And please, hearing that Obama took 17 briefings ... That worries more than assures me.
If one hostage commands that much POTUS bandwith, this is not a good sign moving forward, and I sure as hell wouldn't advertise it."
I think its a function of Obama's limited experience in an executive role of this nature. Frankly, he's still learning and the jury is still out on this dimension of Obama's leadership as president. I want him to be a triggerman when called for. This episode doesn't have me convinced yet.
Sometimes, there just is not time to get something said that needs saying at the time it needs saying. So it is with my post inauguration reactions. I'm a little late to the party and still pressed for time, so I'll be relatively brief:
by George Friedman Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame. It was Felt who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post with a flow of leaks about what had happened, how it happened and where to look for further corroboration on the break-in, the cover-up, and the financing of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of Watergate has been seen as a high point of journalism, and their unwillingness to reveal Felt’s identity until he revealed it himself three years ago has been seen as symbolic of the moral rectitude demanded of journalists.
In reality, the revelation of who Felt was raised serious questions about the accomplishments of Woodward and Bernstein, the actual price we all pay for journalistic ethics, and how for many years we did not know a critical dimension of the Watergate crisis. At a time when newspapers are in financial crisis and journalism is facing serious existential issues, Watergate always has been held up as a symbol of what journalism means for a democracy, revealing truths that others were unwilling to uncover and grapple with. There is truth to this vision of journalism, but there is also a deep ambiguity, all built around Felt’s role. This is therefore not an excursion into ancient history, but a consideration of two things. The first is how journalists become tools of various factions in political disputes. The second is the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and governments in a Democratic society.
Watergate was about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. The break-in was carried out by a group of former CIA operatives controlled by individuals leading back to the White House. It was never proven that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon knew of the break-in, but we find it difficult to imagine that he didn’t. In any case, the issue went beyond the break-in. It went to the cover-up of the break-in and, more importantly, to the uses of money that financed the break-in and other activities. Numerous aides, including the attorney general of the United States, went to prison. Woodward and Bernstein, and their newspaper, The Washington Post, aggressively pursued the story from the summer of 1972 until Nixon’s resignation. The episode has been seen as one of journalism’s finest moments. It may have been, but that cannot be concluded until we consider Deep Throat more carefully.
Mark Felt was deputy associate director of the FBI (No. 3 in bureau hierarchy) in May 1972, when longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died. Upon Hoover’s death, Felt was second to Clyde Tolson, the longtime deputy and close friend to Hoover who by then was in failing health himself. Days after Hoover’s death, Tolson left the bureau.
Felt expected to be named Hoover’s successor, but Nixon passed him over, appointing L. Patrick Gray instead. In selecting Gray, Nixon was reaching outside the FBI for the first time in the 48 years since Hoover had taken over. But while Gray was formally acting director, the Senate never confirmed him, and as an outsider, he never really took effective control of the FBI. In a practical sense, Felt was in operational control of the FBI from the break-in at the Watergate in August 1972 until June 1973.
Nixon’s motives in appointing Gray certainly involved increasing his control of the FBI, but several presidents before him had wanted this, too, including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both of these presidents wanted Hoover gone for the same reason they were afraid to remove him: He knew too much. In Washington, as in every capital, knowing the weaknesses of powerful people is itself power — and Hoover made it a point to know the weaknesses of everyone. He also made it a point to be useful to the powerful, increasing his overall value and his knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the powerful.
Hoover’s death achieved what Kennedy and Johnson couldn’t do. Nixon had no intention of allowing the FBI to continue as a self-enclosed organization outside the control of the presidency and everyone else. Thus, the idea that Mark Felt, a man completely loyal to Hoover and his legacy, would be selected to succeed Hoover is in retrospect the most unlikely outcome imaginable.
Felt saw Gray’s selection as an unwelcome politicization of the FBI (by placing it under direct presidential control), an assault on the traditions created by Hoover and an insult to his memory, and a massive personal disappointment. Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Ni xon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.
Woodward and Bernstein were on the city desk of The Washington Post at the time. They were young (29 and 28), inexperienced and hungry. We do not know why Felt decided to use them as his conduit for leaks, but we would guess he sought these three characteristics — as well as a newspaper with sufficient gravitas to gain notice. Felt obviously knew the two had been assigned to a local burglary, and he decided to leak what he knew to lead them where he wanted them to go. He used his knowledge to guide, and therefore control, their investigation.
And now we come to the major point. For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.
