Odd Politics Archives
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And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy Walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud. - Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
Golly. All people are thinking about are the hurricane victims. No one is thinking about poor Michael Brown who is now unemployed. It's not the first time.
Stephen Jones, the lawyer who defended Timothy McVeigh, hired Mr. Brown fresh out of law school. Explaining his decision to let Mr. Brown go during a firm reorganization he said to a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times: “He did not develop the way we wanted. He was average.” If Mr. Brown had heard that it would have saddened him. After all, when he looked at the resume he’d created he could tell he was anything but average. It described lots of good things he’d done in his relatively short life.
As he was getting on an airplane to fly home from New Orleans to his wife and children he said he was anxious “to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies.” He didn’t say what “inaccuracies and lies” he was thinking of although he was critical of journalists whom he accused of rushing to judgment about him. He might have been critical of his resume that seemed intent on embarrassing him. What’s more he probably can’t get out of his mind all the nice things the senators said about him during his confirmation hearing to become the deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The fact that they were inspired by his mischievous resume didn’t make them any less nice. And once they were on his resume, Mr. Brown himself understandably started to believe them. Here are two nice things that were said about him during the hearing.
Former Colorado Senator Ben “Nighthorse” Campbell said: “He is dedicated, tenacious, and he is exactly the type of individual who has given up probably a better lifestyle to be in public service and we certainly appreciate all of that.” Sen. Campbell was probably not aware that Mr. Brown had been asked to leave his position at the Arabian Horse Association. His dismissal from that post had nothing to do with disasters although according to a report in the St. Petersburg Times, Mary Anne Grimmell, former association president, and Karl Hart, a former board member said a number of suits had been filed against the association and Mr. Brown during Mr. Brown’s tenure. None was successful and the organization agreed to pay for the defense of those suits. Nonetheless, Mr. Brown raised $50,000 for his own defense from friends and supporters and pocketed the money. When that was discovered he was asked to leave the organization and that’s when he joined FEMA. Not everyone would consider his experience a “better lifestyle” or the kind of disaster with which FEMA is expected to cope.
Senator Joe Lieberman said: “Mr. Brown, you have extensive management experience. For this job you will need it.” Mr. Brown had no management experience. His resume said he had been the Assistant City Manager in Edmund, Oklahoma. What it should have said was that Mr. Brown had been an assistant TO the city manager in which capacity he had no oversight over employees. According to reporters for Time magazine who investigated his background, Claudia Deakins who is public relations head for Edmond said: “The assistant is more like an intern.”
The resume said he was the “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University.” The Time reporters learned that he was never on the faculty at that institution. The school did confirm he had been a student at that institution but not that he was the “Outstanding Political Science Senior” as his resume revised on September 8, 2005, stated.
In announcing his nomination the White House said Mr. Brown had been the “Executive Director of the Independent Electrical Contractors”, a trade group in Alexandria, Va. That was wrong, too, although it is unclear whether that was something he told the White House or that his resume mischievously said. According to Newsday, two officials from the organization said he’d never held that post but was executive director of a regional chapter in Oklahoma. That chapter’s director said Mr. Brown held that post for less than 6 weeks.
I’m sure Mr. Brown felt terrible that people suffered because of his ineptitude, a feeling that was almost certainly exacerbated because the whole world was aware of it. On top of that, to have everyone made aware of the fact that his resume was a fraud made him look dishonest as well as incompetent. There is nothing Mr. Brown can do about his incompetence and dishonesty. He can, however, get a new resume. He may even be able to get one off the Internet at no charge. He should do that before applying for another job.
Wed 04:46 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
— Wm. Shakespeare, King John
No one likes to admit to being dull, so occasionally the task of making the observation falls to others. George Bush is a case in point. All his friends tell us his is a keen mind that cuts right to the quick. Since many of them have known him since prep school people tend to believe them even when the evidence is overwhelming that he is in fact one of the country’s duller presidents. The evidence is most often presented by his tongue that, embedded in an otherwise empty chamber, by its wagging gives voice to the vacuousness of his thought.
One of its finer moments was during the New Orleans disaster. On the Thursday after New Orleans was wiped out by hurricane Katrina, Mr. Bush, invited a friend over for lunch. His choice of a luncheon companion at the time there were 25,000 people huddled in the Superdome in New Orleans without food, water or adequate sanitary facilities, while looting and a general crime spree were in full flower, was a strange one.
