's world, security problems are beyond the purview of the military acting alone. Afghanistan is emblematic of this new situation. The worst thing the neocons can do to the military is to ignore the message being sent about the dramatic shifts on the ground--and the full complement of resources needed. Or by framing our challenge and our major commitment to that country in military terms alone. Conservatives need to stop picking a bogus fight between General McChrystal and the Administration over troop levels. Troops are just one of many possible contributions. And any troops sent must fit into a comprehensive strategy.

Important context: Keep in mind that--lacking capacity in our other agencies--the Pentagon has by default become the institutional memory of American post Cold War foreign policy. General McChrystal is part of a generation of officers whose understanding of security is both broad and deep. If his comments in London touched a nerve, it is a sign of a much bigger American civics issue about how to inform and educate ourselves in today's world, and who we are equipping to be the messengers of change. The bright-lines of military participation in public policy discussions have blurred because it is the institution disproportionately burdened with this task today. It happens that the Army and Marines have some pretty compelling knowledge and lessons. Evening out this responsibility is a vital longterm task for all Americans.

It still kills me that so many neoconservatives claim to value the military, yet demonstrate so few military values. Like: looking after the general welfare, shared risk, sacrifice for common goals and longterm planning. And here's the kicker: public service. Here are some other reminders of how progressive the military can be:

International human rights law: U.S. military lawyers have been human rights champions for Guantánamo prisoners and for the Geneva Conventions.

International treaties: The U.S. Navy is one of the strongest advocates for the Law of the Sea.

Nuclear arms control: The military generally finds nuclear weapons unusable.

Conflict resolution: The Air Force has a prize-winning office of dispute resolution.

Renewable energy: The U.S. military is the largest renewable consumer in the country.

AIDS prevention: The Defense Department has an extensive program to help foreign militaries.

The American military's changing worldview has resulted in identity conflicts within the institution. This tension will likely continue until younger generations move into leadership and bring with them very different notions of national security. This should be encouraged as much as possible. It should also involve all of us.

The idea that power comes not from dominance, but from the ability to influence change, is a lesson learned from recent experience. Contrast the tea-drinking and negotiating experience of Afghanistan with the linear, engineering mindset of the Cold War--where a rigid worldview fit nicely with hardware-heavy solutions. Low-tech is our future. Afghanistan is the test. Finally, we have a President who hears what the military has been saying for nearly twenty years now: Security is about people.

Michele Brown: Christie Aide Who Got Loan May Have Helped Chris Christie Campaign For NJ Governor

2009-10-19T23:05:07Z

When news broke in August that the former United States attorney, Christopher J. Christie, had lent $46,000 to a top aide in the federal prosecutor's office, he said he was merely helping a friend in need. He also said the aide, Michele Brown, had done nothing to help his gubernatorial campaign.

But interviews with federal law enforcement officials suggest that Ms. Brown used her position in two significant and possibly improper ways to try to aid Mr. Christie in his run for governor.

Bush Memoirs Coming Out In 2010 Will Haunt Election Season

2009-10-14T09:19:25Z

For Republicans looking forward to the first Bush-free election in a decade, the book publishing schedule is the bearer of bad news: Between New Year's Day and next November, as many as five Bush administration officials -- including the former president himself -- will rehash history in hardback.

The literary luge ride down memory lane shoves off with a return to the economic collapse via former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's "On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System," due out from Business Plus in January.

Newsweek : Strange Bedfellows Oppose Afghanistan Escalation

2009-10-07T22:08:46Z

If President Obama decides to endorse Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, he'll find an unlikely assortment of allies. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote a note to her Facebook followers stressing her belief that the additional troops were integral to success in Afghanistan. In September, she joined Karl Rove, William Kristol, David Frum, Robert Kagan, and more 30 other conservatives in signing a letter that urges the president to "give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy." On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain told reporters that he was "very convinced that General McChrystal's analysis is not only correct but should be employed as quickly as possible."

Josh Penry Faces Ethics Complaint from Colorado Watchdog Group

2009-10-06T09:51:02Z

Update: The Colorado Independent reports that this is not the first email scandal for Mike Britt, Josh Penry's campaign:

Britt was one of Karl Rove's acolytes in the Bush administration and he was one of the targets in 2007 of the congressional investigation into violations of the Presidential Records Act, also known as the White House email scandal, where Rove and Britt and other strategists conducted official government business on their Republican National Committee email accounts instead of on White House email accounts.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

On Monday, the watchdog group Colorado Ethics Watch filed request for Colorado Senate Minority Leader and Gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry to turn over campaign records, claiming that he used an email list obtained through his Minority Leader position--a state-funded post--for campaign purposes.

From Colorado Ethics Watch:

Today, Ethics Watch filed a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request with the Colorado Senate Minority Office (SMO), seeking records regarding the office's e-mail contact list. A Denver Post report raised suspicions that the Penry for Governor campaign may have received an e-mail list from the SMO, whose budget is paid for with government funds. Colorado law prohibits state resources from being used to promote candidates for public office.

On September 1, Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post Reported:

Some state Capitol workers received a blast e-mail Thursday from Republican Josh Penry's gubernatorial campaign, fueling speculation that the lawmaker was using government e-mail lists for election purposes.

Penry campaign manager Mike Britt denied the allegations, claiming that Penry received the email addresses from political allies who shared their distribution lists.

Ronald B. Robinson: Democrat Calls Republicans "Knuckle Dragging Neanderthals." Is Berlusconi One Too? You Bet!

2009-10-01T17:38:36Z

Take Note, Take Note Oh World! - Democrat Alan Grayson "calls out lying Repugs on CNN" - and truth tellers and seekers the world over, like those trying to oust Italy's neanderthal, Silvio Berlusconi, ought study his technique!

Grayson's appearance on CNN's "The Situation Room" is the real deal.

Grayson tells it like it is and the way it needs to be told. His approach represents the prototype of how to promote a positive agenda and take on what has become the modern day Karl Rove version of the old Mussolini Repubblichini - those loyal to and who fought for Mussolini against anti-fascist Italians after Mussolini was deposed (recall Rove's master plan of essentially creating one-party Republican rule tied to corporate control, i.e. fascism). This includes the "Kinder, Gentler Fascism" the GOP (aping its Italian political cousins) has spawned and the mainstream media has helped legitimate.

After all, Rove/Bush/Cheney and the Republican clan were deposed and Obama is now our President. Yet those loyal to these scoundrels, like those loyal to Mussolini and Mussolini wannabee, Berlusconi, continue to fight on, full of fascistic fervor, for the most "Neanderthal" social, cultural, political, and economic components of their agenda.

Of course, the media compliantly confers respectability on this agenda by giving it equal status if not more currency than Obama's, bequeathing it the title of conservatism rather than that of fascism, which it rightly deserves.

And the media continues to countenance the mobs that show up at Town Hall meetings with their kids in tow, unconcealed weapons, and hateful slogans -- successfully intimidated many Democratic lawmakers into dropping the public option for health care. The media called them "grassroots activists," rehabilitating their image, actions, and history, which includes terrorist Timothy McVeigh and the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. Remember when Republicans controlled Congress after McVeigh's terrorist bombing killed 167 and injured hundreds more of his fellow Americans? Rather than aggressively pursue hearings into the bombing, Republicans fueled the flames, legitimating McVeigh's sentiments by pursuing hearings into the Clinton administration's handling of the raid on Waco, Texas.

Republicans knew that McVeigh was upset about the Federal Government's raid on Waco and used it as an excuse to blow up the Federal building. But more importantly, they knew he was connected to key Republican constituencies - the militia movement, and those that have become the Town Hall and "Tea Party" mobs, "birthers," "deathers," and anti-ACORN fanatics of today. That's why they tried to hide these facts from the public -- so the fascist movement would retain its air of legitimacy.

Yet, whenever anyone dares describe them as mobs, like Nancy Pelosi and some in the media, the Republicans immediately denounced Pelosi et al as "fascist" and "racist." Their strategy seems to use the words "fascist" and "racist" against liberals and the left in order to insulate themselves from these charges, hurling them first and ferociously and deliberately inverting and distorting their meaning.

Significantly, Italy seems to be reciprocally grappling with some similar influences and dynamics, which include over sixty years of American right-wing meddling in their affairs. Most recent examples include (a) Karl Rove's involvement with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, who along with his political partners, the "post-fascist" National Alliance, are pushing to rehabilitate the image of the Repubblichini and Mussolini fascism, just as the Republicans are doing in the U.S. with the followers of McVeigh and mobs at the Town Hall meetings, and (b) key Rove and Bush adviser, infamous neo-con, and Republican "intellectual" guru Michael Ledeen.

Of note, Ledeen not only apparently plagiarized the writings of Italian fascist, F.T. Marinetti, so enamored he is reported to be of Italian fascism, but he is also reputedly linked to some of Italy's most notorious, feared, and shadowy right-wing groups. Ledeen seems to believe that the black shirted Mussolini thugs and the mob serve as prototypes for pushing for "positive" change in the U.S. Hence the thuggery we see at the Town Halls and the image remaking and utilization of the American "militia movement," which is growing by leaps and bounds. As in the U.S., Ledeen and Rovian "advice" to Berlusconi is to also essentially bankrupt the federal treasury and/or de-fund essential public services, like education, health-care, transportation, emergency management, etc. while scapegoating immigrants for the additional costs and burdens placed on society. Of course, the ultimate goal is to privatize as much of the public sector as possible -- doling out as many private contracts to political supporters as one can get away with -- whether or not they happen to be criminal enterprises -- and to do so by abusing all of the levers of the democratic political process, evidence planting, intimidation, destroying opponents, and behind the scenes bureaucratic machinations. That's what earned Rove the title of "the architect."