Instead of passing what he knew to professional prosecutors at the Justice Department — or if he did not trust them, to the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing — Felt chose to leak the information to The Washington Post. He bet, or knew, that Post editor Ben Bradlee would allow Woodward and Bernstein to play the role Felt had selected for them. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all knew who Deep Throat was. They worked with the operational head of the FBI to destroy Nixon, and then protected Felt and the FBI until Felt came forward.
In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.
This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it. The story of Deep Throat was well-known, but what lurked behind the identity of Deep Throat was not. This was not a lone whistle-blower being protected by a courageous news organization; rather, it was a news organization being used by the FBI against the president, and a news organization that knew perfectly well that it was being used against the president. Protecting Deep Throat concealed not only an individual, but also the story of the FBI’s role in destroying Nixon.
Again, Nixon’s guilt is not in question. And the argument can be made that given John Mitchell’s control of the Justice Department, Felt thought that going through channels was impossible (although the FBI was more intimidating to Mitchell than the other way around). But the fact remains that Deep Throat was the heir apparent to Hoover — a man not averse to breaking the law in covert operations — and Deep Throat clearly was drawing on broader resources in the FBI, resources that had to have been in place before Hoover’s death and continued operating afterward.
Until Felt came forward in 2005, not only were these things unknown, but The Washington Post was protecting them. Admittedly, the Post was in a difficult position. Without Felt’s help, it would not have gotten the story. But the terms Felt set required that a huge piece of the story not be told. The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn’t what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat’s identity.
Journalists have celebrated the Post’s role in bringing down the president for a generation. Even after the revelation of Deep Throat’s identity in 2005, there was no serious soul-searching on the omission from the historical record. Without understanding the role played by Felt and the FBI in bringing Nixon down, Watergate cannot be understood completely. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee were willingly used by Felt to destroy Nixon. The three acknowledged a secret source, but they did not reveal that the secret source was in operational control of the FBI. They did not reveal that the FBI was passing on the fruits of surveillance of the White House. They did not reveal the genesis of the fall of Nixon. They accepted the accolades while withholding an extraordinarily important fact, elevating their own role in the episode while distorting the actual dynamic of Nixon’s fall.
Absent any widespread reconsideration of the Post’s actions during Watergate in the three years since Felt’s identity became known, the press in Washington continues to serve as a conduit for leaks of secret information. They publish this information while protecting the leakers, and therefore the leakers’ motives. Rather than being a venue for the neutral reporting of events, journalism thus becomes the arena in which political power plays are executed. What appears to be enterprising journalism is in fact a symbiotic relationship between journalists and government factions. It may be the best path journalists have for acquiring secrets, but it creates a very partial record of events — especially since the origin of a leak frequently is much more important to the public than the leak itself.
The Felt experience is part of an ongoing story in which journalists’ guarantees of anonymity to sources allow leakers to control the news process. Protecting Deep Throat’s identity kept us from understanding the full dynamic of Watergate. We did not know that Deep Throat was running the FBI, we did not know the FBI was conducting surveillance on the White House, and we did not know that the Watergate scandal emerged not by dint of enterprising journalism, but because Felt had selected Woodward and Bernstein as his vehicle to bring Nixon down. And we did not know that the editor of The Washington Post allowed this to happen. We had a profoundly defective picture of the situation, as defective as the idea that Bob Woodward looks like Robert Redford.
Finding the truth of events containing secrets is always difficult, as we know all too well. There is no simple solution to this quandary. In intelligence, we dream of the well-placed source who will reveal important things to us. But we also are aware that the information provided is only the beginning of the story. The rest of the story involves the source’s motivation, and frequently that motivation is more important than the information provided. Understanding a source’s motivation is essential both to good intelligence and to journalism. In this case, keeping secret the source kept an entire — and critical — dimension of Watergate hidden for a generation. Whatever crimes Nixon committed, the FBI had spied on the president and leaked what it knew to The Washington Post in order to destroy him. The editor of The Washington Post knew that, as did Woodward and Bernstein. We do not begrudge them their prizes and accolades, but it would have been useful to know who handed them the story. In many ways, that story is as interesting as the one about all the president’s men.
