1 Boring Old Man

Now, about Senator John Ensign‘s Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Church was founded by Sister Aimee [Aimee Semple McPherson] in the 1920’s. In case you’ve forgotten, Sister Aimee was a pioneer of what we call televangelism – though then, I guess it was radio-vangelism. You guessed it, she was a pioneer in the fight against teaching the theories of evolution in the schools. Yes, after a time as an itinerant revivalist in her "God Car," she founded an early version of the "mega-church" in L.A. In many ways, Aimee Semple McPhereson was the template for the modern religious charlatans that still plague us today – pious, moral, using production techniques from the entertainment industry, political. But there’s another connection:

^{On May 18, 1926, McPherson went to Ocean Park Beach, north of Venice Beach, with her secretary, to go swimming. Soon after arrival, McPherson disappeared. It was generally assumed at the time that she had drowned.}

^{… McPherson was scheduled to hold a service on the very day she vanished. McPherson’s mother appeared and preached at the service in her place, and at the end announced, "Sister is with Jesus", sending parishioners into a tearful frenzy. Mourners crowded Venice Beach, and the commotion sparked days-long media coverage of the event, fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner, and even including a poem by Upton Sinclair commemorating the "tragedy". Daily updates appeared in newspapers across the country, and parishioners held day-and-night seaside vigils. A futile search for the body resulted in one parishioner drowning and another diver dying from exposure.}

^{Around the same time, Kenneth G. Ormiston, engineer for KFSG, also disappeared. According to American Experience, some believed McPherson and Ormiston, a married man with whom McPherson had developed a close friendship and had been having an affair, had run off together. About a month after the disappearance, McPherson’s mother, Minnie Kennedy, received a ransom note, signed by "The Avengers", which demanded a half million dollars to ensure kidnappers would not sell McPherson into "white slavery". Mrs. Kennedy later said she tossed the letter away, believing her daughter to be dead.}

^{On June 23, 1926, just weeks after her disappearance, McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, a Mexican town just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. She claimed that she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured, and held for ransom in a shack in Mexico, then had escaped and walked through the desert for about 13 hours to freedom.}

^{Several problems were found with McPherson’s story. Her shoes showed no evidence of a 13-hour walk; they had grass stains on them after a supposed walk through the desert. The shack could not be found. McPherson showed up fully dressed while having disappeared wearing a bathing suit, and was wearing a wrist watch given to her by her mother, which she had not taken on her swimming trip. A grand jury convened on July 8, 1926, to investigate the matter, but adjourned 12 days later citing lack of evidence to proceed. However, several witnesses then came forward stating that they had seen McPherson and Ormiston at various hotels over the 32-day period.}

^{There were five witnesses that claimed to have seen Aimee McPherson at a seaside cottage at Carmel-by-the-Sea, which was rented out by her former employee Kenneth G. Ormiston for himself and his mistress. Mr. Hersey claimed to have seen Mrs. McPherson on May 5 at this cottage, and then later went to see her preach on August 8 at Angelus Temple to confirm she was the woman he had seen at Carmel. His story was confirmed by Mrs. Parkes, a neighbor who lived next door to the Carmel cottage, by a Mrs. Bostick who rented the cottage to Mr. Ormiston under his false name "McIntyre", by Ralph Swanson, a grocery clerk, and by Ernest Renkert, a Carmel fuel dealer who delivered wood to their cottage…}

Here in North Georgia, the Pentacostal Churches predominate. Mostly they stay out of politics. They form strong communities, do their baptizing and have their services – live their lives by the morality they preach. Some carry things a bit far [handling poisonous snakes, left], but they stick pretty much to themselves. It’s the ones that get into the money and power things that seem to go careening off into space. We’ve had a pretty bad run of christian craziness this last decade. I want to thank John Ensign and Mark Sanford for doing their part to get it back in the churches where it belongs, and out of our government.