Such is the portfolio not only of Rove and Ledeen, but the right-wing's flagship think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where Ledeen holds its most prestigious post -- the AEI "Freedom Chair." As Huffington Post readers know, AEI's global influence and privitization agenda knows no bounds. Nor does the deference paid to this neo-con refuge by American mainstream media -- despite how horribly wrong and complicit Ledeen and AEI were in helping lead the country into the Iraq disaster. Their primary propaganda project now is to rehabilitate the image and utilization of fascistic mob activism and extremism in the service of corporate conglomerate interests (e.g., Insurance, health care providers, big oil, etc.) and special interest foreign policy objectives.

They know that without these mobs and the intimidation/fear factor, the Rovian and Republican fascistic agenda would not survive the democratic political process nor objective media scrutiny. I believe that is a component of why their agenda includes reciprocally assisting their Italian proteges resurrect and rehabilitate the image of the Rupubblichini and why they so admire the mob (including, perhaps, the grande mob, or mafia).

Perhaps it's time to give the Republicans a couple of new names that better match what they've become: The GOP Republichini and the Nagger Party since it seems they've also become a bunch of naysaying naggers with nothing to say but "NO!" to any of the President's initiatives.

This is why Rep. Grayson referred to them as a bunch of "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals" and exposed their hidden health-care plan as essentially hoping that Americans without adequate coverage die quickly. He outed their agenda and the cruelty on which it's based. But then the CNN punks on "the Situation Room" tried to beat him down. They never did that to the GOP Repubblichini during all of their lying, predatory, death threatening, unethical actions, which continue to this very second. Grayson stood his ground against this onslaught of hypocrisy from Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borgia, Alex Castellanos, and "Token Brotha"...and CNN needs to be taken to task for their own cruel double standard.

Especially since CNN spawned Glenn Beck and continues to give refuge to Lou Dobbs who daily dishes out Nagger Party lies and neanderthal lines like he was an outpost for Fox "Fact Free" News on "Americas Most Trusted Name in News." Sadly, it appears that CNN has become another Media Mouthpiece for Republican predation and the only thing it seems they can be trusted to do is continue their predatory ways. And regarding Grayson, MSNBC did their best to follow suit, except for their afternoon lineup of Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow. Of course, the rest of the mainstream media just fell in line with the CNN approach.

And this is part of the problem and why it's so hard for Dems to show backbone and stand strong -- the mainstream media has accepted as legitimate the role and identity of Republicans as predator and Democrats as prey. Therefore, anytime Dems veer from this media enforced script they catch hell while Repubs get a free ride!

Please study the vids and spread them around. I am adding the video of Grayson's comments on the floor of the Congress as well (shown on Keith Olbermann, including Keith's and Arianna Huffington's Commentary.) It also represents a prototype for confronting both Republican and Berlusconi predatory politics and economics and what Drew Westen, author of "The Political Brain" has long been advocating for.

Being progressives and promoting a positive agenda or Socio-Spiritual Liberation and Joyful Justice doesn't mean being wimpy. Nor do we need to seek a disembodied, abstract, "moral highground" when confronting these naggers with their fraudulent ACORN-birther-deather fetish. In other words, we don't need to pursue or preserve a fake image and idol of what it means to be progressive, positive, spiritual, and/or advocate Oneness and Unity.

So let's stop stooping and seeking security in pleasant platitudes and a false sense of superiority and instead be positively SPIRITED in the face of falsity and fascism. It's time to assert the truth with vigor and verve, seizing the joy of the moment - not just like Grayson, but like those Italians and their anti-fascist supporters who will loudly and proudly proclaim, "NO MORE BERLUSCONI. NO MORE NEANDERTHALS" at 2:00 pm on December 5th at Piazza della Repubblica in Rome. See you there!

John Wellington Ennis: The Lynching of ACORN

2009-09-30T18:33:37Z

In his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas refuted Professor Anita Hill's sexual harassment testimony against him with these famous words:

"This is a case in which this sleaze, this dirt, was searched for by staffers of members of this committee, was then leaked to the media, and this committee and this body validated it and displayed it at prime time over our entire nation....This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree."

I cite this as precedent in three realms: An African-American defining a lynching beyond the traditional mob beating and hanging of black people; a Supreme Court Justice not known for opinions sympathetic to minorities here asserting racism as the cause in a line of inquiry; and the U.S. Congress's acceptance of this definition as they hastily approved the minimally experienced Thomas following his scathing complaints.

The history of lynching in America is considerable. From 1882-1968, nearly 5000 lynchings occurred in the United States. Lynching is vigilantism and extrajudicial decision by a group of people, a violent act by a mob that does not believe their agenda will be met by law, aware they are acting out of the law, but in effect being the law. There is rarely accountability for those involved. In fact, the display of the victim hanging for all to see is meant to scare off others, violators of perceived segregation or threats to authority. A perceived wrong to white women was often used as justification. Fueled by prejudice and mistruths, urged by a perceived threat or need for immediate justice, lynchings often occurred for reasons other than the alleged crime, like a land or business dispute. Lynchings occurred primarily with blacks men dying at the hands of a white mob, but white people were also targeted, for activism or outspokenness.

This would seem to be the case in Kentucky, where a white census worker was murdered, left hanged, naked, hands taped together, gagged, his ID taped to him and "FED" scrawled across his chest. To dispute that this heinous crime qualifies as a lynching is a very dangerous road to go down, even from people who email Whitehouse watermelon pictures. Nonetheless, some are inhumanly quick to venture any number of defamatory theories, blaming a victim who can no longer speak for himself, rather than acknowledge what is plain as day.

The manner in which Bill Sparkman was left to be found makes it clear that this was meant as a message. His body didn't have "Bill" scawled on it, or "Guy Who Wronged Me Personally In Ways That The Legal Process Will Not Adjudicate Fairly." No, it said simply, "FED," as in, what else is there to say? He was a federal employee--how dare he? But why on earth would someone want to kill a federal employee (outside of postal-worker-on-postal-worker violence)? How could population counting of American citizens to allot them equitable representation and public resources make them want to kill you?

Fanatical fear mongers, such as wrist-slasher and U.S. Representative Michelle Bachman, have sought to create fears of this census process that occurs every 10 years, alleging surveillance and plans to build government camps. She has been notably dodging the issue since Sparkman's murder, but she had plenty of unfounded fears to share about the census just months ago:

As you can see from this clip, ACORN has already been conflated with the right wing paranoia about the census, with FOX's Megyn Kelly re-enforcing these misperceptions up until Bachmann evokes the Japanese internment camps in World War II as reason for us to be suspicious today. That ACORN is raised as a specter in the same breath as the internment of Japanese-Americans by the U.S. Government post-Pearl Harbor reveals the far-flung misimpressions of this community umbrella organization. ACORN sounds like COBRA.

The census worker lynching in Kentucky indicates that this violent fervor is still alive and well, and being fed some of the purest baloney that the right wing fear machine can mass-produce in their all-out efforts at relevance. The only danger presented by both census-taking and ACORN's voter registration is the counting and empowerment of Brown people. As the population includes more minorities--on their way to becoming the majority--plenty of bigoted white people feel their sense of prestige endangered. Census data goes into districting, and thus proportional representation in government. More Brown people voting further threatens the status quo.

By the standard of a high-tech lynching, ACORN's travails are commensurate. The attacks on ACORN have been ongoing, involving the Justice Department, the White House, and the Republican National Committee, well before a couple of privileged white kids in costumes wandered into poor communities across the country hoping to make social workers look stupid and lose their jobs. This is a mob Karl Rove started years ago.

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James O'Keefe III is serving Karl Rove, knowingly or unknowingly. His very identification of ACORN as what had to be taken down a notch -- not Goldman Sachs, not the Treasury, not U.S. companies with off-shore accounts -- why would O'Keefe even know what ACORN is?

This extensive report on the Media's failure to objectively cover ACORN, just released by the Occidental College Urban & Environmental Policy Institute shows the rampant inequity of media coverage and lack of accuracy in reporting on ACORN for the past year. If someone were to see solely this much negative press, they would probably hold an unfavorable view of ACORN as well, as some 67% people do, according to a recent poll Karl Rove Tweeted.

Enter James O'Keefe III to take that ball of misinformation and run with it. On FOX & Friends, James O'Keefe III is introduced at the beginning of the interview, wearing a fur coat over his preppy blazer, as he waves a cane. The host is quick to excuse his appearance: "You're not a pimp, you're just playing one on our show."

O'Keefe replies: "I'm one of the whitest guys ever, I just wear ridiculous stuff and put people in ridiculous situations." That is how he assures us he is not a pimp--he is one of the Whitest Guys Ever, therefore on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Blackest Guys Ever, who normally tend to this kind of thing.

Implicit is this: 'I am so white, I had to dress up like a pimp caricature to look black, and it actually worked. That they acknowledged me despite my outlandish attire shows that they are so gullible and base, I was mistaken for a real pimp, which they all must know, being minorities. Once disguised in this clownish attire, they spoke to me as one of their own, so therefore this is how they all behave throughout their organization. Had I not been dressed as Huggy Bear from Starsky & Hutch, the ACORN employees would have known that I was white, and therefore been on their best behavior, as we can expect them to be to us white people when we come around to check on them.'

