A fox was protecting the hen house

A fox was protecting the hen house
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday,March 22, 2007 – Page 3

I was really starting to believe that the treasonous outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame in retaliation for her husband, career Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the Bush Administration lying us into the war in Iraq would be their undoing. Especially after Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby was found guilty on four of five perjury and obstruction of justice charges relating to the leaking of Plane’s identity to conservative pundit Robert Novak and others. Extra especially when Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday he wants Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify before his committee about his investigation. There was even a chance that Waxman would eventually subpoena the vice president and senior adviser to the president Karl Rove.

But then another scandal broke. Boy, it’s amazing what the power of subpoena and proper congressional oversight of the executive branch can bring to light.
It seems that at least eight U.S. Attorneys were fired because they weren’t loyal enough to the Bush administration and weren’t aggressive enough in investigating Democratic candidates in the 2004 and 06 elections.

Some people compared the Libby decision to when Nixon aide Alexander Butterworth let it slip before a Senate committee that there was a secret tape recording system in the Oval Office. People are comparing the firing the of eight U.S. Attorneys to the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973.

What happened that night is that President Nixon, sick of taking so much heat during the Watergate investigations, called Attorney general Elliot Richardson and asked him to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson let the President know that he was overstepping his Constitutional bounds, refused to fire Cox and resigned. Nixon then called Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus and told him to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and Nixon fired him. That meant that the Solicitor general, Robert Bork became acting Attorney General, and loyalist that he was, he gave Cox the ax. Nixon then declared that there was no longer an independent prosecutor and all of the Watergate investigations would come under the responsibility of the Justice Department and it’s new boss, Bork. This was one of the high crimes and misdemeanors that were described in the articles of impeachment that were started against Nixon before he so graciously resigned.

According to ABC reports last Thursday, March 15, one e-mail from Kyle Sampson, who worked at the Justice Department to then-deputy White House Counsel David Leitch shows that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and then White House Counsel, now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were both thinking about firing all 93 U.S. attorneys as early as January 2005.
Gonzales first told a congressional committee that White House counsel Harriet Miers (who was later a Supreme Court nominee) had brought up the idea, but that both he and Rove rejected the idea out of hand. Then he changed his story and half-admitted that “mistakes were made.”
In one e-mail they discuss replacing “15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys,” because “80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc.”

Bush defenders argue that many Presidents have fired U.S. Attorneys, but what they fail to mention is that they do it as soon as they come into office and they replace people who their predecessors had appointed. This administration fired their own appointees because they obeyed the law rather than letting themselves be pressured into letting the White House abuse the Justice Department for political means.

Gonzales attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents.

Gonzales authored a controversial memo in January of 2002 that concluded that the Geneva Conventions were “quaint” and outdated He wrote a Presidential Order allowing for secret prisons and torture. He’s also deported people to nations that allow torture.
He fought with Congress to keep Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy task force documents secret.

Gonzales was a major proponent of the USA PATRIOT Act. Things like secret wire tapping without warrants and opening U.S. citizen’s mail.

It’s ironic that someone with so little regard tor the Constitution should have been appointed top law enforcement officer of our Nation. Our only hope is that like with Nixon, our system still works. If it does, he will eventually be prosecuted under it.

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. ‘Ted’s Column’ has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. If you’d like to see any of Ted’s editorial cartoons bigger and brighter, you can visit http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

‘King George II’ should learn his place

All of my Republican friends like to give me a hard time because they think I never draw cartoons that pick on Democrats. Well, here ya are. But now to make up for it, you need to read the column below, which is more Bush-bashing than I've done in a few months:

Some of the Latin we were taught as History Majors are the phrases “Rex Lex,” and “Lex Rex.”
I’m not entirely certain which means which, but one roughly translates, “The king IS the law,” or at least “the king is above the law.”

This refers to absolutist rulers like the King George III against whom we fought our Revolutionary War, and Kaiser Wilhelm II who loused up the diplomacy and foreign policy left him by Otto von Bismarck and entangled Europe in World War I.

Waaay back during Robin Hood’s time, the English were sick of the absolutist Prince John (who was really just the substitute monarch for his brother Richard the Lion Hearted, who was off fighting the Crusades.) Those clever Brits made John sign a thing called the Magna Carta, which basically said that not even the king was above the law, but instead actually, the LAW is king.
We yanks like that idea so much that we adopted one big über-law called the Constitution. Bottom line is, in the United States, the Constitution is sovereign, over states, and over government officials; both law makers and those charged with executing the laws. They’re sworn to uphold and defend it, not circumvent it or erode it’s basic principles.

According to the Boston Globe, “President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.”
He has done this with things called “signing statements,” in which a President explains which part of a law he plans to enforce or not enforce when he signs bills into law that have been passed by Congress.