In the scope of things, the antics of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and Nevada Senator John Ensign may seem like side shows that detract from the important things on our plate left in such disarray from eight years of Republican incompetence. But from another perspective, they are examples of what happens when we elect people that tag along with some ideology and get themselves elected. John Ensign seems to be such a person. He was elected to the Senate in 2000 as a strong Religious Right candidate [he is a member of the Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel]. His public confession of an affair was plastered all over the news recently. His affair moved to the back burner when Mark Sanford took center stage [then the celebrity deaths, then Sarah Palin’s resignation]. But Ensign is back on the front page today because of this interview with the husband of Cindy Hampton, Ensign’s lover/girlfriend/affairee [Hampton speaks publicly, says Ensign paid severance].

This is a strange story. Cindy and Doug Hampton were close friends with John and Darlene Ensign. After a burglary at the Hamptons, they moved in with the Ensigns. That’s where the affair started. It was quickly discovered, but it continued. Now the story gets strange. Doug Hampton and Darlene Ensign are calling around trying to get someone to put a stop to it. The story is told as if Cindy was a passive character in the story. Finally, Hampton gets the group at the C Street Christian Fellowship to intervene. In the Meeting, Ensign agrees to end things – writing a letter to Darlene and maybe agreeing to some kind of financial settlement. Apparently, shortly after the meeting, Ensign called Cindy telling her to ignore the letter – he’d been blindsided by the meeting, and the affair continued until August.

Somewhere in all of this, Ensign gets Doug another job and pays off Cindy. Ensign’s wife Darlene was apparently involved in trying to relocate the Hampton’s. Lawyers are meeting throughout all of this, but how it finally blew up is unclear. Hampton’s story gets confusing and it becomes impossible to determine what actually happened. Mutual accusations seem to be the rule now, and I expect the whole unadulterated truth will never be clear [Solomon might have used his sword in a different way with this case since there appear to be no innocents in the whole piece].

Forgetting the other players for the moment,  this is a fundamentalist christian Senator having an affair with his good friend’s wife [both being employees] under the nose of his wife and her husband. When confronted by his super-christian colleagues, he puts on an act, and continues cavorting. He finally comes clean when faced with exposure. All of his public confession and his letter written in front of his colleagues was cached in terms of christian morality, though none of his behavior seemed to have anything to do with his stated morals.

• After World War II, we found ourselves struggling with the Russians. Whether we saw it in terms of greed [Russia’s Empire Building] or ideology [The Red Menace – World Communism], we were at war with an expansionist U.S.S.R. Our foreign policy was "containment" and we fought our wars on the edges – The Arms Race, Korea, Viet Nam, supporting anti-communist regimes and forces, playing C.I.A./K.G.B. chess. Whether the strategy worked or the other side collapsed under its own weight isn’t for me to say, but, whichever the case, that fight is over.
• There was a period as the liberated Communist Bloc countries realigned, and then we found ourselves looking at a new foreign policy challenges. – the Middle East and Asia. There was nothing really "new." The tensions were as old as time. But there were new forces, new dangers, lots of new questions. In Asia, there’s the economic giant China and the danger of North Korea. We "get China." If we "get "North Korea, it’s something like "Asian country with nukes run by lunatic." But then there’s the tangle of the Middle East where there are many issues:
  1. The general tension between Islamic Countries and the U.S.
  2. The intense conflicts between Israel and everyone else in the Middle East
  3. The problems with specific states eg Iran, Iraq
  4. The problem of the Islamic Jihadists – al Qaeda, Taliban
  5. Our reliance on the oil production in the Middle East
• Our foreign policy under the Bush Administration was, in my opinion, heavily influenced by number 5., hidden behind the guise of dealing with numbers 3. and 4. In fact, it was directed by number 5. Simply put, Invading Iraq was insane, unless the point was gaining access to Iraq’s oil resources. So my point is that our foreign policy was corrupt and the whole world was watching and knows it. There’s no secret about what the Bush Administration did. They cheated and lied. They said national defense. They said terrorism. They said Iraqi freedom. But, at the core, the Invasion of Iraq was a commercial endeavor [a failed commercial endeavor].