Just by walking in the door dressed like this, O'Keefe is casting aspersions that people like this would go there (not just sex workers--clueless sex workers). O'Keefe even pleaded with one alarmed ACORN worker to not call the cops for assistance, so that later O'Keefe can fault him for not calling the cops. As O'Keefe says in the above clip coldly, "That's who these people are."

O'Keefe is quick to generalize an entire national organization based on a singular intrusive experience, despite other ACORN offices not taking his bait, after admitting he went in there to prove they were thugs. If that's who these people really are, why not release the videotapes in their entirety to show that, including those tapes shot in cities that did not humor O'Keefe, like Los Angeles or Philadelphia, where the ACORN office filed a police report about the pimp and ho spectacle?

As O'Keefe insists in the clip above, ACORN's allegation that the tapes appear doctored is "a lie," so he shouldn't have a problem proving it by releasing the full unedited tapes, which would likely be part of ACORN's lawsuit against him. Refuting the "moral equivalence," O'Keefe decries that doctoring tapes does not even compare with child prostitution -- suggesting that to O'Keefe, the ends justify the means. Was this about the truth, or making ACORN look bad?

Lost in all of the sensationalism of O'Keefe's hyperbole and selective truths was that there has been no other connection between ACORN and underage prostitution, until O'Keefe walked in and started talking about it to any ACORN employee he could get to listen to him.

Try to explain this to the anti-ACORN vandalism that appeared immediately after O'Keefe's videos, notably at Shepard Fairy's art studio in Santa Monica. The stencil reading "ACORN Funded Prostitution Zone" doesn't take into account that there has been no evidence of actual prostitution, or that Shepard Fairy doesn't even have any connection to ACORN--but he made a poster for Obama, so they're all connected? This is the kind of hasty reaction that ties a bunch of unrelated things together in a mob's mind, searching for some easy target.

Many in the crankosphere were quick to chest-beat: "To defend ACORN is to defend child prostitution itself. No one can defend them now!" Actually, you can defend ACORN, and many have, because decades of real work in communities across our country still amounts to more than a fleeting image to a bunch of anonymous people in Gotcha Mode who do not know the reality of what ACORN is and will not bother to learn.

But once again, this is beside the point: Do I have to defend everything that ACORN has or has not done to decry this unjust process? Myself and others have attested to ACORN's greater good, but there is a critical need to refute gross misrepresentation and be vigilant in truth to rebuff future pitchfork-wavers.

In the wake of the fallout from the Pimp-Ho videos, the first government tie to drop ACORN was the Census Bureau, even though they do not pay ACORN for their service. Rep. Daniel Issa of Orange County introduced a measure to strip ACORN of all federal funding, which quickly passed with few questions. It passed so quickly, no one realized it could apply to all defense contractors, as it might should. Now, Democrats are falling over each other trying to score a major win for Republicans and enact a new measure to re-de-fund ACORN, just to be safe.

This is another characteristic of lynching: That it is not just the hate mongers doing it. This was carried out by the community. James Allen's Without Sanctuary, a book of postcards from the turn of the 20^th century when lynching photos were like trading cards, includes this observation from Pullitzer Prize-winning historian Leon F. Litwack wrote:

"The photographs stretch our credulity, even numb our minds and senses to the full extent of the horror, but they must be examined if we are to understand how normal men and women could live with, participate in, and defend such atrocities, even reinterpret them so they would not see themselves or be perceived as less than civilized. The men and women who tortured, dismembered, and murdered in this fashion understood perfectly well what they were doing and thought of themselves as perfectly normal human beings. Few had any ethical qualms about their actions. This was not the outburst of crazed men or uncontrolled barbarians but the triumph of a belief system that defined one people as less human than another. For the men and women who comprised these mobs, as for those who remained silent and indifferent or who provided scholarly or scientific explanations, this was the highest idealism in the service of their race. One has only to view the self-satisfied expressions on their faces as they posed beneath black people hanging from a rope or next to the charred remains of a Negro who had been burned to death. What is most disturbing about these scenes is the discovery that the perpetrators of the crimes were ordinary people, not so different from ourselves - merchants, farmers, laborers, machine operators, teachers, doctors, lawyers, policemen, students; they were family men and women, good churchgoing folk who came to believe that keeping black people in their place was nothing less than pest control, a way of combating an epidemic or virus that if not checked would be detrimental to the health and security of the community."

James Allen himself reflects on the postcards of lynchings as pornographic fodder:

"I believe the photographer was more than a perceptive spectator at lynchings. The photographic art played as significant a role in the ritual as torture or souvenir grabbing - a sort of two-dimensional biblical swine, a receptacle for a collective sinful self. Lust propelled their commercial reproduction and distribution, facilitating the endless replay of anguish. Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary. "

On James O'Keefe III's Facebook page, one of his many new supporters posted, 'Is there some way to outlaw ACORN? And then anyone giving them money would be breaking the law.' While such strong federal government intervention seems to be counter to the Right's constant outcry of preventing such intrusion, it does aspire to bend the law to punish those who disagree, and set an example.

In no way am I suggesting that O'Keefe was, or is, consciously promoting racial violence, or even responsible for any that occurs in the wake of his smear job.

But at a lynching a hundred years ago, James O'Keefe III would have been the one taking the picture.

www.johnennis.tv

WaPo Critiques Obama With "Expert" Panel Of Five Republicans, Two Dems

2009-09-22T10:47:59Z

The Washington Post on Tuesday called in a panel of "experts" to weigh in on President Barack Obama's attempt at the Modified, Limited Ginsburg over the weekend. Naturally, they are a day late to the topic. And, of course, the panel, in keeping with Washington Post traditions, is mostly a drab gaggle of Republicans. Here's how they achieve "balance": Republicans Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Dan Schnur, Ed Rogers, and Linda Chavez take on Democratic Pollster Douglas Schoen and Lanny Davis -- who moonlights as Washington DC's most unpleasant person.

Do you wonder what they'll say about the matter? Well, you'd be surprised! As you read the piece, you start to realize something -- the problem with this piece isn't that the panel is primarily composed of kneejerk, predictable, Republican critics. The problem is that the panel is astoundingly lackwitted!

Suppose someone were to come up to you today and say this:

Obama is 'on the edge of being pedestrian and boring.' He 'will be disappointed' when 'his media blitz" fails to 'move the needle' and 'affect public opinion.' Benefits are going to be 'short lived,' he will not 'persuade the large majority of Americans,' and it is 'hard to see what is going to be accomplished by this.' He should have 'gone on Fox News' to reach 'swing voters' and not 'insult [Fox] on the record.' I 'thought that the administration would have something new to say.' He 'said nothing new.' Also, 'hasn't really had anything new to say.' 'I...recommend...bipartisan...'

My response would be: "YES, I TOO AM CAPABLE OF BLANDLY RESTATING LAST WEEK'S CONVENTIONAL WISDOM LIKE A CRANIALLY TRAUMATIZED MYNAH BIRD." What the Washington Post said was: "OOOH! LET'S SPEND MONEY, ACQUIRING THIS INSIGHT."

Close readings of the individual pieces don't make it any better. Karl Rove -- a man who is credited with genius for driving the GOP into the ground while constantly intoning the most prosaic utterances about politics, ever -- thinks it's "expertise" to tell readers that there are five Sunday talk shows and then attempts to relitigate an argument between Obama and George Stephanopoulos that was much better when litigated by the original litigants. Linda Chavez thinks it's a contradiction for Obama to want to "reward decency and civility in our political discourse" while simultaneously decrying the "lies" and "bogus claims" of "critics." Lanny Davis, of course, likes the Wyden-Bennett bill -- not because it achieves savings, not because it's effective, not because it's going to make Americans healthier -- but because it's covered in BIPARTISANSHIP SAUCE, the most precious substance in Washington.

And I don't know why you pay editors if it's not to stop Dana Perino from putting sentences like these into your newspaper: "All of that is fine and good. But is fine good enough?"

To be honest with you, there's only one really smart thing said in this whole piece. Credit where credit is due to Dan Schnur, who says:

Most people don't watch television news programs on Sunday morning, and even political junkies don't watch five of them.

Seriously. That's maybe the one thing in this whole piece that actually needed to be said.

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Andrew Kreig: Siegelman Blasts DoJ and Judge In 'Final' Reply Seeking Hearing

2009-09-21T20:21:26Z

Facing a sentence of 20 additional years in prison recommended by Bush Justice Department holdovers, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman finally took off the gloves Sept. 21 against his prosecutors and the judge -- and, for once, skipped any mention of Karl Rove.

Citing new evidence since his 2006 convictions, Siegelman's nine-page filing called for a hearing with cross-examination, plus a new trial and new judge.

The arguments responded to a government filing on Aug. 28 that no new evidence has arisen since Siegelman's 2006 corruption convictions to justify a hearing or other relief.

More generally, Siegelman's prosecution remains the dramatic centerpiece of still-unsolved allegations that the Bush administration mounted a nationwide effort to change the country's political leadership by hundreds of disputed prosecutions of Democratic office-holders, candidates and contributors. Siegelman's case is key because no other has produced so many whistleblowers and investigative reporters alleging scandals. But so far no watchdog institutions have put any of the alleged miscreants under oath for public cross-examination.

