1 Boring Old Man

Sanford: An apology, and a pledge
The State
By MARK SANFORD
July 19, 2009

I have struggled with how best to convey my regret in letting so many down, and in that regard I realize this column does not do justice to the process of saying “I am sorry.” A hand-written note or phone call would ultimately be more appropriate, but given the number of people I need to apologize to, I write this to begin the journey of trying to get things more right with you and others.

It is true that I did wrong and failed at the largest of levels, but equally true is the fact that God can make good of our respective wrongs in life. In this vein, while none of us has the chance to attend our own funeral, in many ways I feel like I was at my own in the past weeks, and surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded…

• One, forgiveness and grace really do matter. I used to believe that at an intellectual level; now it is at the level of heart… It’s always the people closest to us whom we hurt the most, and given my standing of public trust, I know I’ve hurt many across our state. I apologize for this, and more than anything would ask for your forgiveness going forward.

• Two, life is indeed about way more than public standing or political views; it’s about recognizing that none of us is the arbiter of truth, that there are moral absolutes and that there is a God to whom we will all report for our actions. My failure has been most glaring on this front, where no public apology can make wrong right. As a consequence, it is on this plane that I’ve grown the most over the past weeks — and where I’m committed to growing the most going forward.

I’ve been humbled and broken as never before in my life, and as a consequence have given up areas of control in a way that I never have before. And it is my belief that this will make me a better father, husband, friend and advocate. It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience both to trust God in his larger work of changing me and, from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader…

• Finally it is at your funeral that you in many ways not only can see most clearly the things that really matter in life, but also get the best glimpse of who your real friends are — and how much they matter. For that reason, I want to thank so many for their kindnesses and support over the years and for their kindness in this latest chapter in our book together as South Carolinians.

I know the definition doesn’t quite fit, but you get my drift. Confrontations by his wife, his C Street pals, and therapists didn’t work. But getting caught red-handed did work, or so he says. His amazing Press Conference was followed by and even more amazing interview in which he professed undying love and soul-mate status with his Argentine girlfriend, then said that he was going to try to fall back in love with his wife [gasps were heard throughout the Americas]. As he pointed out, King David survived the scandal of impregnating a colleague’s wife, having him killed, then marrying her and living happily ever after as his paradigm. Now he claims to be having a growth spurt and has discovered that forgiveness really does matter [particular when he’s the one needing to be forgiven].

But mostly, as an exercise, I’d suggest that you read this "guest editorial" over several times. At the end of each reading, try to tell yourself what he is saying. I finally gave up – it’s just a blank. Well, maybe it’s in this, "It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience both to trust God in his larger work of changing me and, from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader…" Maybe he’s still in the C Street mindset of being one of the chosen ones, and this is some episode in the future Book of Sanford – some sort of Phoenix rising from the ashes deal in the next New Testament. His comment at the end is over the top, "in this latest chapter in our book together as South Carolinians." His galloping off to Argentina wasn’t just something personal, it was a chapter in the shared book of South Carolinians – really into his biblical metaphor [King David = Israel, Gov. Sanford = South Carolina].

Like I said, embarassing…

• So after reading the majority of responses to this article, it is safe to say that the general consensus is: APOLOGY REJECTED. Can this man never just shoot it to ya straight? All the metaphors, similes, ‘over the river and through the woods’ examples, are overkill and seem extremely haughty/insincere. Whatever happened to good ol’ "Look, I messed up,and I’m sorry…". No one wants to read about your metaphorical funeral, governor.
• Yesssssssss !!
  Here Comes The GAWD Defense !
  Love It !
  GOD IS MY . . .
  1. Excuse
  2. Alibi
  3. Reason for not accepting responsibility
  4. Scapegoat
  5. Security blanket
  6. Wife’s attorney
• does anyone notice that for a governor so willing to babble, he is absolutely tightlipped about wherther he has broken up with his mistress? How can we make sure he wont run away again? What exactly is he apologising for here?
• What kind of wordy rambling nonsense is this? That "trip" Mark and Jen took last week was a smoke screen… I wish someone would just come out and be honest to the citizens of SC. What the hell is going on? Is the guv on medication now?

