1 Boring Old Man

Posted at 10:22 AM ET, 06/26/2009
Washington Post
White House Watched

Today’s column is my last for The Washington Post. And the first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to all you readers, e-mailers, commenters, questioners, Facebook friends and Twitterers for spending your time with me and engaging with me over the years. And thank you for the recent outpouring of support. It was extraordinarily uplifting, and I’m deeply grateful. If I ever had any doubt, your words have further inspired me to continue doing accountability journalism. My plan is to take a few weeks off before embarking upon my next endeavor — but when I do, I hope you’ll join me.

It’s hard to summarize the past five and a half years. But I’ll try.

I started my column in January 2004, and one dominant theme quickly emerged: That George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes. In the days and weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the nation, including the media, vested him with abilities he didn’t have and credibility he didn’t deserve. As it happens, it was on the day of my very first column that we also got the first insider look at the Bush White House, via Ron Suskind’s book, The Price of Loyalty. In it, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill described a disengaged president "like a blind man in a room full of deaf people", encircled by "a Praetorian guard,” intently looking for a way to overthrow Saddam Hussein long before 9/11. The ensuing five years and 1,088 columns really just fleshed out that portrait, describing a president who was oblivious, embubbled and untrustworthy.

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney’s lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby’s lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.

And while this wasn’t as readily apparent until President Obama took office, it’s now very clear that the Bush years were all about kicking the can down the road – either ignoring problems or, even worse, creating them and not solving them. This was true of a huge range of issues including the economy, energy, health care, global warming – and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.

How did the media cover it all? Not well. Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long. The handful of people who did exceptional investigative reporting during this era really deserve our gratitude: People such as Ron Suskind, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Murray Waas, Michael Massing, Mark Danner, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (better late than never), Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Charlie Savage and Philippe Sands; there was also some fine investigative blogging over at Talking Points Memo and by Marcy Wheeler. Notably not on this list: The likes of Bob Woodward and Tim Russert. Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that there is so very much about the Bush era that we still don’t know…

I would just be venting to speculate on the why of the Froomkin firing, so I’ll leave that one alone. But though I’ve never thought it out loud, I’ve sort of developed a "what would Dan say?" approach to the news. It wasn’t just that he was a like-minded person with a public pulpit, he was a keen analyst who quickly found the center of an issue – and made it clear for the rest of us. Early on, he quoted articles from the "normal" media, but soon began to add the comments of the blogger-poets, Digby, emptywheel, Greenwald, and the like. Morning ritual: go to Washington Post site, look on the left to see if it’s a Froomkin Day, then look at the article headlines, then check the blogs. Today was the last time for that, and it’s sad.

The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Sanford and Ensign Scandals Open a Door On Previously Secretive ‘C Street’ Spiritual Haven
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
June 26, 2009

No sign explains the prim and proper red brick house on C Street SE. Nothing hints at its secrets. It blends into the streetscape, tucked behind the Library of Congress, a few steps from the Cannon House Office Building, a few more steps to the Capitol. This is just the way its residents want it to be. Almost invisible.

But through one week’s events, this stately old pad – a pile of sturdy brick that once housed a convent – has become the very nexus of American scandal, a curious marker in the gallery of capital shame. Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s disgraced Republican governor and a former congressman, looked here for answers – for support, for the word of God – as his marriage crumbled over his affair with an Argentine woman.  John Ensign, the senator from Nevada who just seven days earlier also was forced to admit a career-shattering affair, lives there.

"C Street," Sanford said Wednesday during his diffuse, cryptic, utterly arresting confessional news conference, is where congressmen faced "hard questions."

On any given day, the rowhouse at 133 C St. SE — well appointed, with American flag flying, white-and-green-trimmed windows and a pleasant garden — fills with talk of power and the Lord. At least five congressmen live there, quietly renting upstairs rooms from an organization affiliated with "the Fellowship," the obsessively secretive Arlington spiritual group that organizes the National Day of Prayer breakfast, an event routinely attended by legions of top government officials. Other politicians come to the house for group spirituality sessions, prayer meetings or to simply share their troubles.

The house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals – dubbed "two lightning strikes" by a high-ranking congressional source. First, at least one resident learned of both the Sanford and Ensign affairs and tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, a source close to the congressman said. Then the house drama escalated. It was then that Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, endured an emotional meeting with  Sen. Tom Coburn, who lives there, according to the source. The topic was forgiveness. "He was trying to be a peacemaker," the source said of Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma…

The house’s residents mostly adhere to a code of silence about the place, seldom discussing it publicly, lending an aura of mystery to what happens inside and a hint of conspiratorial speculation. In a town where everyone talks about everything, the residents have managed largely to keep such a refuge to themselves and their friends. On a street mostly occupied by Hill staffers and professionals in their 20s and early 30s, some of the Democratic staffers nicknamed it "the Prayer House." On summer evenings, the congressmen would sometimes sit out front smoking cigars and chatting, but what went on inside stayed inside…

Michelle Bachmann is raving on about the questions on the census form – like age, race, sex, sensitive stuff like that. She’s worrying about invasion of our privacy. I wonder if she knows about the N.S.A. unwarranted domestic surveillance program? She’s an amazing character. Just amazing…

The Senator John Ensign and Governor Mark Sanford stories have focused my attention back to the Religious Right, and lead me to this article about Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas [God’s Senator]. If you haven’t already read it, please do so. The article documents a web of connections among the Christian Right that infiltrates the halls of our government at a level that makes me shudder. A few quotes from the article:

