Where's the Berger thread?

[KirkVining]

Couple of interesting quotes on this, from Fox news:

Sen Arlen Spector, alleged Republican:

I think it is very, very unfortunate that the matter came into public attention while it's under investigation," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told FOX News on Wednesday, adding that Berger is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. "Even if later on, someone is exonerated, you can never remove the stain."

"The timing is suspicious but not conclusive," he added.

The White House admits involvement:

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday that the Justice Department notified the office of White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzalez about the probe before news of it leaked to the media Monday.


"My understanding is that this investigation has been going on for several months and that some officials in our counsel's office were contacted as part of the investigation," McClellan told reporters. "The counsel's office is the one that is coordinating with the Sept. 11 commission the production of documents and since this relates to some documents, the counsel's office was contacted as part of that investigation."

What do you want to bet this is going to be spun as a "dirty politics" story by my guys?

[sfloriII]

It all must be part of the infamous "Right-Wing Conspiracy".

KV, have you ever found a fault in the democratic party? I'm serious!

[KirkVining]

It's too conservative

[Botnst]

Originally posted by KirkVining
That's about where I am at. The places those papers are kept are like Ft. Knox. They must have tape on the guy. If he absentmindedly stuffed something in his pocket, thats one thing. Hiding it in his sock is another. The dems are acting like it is not serious, given the damage control they must be running these days, they must have some inside info that is making them emboldened enough to play the line out a little here.

In my (limited) experience, it is highly unlikely that any sentient being originating on this terrestrial ball could accidentally remove Top Secret, codeword classified-documents from a secure facility by accident.

It is impossible that anybody with a Secret (or above) clearance would NOT know that removing any written or electronic media, even notes, from a secure facility requires that certain protocols be followed, scrupulously. Anybody who is so sloppy that he/she "forgot" or "didn't notice" or "accidentally" removed classified material from a secure facility couldn't possibly have been as stable and secure a National Security Advosir as Sandy Berger was.

Having said all that, I cannot believe a man of Berger's knowledge and responsibility would betray his country. I do not believe he intended to harm the USA.

The man is brilliant and careful. I cannot rationalize this extreme error with that opinion. I have to wait for more of the story to emerge. It is just too soon, for me, to condemn a man whose life has been dedicated to making this country more secure in the international community.

Botnst

Originally posted by Botnst
Do you have a license to practice reality?

Damn you always beat me to it B

The difference is we acknowledge it and the others blame it on republicans, like his burnt toast this morning due to Enron deregulating the frequency cycle of his electric service due to kick backs for dubbya and Cheney hob nobbing on an antelope hunt with Tony discussing how they were going to knock over the supreme court again in 2004.

Dang that was easy.

[KirkVining]

Actually reality has just arrived.

You guys got off on "rightwing conspiracy" rant. I posted a pretty good description of how the Dems were going to spin this - wasn't making any judgement values.

[JimSmith]

Originally posted by MedMech
Damn you always beat me to it B

The difference is we acknowledge it and the others blame it on republicans, like his burnt toast this morning due to Enron deregulating the frequency cycle of his electric service due to kick backs for dubbya and Cheney hob nobbing on an antelope hunt with Tony discussing how they were going to knock over the supreme court again in 2004.

Dang that was easy.

By George, I think he's got it! Try another one, and, you will notice it makes you feel better. After a week or so of submitting to the urge to indulge these rants, you will even find yourself thinking clearer, seeing all the little "nuances" in messages being beamed out of the genetically engineered communication dome on Cheney's shoulders for what they truly are....

[Zeitgeist]

Originally posted by w126
If Kerry is elected how will things change?

Can he reverse that horrible trend of Indian outsourcing?

Will 90% of all Americans still shop at Walmart?

Will the Iraq "settle down" Both Breck boy and Herman Munster were PRO war-- freaks.

POTUS:

Set the mood? Sure.

Set sail? No.

Good questions all--I think I know the answers to each, but I wonder if the vast majority of the "anyone but Bush" electorate have bothered to contemplate the "morning after" implications of this election. I suspect that the moderate Left would give the Dems another free ride (a la Clinton/Gore) as they carry on with the current administration's corporate status quo, but with "NEW and IMPROVED" rearranged deck chairs!!!! New boss, same as the old boss--smoother edges, smilier faces and friendlier fascism.

[KirkVining]

Once again, you all are mad because we dems got way more stuffed inside our pants then you do.

[KirkVining]

Is that a top secret report in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

[Zeitgeist]

Published in the July 23-29, 2004 issue of the LA Weekly
The Boston Braying Party: The Democratic Convention Misses the Point
by Marc Cooper

Writing in The Wall Street Journal recently, Publishers Weekly news editor Steven Zeitchik neatly coined the term “flockumentary” to describe such films as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed. These are movies, he said, that people attend en masse, “to nestle together in easy confirmation of their most cherished beliefs,” an act of reaffirmation and self-validation rather than enlightenment or education.