Flashback: Cronkite Warned In Lead-Up To Iraq War —
‘We Are Going To Be In Such A Fix’
ThinkProgress
July 19, 2009

… Salon’s Glenn Greenwald notes that the media is largely glossing over Cronkite’s “most celebrated and significant moment” — “when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn’t trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false.” Indeed, few journalists have noted Cronkite’s criticism of the Iraq war just as the invasion took place in March 2003:

^{At a Drew University forum, Cronkite said he feared the war would not go smoothly, ripped the “arrogance” of Bush and his administration and wondered whether the new U.S. doctrine of “pre-emptive war” might lead to unintended, dire consequences.}

^{“Every little country in the world that has a border conflict with another little country … they now have a great example from the United States,” Cronkite, 86, said in response to a question from Drew’s president, former Gov. Thomas Kean. […]}

^{While many are confident the United States would easily oust Saddam Hussein, Cronkite said he isn’t so sure. “The military is always more confident than circumstances show they should be,” he said.}

^{Cronkite speculated that the refusal of many traditional allies, such as France, to join the war effort signaled something deeper, and more ominous, than a mere foreign policy disagreement. “The arrogance of our spokespeople, even the president himself, has been exceptional, and it seems to me they have taken great umbrage at that,” Cronkite said. “We have told them what they must do. It is a pretty dark doctrine.”}

^{Cronkite chided Congress for not looking closely enough at the war and attempting to ascertain a viable estimate of its eventual cost, particularly in light of Bush’s commitment to tax cuts. “We are going to be in such a fix when this war is over, or before this war is over … our grandchildren’s grandchildren are going to be paying for this war,” Cronkite said. “I look at our future as, I’m sorry, being very, very dark. Let’s see our cards as we rise to meet the difficulties that lie ahead,” he added, in a play on Bush’s dismissive remarks about France.}

^{But Cronkite, who spent many days and nights on battlefields and in campgrounds with U.S. forces, also spoke of supporting the troops. “The time has come to put all of our, perhaps distaste, aside, and give our full support to the troops involved. That is the duty we owe our soldiers who had no role in deciding this course of action,” Cronkite said.}

^{“Walter was always more than just an anchor,” President Obama said in a statement released Friday night. “He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down.”}

Cheney didn’t know that Joseph Wilson had been sent to Niger by the C.I.A. It’s in the marginalia in his copy of the New York Times:

The way they planned it, how it was supposed to go, Plame’s identity would leak, then Cheney would deny knowing anything about Wilson’s trip, and that would be that. Wilson would look like a ‘girly man.’ The source of the leak would be a non-issue.

When Cheney was writing "because of the incompetence of others," what was he talking about? No one has ever explained that. Either he was talking about the incompetence of Richard Armitage shooting off his mouth to Robert Novak, centering the leak in the Administration, or the incompetence of not knowing Plame was covert early enough in the game.

They’d sent Scooter Libby off to leak things to Judith Miller and he was nervous about it. He checked to see if the NIE really was ‘leakable’ or not. And Judith was already in hot water at the New York Times. She’d gone tearing around Iraq dressed in fatigues looking for WMD she’s helped the Administration sell being there, and she’s taken her information from some pretty shady sources that had turned out to be nothing but lies. Judy was "used up," "leaked out," but they hadn’t figured that out yet. A month or so earlier, she’d been forced to write a retraction on some of her claims, and the editor had apologized for others.

So when Patrick Fitzgerald came along, Libby became appropriately frightened that he’ was going to be thrown under the bus – and he was. Cheney got Bush to commute Libby’s sentnce, but he couldn’t bring off a pardon. The centrality of Bush and Cheney in the leak is now a matter of record, at least among people who care. So what’s the big deal about releasing Cheney’s Interview?

And you know what? [The Defense] said something here that we’re trying to put a cloud on the Vice President. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week. He wrote those columns. He had those meetings. He sent Libby off to Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting, … the defendant talked about the wife. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant has obstructed justice and lied about what happened…

^{I’m stumped, for now. Perhaps they’re trying to prevent new details on the fight with CIA–particularly the effort to trick CIA into revealing Plame’s ID (though that is, frankly, somewhat evident from the publicaly available evidence from the week of June 9). Perhaps they’re trying to hide information that Bush ordered Cheney and Libby to respond to Joe Wilson–and gave them carte blanche to do so. But this, again, is at least partly revealed in Libby’s June 9, 2003 notes and in the meat-grinder note.}
^{Which leaves me with one more observation. DOJ is willing to see this released in several years, but not now. I’m wondering if that has as much to do with a 5 year statute of limitations as it has to do with anything else? Perhaps there’s enough evidence of Bush’s involvement in the leak that they want to avoid any questions of whether Bush obstructed justice when he commuted Libby’s sentence?}

If the Cheney interview had revealed a crime, Fitzgerald would’ve charged him. If Cheney had lied, Fitzgerald would’ve charged him. If Bush and Cheney’s testimony had discrepencies, Fitzgerald would’ve charged somebody.

Likewise, I think that some of the things Cheney said he checked on with Bush [declassifying things], didn’t happen. Bush lied to cover Cheney, and that’s why he wouldn’t pardon Libby [retaliating because Cheney and Libby were operating on their own, claiming Bush’s approval].