| No. 08A469 | ||||
| Title: |
| |||
| Docketed: | ||||
| Lower Ct: | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Case Nos.: | (SC 18264) |
| ~~~Date~~~ | ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Nov 25 2008 | Application (08A469) for stay and/or injunction, submitted to Justice Ginsburg. |
| Nov 26 2008 | Application (08A469) denied by Justice Ginsburg. |
| Nov 29 2008 | Application (08A469) refiled and submitted to Justice Scalia. |
| Dec 8 2008 | DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 12, 2008. |
| Dec 8 2008 | Application (08A469) referred to the Court by Justice Scalia. |
| Dec 9 2008 | Supplemental brief of applicant Cort Wrotnowski filed. (Distributed) |
| No. 08A407 | ||||
| Title: |
| |||
| Docketed: | ||||
| Lower Ct: | Supreme Court of New Jersey |
| Case Nos.: | (AM-0153-08T2 at the New Jersey Appellate Division without a docket number) |
| ~~~Date~~~ | ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Nov 3 2008 | Application (08A407) for stay pending the filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter. |
| Nov 6 2008 | Application (08A407) denied by Justice Souter. |
| Nov 14 2008 | Application (08A407) refiled and submitted to Justice Thomas. |
| Nov 19 2008 | DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 5, 2008. |
| Nov 19 2008 | Application (08A407) referred to the Court by Justice Thomas. |
| Nov 26 2008 | Supplemental brief of applicant Leo C. Donofrio filed. (Distributed) |
| Dec 1 2008 | Letter from applicant dated November 22, 2008, received. |
| Dec 8 2008 | Application (08A407) denied by the Court. |
Add this to the list of appellatives, already impressive, that Obama is accreting to himself. The anti-Obama under narrative is now set and grows each day as the Donofrio v. Wells proponents across the nation wait for the Supreme Court to indicate whether or not they will take up the case and clarify the question of what is a "natural born citizen" for purposes of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution. The court met in conference on Friday to consider whether or not to take up the case and issued no orders in the afternoon for this case. Court spokesman indicate that a decision will be announced on Monday. General custom at the court is that cases that will not be heard following conference are held over until Monday and then orders indicating denial of the petitions are issued. This is not always true however, and commenters to Donofrio's blog are literally praying that the Supremes will take up the question.
Hat Tip Submitted to a Candid World. An Electoral College Elector makes reply to the Obama deniers, demanding that he refuse to certify Obama’s victory: December 6, 2008
I have been asked by some concerned citizens as part of my Constitutional responsibility as a member of the College of Electors to review the evidence and make a determination regarding the natural born citizenship of Barack Hussein Obama II, or to join in a lawsuit against him in this matter. They have also forwarded a great deal of information to me which I have now reviewed.
After reading this information it is my opinion that none of it is conclusive in its own right. Most of it is speculation, rumor, or opinion rendered by “experts” or others whose qualifications and
motives are suspect. However, given the volume of information put forth, the question of Mr. Obama’s natural born citizenship was worth my understanding.Since the United States Supreme Court has not rendered an opinion regarding the validity of the “natural born” status of a U.S. citizen or otherwise defined this term, I am therefore at liberty to make my own determination as a Presidential Elector. In my opinion a person is a natural born citizen if he or she is granted citizenship either at birth or at the age of majority by the United States government. And has never been required by the United States government to become
“naturalized” or take the oath of citizenship. This seems to me to be a straightforward and logical understanding of the term. If you are presumed to be a U.S. citizen at your birth, and no government entity says otherwise, then in fact you are.If someone emigrates from another country to the United States, and wishes to become a citizen, that person must enter a legal process culminating in taking the oath of citizenship and being “naturalized.” This is why for example the current Governor of California cannot
claim “natural born” status and become the President of the United States. He was born an Austrian. He emigrated here. He sought citizenship. And he was “naturalized” in a ceremony conducted by United States officials.And there is also in the United States the use of Common Law as a part of our judicial system. Most of the time the law is codified by us, but in fact there are traditions and understandings which have not always been codified. My point here is that for example if you have a right of way from your property across another person’s property to a road, that person after a specified period of time (dependent upon a particular state’s statutes) cannot suddenly decide that you cannot cross his property anymore to get to the road. It is presumed after a certain period of time that this right of way is a right that you retain since he did not protest your crossing his property for years.
These are the two bases upon which I have rendered my decision. Even if some or all of the scenarios to which these concerned citizens have pointed regarding Mr. Obama’s citizenship are true, two facts remain. The United States government has never required Mr. Obama to take the oath of citizenship, or even to render a decision at the age of majority between having U.S. citizenship and Kenyan citizenship, or U.S. citizenship and Indonesian citizenship. And he has lived here and been reared and educated as a U.S. citizen. It would seem to me that 47 years is a sufficient amount of time to have lived here as a U.S. citizen, with no government entity challenging it, for us and for Mr. Obama to presume that he is a natural born U.S. citizen.
Whether through clerical error, or bureaucratic malfeasance, or simply because it is actually true as was stated on October 31, 2008 by the Director of the Health Department for the State of Hawaii, that he was in fact born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Barack Hussein Obama II has been presumed by the United States government itself to be a natural born citizen of the United States for 47 years.