Now the same flock is about to get fleeced by that biggest of made-for-TV extravaganza productions, the mother of all schlockumentaries — this coming week’s Democratic National Convention. The twist is that the faithful will bah and bray approval, this time of a script they don’t really agree with very much at all, if they even know it. No easy confirmation here of their more prized values and priorities. But the show must go on anyway.

In this year’s Democratic campaign, nearly all the energy, the political pop and electoral effervescence, has come from the party’s left: from the Deaniacs, the Moore worshipers, the anti-war protesters and the Orthodox legions of MoveOn.org. While Presumed Nominee Kerry was mumbling as usual these past months about staying the course, the folks really bringing it on — campaignwise — were all these lefties. Take them out of the mix, and this year’s Democratic campaign falls as flat as . . . well . . . your average Kerry stump speech.

But the sad irony of this Democratic left is that it arrives at the Boston convention utterly powerless and mostly ignored. Check out Micah Sifry and Nancy Watzman’s piece in these same pages this week to see just who — among banks, telecommunication companies, Big Pharma and, yes, even Big Tobacco — has coughed up $39 million to finance Democratic Convention doings and to buy the meatiest slabs of insider influence.

For months lefty standard-bearer Congressman Dennis Kucinich sustained his lonely campaign (I think it is still going on!) and, when asked by many — including yours truly — what the point of it was, he and his supporters answered that they were patiently building up forces to take to the convention. You know, peasants with pitchforks — progressives with clove cigarettes, ready to lay siege to the centrist establishment and make the voice of “the movement” mightily heard.

But when the party platform committee met last week, Kucinich immediately surrendered his fight to include a plank for immediate American troop withdrawal from Iraq. Not because Kucinich “sold out” — as some of his more knuckleheaded acolytes now whine. But rather because Kucinich made a cool-headed appraisal of the real balance of forces inside his own party and rightfully concluded he didn’t have a prayer (which, by the way, re-floats the question of what his campaign was about anyway).

So, as the curtain rises next week in Boston, the simple operational principle will be, as always, money talks — dissidents, walk quietly to your seats and applaud the show. The assigned role of the assembled will be to serve merely as compliant props for the TV show. The biggest of American and staunchly pro-Democratic labor unions — the SEIU and AFSCME — have passed resolutions calling for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. And though they have given millions to the party, there will be no convention-floor debate on those resolutions, or on anything else, except if you want chicken or salmon for dinner that night. Stand up and cheer on cue, wave your signs up and down when the candidate appears, march around the floor a couple of times for the “spontaneous floor demonstrations.” If, however, you have something uncomfortable to say, step outside, please, and climb into one of those designated protest areas where you will be permitted to chant under the open sky to your heart’s content.

Or you can stay inside, or even watch at home on TV, and, with pen and paper in hand, keep score to see how many of your highest hopes are addressed. We already know there’s no difference between Kerry’s and Bush’s positions on Iraq. But listening closely to the proceedings (which promise us an Oprah-like intimate view into the persona and soul of John Kerry), maybe you can fish out what Kerry’s position is on national health care. Or what’s that big sweeping anti-poverty program he’s introducing? What’s his inspirational national-youth-service program that will tap into the post-9/11 cooperative mood he says Bush has squandered? Or maybe you can discern his position on free trade? His take on the Middle East? His plans regarding the Cuban embargo? When you do, just for the hell of it, note it down and let the rest of us know.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for why Democrats, and progressives in particular, find themselves in such a precarious pickle at precisely the moment they are so determined to defeat the GOP. That zeal, of course, is part of the explanation. All of those months spent hissing and fulminating about how evil George W. Bush is might have been better spent figuring out how to move the Democrats instead of the Republicans. Maybe all those massive demonstrations planned for the GOP’s New York convention a month from now, which will be blithely ignored by the delegates, would have been more effectively aimed at the Democratic elite coming to Boston — who would have had the bejesus scared out of them.

No matter, too late now to shift strategy. If you’re going to Boston, pull up your seat, sit down and shut up. And don’t worry. If you get too frustrated, on Tuesday night The Nation, The American Prospect and Mother Jones magazines are sponsoring a convention-week screening of Outfoxed. You can always go there and cheer up with your friends.

Copyright 2004 LA Weekly

[Zeitgeist]

Corporate Conventions: How Millions of Dollars will buy Influence in New York and Boston
by Micah L. Sifry and Nancy Watzman

Four years ago, maverick Democratic Senator Russ Feingold addressed the Shadow Convention, a gathering of activists in Los Angeles on the eve of the 2000 Democratic National Convention. After a perfunctory declaration of support for his party, the Wisconsin Democrat launched into a passionate condemnation of “what has happened to our conventions, to our government and to our democracy.”

“I’m sorry to say it, but the big story at the Democratic Convention is really influence buying and peddling,” said Feingold, whose attack on “our brave new corporate democracy” won him a standing ovation.