1. The general tension between Islamic Countries and the U.S.
2. The intense conflicts between Israel and everyone else in the Middle East
3. The problems with specific states eg Iran, Iraq
4. The problem of the Islamic Jihadists – al Qaeda, Taliban
5. Our reliance on the oil production in the Middle East
6. We’ve shown our ass and waged a corrupt war with an unstated agenda

Viet Nam 1964: The Tonkin Gulf Resolution [officially, the Southeast Asia Resolution, Public Law 88-408] was a joint resolution of the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964 in response to two alleged minor naval skirmishes off the coast of North Vietnam between U.S. destroyers and Vietnamese torpedo ships from the North, known collectively as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution is of historical significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia.

The result was the Viet Nam War directed by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in which the United States lost over 58,000 soldiers. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident used to pass the resolution that justified this undeclared war never happened. In McNamara’s 1995 memoir, In Retrospect, he somewhat apologized for his role in that war, claiming that he was skeptical all along, but pressed the war out of loyalty to President Johnson. McNamara died on Monday.

Iraq 2002: According to documents provided by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush instructed his aides to look for a way to overthrow the Iraqi regime ten days after taking office in January 2001. A secret memo entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq" was discussed in January and February 2001, and a Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts", included a map of potential areas for exploration… With the support of large bipartisan majorities, the US Congress passed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq on October 11, 2002, providing the Bush Administration with the legal basis for the U.S. invasion under US law.

The Second Iraq War was directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and has resulted in the deaths of over 4000 American soldiers.  As we now know, the reasons cited for this war [Iraqi ties with Terrorists, Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction] were false [and known to be false before the invasion].

Maps and Charts of Iraqi Oil Fields

These are documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force.  The documents contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents are dated March 2001.  Click here to view the press release.

• Iraq Oil Map
• Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts – Part 1
• Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts – Part 2
• United Arab Emirates Oil Map
• United Arab Emirates: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects
• Saudi Arabia Oil Map
• Saudi Arabia: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects

Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious lor greater access there, progress continues to be slow. It is true that technology, privatisation and the opening up of a number of countries have created many new opportunities in areas around the world for various oil companies, but looking back to the early 1990‘s, expectations were that significant amounts ol the world‘s new resources would come from such areas as the former Soviet Union and from China. Of course that didn‘t turn out quite as expected. Instead it turned out to be deep water successes that yielded the bonanza of the 1990‘s.

I think it is a false dichotomy to be told that we have to choose between "commercial" interests and other interests that the United States might have in a particular country or region around the world. Oftentimes the absolute best way to advance human rights and the cause of freedom or the development of democratic institutions is through the active involvement of American businesses. Investment and trade can oftentimes do more to open up a society and to create opportunity for a society’s citizens than reams of diplomatic cables from our State Department.

I want to spend a few minutes this afternoon on my favorite hobbyhorse, the question of unilateral economic sanctions… The problem in part stems from the view by my former colleagues on Capitol Hill that sanctions are the low-cost option. It is the cheap, easy thing to do. You don’t have to appropriate any taxpayer’s money. You don’t send any young Americans into combat. We’re able to take a firm, aggressive action and do something about the outrageous behavior of the offending government, and, many members believe, it does not cost a thing. But that’s a shaky premise, at best. Even though that is the view you will hear bandied about in the cloakroom, it is a false notion that has serious consequences, in part because our sanctions policy oftentimes generates unanticipated consequences. It puts us in a position where a part of our government is pursuing objectives that are at odds with other objectives that the United States has with respect to a particular region.

The Viet Nam War was a huge and costly mistake. In pursuing our stated policy of containing Communism [specifically, containing the U.S.S.R. and China], we stepped in the middle of a Civil War, aligned with the losing, more corrupt, side using a false Cassus Belli. In Iraq, we also had a fictional cause for war, but our motive worked against our foreign policy interests. In Viet Nam, we looked stupid. In Iraq, we looked [and were] corrupt. If anything, we strengthened our adversary, Iran, by eliminating their main "rival" in the Middle East [Iraq], and inflammed the already hostile Moslem world by our direct aggression with obvious conquest, colonialization, and exploitation in mind. In Viet Nam, we committed "manslaughter." In Iraq, it was first-degree murder ["depraved heart" in legal circles].