Of all the people he might have invited to help him decide what to do, he, bereft of ideas to the extent he’d tried coming up with any, invited the 78-year-old Alan Greenspan over. Whatever Mr. Greenspan’s skills, flood control and clean up are not among them. Not that that mattered. Relieving the distress of the people directly affected by the flood was not what was on the president’s mind. As always, what was on the president’s mind was money.
Describing his luncheon conversation with Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Bush was quoted in the Washington Post as saying: “We particularly spent a lot of time talking about the damage done to our energy infrastructure and its effect on the availability of the price of gasoline. [This was probably a tongue gone wild since the price will always be available. It’s it's the gasoline that may go missing.] In our judgment we view this storm as a temporary disruption that is being addressed by the government and by the private sector.” That was the kind of reassuring talk from a commander in chief that people who were homeless, starving and surrounded by dead bodies floating in the water, needed to hear.
Mr. Bush is not, of course, the only dull one in his administration, he is simply the leader of the not-so-sharp. FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford is another. On September 1 Mr. Crawford claimed a prominent role in the administration as a man of exceptionally little ability and an exceedingly small mind. He did it by announcing that he was confronting a dilemma he was unable to resolve without further study.
The dilemma faced by Mr. Crawford was how to keep a dangerous substance out of the hands of children. The dangerous substance that concerned him was not alcohol. Even someone as dull as Mr. Crawford knows that that is a problem that was solved many years ago by saying minors are not allowed to purchase it and prosecuting those who sell it to them. Ditto cigarettes. The problem that puzzles Mr. Crawford is how to keep young girls from buying the morning-after pill known as Plan B. Unable to solve that problem he announced he would study the problem for another sixty days to see if he could figure out a solution.
In announcing the delay he angered Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray, both of whom had placed a hold on his nomination as FDA commissioner and released it only after receiving assurance from Health and Human Services Secretary, Mike Leavitt, that September 1 would be the magic date for resolution of the Plan B issue. In announcing the delay Mr. Crawford chose to ignore the independent scientific advisers to the FDA who in 2003 overwhelmingly backed over-the-counter-sales for everyone, even young girls. Mr. Crawford doesn’t think young girls should be able to easily obtain Plan B even if they are at risk of becoming pregnant because of having willfully ignored the Bush administration’s abstinence only policy. Explaining his decision Mr. Crawford said: “Enforceability is the key question.”
Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women’s health and the top FDA official in charge of women’s health issues resigned in protest over Mr. Crawford’s dullness. Those were not her exact words. What she said was: “I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled.”
Commenting on the delay and alleged breach of promise, Mr. Leavitt said: “The commitment was they would act. Sometimes action isn’t always yes and no. Sometimes it requires additional thought.” When dealing with dull minds anticipation of additional thought’s results tends to be muted. For good reason.
Wed 01:07 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? - Seneca, Epistles
Pat Robertson is the man whose website commends to the reader his booklets that describe Age-Defying Antioxidants, Age Defying Protein Pancakes and Age-Defying Protein Shakes (the latter two having been described here recently). Given Mr. Robertson’s love of the Lord it seems curious that he would sell products that will delay the advent of that happy day when his followers meet the Lord, something that age-defying products presumably postpone. As curious as that may seem, it can’t hold a candle to his other activities. In addition to selling age-defying products, Mr. Robertson is a professional Christian who invokes the Lord’s aid in getting rid of those he dislikes.
Addressing the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy a few weeks ago he suggested that his followers use the following prayer: “Take control, Lord. We ask for additional vacancies on the court.” That prayer seemed relatively harmless because one assumes the Lord will exercise discretion in deciding whether to respond to the supplicant’s plea and distinguishes requests made by the nut case supplicant from the other kind. Nonetheless, it seems odd that a man of the apron who - when not hawking his foodstuffs -- is a man of the cloth would be invoking the Lord in that way. It would be more seemly for him to enjoin his followers to pray that the pancake recipe sold on his website will always produce light and fluffy pancakes.
His call for a vacancy on the court pales by comparison to his dabbling in foreign policy in which he solicited an unidentified someone to commit murder. Speaking of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, on the 700 Club program on August 22, 2005, Mr. Robertson said: “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
Responding to the reverend’s suggestion of murder, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said: “Our department doesn’t do that kind of thing. It’s against the law.” He’s right. That is why - in all probability - the U.S. had nothing to do with the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and why tales of keystone cop attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro are nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination. That does, of course, still leave us with Venezuela.
