Gorelick, Appointed by Daschle, Worked With Tenet

So says the New York Post, today (brackets in original):

New questions surfaced yesterday about 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick's potential conflicts of interest after it was revealed she was more deeply involved in anti-terror efforts than has previously been known. Records obtained by The Post show that Gorelick, while serving in a top job at the Justice Department, met every two weeks with George Tenet, then the No. 2 official at the CIA, and headed then-Attorney General Janet Reno's national-security team.

Gorelick's own description of her counter-terrorism duties under Bill Clinton is contained in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1995.

But they are not mentioned in her official biography on the 9/11 commission Web site.

Gorelick is already facing calls for her resignation after it was learned she penned a Justice Department memo that some officials say hindered the fight against terrorism by limiting information-sharing by agencies.

In the 9/11 hearings, Gorelick recused herself only from questioning Reno, her former boss, but she was active in grilling Tenet and several other top CIA officials who were all at the agency when Gorelick was the chief liaison between the CIA and the Justice Department.

Asked whether her role in the Justice Department posed a conflict of interest for Gorelick — who is scrutinizing the terror policies under Clinton and Bush — a 9/11 commission official responded, "She was appointed by Sen. [Tom] Daschle. We didn't do the vetting. He did." ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/16/04 07:01:13 AM
Categorized as Political.

"Condi Rice, Richard Clarke, Cardinal Law & Corporate Failure"

A fine blog over at HerbEly, a weblog very attractive in both content and appearance. Unlike your Humble, Faithful Blogster, for instance, Herb obviously puts some real thought into his blogs. :-)

See also New Blog in the Neighborhood.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/16/04 06:55:04 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

Iraq and Vietnam & Bush's Folly

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXI

Rich Lowry blogs, yesterday, a list of Iraq-Vietnam analogies, from a reader.

• The anti-war crowd portrayed the administration as evil and un-caring.
• John Kerry used the anti-war movement for his personal, political aspirations.
• Ignorant comparisons were made between the President and Hitler.
• No thought was given to the consequences the South Vietnamese people would suffer if we immediately pulled out our troops.
• The morale of our troops overseas suffered because of the anti-war movement's actions at home while the enemy's resolve was bolstered.
• The left proclaimed that the South Vietnamese people would be better off under the North's rule instead of being subjected to U.S. intervention.
• All enemies of freedom called the U.S. efforts imperialistic.
• Industry greed was claimed to be the main reason for the war.
• The administration was accused of manufacturing its reasons for the war.
• Hollywood celebrities received much free publicity by speaking out against the war, and most of Hollywood was adamantly against it.
• A major network's anchorman lost his objectivity and proclaimed the war to be a losing enterprise.
• Grieving families of killed servicemen lashed out angrily at the government.
• American Colleges and Universities were a festering cesspool of leftist, anti-war propaganda.
• "Make Love, Not War" was a simplistic sound-bite thought to be very, very clever.
• American troops were claimed to come, unfairly, only from lower-income families.
• The leftists treated the U.N. as a legitimate, intelligent, governing body that would act in our country's best interests.
• Atrocities committed by the North Vietnamese were downplayed and under-reported by the three major networks.
• Servicemen's efforts at humanitarian aid were ignored in favor of body counts and negative war images.
• Congress busied itself with finger pointing and witch-hunting.

Which reminds me — have you seen the War Against Saddam Hussein referred to as Bush's Folly? Well, I have. I think it must have been on some talking-points memo, because I saw it everywhere (okay, I exaggerate) a week or two ago, but nowhere since then.

Anyway, unless I'm mistaken, the last venture in American political life that was referred to as a "folly" was Seward's Folly. And we all know how badly that turned out.

You know about Seward's Folly, no? The purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000. That is, for roughly 2.5 cents (cents!) per acre. For roughly 586,400 square miles of territory. (Roughly twice the size of Texas.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/16/04 06:48:00 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

"How to Tell a Duck From a Fox"

Shaking up the hierarchy, I'm sure, as much as the politicians, Denver's archbishop Charles Chaput lays it on the line in his weekly column:

.... We've come a long way from John F. Kennedy, who merely locked his faith in the closet. Now we have Catholic senators who take pride in arguing for legislation that threatens and destroys life — and who then also take Communion.

The kindest explanation for this sort of behavior is that a lot of Catholic candidates don't know their own faith. And that's why, in a spirit of charity, the Holy See offered its guidance and encouragement in a little document last year On Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Public Life.

Nothing in this Roman document is new. But it offers a vision of public service filled with common sense....

Our job as Catholics this election year — if we're serious about our faith — is to not get fooled.

Candidates who claim to be "Catholic" but who publicly ignore Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life are offering a dishonest public witness. They may try to look Catholic and sound Catholic, but unless they act Catholic in their public service and political choices, they're really a very different kind of creature.

And real Catholics should vote accordingly.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/16/04 06:32:19 AM
Categorized as Political & Religious.