It issued him a Social Security number and a passport, obviously accepting his Hawaiian birth certificate without requiring a team of forensic scientists to examine it. He has lived in the United States as a U.S. citizen for his entire adult life. He has been not only a de facto U.S. citizen, he has been a de jure U.S. citizen. A citizenship conferred upon him by the United States government at his birth, and never questioned by any court, or executive branch official for 47 years. The United States government itself accepted his natural born citizenship when it issued him a passport without requiring him to take the oath of citizenship in a ceremony like all other immigrants to this country.
Therefore, as the Presidential Elector for the 6th Congressional District of North Carolina it is my Constitutional determination that Barack Hussein Obama II is a natural born citizen of the United States, and is qualified to become the 44th President of the United States of America. I will cast my Electoral College vote accordingly on December 15, 2008.
Sincerely,
Wayne Abraham
Today’s orders list from the Supreme Court is available here. It appears the Court granted certiorari in two cases, neither of them the Donofrio v. Wells case. All other orders are expected to be released on Monday and if custom holds, we can expect those orders to include a denial of hearing for this case.
Thats right folks. He's not black. Or at least not any longer in any real way that matters to me. Now, he's the President of the United States. Now, its all about the job baby. I don't care if he ever shows up at another Negro chicken dinner for the next 4 years. I don't care if he doesn't make the King memorial gig next year, or deliver a commencement address at an HBCU. If he can fit that stuff in, thats cool. But to me, its all about the job now. The economy, the war, security, the environment, energy, health care, this is what its about. His blackness now means absolute bupkis to me. Its time to govern. Now...I'm all about his effectiveness.
McCain lost this debate decisively, and for the first time, I think Obama clearly won it. Debate #1, Obama held his own, got it called a draw and that equated to a win. Debate #2, a shaky performance but no lost ground, again ruled a draw and equates to a win in effect for Obama. This time, he actually won the debate.
Why did he win? Because he for the most part gave coherent answers that would appeal to moderates and independents, as well as his democratic base.
McCain the entire night delivered attacks against Obama that are red meat for the conservative base, but will not snag independents and moderates. All night long, I felt like he was talking in base shorthand.
I actually thought Obama was baiting him, enticing him to bring the Ayers attack, which McCain took forever to get to even when the moderator offered up the opportunity with his opening question. When he finally did get to it, it was clumsily executed, as were many of the hits.
People want to hear the parameters of the candidates policies, not just the ideological engine that drives them. McCain’s centerpiece on education for example; Vouchers, a reasonable enough and reliable tried and true republican, conservative idea on addressing failing public school systems. In my own opinion, its a half measure, and the truly effective, conservative policy approach was actually championed by….Obama! in the form of charter schools (competition, accountability). McCain tossed them out as an aside, Obama elaborated on that a bit. On healthcare, Obama spent more time explaining McCain’s plan than McCain did.
On many points, McCain enthusiastically extolled the conservative ideological point of view, but almost always expressed in base shorthand, easily understandable to the likes of conservatives, but not nearly explanatory enough for moderates and independents who are not of the same bent and want some elaboration.
The “I’m not Bush” line was great. Too little, and way too late. The Ayers and Acorn attacks, delivered in base shorthand, no detail, no narrative, clumsy, lacked impact (for the base, moments to cheer maybe, but not for anybody else).
Demeanor wise, McCain seemed agitated and tight and once or twice annoyingly snarky. Obama seemed calm, loose, prepared and was not shaken much out of that the whole night.
While McCain had more energy in this debate, he communicated in way too much base shorthand and he devoted too much time to attack angles that don’t net independents and moderates. When he was not making that mistake, he was at several points totally squandering attack lines or pivoting from one subject to the attack in very clumsy ways that robbed several attacks of their force and made him appear, dare I say it…wait for it, wait….erratic.
Another dynamic which I don’t think helps him in how he comes across is that he doesn’t like Obama and believes him to be an upstart, untested pup and poseur who has the audacity to offer himself in opposition to McCain as though he were an equal (I suspect Hillary felt the same). That feeling is there and it colors the way McCain debates Obama and causes him to be dismissive of Obama’s rebuttals in a shorthand way, instead of absorbing them and then systematically dismantling his arguments. He doesn’t think he should have to. The problem is, he does, because the base accepts the shorthand explanations, moderates and independents don’t and he can’t win with the base alone.
A better performance for McCain. Problem was, Obama brought his best debate game tonight and if Obama’s lackluster performance in debates #1 and #2 were regarded as Obama wins based on the polling afterwards, I predict this one will poll as an Obama blowout over the next several days.