House Panel to Investigate Canceled CIA Program
By Paul Kane and Joby Warrick
Washington Post
July 18, 2009

The House intelligence committee announced yesterday it will investigate the CIA’s handling of its secret al-Qaeda assassination program, including whether Vice President Richard B. Cheney improperly intervened to stop the agency from telling Congress about the initiative. The probe will examine the nature of the now-canceled program — described by intelligence officials as a series of planned attempts to use assassins to kill or capture senior terrorists — but it will mostly focus on whether the agency improperly withheld information from lawmakers, committee members said.

"The committee must be kept fully and currently informed of significant intelligence activities as required by law,"  Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the panel, said in a statement. He said the decision to investigate was made in consultation with House Republicans.

The committee already has requested documents from the CIA and probably will hold hearings, said  Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of several committee members who questioned whether the agency violated the law by failing to notify Congress for nearly eight years. Intelligence officials have said that the agency was not obligated to disclose the program, in part because it never became fully operational. Schakowsky declined to say whether the committee might call Cheney as a witness.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency will "work closely with the committee on this review." CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed the existence of the program to House and Senate oversight committees on June 24, a day after he first learned of it. CIA officials had been considering a new training program connected with the assassination plan at the time.

Finally, Congress is going to investigate one of the left over Bush Administration issues in a timely fashion. And they’re considering calling the former Vice President as a witness. Good. Maybe we’ll finally get to the bottom of things for a change.

Danger! Danger! Shiny object in the water! Congress picks the one "scandal" among the sea of those available that gives Cheney plausible deniability. I smell a trick!

First, South Carolina’s Governor disappears, turning out to be having an affair in Argentina while the first lady summers on Sullivan’s Island with his four sons. And he turns out to be connected to an obscure secretive Christian something-or-another called C Street in Washington – as was a philandering Nevada Senator recently outed for his own affair with his best friend’s wife. Now, only weeks later, a recently retired young up-and-coming Congressman from Mississippi, Chip Pickering, former resident at C Street himself, has turned down a Senate appointment and divorced his wife [five sons] to be with his long time lover and college girlfriend [recently divorced from her Psychiatrist husband]. Pickering’s wife is now suing his new [old] flame for alienation of affections.

“C” Is for Cheater
By: emptywheel
July 16, 2009

If I were the wife of one of the boys shacking up at C Street who had not yet admitted an extramarital affair, I’d be getting nervous about now.

Another C Street Vet Falls To An Extramarital Affair
TPM
By Rachel Slajda
July 16, 2009

Former Congressman and C Street resident Chip Pickering’s estranged wife has filed a lawsuit against Pickering’s alleged mistress. Leisha Pickering is suing Elizabeth Creekmore-Byrd for alienation of affection.

Rep. Pickering, a Republican from Mississippi, allegedly continued seeing his college sweetheart while they were both married. According to the suit, some of the "wrongful conduct" occurred at the C Street facility for Christian congressmen — the same one where Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have lived, and where Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has recently sought counseling.

What’s with this place?

The suit alleges Pickering and Creekmore-Byrd are still together. Perhaps they’re soul mates?

The complaint, filed Tuesday in Hinds County Circuit Court in Mississippi, is 28 14 pages long, plus evidence, so we’ll be posting more if we find anything particularly juicy.

Let’s see. Zach Wamp. Bart Stupak (a Dem). Jim DeMint. Sam Brownback. And of course, C Street’s resident ObGyn, Tom Coburn.

Any of you have something you want to tell us?

Pickering’s wife sues alleged mistress
Clarion Ledger
by Jimmie E. Gates
July 17, 2009

The 45-year-old Republican is now a lobbyist in Washington for Cellular South, the company Creekmore-Byrd’s family owns and which contributed to his congressional campaigns. The lawsuit says Creekmore-Byrd is on the board of directors of her family businesses.

Pickering, who helped draft telecommunications legislation during his congressional career as vice chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, retired from Congress in January. In 2008, the Family Research Council Action and Focus on the Family Action recognized him as a "True Blue" member of Congress "for supporting public policy that values human life, protects our religious liberties, and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family."

Pickering first was elected to the central Mississippi congressional district in 1996. He surprised many in political circles when he announced in August 2007 that he would not seek re-election in 2008, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. He was considered a top contender for Lott’s seat, but abruptly took his name out of the running, again saying he wanted to spend more family time.

Report: CIA Assassin Program Could Operate Anywhere — Even Inside U.S.
TPMmuckraker
By Zachary Roth
July 16, 2009

Since the news broke at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we’ve been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark?

We may have gotten a good piece of the answer here: The Washington Post reports today on how the program had been revived and then put on hold several times since 2001. But it also says, referring to the "presidential finding" with which President Bush authorized the program in 2001:

The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency’s actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.

"No geographical limitations" presumably means that operations could potentially be carried out in countries, friendly or unfriendly, that are far from any war zone — including even the US itself. And it seems likely that they would be carried out without notifying the foreign country in question.