For the first time, Siegelman unloaded directly on the government's top prosecutors against him in Washington and Alabama by suggesting that they oppose a hearing because they fear evidence of their own crimes for obstructing justice.

Siegelman noted that "active players" in his case have included DoJ Public Integrity Chief William Welch, II and Criminal Division Appellate Chief Patty Stemler, who are already under criminal investigation for misconduct at the request of the trial judge in last fall's conviction of former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican.

Furthermore, Siegelman pointed out that Justice Department whistleblower Tamarah Grimes has repeatedly stepped forward to allege misconduct by her colleagues on the Siegelman prosecution team. Grimes, a Republican paralegal with a quarter century's experience in legal support, began alleging years ago that the Republican U.S. Attorney Leura Canary remained active in overseeing Siegelman's prosecution despite Canary's public claims that she was recused from the case since 2002 because of her husband's longtime opposition to Siegelman, Alabama's top Democrat.

The paralegal was fired in June and cut off from health benefits a week after writing a 10-page letter to Attorney Gen. Eric Holder documenting the problems, as I reported for Huffington Post in July and at greater length this month for the national paralegal magazine Know.

Meanwhile, Siegelman's co-defendant Richard Scrushy also filed 62-pages of legal arguments Sept. 21. Scrushy, former HealthSouth CEO, noted the reprisal risks for the case's whistleblowers such as Grimes, who has twice been threatened by DoJ with criminal prosecution for denying wrongdoing, and who was sent a letter by DoJ this month with the not-too-subtle inscription: "Legal Mail -- Open Only In Presence of Inmate."

'Screaming Violation' of Due Process
Also, Siegelman made his clearest call yet for recusal of Alabama's Middle District Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller. Siegelman cited conflict of interest grounds stemming from Fuller's secret review of potential jury tampering without alerting the defense. The prosecution initiated an investigation of improper jury emails, and presented findings to the judge, who secretly ruled that no problem existed.

"If there was ever anything that smacked of the appearance of judicial impropriety, this was it," said Siegelman's filing. "It was also a screaming violation of due process to have secret investigations arranged by the Government and to conceal the results from the defense."

Fearing reprisal, Siegelman has largely refrained until now from directly challenging the judge, who was a target of a dozen columns in 2007 alone by Harper's contributor and law professor Scott Horton. Most of the columns alleged that the judge committed major ethical breaches in Siegelman's case and in other activities. Most of the allegations related to the judge's partisan Republican past, and receipt of non-judicial federal income via his closely held military contracting company Doss Aviation, Inc., whose Air Force contracts include ones for refueling planes (including Air Force One) and training Air Force pilots nationwide.

In May, I took the research further in a HuffPo column : "Siegelman Deserves New Trial Because of Judge's 'Grudge', Evidence Shows....$300 Million in Bush Military Contracts Awarded to Judge's Private Company."

Also, Alabama attorney Dana Jill Simpson in 2007 provided Congress with sworn testimony that she had heard from fellow Republicans that Siegelman would be eliminated from politics by a criminal indictment -- and that it would be assigned to Fuller because he "hated" Siegelman and therefore would "hang" him in a criminal case that was being arranged. Those she named have denied the allegations, but none of them have done so under oath, subject to cross-examination.

A Republican aged 56, the former billionairre Scrushy is serving a seven-year sentence from Fuller after being convicted of bribery-related charges for donating to an education non-profit at Siegelman's request in 1999 and then being reappointed by Siegelman to a state board on which Scrushy had served under three previous governors. Siegelman, 63, is free on bond after receiving a slightly longer sentence, largely for the same donations to enable the foundation to advocate for a lottery to fund more state spending for education.

'Terrorist' Treatment
In 2007, Fuller ordered the defendants to begin serving time immediately, without the customary appeal bond for white-collar defendants. News cameras recorded the defendants' shame in being taken from the court in shackles without the traditional opportunity to say farewell to family members, including Scrushy's crying children.

Siegelman was then placed in solitary confinement, and shuttled through the federal prison system to prevent contact with family, supporters and the media as if the government regarded him as a Third World terrorist detainee who needed to be held incommunicado by rendition.

Rarely photographed Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller invited a 2006 portrait just after the Siegelman jury began deliberations on June 15, 2006. (Copyright Phil Fleming)

A Democratic panel of the federal appeals court ordered the former governor freed on bond in 2008. But the Republican-dominated majority of the appeals court affirmed most of the defendants' convictions, setting up Siegelman's resentencing before Fuller unless he wins a new judge.

The trial and its aftermath prompted many allegations of government misconduct and pro-prosecution rulings by Fuller, summarized in my HuffPo article this month: "DoJ's Attack On Siegelman's Rights Threatens Election Rights For All." A key allegation raised by the defendants this summer is that prosecutors improperly coerced if not blackmailed their central witness Nick Bailey to suggest that Scrushy's donation was a bribe -- and also failed to provide the defense with required information about Bailey's pretrial coaching sessions at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base.

Also, 91 former state attorneys general this month argued to the Supreme Court that Siegelman's donation request doesn't constitute a crime even if a jury believed all of the Bailey's testimony and all other government evidence. Politicians commonly request funds from donors and then appoint them to positions, according to the bipartisan group of former chief law enforcers from more than 40 states.

Analysis
My take on the day's developments is Siegelman felt he needed to use his remaining words primarily on new targets. So, he omitted any mention of Rove as the moment of Fuller's decision draws nigh, potentially ending Siegelman's freedom in a case that's drawn worldwide attention from human rights experts.

For years, Siegelman has blamed Rove for orchestrating his prosecution and that of scores of other Democrats across the country via "loyal Bushies" like Canary recruited to run the Bush Justice Department. Siegelman clearly felt he needed to come out swinging hard against the Justice Department itself after Rove claimed memory loss at so many key junctures of his interview with ill-prepared House Judiciary Committee representatives this summer.

The Democratic majority ineffectively blustered for nearly two years about plans to question Rove but failed to lay a groundwork with preliminary witnesses such as the Republicans that Simpson named. This lack of preparation enabled Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to avoid being pinned down simply by denying improper deeds, so far as they could remember. That questioning read like Amateur Hour, but you'll have to decide yourself from the transcripts whether any oversights were inadvertent or by intention.

Compare that with the Justice Department's mind-boggling spending to lay a groundwork for investigating Siegelman. DoJ's reports show that it spent some $532,000 simply for one outside paralegal under contract from the private sector to organize a million documents at a special prosecution center that DoJ created at the Air Force base to house its team arrayed against Siegelman. That team included seven FBI agents, three IRS agents, three state investigators, three state prosecutors and four federal prosecutors led by an Air Force colonel.

For that matter, consider DoJ's monumental efforts just to pursue charges against the paralegal Grimes for her "crime" of denying she'd done anything wrong after she reported misconduct during what are supposed to be safe-haven federal whistleblower channels. If you'd like to see a step-by-step of what DoJ does to a whistleblower -- and its justifications for doing so -- read my new 5,000-word OpEd News interview with Grimes.

More generally, any in-depth reexamination of the Siegelman/Scrushy prosecution risks opening a Pandora's Box of the disputed prosecutions of hundreds of other Democrats affecting local offices and policies in dramatic fasion. Additionally, Republicans and libertarians are likely to be interested in the strong evidence that Republicans (including Sen. Stevens) were targeted also for what can only be described as political purposes, which I'll detail in one of my next articles.

Tamarah Grimes

That's why, in my view, the Justice Department has consistently denied a need for a hearing for Siegelman and Scrushy, much less the requests for a new judge and new trial that are clearly merited. DoJ's treatment of its paralegal Grimes contrasts so sharply with its retention of Canary and others as to illustrate also the powerful self-protection mechanisms of a bureaucracy, even when it involves protecting members of "the other" political party.

This bureaucratic self-protection is illustrated also, of course, by DoJ's Public Integrity Section-led recent arguments that no evidence exists for a hearing in the Siegelman case -- and that Siegelman deserves an additional 20 years in prison.

For context, 20 years is in the range of the term that a Mafia killer might receive from federal charges involving premeditated murder.

Nearly two decades ago, I served as law clerk to the U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf of Boston early in his eminent career presiding over such cases. One was the now-famous federal prosecution of New England's Mafia leadership, including Vincent "The Animal" Ferrara, who was accused of participating in more than killings and pleaded guilty to one.

Wolf, now chief federal judge in Massachusetts and formerly a noted crime-fighter in the state before his appointment to the bench by President Reagan, wrote the attorney general this April following Holder's invitation for chief judges to keep him informed if federal attorneys fail to perform their duties honorably and ably.

Wolf noted that he felt obligated free Ferrara (after 16 years on his 22-year sentence) because of repeated government misconduct, including DoJ's failure to disclose material suggesting innocence to the defense and to discipline its attorneys. Wolf further noted that the government misconduct in Boston mob-related cases apparently resulted in murder of witnesses and "raises serious questions about whether judges should continue to rely upon the Department to investigate and sanction misconduct by federal prosecutors."

Retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon

Several other chief judges this spring wrote similar letters to Holder. One was retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Alabama's Birmingham-based district, who wrote Holder that Siegelman's first prosecution in 2004 was "the most unfounded" he'd witnessed in nearly 30 years on the federal bench. Clemon, a Democrat and federal judge of historic stature, urged Holder carefully to review the second prosecution, especially because prosecutors altered normal procedures by removing the case from the northern district to bring it into Fuller's district.