If not against the law, it was a violation of the charter of the Organization of American States for the United States to encourage those who wanted Mr. Chávez removed (not murdered, you understand) in 2002 prior to the expiration of his term by holding early elections.
According to reports senior members of the Bush administration met repeatedly with Chávez opponents plotting his ouster in early 2002 and supported their efforts. According to one anonymous spokesman, the administration was sending subtle signals that it didn’t like Mr. Chávez.
The disliked stemmed in part from the fact that he appeared to threaten the independence of Venezuela’s state owned oil company, the third-largest supplier of American oil. Press secretary Ari Fleischer said that the United States “is convinced that the only peaceful and politically viable path out of the crisis is through the holding of early elections.” (Under the Venezuelan Constitution an early election could not be held until August 2003.) Two days later, perhaps having read that constitution, the administration announced that it was not calling for early elections after all. Ari Fleischer said that: “We call for the will of the people to be heard through the provisions of the Constitution, in the manner that the Venezuelan people deem most appropriate.”
In April 2002 there was a coup that briefly ousted President Hugo Chávez. On the day of the ouster Mr. Fleischer said the ouster was Mr. Chávez’ own fault, he having provoked the crisis that led to his ouster. The State Department promised full cooperation with those who had sponsored the short-lived coup. Within two days Mr. Chávez was back as president. Mr. Fleischer expressed the hope that Mr. Chávez would respond by “governing in a fully democratic manner.” Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice expressed the hope he’d be less “highhanded” in dealing with his opponents. Whether the administration thinks he has been less highhanded is unknown. Whether it does or does not, it’s unlikely Mr. Bush would follow Mr. Robertson’s advice. He has too much respect for international law. He would not have invaded Iraq had Iraq not had weapons of mass destruction. He would never follow the advice of a crazy Christian pancake maker that he sponsor murder - unless, of course, he thought he could get away with it.
Thu 12:51 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Tell the president that the way to solve his problem is to find that one man who would turn out to be . . . possessed of high competence, great physical vigor, and a passion for anonymity.
—Tom Jones, private secretary to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
[1936]
A secret’s just not a secret anymore. In days of yore, a secret was treated with the greatest respect. A person to whom a secret was imparted treated the secret as inviolate, refusing to disclose it to another for any price. Today the person to whom a secret is entrusted is transmogrified into a faceless conduit for the information. The only thing that is secret about a secret is the name of the person who is passing on the confidence. So long as that information is not made public, the informer believes no confidence has been breeched. A few examples from the New York Times, randomly taken within the space of four days, make the point. Any four days would do.
In a story on July 25 reporting on a discussion Senator Durbin of Illinois had with John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee, it was disclosed that Senator Durbin had asked questions dealing with the interplay of religious doctrine and civil law. Two officials privy to the conversation described the discussion in some detail. They did not permit themselves to be identified because the meeting was confidential.
On July 26, 2005 there was a story describing how seriously George Bush takes his responsibility for hiring good people. The story described the technique used by the president when interviewing Judge Roberts. Knowing that Mr. Bush learned a great deal about Mr. Putin because, as he put it after first meeting him: “I was able to get a sense of his soul” it came as no surprise to learn that much of Mr. Bush’s interview relied on visceral reaction to such things as Mr. Roberts’ description of his childhood. An administration official said that one of the questions Mr. Bush asked was “Why do you want to do this.” The reason he asks such a question, the official said, is that businessmen who sign up for government work lose millions of dollars by leaving the private sector. Having imparted that fascinating insight into what passes for the presidential mind, the official asked that his name not be disclosed. That, the Times said, is because Mr. Bush doesn’t like for people to talk about internal White House matters. Since the speaker wasn’t identified, we have not learned anything about internal White House matters.
On the same day as the foregoing was described, it was announced that the U.S. Army plans to relocate units returning from Iraq. Two Pentagon officials said the relocation would be completed by 2008. The officials went into some detail about what the relocation would entail. They insisted on anonymity, however, because the official announcement was to be made the following week.
On July 27 there was a story discussing the leak inquiry pertaining to Valerie Plame. That is in itself, a story about secrets but I won’t discuss that here. One of the things that has been going on in connection with that story is a grand jury investigation into the issue of who gave away Ms. Plame’s secret. Her secret was whom she worked for: The CIA.