And that’s why we can’t all follow Obama’s injunction to "look forward" – to put it behind us. It’s fine for Obama to look forward. It’s his job. But the reason for the rest of us to pursue getting Cheney’s interview in the C.I.A. Leak case is much bigger than simply catching him in his lies in that case. It’s to undermine his absurd assertion of "Executive Privilege" about his private dealings. It was that argument that swayed the Supreme Court in the case involving his Energy Conference. And the proceedings of that conference ultimately have to be released. Cheney actually succeeded in using the American War machine to pursue "commercial" interests. He might have thought that was a swell idea, just like the British thought their colonial empire was a good plan or the Romans thought that conquering everyone else was in their best interests. But that’s what we revolted against a long time ago. So McNamara was misguided in Viet Nam. But Cheney’s Iraq Invasion was perverse.

Oftentimes the absolute best way to advance human rights and the cause of freedom or the development of democratic institutions is through the active involvement of American businesses. Investment and trade can oftentimes do more to open up a society and to create opportunity for a society’s citizens than reams of diplomatic cables from our State Department.

Huffington Hires Froomkin
Daily Dish
Andrew Sullivan
07 Jul 2009 12:50 pm

Terrific move. He can now criticize Charles Krauthammer all he wants, and not watch his back. Greenwald:

Froomkin will oversee a staff of five reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post’s

Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page.

Too honest for the WaPo. Glenn reprints Bob Somerby’s view of the reason for Froomkin’s firing:

Dan Froomkin criticizes the press corps. In the press corps, if you’re a liberal, that just isn’t done. . . . If there’s one thing you’ll never see [E.J.] Dionne or [Eugene] Robinson do, it’s criticize their cohort—the coven, the clan. . .  But in the mainstream press corps, liberals don’t discuss the mainstream press.  That’s the price of getting those (very good) jobs. It’s also the price of holding them.

Meanwhile, Glenn notes:

Josh Marshall’s TalkingPointsMemo – which began as a one-person blog –  announced a major investment from Netscape founder Marc Andreesen that is allowing it to double its reporting staff.

The Dish continues to grow much more rapidly than I expected, and, as you know, I now have two under-bloggers to keep tabs on everything. I remain a great optimist about the future of journalism; and one reason for that optimism is that some of the bigger brands are dying because they refuse to practice it with the candor and transparency readers now expect.

Oxford city officials ignore calls to save 1,500-year-old Indian-built mound
Associated Press
July 07, 2009

^{The Alabama Historical Commission says this is the largest Indian-built mound in the state, but Oxford city officials are going ahead with plans to have it leveled.}

OXFORD — City officials have ignored another protest over the city’s decision to destroy a stone mound on a hill behind the Oxford Exchange created by American Indians 1,500 years ago.  

Tony Castaneda, of Anniston, and Sharon Jackson, of Fruithurst, who claim to be Indian elders, presented Mayor Leon Smith with a petition Monday containing more than 600 signatures of people opposed to the site’s destruction. The Anniston Star reported Tuesday Smith became agitated when the two arrived at City Hall, took the petition and went back inside.

Castaneda and Jackson collected more signatures at City Hall that evening. The state Historical Commission says the mound is the largest of its kind in Alabama. The city paid to have part of the hill taken down for fill at a Sam’s Club.

Cheney’s Lawyer Already Leaked the Content of Cheney’s “Privileged” Interview
By emptywheel
July 7, 2009

You know how Obama’s DOJ claims that we can’t see Cheney’s interview with Patrick Fitzgerald because it’s privileged? Well, Dick Cheney’s own lawyer already leaked the so-called privileged content three years ago.

It appears that Dick Cheney’s lawyer, Terry O’Donnell, attended the interview. When Ted Wells asked David Addington at the Libby trial when he realized he was going to be a witness in the case, Addington explained that he was not permitted to attend Cheney’s interview, but Cheney’s lawyer was.

The point at which I knew I was likely to be a witness in the case was when the government went to interview the Vice President and indicated they would prefer I didn’t come and that only his private attorney come.

I’m interested in that because we know that Terry O’Donnell spread a cover story on the NIE leak – precisely the content DOJ now claims is privileged – to Michael Isikoff.