Up to now in my reporting on the justice system, I've refrained under the law clerk's version of omerta from mentioning my former judge's important contribution to this debate even though obviously I've had nothing to do with his recent letter.

But it's clearly relevant now since Siegelman's filing today cited the letter independently. In citing the Mafia case as an example of "gross and malicious misconduct," Siegelman noted that legal scholars agree that cross-examination in a hearing "is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth."

What we now face is as dramatic a moment as I've ever seen in 35 years as a professional in this field, first as a news reporter covering federal courts and more recently an attorney and commentator.

Why Fear Testimony?
At this point, the Justice Department is either going to help enforce silence about Judge Fuller and the others who are accused of official misconduct, or else DoJ will stop making preposterous arguments to prevent a public hearing on the evidence, and potential new trial before a new judge. Then the evidence will take its course, whatever that might be.

Almost every federal prosecutor knows the famous guidance provided in 1940 by Attorney Gen. Robert Jackson, the future Supreme Court Justice and chief U.S. Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor. Jackson urged all U.S. attorneys to remember that the government never loses a case when justice prevails, regardless of which side "wins" in the short term. Isn't it time to start acting on that?

And if doing the right thing isn't enough: Won't people start noticing at some point soon that the name of the current attorney general is Eric Holder, and not Karl Rove?

Wayne Trujillo: Hispanics are Key to Winning the West -- and National Elections

2009-09-21T02:26:22Z

At least two entries posted on Huffington Post's Denver site during its launch week, "Why the West Must Be Won" and "There's a Reason the Rockies Are Purple Mountain Majesties: Dems Shouldn't Take Anything for Granted in the West," state the obvious - that the West is important, even essential, to any durable national Democratic majority. Gary Hart's post highlighted the East/West political strategy that is threatening to banish the post-Civil Rights era North/South mentality to irrelevancy. But it's the latter post by Laura Chapin that pinpoints several nuances - and potential pitfalls - qualifying the Democratic Party's resurgence in the West and, consequently, on the national level.

Last November's electoral triumph retains enough giddiness to dissuade and discourage such cautionary analysis among those Democrats still wanting to savor the moment when the party dominated coastal states, cut an impressive swath through the Rockies and even upstaged the GOP in perennial red states like Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. It seemed that such astounding inroads portended a seismic shift in American politics, perhaps even an indefinite Democratic majority. But remember it wasn't all that long ago that Karl Rove imagined an enduring Republican majority, which to horrified Democrats seemed all too possible, even if unbearable, at the time.

While there are many factors to sustained success in the West, an integral ingredient to any majority, particularly in this region, is the rapidly expanding Hispanic population. Consider that the candidate supported by the majority of Hispanics in Western states in the 2008 primaries and general election won. Hillary Rodham Clinton triumphed in most big state primaries in the West, thanks to widespread Hispanic support. Likewise, the ethnic group's support proved instrumental, if not decisive, to President Barack Obama's victories in those same states in the general election.

It wasn't always that way.

Despite Ronald Reagan's not inconsiderable support among Hispanics and his oft-quoted claim that Hispanics were Republicans but just didn't know it yet, the ethnic group didn't figure too prominently in national political considerations. Not all that long ago, the GOP largely ignored Hispanics, with the exception of Cuban-Americans, and the Democratic Party assumed, some would claim took for granted, their allegiance, even if the ethnic group's lackluster presence at the polls frustrated party leaders. Ever since the Civil Rights movement, black leaders and politicos were the overarching, public perception of minority activism, political powerhouses instantly recognized by mainstream America. With the exceptions of Cesar Chavez and Corky Gonzalez, Hispanics lacked the celebrity firepower to command widespread attention to their grievances and causes. To enhance their influence, Hispanic leaders often aligned themselves in civil rights and political affairs with black organizations.

Then the immigration explosion upended past assumptions and patterns pertaining to Hispanics.

The first big evidence of the upcoming political upheaval generated by Hispanics came over a decade ago in the aftermath of 1994's GOP-sponsored Proposition 187 in California that denied public services to illegal immigrants. Often called the "sleeping giant," the ethnic group was stirred from its slumber, actually jolted awake, by the tangible ramifications of the proposition (far more so than the anti-affirmative action measures also championed by then-Governor Pete Wilson). Within a few years, Democrats recaptured California's governorship and a Latina unseated a Republican congressman in a district the GOP considered inviolable. Instrumental in California's Democratic successes in the late 90's were Hispanics, a group possessing a political temperament that has shifted from apathy to anger and, in recent years, to appeasement. And, even more recently, back to anger and fear.

Rove's strategy anticipated that an enlarged Hispanic population, spurred by conservative familial and religious affiliations, would help secure a Republican grip on the White House and increase the party's presence in Congress and statehouses. For a time, it appeared his vision might be 20/20. In 2004, when then-President George W. Bush garnered an estimated 40 per cent of the Hispanic vote, it seemed surreal to me that less than a decade had passed since another Republican presidential candidate's mere appearance on television prompted my Hispanic coworkers in a restaurant to loudly boo, accompanied by shouts of, "Go home!" Bob Dole received about 20 per cent of the Hispanic vote in the 1996 presidential election.

It appeared to me that Hispanics, like the overall American population, had a short memory, their decisions influenced by brief attention spans and the politics of personality. Then came the public explosion of the anti-immigration faction, as ubiquitous across America as the immigration explosion that precipitated and preceded it. Republican conservatives, a vocal and active contingent of the party, shrilly registered their umbrage at the perceived threats of illegal immigration.

Finally forced to confront the morass, Congress attempted to tackle immigration reform; supported by the president. Ultimately, Congress ditched immigration reform, its demise mainly resulting from those Republican members intimidated by the prospect of defeat in upcoming elections at the hands of the anti-immigration clique. Even Senator John McCain, coauthor of the immigration reform bill with the late Senator Edward Kennedy, edged away from his previous efforts during the Republican primaries.

Many Hispanic Republicans felt isolated and angry. Two years ago, here in Colorado, one of the state's most visible Hispanic Republicans, Gil Cisneros, asked me, a staunch Democrat, to write an opinion piece in which we attempted to explain the political environment created by the immigration uproar. At the time, Cisneros' position represented the GOP fissure that persists to this day.

Former President Bush, who had enjoyed considerable support from both Hispanics and his party's conservative base just a few years previously, watched helplessly as any compromise and resolution (along with Rove's envisioned Republican majority) slipped away. All of which helped President Obama lead the party's 2008 electoral sweep. Hispanics, as a whole, had come full circle to the political environment I recalled in 1996. As Chapin's post cautions, attitudes and affiliations can change fast.

At present, the anti-immigration faction of the GOP has antagonized Hispanics and alienated independents, presenting a public face of the party with its most prominent features being intolerance and intemperance. As long as Republicans allow that constituency to dominate the discussion and impede compromise, Democrats will reap rewards. But, similar to how Chapin describes the West's voters, Hispanics can also be capricious. Just ask Karl Rove and recall his predictions and plans of an indefinite Republican majority.

Anti-Czar Bill Gets 100 Cosponsors In House [UPDATE]

2009-09-16T14:16:53Z

Yesterday, I posted on how a group of senators sent the White House a letter expressing concern over a multitude of presidential appointments -- which they label "czars" -- and how they "raise serious issues of accountability, transparency, and oversight." At length, I pointed out how those senators themselves need to do a better job accounting for the actual roles of those so-called czars, which are transparently obvious and easy to oversee.

Now it's the House's turn to get deeply mired in confusion over this non-issue! The Washington Independent's Dave Weigel reports today that Georgia Republican Jack Kingston has rounded up 100 co-sponsors for the Czar Accountability and Reform Act of 2009, also known as the "CZAR act" despite lacking a "Z" for the acronym. Might I recommend "zany?"

The bill would prevent taxpayer money from funding the salaries of "any task force, council, or similar office which is established by or at the direction of the President and headed by an individual who has been inappropriately appointed to such position (on other than an interim basis), without the advice and consent of the Senate." As I pointed out yesterday, many of the "czars" that are being fretted about have already been confirmed by the Senate, hold positions that were created by the Congress, or are just people who have been arbitrarily named a "czar" despite the fact that they are actually State Department envoys or Deputy Secretaries of the Interior, like "California Water Czar" David Hayes.

I also pointed out yesterday that "czars" have been a fact of life in American politics since the Nixon administration, and, to the best of my recollection, no Republican ever complained about the multitude of "czars" in the Bush White House. But don't take my word for that. Here's Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif):

At any rate, these members of Congress are either actively misleading their constituents or are royally confused about the appointees of which they speak. But this is nothing new, at all. Let's cast our mind back to July, and the tweets of super-genius Karl Rove:

Re: the czars @CopyChaser darned if I can figure out all the czars, except a giant expansion of presidential power.

Darned if he can figure all this government stuff out! One wonders what Rove was actually doing in the Bush White House, as his boss was appointing all sorts of czars. In fact, Rove himself was one of these czars. In 2007, the Washington Post's Harold Meyerson, reporting on the increasing influence of Rove in the Bush White House, and the extent to which he was set on realigning domestic priorities, said, "In the wake of Bush's 2004 reelection...Rove, newly promoted by Bush to domestic policy czar, concluded that the time for this realignment had come."

Meyerson goes on to note that Rove's portfolio, as domestic policy czar, was a self-directed set of policy priorities that were deemed intrusive by congressional Republicans and were in many cases a thing apart from actual White House priorities:

He assumed congressional and public support for policies on which Bush had not campaigned; his relations with Republican members of Congress were abysmal; his incessant campaigning against the Democrats ensured that there would be no bipartisan support for programs that entailed considerable political risk.