The special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked that people appearing before the grand jury not discuss anything about the case. Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary testified. His testimony was really interesting and everyone wanted to know what he said. A few people in the know imparted some information about his testimony to reporters. They did so anonymously. As the Times explained: “The people who discussed the testimony of Mr. Fleischer and other witnesses asked not to be named because . . . the special prosecutor, has asked anyone involved in the case not to talk about it.” Presumably the informers were involved with the case else they’d not have known whereof they spoke. By remaining anonymous, one concludes, they were not violating the special prosecutor’s injunction. The anonymous informers can explain better than I why that is.
In July 28 a story crediting an aide traveling with Donald Rumsfeld during his recent trip to Iraq revealed some of what Mr. Rumsfeld said to the Iraqis in private meetings. The aide insisted that his identity not be disclosed since the meeting was private. By not disclosing his identity no confidences were breeched and the meeting remained private. The Iraqis will have no trouble understanding that.
If you haven’t figured it by now, the new rule is quite simple. If you have a secret you want to share, share it. Just don’t let the person you share it with tell anyone from whom the information was received. That way all confidences will be preserved inviolate.
Wed 05:00 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It is time for an update, albeit belatedly, on things in China that though trivial in the eyes of some, are central to the concerns of others in the governments of those two countries. I refer, of course, to the flag. China has ruled. The United States Congress may.A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag. . . reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth.
— Henry Ward Beecher, The American Flag
Long time readers of this column will recall that this subject was last visited in 1999. Ng Kung Siu and Lee Kin Yun had been convicted by the Magistrate of Hong Kong of violating the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance and the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance.
Those ordinances criminalize desecration of the national and regional flags. The question presented to the court was whether that criminalization was inconsistent with the guarantee of the freedom of expression that Chinese citizens, like U.S. citizens, enjoy.
The magistrate found it was not and imposed a deferred sentence. Following the lead of the United States Supreme Court that ruled in 1989 that defacing the flag was protected as a form of free expression, a Hong Kong appellate court reversed the conviction.
But in a 21-page opinion the Court of Final Appeal reversed the lower court, siding with the first court and saying that Hong Kong “is at the early stage of the new order following resumption of the exercise of sovereignty by the People’s Republic of China. The implementation of the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ is a matter of fundamental importance, as is the reinforcement of national unity and territorial integrity. Protection of the national flag and the regional flag from desecration…will play an important part in the attainment of these goals. In these circumstances, there are strong grounds for concluding that the criminalization of flag desecration is a justifiable restriction on the guaranteed right to the freedom of expression.”
This correspondent was remiss in not reporting the holding of the Court of Final Appeal. It seemed unimportant, however, since by then the United States Congress had abandoned its efforts to amend the Constitution and permit the passage of legislation making it a crime to burn the flag. Now, thanks to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, flag burning is once again a burning issue and this report though overdue, is nonetheless timely.
The House has approved a constitutional amendment that says: “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” Of course Rep. DeLay and his minions cannot accomplish this alone. They need the U.S. Senate to join in the effort. That's still not enough. Since this is an amendment to the Constitution 37 states must approve the measure within 7 years.
If that happens Congress will be empowered to make it a crime to burn the American flag. That will put us squarely in line with China. Some may wonder why this is an important issue. The Citizens Flag Alliance answers the question: It keeps track of all of the flag desecration incidents in the United States and a review of its fine work makes it obvious why legislation is vital to our well-being.
In 2003 there were six episodes of flag burning in the United States, four of them taking place in March, a particularly bad month. One person’s flag was burned in front of his house although no one knows by whom or why. Another was burned in front of CNN News because it hadn’t been giving enough attention to protesters of the Iraq war and the igniter generally disapproved of CNN’s coverage of the war.
2004 was a down year. There were only three reported instances although one, in Montpelier, Vt. involved several separate instances including a flag placed on a statue of the Virgin Mary and set on fire. Whether the protester disliked the flag or the Virgin or perhaps both, was unclear.
In the mid-90s there was a rash of flag burnings that were motivated in part by such things as students’ displeasure with a dress code at Holmes High School in San Antonio, Texas and in another instance, an apparent dislike of Graham Greene’s writing since his novel and a flag were burned together. Thus far in 2005 there have been 10 instances of flag desecration.
The foregoing make it abundantly clear why a Constitutional amendment is needed. The Senate will spend hundreds of hours discussing the amendment and the permissibility of burning the flag. When it's finished, time permitting, it might then address some other issues facing the country: Tax cuts for the wealthy, ways to protect large corporations from the environment and other things that matter to those over whom the flag waves.
Wed 03:54 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