One of the details that most surprised me in Scott McClellan’s account of the CIA Leak investigation and aftermath was his description of the White House response to the confirmation – on April 5, 2006 – that Libby had testified he had leaked the NIE with the authorization of the President. … Two days after the Fitzgerald disclosure, Cheney’s lawyer told reporters that the president had "declassified the information and authorized and directed the vice president to get it out" but "didn’t get into how it would be done." Then the vice president had directed his top aide, Scooter Libby, to supply the information anonymously to reporters… But it all made sense when someone pointed me to the one piece of journalism he could find repeating that citation–would you believe it, a Michael Isikoff piece? A lawyer familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, told NEWSWEEK that the "president declassified the information and authorized and directed the vice president to get it out." But Bush "didn’t get into how it would be done. He was not involved in selecting Scooter Libby or Judy Miller." Bush made the decision to put out the NIE material in late June, when the press was beginning to raise questions about the WMD but before Wilson published his op-ed piece. I double checked with McClellen to make sure that’s the public statement he meant, and he said, Dan Bartlett volunteered to me that the vice president’s lawyer was telling at least some reporters anonymously what I reference on page 295, which is specifically referring to the Newsweek article … In other words, yes, Cheney’s lawyer was the one spreading that story to – of all people – Michael Isikoff.

So O’Donnell attended Cheney’s interview, and when Cheney’s role in the leak began to blow up, O’Donnell told Isikoff a story that distracted from the implications of Cheney’s role and reinforced the cover story.

The point here is obvious, it’s just another example of a standard Cheney ploy – selective leaking.  You can’t see my confidential interview EXCEPT the part I snuck out under a smokescreen to cover myself. And who knows if this story of Bush’s declassification is even true?

…And according to Cheney’s own lawyer, who witnessed the interview, here’s how Cheney answered those questions.

… the "president declassified the information and authorized and directed the vice president to get it out." But Bush "didn’t get into how it would be done. He was not involved in selecting Scooter Libby or Judy Miller." Bush made the decision to put out the NIE material in late June,

Obama’s DOJ wants to claim this conversation is covered by executive privilege. But we know that Cheney’s own lawyer has already spread the contents of that conversation.

Back in September, in my first ever post about Sarah Palin [whom I’d never heard of before], I was trying to be cute and called her the "Palinator." It was a take-off on "Governator," Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s  nickname from his movie, The Terminator. I should have stuck with the original for Sarah – The Terminator. It’s her solution for everything – termination. Not only did she quit the Governor’s job, Sarah Palin "quit five colleges in her otherwise unremarkable collegiate career, before finally graduating from the sixth. She quit her job in television. She and Todd quit their snow machine dealership in Big Lake. She quit as chair of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission." And self-termination wasn’t her only tool. She was quick to terminate others:

Shortly after taking office [as Mayor of Wasilla] in October 1996, Palin consolidated the position of museum director and asked for updated resumes and resignation letters from some top officials, including the police chief, public works director, finance director, and librarian…

Palin fired Emmons and Police Chief Irl Stambaugh in January 1997, stating that she did not feel they fully supported her efforts to govern the city. The next day, following expressions of public support for Emmons and a personal meeting, Palin rescinded the firing of Emmons, stating that her concerns had been alleviated, and adding that Emmons agreed to support Palin’s plan to merge the town’s library and museum operations. Stambaugh, who along with Emmons had supported Palin’s opponent in the election, filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination, violation of his contract, and gender discrimination. In the trial, the defense alleged political reasons; Stambaugh said that he had opposed a gun control bill, Alaska HB 270, that Palin supported. The federal judge said in the decision that the police chief serves at the discretion of the mayor, and can be terminated for nearly any reason, even a political one, and dismissed Stambaugh’s lawsuit ordering Stambaugh to pay Palin’s legal fees. Palin appointed Charles Fannon to replace Stambaugh as police chief…

Palin dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11, 2008, citing performance-related issues, such as not being "a team player on budgeting issues." Monegan said that he had resisted persistent pressure from the Governor, her husband, and her staff, including State Attorney General Talis Colberg, to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten; Wooten was involved in a child custody battle with Palin’s sister that included an alleged death threat against Palin’s father. Monegan stated that he learned an internal investigation had found all but two of the allegations to be unsubstantiated, and Wooten had been disciplined for the others—an illegal moose killing and the tasering of an 11-year-old. He told the Palins that there was nothing he could do because the matter was closed…