To be fair, I am quite certain that Rove knows a great deal about giant expansions of Presidential power.

UPDATE: The pattern of people complaining about "czars" not knowing what they are talking about continues today. David Weigel reports that at a press conference for Kingston's CZAR Act, John Shadegg "held up a chart of 34 "czars" in the administration." On that chart were a number of appointees that have been confirmed by the Senate, such as John Holdren and Cass Sunstein. You can also clearly see persons appointed to positions used by the Bush administration, such as Jeffrey Crowley, director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, and Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Additionally, State Department envoys like Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell are on the chart. They've even included the aforementioned David Hayes, who is actually the Deputy Secretary of the Interior.

In short, every single mistake I pointed out yesterday is still being made today, because these people are pointless alarmists who do not know the first thing about what they are talking about.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/media/the-news/eat-the-press/.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/media/the-news/eat-the-press/ and

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Brendan DeMelle: Imprisoned Democrat Paul Minor's Appeal Has Major 1st Amendment Implications

2009-09-14T15:20:33Z

After much deliberation and an unprecedented three rounds of post-oral argument supplemental briefing, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is primed to issue a judgment on the appeal of prominent Mississippi attorney Paul Minor. Minor was wrongly accused and convicted of bribery stemming from his campaign fundraising for two Democratic candidates for state judgeships in Mississippi.

The appellate court has undertaken an extensive, thoughtful review of Minor's case, repeatedly asking the government to document and explain the quid pro quo "this for that" deal necessary to put -- and keep -- Minor behind bars. The judges have also questioned whether the government incorrectly applied the federal bribery statute in Minor's case, and whether charges against Minor regarding one of the judges amounted to constitutional double jeopardy.

Minor was originally indicted in 2003 in what many believe was a targeted political prosecution, ginned up by Karl Rove's GOP cronies in the partisan Bush Justice Department. As a successful plaintiff's attorney, Minor posed a threat to corporate interests, including the Chamber of Commerce which largely bankrolled the specious "tort reform" attacks on plaintiffs' rights to sue corporations for illegal behavior.

Karl Rove and his GOP operatives, long-time puppets of Big Business, targeted Minor and other Democrats in a coordinated effort to scare off big-ticket donors to the Democratic Party nationwide. In Mississippi, Paul Minor was the prime target as a successful trial attorney who repeatedly won big decisions against corporate interests and fought against tort reform as a champion for the little guy's right to a just day in court. Minor was also the top Democratic fundraiser in the state, and had a keen interest, as an attorney would, in seeing fair, impartial candidates win the state's elected judgeships rather than the business-friendly candidates endorsed by the GOP.

In August of 2005 Minor was acquitted on part of the charges and the jury hung on the rest of the charges. Minor was immediately re-indicted by a partisan U.S. Attorney desperate to save his job after learning that his name appeared on a list of U.S. Attorneys recommended for dismissal by Bush White House officials. Minor's campaign contributions to the Democratic candidates were mistakenly ruled "bribes" in the botched 2007 retrial. The conviction resulted in Minor's hefty 11-year sentence for non-violent white-collar crimes he never committed.

Minor has languished in a Pensacola prison camp for the past three years, where he recently endured the tragic ordeal of his wife Sylvia passing away after a long battle against brain cancer. Despite the substantial questions raised in his appeal - upon which the federal bail statutes mandate release pending outcome of the appellate review - Minor was repeatedly denied release and never got to say goodbye to his dying wife. Adding insult to injury, Paul was denied a furlough to attend Sylvia's funeral where he planned to deliver a eulogy honoring their 41 years of marriage and to comfort their children in the family's time of loss.

But the sun may soon shine again in Minor's brutally interrupted life, as the Fifth Circuit appears poised to rule in his favor on appeal. At oral argument in April, the Court repeatedly posed troublesome questions that the government attorneys struggled to answer. The appellate judges subsequently requested three rounds of post-oral argument supplemental briefing, a rare level of probing that indicates to many observers that the court is likely ready to reverse Minor's conviction. The final round of supplemental briefing was submitted on September 3rd, and the judges could issue a decision at any time.

During the botched 2007 retrial, Bush DOJ attorneys glossed over existing case law to persuade the district court not to require critical instructions to jury members that the government must prove a specific quid pro quo deal in order to convict Minor on the federal bribery charges lobbed at him by the partisan, conflicted U.S. Attorney Lampton.

As extensively briefed by Minor's lawyers during the appeal, specific quid pro quo proof was clearly required for all of the charges against him. Since the jury was never required to find any proof of a "this for that" quid pro quo agreement for the trumped up charges, the prospect of reversal of Minor's conviction appears not only likely, but mandated under Supreme Court and other case law.

The Fifth Circuit is not only deliberating the fate of one man. There are profound First Amendment implications in this case. The failure to instruct a jury that it must find quid pro quo proof in a case involving campaign contributions essentially means that anyone who gives money to a candidate vying for public office could face bribery charges without any underlying proof of a favor or deal promised in return by the recipient. If the court rules that Minor was correctly convicted, it would send shockwaves through the political world, as anyone - including members of Congress and the administration - could be targeted for the long-time tradition of giving campaign contributions to candidates who share the values of donors, an expression of free speech central to our participatory democracy.

Amicus briefs recently filed with the Supreme Court supporting former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's request for Supreme Court review confirm these profound implications. Siegelman was convicted on remarkably similar charges of bribery involving campaign fundraising.

Ninety-one former Democratic and Republican state Attorneys General and nine distinguished First Amendment law professors filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court this week asserting the importance of requiring exacting, explicit quid pro quo proof in such cases. The law professors argue that, absent exacting quid pro quo proof that campaign fundraising actually constituted bribery, both private individuals and public officials who participate in political fundraising could "face the risk that a prosecutor will single them out for prosecution."[PDF] The professors rightly point out that this would "place a chilling effect on the First Amendment right to contribute to political campaigns," activity that is essential to our participatory democracy unless campaigns are publicly funded.

Without quid pro quo proof of a deal between donor and recipient, anyone - regardless of political affiliation - could be accused of "bribery" just for giving money to a candidate running for office. The Fifth Circuit's decision in Paul Minor's case will determine if this form of free speech is indeed protected as laid out in the Constitution, or punishable by severe prison sentences dictated by partisan politics.

The integrity of our entire political system hangs in the balance. They must get it right.

Dave Hackel: The Weak In Review

2009-09-14T02:07:25Z

Well, let's see...

Cheney-wise, it was a good week. Nobody on any major news outlet interviewed him. So for a blissful few days his fear mongering and arrogance was not publicly validated by anyone. Oh, he'll be back, but let's bow our heads in thanks for his brief absence.

And since Dick wasn't out there assaulting us, we got a week's reprieve from his sycophantic daughter defending her old man. Do you think she actually believes all the crap he spews? Or are her performances somehow tied to her participation in the Cheney estate? I'd understand that more. Those Halliburton stock options must be worth a fortune these days.

Here's a news flash -- Karl Rove didn't think that Obama's speech on health care was very good. Who'd have guessed? Karl pointed this out on almost every single Fox News show and in his opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal. Wait a minute. What do those two venues have in common? Oh, right, they're both owned by Rupert Murdoch. I'm sure the association with Rove is just a coincidence.

John McCain's been grumpy even though he was complimented by the President during his health care speech. Grandpa McCain seemed pleased enough that he gave us another glimpse of his famous thumbs-up endorsement. But that didn't last long. Within the week he was back in the news excoriating Obama and ginning up support for ... who knows what. Himself? Nah, can't be. Sarah Palin? No, he's already bailed on her. Guess now he's being a prickly thorn just out of habit.

And, of course, if John McCain's upset, so is his adoring shadow, Lindsay Graham. Did you happen to catch the lovely moment during Obama's speech when Sen. Graham started to applaud something the President said, then quickly noticed that none of the other Republicans were going to clap? Of course, then he stopped. Good to have it confirmed that he's got absolutely no opinions of his own.

Chuck Grassley finally came out of the bipartisan closet and admitted that whatever the President's for, he's against. And he still thinks that death panels are being called for. Not sure what the percentage is in agreeing with Sarah Palin, but Chuck's firmly aboard that train. But it's not like he doesn't have a plan of his own. He said that end of life counseling is appropriate, but that it's something that needs to be done twenty years before you die. So if anyone wants to know how to plan, apparently Sen. Grassley can predict the future.

Newt Gingrich is running for President so hard it's just silly. You know that he is because he denies that he is. And I'm going to go the extra mile and say that it was a mistake when his Business Defense and Advisory Council gave their Entrepreneur of the Year award to a porn producer. Though with the tit for tat culture in Washington... Nah, that's just too easy.

Then there was Rep. Joe Wilson who forgot to read the handout on Parliamentary procedure and mistook a joint session of Congress for an episode of The Jerry Springer Show. He said he didn't know better. He should have. And yes, he apologized. And no, I don't think he's really sorry.

I know for sure that Obama's speech on health care was good because Rush Limbaugh thought it was "disgusting, reprehensible, embarrassing, petulant, divisive and crude." And if there's anyone who knows about those qualities, it would be Limbaugh.