Of course, we’ve frequently, and quite openly, used the military to carry out attacks on specific Qaeda leaders — even before 9/11. But using the CIA to do so, and with such broad authority to operate anywhere in the world, as this program seems to have given the agency, would appear to take things into a different realm.

If some Congressional Democrats get their way, there’ll be an actual investigation into whether the CIA withheld information from Congress. That would mean we wouldn’t have to rely on piecing together news reports, sourced to insiders who likely have their own agendas, to get to the bottom of another crucial national security and separation of powers issue, which would be nice.

Let the sun shine…
Let the sunshine in…
The sun shine in!

The President Moves the Economic Goalposts
The stimulus isn’t working as originally advertised
Wall Street Journal
By KARL ROVE
07/16/2009

… As is Mr. Obama’s habit, he has answered his critics by creating straw-man arguments. In last weekend’s radio address, he attacked detractors as those who "felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer." But many of Mr. Obama’s critics didn’t feel that way. They offered — and Mr. Obama almost completely ignored — constructive ideas to jump-start the economy.

For example, House Republicans offered an alternative recovery package of immediate tax cuts and safety-net measures that cost half as much as Mr. Obama’s stimulus program. Republicans have also calculated that their plans would have created 50% more jobs than the stimulus. They reached that estimate by using the same job-growth econometric model that the president’s Council of Economic Advisors used for the stimulus.

While in Moscow recently, Mr. Obama answered questions on whether his administration had misread the economy by saying "there’s nothing that we would have done differently." Let me suggest two things: He could have proposed pro-growth policies rather than ones that retard economic recovery with a massive increase in deficit spending. And he could fulfill his promise to speak to us honestly rather than selling his proposals with promises and goals he rapidly discards.

In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell wrote about words used in a "consciously dishonest way." "That is," Orwell wrote, "the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different." Americans are right to wonder if their president is using his own private definitions for the words he uses to sell his policies.

I’m worried as hell about the economy, as worried as any. But I know what is not the solution – cutting taxes. It’s a vote getter for sure, but there’s this problem:

Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps
The inspectors general report ignores history and plays politics with the law.
Wall Street Journal
By JOHN YOO
07/16/2009

It was instantly clear after Sept. 11, 2001, that our security agencies knew little about al Qaeda’s inner workings, could not detect its operatives’ entry into the country, nor predict where it might strike next.

Suppose an al Qaeda cell in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles was planning a second attack using small arms, conventional explosives or even biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies faced a near impossible task locating them. Now suppose the National Security Agency (NSA), which collects signals intelligence, threw up a virtual net to intercept all electronic communications leaving and entering Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan headquarters. What better way of detecting follow-up attacks? And what president — of either political party — wouldn’t immediately order the NSA to start, so as to find and stop the attackers?

Evidently, none of the inspectors general of the five leading national security agencies would approve. In a report issued last week, they suggested that President George W. Bush might have violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by ordering the interception of international communications of terrorists without a judicial warrant. The report also suggests that "other" intelligence measures — still classified only because they are yet to be reported on the front page of the New York Times — similarly lacked approval from other branches of government.

It is absurd to think that a law like FISA should restrict live military operations against potential attacks on the United States. Congress enacted FISA during the waning days of the Cold War. As the 9/11 Commission found, FISA’s wall between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence proved dysfunctional and contributed to our government’s failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

Under FISA, to obtain a judicial wiretapping warrant the government is supposed to show probable cause that a specified target is a foreign agent. Unlike, say, Soviet spies working under diplomatic cover, terrorists are hard to identify. Yet they are vastly more dangerous. Monitoring their likely communications channels is the best way to track and stop them. Building evidence to prove past crimes, as in the civilian criminal system, is entirely beside the point. The best way to find an al Qaeda operative is to look at all email, text and phone traffic between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the U.S. This might involve the filtering of innocent traffic, just as roadblocks and airport screenings do…

blah, blah, blah…

John Yoo’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal this morning explains to us why the F.I.S.A. Law was a problem for President Bush after 9/11, and explains the rationale for President Bush’s policy in some detail. Even Yoo’s op-ed title points out his importance in setting out the policy the President chose to follow [in secret]: Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps.

But, according to the DoJ Web Site, the Office of Legal Counsel is described as follows:

So, like John Yoo’s previous op-ed writings, he explains the rationale for Bush’s decisions, policy decisions, from his perspective as a former Assistant Attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel. His arguments are always defenses of Bush’s actions [based on his memos]. They are hardly the arguments of a Lawyer interpreting the Law or giving Legal advice. He seems like a reasonably smart guy, so surely it occurs to him that he’s operating way outside the charge of the Department of Justice – upholding the Law. The very form of his op-ed title [We] and his policy arguments make it clear that he didn’t understand his job description and should have been dismissed, or maybe moved into the White House as a Policy maker. Perhaps he didn’t read his job description on the DoJ site.