Has anything changed four years later and two years after legislation bearing Feingold’s name, along with that of his Republican colleague John McCain, ushered in a new era of federal campaign finance regulation? Yes and no. The McCain-Feingold law has made one big difference: No longer can corporations, unions and wealthy individuals purchase access and influence with federal politicians by making direct and unlimited contributions of “soft money” to their political party committees. Nor are elected officials allowed to solicit such checks anymore. The blatant shakedown is over.

But that hasn’t stopped the influence game from taking a new shape. One huge loophole that was left unclosed was the funding of the parties’ national political conventions, which get millions in public funds but are also allowed to accept support from local civic groups. This year, the nonprofit host committees for the Democratic and Republican conventions have been raking in corporate cash in unheard of amounts. Together, the two committees are expected to raise more than $100 million from private sources — more than 12 times as much as they raised in 1992, according to a new analysis by the Campaign Finance Institute. Here as in the presidential fund-raising race, the Republicans are in the lead, expecting to raise $63.6 million to the Democrats’ $39 million.

This explosion of cash has nothing to do with the actual costs of mounting a national convention, mind you. The amount that the Republicans are planning to spend on parties, receptions and special events in New York — $7.7 million — is actually more than the total amount ($6.2 million) the Democrats spent on their entire New York convention in 1992! Nor will the extra money spent on fancy stages, computer systems and telecommunications infrastructure deliver greater television coverage to the conventions, as the major networks have already signaled that they will be reducing their live news coverage to an hour a night.

No, the name of the game is, as one of the New York party planners put it, “Access . . . So they can show their best clients and best customers they know pretty important people.” Want to sway to a Caribbean beat along with political bigwigs at the New England Aquarium? Then you need to get into the bash honoring retiring Senator John B. Breaux (D-La.), sponsored by Bell South, the Edison Electric Institute and some dozen other companies. Breaux is fabled to have quipped years ago that his vote wasn’t for sale, but it was “for rent.” Maybe bowling in the dark is more your style? Bank of America’s “cosmic bowling” party in New York City will feature balls and lanes that glow in the dark, this one in honor of Representative David Dreier (R-Ca.), who has a seat on the influential House Rules Committee. Wanna golf? Democratic delegates are being hosted by ChevronTexaco and American Express at the “7th Annual Ronald H. Brown Memorial Golf Tournament.”

The top donors to the Democratic convention committee, giving anywhere from $100,000 to more than $1 million (the exact amounts have not been disclosed), include at least 19 giant financial firms (including Fidelity, Bank of America and State Street Corporation), seven big pharmaceuticals (Amgen, Merck, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genzyme and Pfizer), four telecom corporations (IBM, AT&T, Nextel and Clear Channel), one defense contractor (Raytheon) and one tobacco company (Altria Group, formerly more infamously known as Philip Morris).

On the Republican side, “generous” supporters (they don’t give any numbers) include at least 13 financial firms (led by Citigroup, Bank of America and State Street), five pharmaceuticals (Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers, Pfizer, Schering Plough), seven telecom conglomerates (Cisco, Clear Channel, IBM, Microsoft, Disney, Univision and Verizon), a defense contractor (General Electric) and two tobacco companies (Altria and USTobacco). Twenty-one companies, in fact, are major givers to both parties’ convention committees.

While some are local employers who might have civic reasons for boosting their hometown, all have been big givers of campaign cash in Washington, with an intense interest in shaping legislation and regulation their way. The pharmaceuticals, for example, just saw their $108 million investment in Washington politicians (total given since 1989) produce an industry-friendly prescription drug program for the elderly that will shunt a whopping $139 billion in fresh profits into their pockets. The finance giants all support tax cuts, and several have been longtime proponents of privatizing Social Security (the thought of billions in stock commissions makes them quiver). By hosting all these lavish parties, they get to cajole lawmakers up close and nurture social relationships that will pay off with phone calls returned and bills favorably written down the line.

Who is left out of this? You, the ordinary voter, who is stuck watching the convention on your TV screen, while munching microwave popcorn and wondering why those politicians can’t seem to pass legislation for affordable prescription drugs, or a host of other vital needs. Groups like ACORN, or Justice for Janitors, barely have enough money to mount their own organizing campaigns, let alone throw lavish parties for politicians, delegates and fat cats. It will be interesting to see if Senator Feingold, or anyone else at the conventions, sees fit to speak out about this continued abuse of our democracy.

Micah L. Sifry and Nancy Watzman are the authors of Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day, published this month by John Wiley & Sons. They are, respectively, senior analyst and research/investigative projects director at Public Campaign.

[el presidente]

Excellent points, Z!

[connerm]

Dan Rather in introducing the Sandy Berger story on July 21, said the following: "Sandy Berger, who was National Security Advisor under President Clinton, stepped down as an advisor to the Kerry campaign today....... as the result of a carefully orchestrated leak, the timing of which appears tp be no coincidence."

I'm no journalist, but I think he missed the point.