^{Brownback believes America is entering a period of religious revival on the scale of the Great Awakening that preceded the nation’s creation, an epidemic of mass conversions, signs and wonders, book burnings. But this time, he says, the upheaval will give way to a "cultural springtime," a theocratic order that is pleasant and balmy…}

^{On Sundays, Brownback rises at dawn so he can catch a Catholic Mass before meeting Mary and the kids at Topeka Bible Church. With the exception of one brown-skinned man, the congregation is entirely white. The stage looks like a rec room in a suburban basement: wall-to-wall carpet, wood paneling, a few haphazard ferns and a couple of electric guitars lying around. This morning, the church welcomes a guest preacher from Promise Keepers, a men’s group, by performing a skit about golf and fatherhood. From his preferred seat in the balcony, Brownback chuckles when he’s supposed to, sings every song, nods seriously when the preacher warns against "Judaizers" who would "poison" the New Testament…}

^{They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing" — a government led by Christ’s will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything — sex and taxes, war and the price of oil — will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It’s a good old boy’s club blessed by God. Brownback even lived with other cell members in a million-dollar, red-brick former convent at 133 C Street that was subsidized and operated by the Fellowship. Monthly rent was $600 per man — enough of a deal by Hill standards that some said it bordered on an ethical violation, but no charges were ever brought…}

^{The most bluntly theocratic effort, however, is the Constitution Restoration Act, which Brownback co-sponsored with Jim DeMint, another former C Streeter who was then a congressman from South Carolina. If passed, it will strip the Supreme Court of the ability to even hear cases in which citizens protest faith-based abuses of power. Say the mayor of your town decides to declare Jesus lord and fire anyone who refuses to do so; or the principal of your local high school decides to read a fundamentalist prayer over the PA every morning; or the president declares the United States a Christian nation. Under the Constitution Restoration Act, that’ll all be just fine…}

^{Every Tuesday, before his evening meeting with his prayer brothers, Brownback chairs another small cell — one explicitly dedicated to altering public policy. It is called the Values Action Team, and it is composed of representatives from leading organizations on the religious right. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family sends an emissary, as does the Family Research Council, the Eagle Forum, the Christian Coalition, the Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America and many more…}

^{The most bluntly theocratic effort, however, is the Constitution Restoration Act, which Brownback co-sponsored with Jim DeMint, another former C Streeter who was then a congressman from South Carolina. If passed, it will strip the Supreme Court of the ability to even hear cases in which citizens protest faith-based abuses of power. Say the mayor of your town decides to declare Jesus lord and fire anyone who refuses to do so; or the principal of your local high school decides to read a fundamentalist prayer over the PA every morning; or the president declares the United States a Christian nation. Under the Constitution Restoration Act, that’ll all be just fine…}

^{He has worldly proof, too. "You look at the social impact of the countries that have engaged in homosexual marriage." He shakes his head in sorrow, thinking of Sweden, which Christian conservatives believe has been made by "social engineering" into an outer ring of hell. "You’ll know ’em by their fruits," Brownback says. He pauses, and an awkward silence fills the room. He was citing scripture — Matthew 7:16 — but he just called gay Swedes "fruits"…}

^{Now, Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years – schools, Social Security, welfare – will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.}

^{Brownback Today}

Exclusive: E-mails between Sanford, woman
Woman in affair declines interview
The State
By JOHN O’CONNOR

June 24, 2009

Read the full e-mail exchange in Thursday’s edition of The State.

Below are excerpts of e-mails, obtained by The State newspaper in December, between Gov. Mark Sanford’s personal e-mail account and Maria, a woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina…

You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself [or two magnificent parts of yourself] in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details…

Right now, the Internet is abuzz with sites saying that we [DFH’s][Liberals][Democrats][Progressives] are jumping on the transgressions of a few to judge the Religious Right. First, it is no longer a few. And second, our response is not so much a judgement. It’s a reaction to the extreme judgementalness of the self-righteous. Jesus covered this in the Sermon on the Mount:

Sanford met in Atlanta after returning from South America
Update: Sanford admits affair
Jun. 24, 2009
The State
By GINA SMITH

ATLANTA | Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Wednesday morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said.

Sanford’s whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his absence fueled speculation about where he had been and who’s in charge in his absence. His emergence Wednesday ended the mystery.

Sanford, in a brief interview with The State in the nation’s busiest airport, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.

Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student.

"But I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford said "… It’s a great city."

Sanford said he has been to the city twice before, most recently about a year and half ago during a Commerce Department trip.

Sanford said he was alone on the trip. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline…

The governor said he cut his trip short after his chief of staff, Scott English, told him his trip was gaining a lot of media attention and he needed to come back.

When asked why his staff said he was on the Appalachian Trail, Sanford replied, "I don’t know."

Sanford later said "in fairness to his staff," he had told them he might go hiking on the Appalachian Trial.

Sanford said he decided not to return via the Columbia airport to avoid the media. The State Media Company was the only media who greeted Sanford this morning.

"I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion," Sanford said.

Sanford said he has taken adventure trips for years to unwind. He has visited such places as the coast of Turkey, the Greek Isles and South America. He was with friends sometimes and sometimes by himself.

"I would get out of the bubble I am in," Sanford said…

 

Was it a woman?

Did he say a friend or a woman?

I didn’t hear him say woman…