Sean Hannity celebrated eight years in radio syndication last week and gave his audience his heartfelt thanks. He said that he couldn't have done it without "his mobsters, his political terrorists and his Timothy McVeigh wannabes." He'd tell you he was trying to be funny by quoting snarky remarks made about his audience by their detractors. But, gee, he didn't qualify those statements in any way, so ... who knows?

Glenn Beck seems upset, too. I'm guessing it's because someone pointed out that he stole the character he plays on television from Andy Griffith's wonderful portrayal of 'Lonesome Rhodes' in Budd Schulberg's and Elia Kazan's "A Face In The Crowd." Check it out. You'll see that Glenn didn't invent that shallow self-important cartoon character. He merely brought it back to life.

The San Francisco radio station that carries Michael Savage's daily dirt-fest dropped his show. That's another reason to believe that San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in the country.

The Florida Republican Party's Chairman Jim Greer got idiots all over the country to keep their children from listening to the President of the United States speak. Yeah, like that was going to ruin their little minds more than being the spawn of their easily swayed parents. These people had no problem with Reagan talking to their kids. They had no problem with either Bush talking to their kids. Wonder if it had anything to do with those presidents not being black. Nah. That can't be it. This is America! And it's 2009!

And lastly, Obama looks like he's thinking of caving in to a few more of the wacky right wing's sour talking points. I wish he'd stop that. He's got enough support to go it alone. Then again, he is a lot smarter than I am, so he probably has a plan. But it does kind of feel like he's not trusting the millions who support him. He should. They're all still out there. But they need to know that all that they voted for is still on the agenda.

Yes they do.

Dinner With Sarah Palin On eBay, Proceeds Go To Charity

2009-09-11T13:08:54Z

It's like Sarah Palin's eBay page read my mind! For the next week, you can bid on a private dinner for five with Sarah Palin. As of this writing, the bidding is over $38,000. Palin will donate the entire winning bid to Ride 2 Recovery, an organization that assists in the mental and physical rehabilitation of wounded veterans.

The Sarah Palin dinner is part of a wider Ride 2 Recovery charity auction (another item up for auction is lunch with Karl Rove, only up to about $12,000 right now).

Here's some fine print the winning bidder should be aware of:

A background check for all attendees is mandatory. Failure to pass the background check will result in the winner forfeiting the experience and a refund given. The dinner experience with Sarah Palin will take place at a site to be determined and at a mutually agreed upon time and date to be determined by Ms. Palin and the winning bidder. Ms Palin may bring up to three guests of her own. The dinner will be paid for by the seller. There are no age restrictions but anyone under 16-years-old must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Winner may take personal photos and allowed to bring one item of reasonable size i.e. no larger than what can be carried by hand (t-shirts, books, magazines, etc.) The decision to sign the item will ultimately be up to Ms. Palin. Respect for Ms. Palin and her guest(s) is expected at all times. Inappropriate behavior will result in the conclusion of the experience with no refund.

Dinner shall last no more than four hours, but could be less, in the sole discretion of Sarah Palin. Governor Palin reserves the right to refuse dinner with a winning bidder if, in her sole discretion, the winning bidder is not a suitable bidder based on her subjective standards of suitability, professionalism, background and other factors. In the event the high bidder is rejected for this reason, the high bidder's bid will be refunded, if paid, and the next highest bidder shall be notified, and thereafter, until a suitable match is determined.

Caroline Myss: America: At the Crossroads of Fate and Destiny

2009-09-10T17:05:53Z

History offers us very few pivotal opportunities to intercede in the disintegrating fate of a nation and to once again animate its destiny. We stand now at such a momentous crossroads, and it is up to all of us to handle this moment and the delicate power that is presently rushing through our collective spirit with a heightened awareness that we are setting great consequences in motion. It has fallen upon the shoulders of President Obama and this Congress to make decisions bold enough to reanimate America's destiny. And along with Obama and this Congress, we are the generation of Americans to whom the task has been given to renew the Founding Fathers' vision of liberty, humanism, and a devotion to equality of law, or we shall be the generation remembered for having let this vision perish. Such is the power of standing at the crossroads of fate and destiny.

It is a privilege to be alive at a time when history calls us to a position of great awakening and maturity of action. Like the climate that spawned the American Revolution or gave this nation the stamina to hold itself together through the shattering of a devastating Civil War, crossroads of fate and destiny demand that individuals respond to their nation as they never have before, as if the nation itself was calling to them for aid. But such a privilege comes with responsibilities. We must pause and assess this path America is on and not from through the typical political lens of Republican versus Democrat. Rather, the force of destiny demands courageous leadership and choices that are bold, often forging new pathways that must be taken because the old ways have ceased to be productive. When individuals come to a crossroads of fate and destiny in their own life, it is an opportunity to start again, but that new beginning cannot look like the life they are leaving behind. They must relinquish patterns of behavior that have become dysfunctional. The shedding of the old patterns is painful, make no mistake. There is nothing simple, easy, or comfortable about arriving at these crossroads of life. They are indeed symbolic roads of crucifixion. And yet they are also inevitable. No road in life, not the road of a nation or of an individual, is a smooth and direct path.

As I watched President Obama address the joint session of Congress, detailing his vision of health care coverage for all Americans, I also saw him as someone confronting the forces of fate and destiny. I imagined this Congress standing alongside him on this cosmic power point, not capable of ever realizing that their actions, cleverly disguised as the business of politics, were actually having an intensified field effect upon the psyche of this nation. This is the moment that history has chosen for us to address this question: Shall we shift our direction from the fearful and divisive path we have been walking on for almost a decade or shall we come together again as one nation and envision a new future? Such a decision is of cosmic proportions though such questions generally are disguised within an issue that brings up great controversy within the populace. But such controversy and bubbling outrage that comes to the surface over any one issue -- in this case it's health care -- is not really fully about health care. The health care issue is actually the straw on the camel's back.

The truth is this epidemic of outrage is rooted in the fact that at our instinctual level, we know our nation is changing -- not because of the policies of President Obama, or even because of the many blunders of all the previous administrations. Our nation is changing because the times we live in call for dramatic shifts in our way of life, and though we would love to return to the golden years of post World War II and Happy Days and Donna Reed and Disneyland, and the myth that we are entitled to earn more than are parents just because we are Americans, what we are now experiencing is the shattering of that myth -- and it hurts. Health care, symbolically translated, "Who is going to care for me?", just happens to be the perfect issue to shatter the myth that we will always have everything we want because we are entitled to it.

But that shattering is not the fault of the Republicans or the Democrats. It's just time for that myth to shatter because it can no longer be sustained by momentum of our own economics and the evolution of where we fit in with the rest of the world. We now have to readjust ourselves, our economics, our politics, our sense of who we are, what we need -- not what we think we are entitled to -- but what we need, according to an organic global scale and not an ego-fear driven scale that constantly tells us that if we do not dominate everything and everyone, we are doomed to starve. It is the timing of history and the pressure of global and environmental changes that we cannot control that are now calling the shots, changes so vast and powerful that we have yet to even notice them. To squeeze just a sample of what I am referring to into this article, consider the dynamic force of "change" itself.

We have an inherent fear of change. We don't like change to surprise us and thus we have devised means, useless as they are in the long run, to ward off random visitations of unscheduled upheavals. We hold tight to the illusion that money, status, and positioning oneself to control others -- all the entitlements of politicians, for example -- actually have the authority to command the laws of nature. Thus the thinking in the ordinary mind is, "Given enough money, I can control enough people (or enough countries) and make them yield to certain decisions, thus preventing other things from happening. Why, I can even stop evolution from happening." Or so the Republicans along with the Blue Dog Democrats believe, as evidenced by the way they conduct themselves when asked for solutions instead of critical feedback. They rely upon spin and arrogance as the most sophisticated tools, both of which are admissions that they have no ideas whatsoever.

In truth, we have entered a new era of change itself and that alone has brought us to these crossroads. We are now living in a world in which all change is of universal proportions, affecting all nations of this world in some way with a speed never before experienced. And that "speed of intimacy" will only increase in the years to come. The forces of change are also felt immediately by the masses of humanity. Epidemics travel by planes, terrorism can strike anywhere at any time, the markets in one country shift our wealth while we sleep in this country. The nature of change as it now exists has disintegrated all familiar boundaries. And thus we must now think of all change as having ascended to the status of "profound". The significance of the choices we make as a nation and as individuals in support of our nation -- or opposed to it -- will matter more at this time than can be measured. We are energetically linked to the global community, moving our thoughts around this planet to hundreds if not thousands of people in seconds. This power of the Internet, as it is referred to, is new to our world and it is a profound power, not a casual one, as it holds the potential of contributing great truth or great lies without being held personally responsible for either initiating these actions or their consequences. Yet, such actions have consequences, as we are now witnessing in the response to the lies manufactured about death panels, for example.

In our collective intuitive gut, we know we are standing at the precipice of great change and in keeping with this new era of energy we are in, these changes are indeed happening at light speed. We don't want the familiar, cozy, wonderful parts of the American lifestyle to come under scrutiny, but the fact is that is exactly what is happening. Again, this is not the result of the policies of the Republicans or Democrats. It's simply what happens at the end of a cycle and we have come to the end of a cycle of American history. What we as well as our politicians are responsible for, however, is how well we negotiate this moment in time. What we must hold them accountable for is the management of their pride, their arrogance, their lies, their decisions not to participate in a bi-partisan government and to continue the blood bath politics so cleverly crafted by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, and to sabotage all the efforts of President Obama to forge a new path out of a burning forest. And shall we even mention that their collective arrogance and rage has reached such a low level that Republican Congressman Joe Wilson actually screamed, "You lie" during Obama's speech?