On October 10, 2008, the Alaska Legislative Council unanimously voted to release, without endorsing, the Branchflower Report, in which investigator Stephen Branchflower found that firing Monegan "was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority," but that Palin abused her power as governor and violated the state’s Executive Branch Ethics Act when her office pressured Monegan to fire Wooten. The report stated that "Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired." The report also said that Palin "permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office […] to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired"…

New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak
Discussions of CIA Agent Listed in Filing
Washington Post
By R. Jeffrey Smith July 3, 2009

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations. The administration’s discussion of Wilson’s link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret. No such agreement was reached between Fitzgerald and Cheney at the time of their chat, according to a 2008 Fitzgerald letter to lawmakers. But the Bush administration rejected requests by Congress and a nonprofit group for access to two FBI accounts of the conversation, saying the material was exempt from disclosure under subpoena or the Freedom of Information Act.

The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed. A Justice Department lawyer at one point last month argued that vice presidents and other White House officials will decline to be interviewed in the future if they know their remarks might "get on ‘The Daily Show’ " or be used as fodder for political enemies…

The nonprofit group pushing for disclosure, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, responded yesterday with a statement that the Justice Department has subpoenaed such officials without difficulty in the past. "It is astonishing that a top Department of Justice political appointee is suggesting other high-level appointees are unlikely to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement investigations. What is wrong with this picture?" said Melanie Sloan, head of the group.

A list of what Cheney and Fitzgerald discussed appears in a declaration to the court by Acting Assistant Attorney General David J. Barron, who oversees the department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Barron said he thinks substantial portions of the chat are covered by "the deliberative process privilege," protecting advice, recommendations and other "deliberative communications" between government officials…

OBAMA: The OLC memos that were released reflected in my view us losing our moral bearings. … For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do not think it’s appropriate for them to be prosecuted. With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.

The nonprofit group pushing for disclosure, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, responded yesterday with a statement that the Justice Department has subpoenaed such officials without difficulty in the past. "It is astonishing that a top Department of Justice political appointee is suggesting other high-level appointees are unlikely to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement investigations. What is wrong with this picture?" said Melanie Sloan, head of the group.

A Gutless "Victim"
the left coaster
by Deacon Blues
July 5, 2009

As the FBI took the unusual step late Saturday to confirm they have no active corruption probe underway involving Sarah Palin, she once again played the "I’m a victim" card:

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country. And though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

I see. So you abandoned your state and your responsibilities, with no record of accomplishment to speak of, all for the sake of your country, because of a higher calling? If you re-read her explanation once again, she is clearly aiming at Barack Obama, claiming that while he gets to leave during his term for a higher calling [office] without criticism, she doesn’t. Puh-leeze!

Palin doesn’t even have the guts to come out now and say she’s running for president; instead Saint Sarah In Heels places herself on a pedestal as a victim, who is only trying to make the world and kids safe from Barack Obama. She feels that by cloaking herself in this higher calling, she can have all the benefits of being a movement candidate while bashing the media for subjecting her to scrutiny. A real profile in courage.

Palin links resignation to ‘higher calling’ and blasts media in Facebook posting

If we were thinking right, we’d look at Sarah Palin in the context of her life – growing up in the Wasilla Assembly of God Pentecostal Church. In these churches, one of the major tenets is to personally experience the "holy spirit" and to be guided by it – to be "called." My favorite waitress at our local "meat and three" is an ordained minister at such a pentecostal church [we practice "don’t ask, don’t tell" about such matters at lunch]. So when Sarah says "called," in her world, that has a very different meaning than it does to the general godless hippie that blogs about such things.

To the rational psychologically informed observer, this "calling" business looks like responding to one’s felt emotions or desires as if they come from some outside greater spirit. But in a pentecostal church, it’s simple – it’s the voice of God. And heavenly "calling" isn’t the only kind. There’s Satan’s "calling" too – like Jimmy Swaggart or Ted Haggard. But that’s generally about sex and such and requires some heavy duty repenting.