If we look carefully at the behavior of the Republican clan, however, it is not difficult to see through their foggy brains and well-rehearsed behavior. People or individuals who rely upon arrogant and sarcastic behavior and opinions as weapons of mass destruction do so because they are frightened, confused, and lack any sense of how to lead the nation themselves. Truth be told, they are probably relieved as birds out of a cage that they are not in charge of the White House this session. Why? Because they know that the American tradition -- and it's not a good one -- is to forget who made the mess we're in and blame the present administration for not fixing things within the first six months of the new term. They knew all along that if McCain and Lipstick-Palin didn't get in, they could continue to play their Karl Rovian tactics and sabotage good people along with any plans that challenged corporate wallets. It actually works in their favor to have Obama take the hits for the cowardice with which they managed this country during the last administration (and this time I am referring to the Bush administration, the wars in the Middle East, the huge debt Obama inherited, Wall Street policies, subprime mortgages, etc).

As a result of these last years under Rove and Cheney, the Republicans have become very clever at anger management -- by that I mean managing the anger of Americans. Repression and threats of anti-patriotism were their most effective methods of controlling the anger of the American public. Now that Americans do not feel as frightened to speak out, pent up anger that is years old is pouring out and Republicans are using that anger, as cleverly and effectively as Goebbels did under Hitler. They want to scare their own nation and keep them scared. They want to continue to build hatred just as Goebbels did. The health care issue is a perfect artery for all this anger, but all this anger is not about this health care issue. Make no mistake about that. It's about having been betrayed by their own government so blatantly for eight years. No wonder Americans are finding it so easy to turn on Obama.

In such a tumultuous climate, is it any wonder that we must stand at these crossroads of America's fate and destiny with a genuine realization that we are really standing at these crossroads? True, history itself has brought us to this moment in time, but it is up to us to handle this moment, to breathe our choices into this moment. We cannot go backwards. We cannot return to an America who dominated the world with its wealth and military power and its might. We have been humbled, like it or not. Our soldiers are exhausted -- bless their souls -- and our bank account is busted. Unemployment is sky high and our debt has never been higher. The only way to go now is forwards.

And we can do this. If you know anything about the American spirit at all, you know that it finds defeat mighty distasteful. It's much more likely that if you give the American spirit some inspiration, some hope, some encouragement to go forward with pioneering new ideas, it will not fail. Or give America another nation who relies on us for food. We can once again respond to the world with food production. We are a limitless people with a limitless capacity to create, to serve, and to share. We can and we must reanimate the destiny of America because it is in its purest form a destiny of humanism, of liberty, and of free thought. We cannot lose those values. We must not lose them. But most of all, we must not lose sight of the fact that beyond these Republicans and Democrats who are temporarily in office, we are permanently Americans. Any politician who uses his office to foster hatred of a fellow American is committing a form of treason against the fabric of this nation's well being. Such politicians are unfit to be role models for what good American citizens truly are. We must not model our politics on theirs for theirs are tainted with private agendas filled with greed, ambition, and personal gain. We must keep our loyalties focused where they belong -- upon the vision of this nation and not a misguided loyalty to a contaminated political party that fosters hatred of a fellow American.

President Obama is certainly not perfect. But he is a man of vision whose desire to serve this nation is sincere and does not come from the entitlement of wounds. And he is the man that history has placed at the crossroads of fate and destiny at this time. It is not surprising that such a man would experience great storms and strong winds. Only those with the strongest of spirits can work alongside the forces of change that sweep through a nation.

Andrew Kreig: DoJ Attack On Siegelman's Rights Threatens Election Rights For All

2009-09-09T16:24:06Z

On Aug. 27, holdover officials from the Bush Justice Department filed 226 pages arguing that former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and his co-defendant have presented no evidence since their 2006 bribery convictions that justifies a hearing or new trial.

No evidence?

As too often in the past, DoJ officials look like they're exaggerating to block justice and to protect themselves. By seeking to imprison Siegelman for 20 additional years, DoJ clearly seeks to end public debate about Alabama’s most prominent Democrat. He held that distinction for years, at least until he narrowly lost re-election in 2002 following still-mysterious Election night switches of 6,000 votes out of his column in a rural county after polls closed.

The all-out federal criminal prosecution launched against Siegelman in 2004 remains the centerpiece of unresolved evidence that Karl Rove used DoJ to target Democratic officials nationwide. In-depth public scrutiny of the DoJ's high-ranking prosecution teams risks revelations about similar problems in hundreds of other disputed DoJ investigations that altered the nation’s political map during the Bush years.

In the long run, however, DoJ risks even more – including public confidence that it's protecting our rights to fair elections and trials – if it shirks its responsibility to endorse a full hearing to clear the air.

New evidence since Siegelman’s 2006 trial includes claims of judicial bias and corruption, plus DoJ political prosecution orchestrated by Rove, judge-shopping, jury tampering, failing to comply with prosecutor recusal, firing a DoJ whistleblower, and suppressing evidence that DoJ tried to blackmail its central witness against Siegelman with a sex scandal.

Also, 75 former state attorneys general ─ the chief law enforcers from more than 40 states ─ made a bipartisan filing that is unprecedented in U.S. legal history to argue that Siegelman committed no crime by appointing a donor to a state post.

Siegelman’s convictions centered on his 1999 request to HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to donate to a non-profit foundation to improve Alabama’s funding for education via a state lottery.

Scrushy arranged two donations to the foundation. Siegelman reappointed Scrushy to an unpaid state board on which he’d served under three previous governors. A jury that reported deadlock finally found guilt on 7 of 32 bribery-related charges. The defendants received lengthy prison terms and heavy fines.

Last year, Siegelman, now 63, was released on appeal bond after a CBS 60 Minutes exposé about his prosecution. Scrushy, 53, remains in prison, with each of his convictions stemming from the donations to the education foundation that Siegelman helped create to counter millions in spending by casino owners secretly allied with gambling opponents.

Alabama’s Republican Party sniped at CBS reporting. But former National Press Club President Robert Ames Alden, a Washington Post editor for 48 years who supervised coverage of many major stories before his retirement in 2000, found the coverage compelling. “The Siegelman prosecution,” Alden tells me, “is one of the worst miscarriages of justice that I’m aware of in the past half century in America.”

Denial Under Oath?

DoJ’s most recent filing falsely told presiding federal judge Mark Fuller that Business Council of Alabama CEO William Canary has denied under oath to the House Judiciary Committee that he schemed with “Karl” to remove Siegelman from Alabama politics. But no committee record exists of such a sworn statement, as noted by Alabama reporter Roger Shuler.

Canary, a former Republican National Committee chief of staff, is well-known in relevant quarters of DoJ. Many “loyal Bushies” remain in power after eight years of employment practices that included mid-term firings of U.S. attorneys who failed to use their powers for political prosecutions. News reports and litigation show that the Bush DoJ also relied heavily on politics in hiring and promoting career staff.

Canary is a longtime Rove ally who advised Alabama's current Republican governor in his successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Siegelman. Canary’s wife Leura, shown below in her official photo, is Alabama’s U.S. attorney for the office that is prosecuting Siegelman. She remains in power despite the nation’s tradition that its 93 U.S. attorneys resign after a change of presidents.

The rarely photographed Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller of Alabama's middle district is shown above in a 2006 portrait released for this article by photographer Phil Fleming.

Most of those accused of framing Siegelman deny claims by the defense, whistleblowers and investigative reporters. But none of the denials have been in public under oath and subject to cross-examination. Some have been comments to the press, and many others have been in affidavits that can avoid key issues.

Rove and Harriet Miers, the highest-ranking of the Bush White House advisors accused of improperly interfering at DoJ, were interviewed in private this summer by House Judiciary Committee staff and a Congressman from each party. But the interview rules did not require an oath. Upon release of the transcripts Aug. 11, Rove claimed vindication in his Wall Street Journal column.

A Real Probe Needed

But Rove and Miers asserted memory loss many times on key questions during their interviews, and Rove misled his Journal readers by falsely claiming that Alabama whistleblower Dana Jill Simpson has never testified.

An attorney, Simpson voluntarily testified in 2007 under House Judiciary Committee staff cross-examination. Behind closed doors, she swore that a prominent fellow Republican predicted in early 2005 that Siegelman would be re-indicted later that year after collapse of the government’s first case against him. Also, she swore that she heard that Siegelman’s new prosecution would be steered to the Bush-nominee Judge Fuller, who “hated” Siegelman and would “hang” him.

Rove’s spin on these kinds of post-conviction issues shows why this summer’s interviews should be just a first step in a more thorough probe and public hearing.

The Justice Department should live up to its name by welcoming cross-examination of witnesses under oath before a fair judge. Questions about this case and so many like it around the country will not be forgotten simply by imprisoning the defendants. Others care deeply, both because of defendant rights and our own.

My next articles will explore growing concerns around the country about such matters, including those being voiced by Republicans and libertarians. The national magazine for paralegals Know just published my in-depth profile Dissed and Dismissed about the courageous paralegal Tamarah Grimes, an Alabama Republican fired by DoJ in June after she went through official whistleblower channels in 2007 to allege DoJ prosecution misconduct in the Siegelman case.

In the meantime, I read HuffPost comments with great interest and look forward to learning your suggestions (including, yes, your criticism) and ideas for next steps.