The American Bar Association has expressed their concern that President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements has been excessive and “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers”

Two glaring examples were when Bush claimed to be able to wiggle out of Congress’s ban on the use of torture and when he claimed the right to tap phone lines without first seeking a judge’s warrant.

A great controversy has been brewing over whether or not the new Congress should prevent President from sending a surge of more troops to Iraq. Many Bush supporters site the Constitutional division of powers. They claim that only the President is the Commander-in-Chief of American military forces.

The Constitutional problem with that line of reasoning is that the Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power to “declare war,” “raise and support armies” and “make rules concerning captures on land and water.”

Unfortunately for this President, Congress has not declared war. Bush can use the rhetoric of “the War on Terror” all he wants, but Iraq did not attack the United States, or have any part in the attack that was made on us by terrorists. Almost four years after Bush ordered the invasion, we still have not declared war on Iraq.

“The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it,” James Madison cautioned. “It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.”
Last week, hand written notes from Vice President Dick Cheney were entered into evidence in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Cheney’s former Chief of staff, Scooter Libby. The notes suggest that the Vice President would rather have Libby go down than Carl Rove, President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff for blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame in order to silence and/or get even with her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson because he criticized the Bush administration for misrepresenting intelligence in order to convince Congress, the United Nations, and the American public to let them invade Iraq.

Witnesses seem to have implicated Cheney, not Libby in leaking Plame’s identity. This could be to the Bush administration what Alexander Butterworth’s revelation that there were tape recorders in the Oval office was to Richard Nixon.

Republicans like John Warner of Virginia and Chuck Hagel are gradually coming around. They’re now supporting the Senate resolution opposing the President’s buildup of troops. Will it be another Arizona Republican, this time John McCain who will visit the President and talk sense to him, the way that Barry Goldwater did with Nixon in 1974?

This column highlighted just three ways in which George W. Bush likes to think of himself as above and beyond our 230 year old system. I’m not calling for impeachment, just stronger oversight and accountability. Should impeachment come, I hope Congress targets Cheney first. Bush could beat the Democrats to history by appointing Elizabeth Dole his replacement Vice President. Then she’d be the first woman President when Bush resigns or is removed from office. I think it would be fitting, since her husband Bob was Gerald Ford’s running mate.


Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. ‘Ted’s Column’ has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. If you’d like to see any of Ted’s editorial cartoons bigger and brighter, you can visit http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

"War is Gods way of teaching Americans Geography" ~Anonymous

Blood for oil?

Joseph C. Wilson, had been in the State Department since 1976. He’s served as ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995. He’s helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. In 1990, he was in charge of U.S. affairs in Baghdad

In February 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to a memo that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. Joseph Wilson agreed to visit Niger where he had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's.

He met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick. She the ambassador told him that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq , but had already investigated them and told Washington that it didn’t happen.

After further investigation, Wilson concluded that it was unlikely that any such transaction had taken place and that the memos were probably forged. The government of Niger also denied the charges.

In September 2002, however, the British government published a "white paper" claiming that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed a “clear and present” danger. The cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in January 2003, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

That March on "Meet the Press" Vice President. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons." Cheney was voracious and tenacious about making sure that people linked Iraq with Osama bin Ladden, Alquaeda, and September 11, even though Iraq and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing whatsoever with 9/11. Hussein and bin Laden HATED each other. There are far more Alqueda terrorists in Iraq now then there were in February 2003. Hussein’s Bathist government didn’t let them in.

In March 2003 U.S. forces invaded Iraq.

“The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons,” wrote Wilson in the New York Times in July 2003.

As of this month, 2,000 American service men and women have died in Iraq.

Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA operative had her cover blown in retaliation for her husband’s whistle blowing, and no doubt to get him to shut up. That was petty, it was also illeagal. The last time I checked, outing one of our own spies is also treason.

Vice President Dick Cheny’s Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. resigned last Friday after being charged with obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the C.I.A. leak investigation.

According to an October 28 story in the New York Times, Exxon Mobil’s third-quarter net income jumped 75 percent, to $9.92 billion.

“Its profit in the first nine months of this year - $25.42 billion - already equals its full-year earnings for 2004. This year's sales, which topped $100 billion in the last quarter, are expected to exceed those of Wal-Mart,” the Times also reported that Shell Oil’s profits rose 68 percent to just over $9 Billion.

Call me crazy, and I’m no economics expert, but if there’s such a problem with supply, due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, so that we everyday people were paying nearly $3 per gallon, wouldn’t they have taken a hit to their profits? Iraq constitutes 11 percent of the world’s oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia’s 25 percent. Even with all the trouble with insurgencies and the threat of looming civil war, why aren’t average Americans benefiting from the fact that we now control so much oil?

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice all came from the oil industry. I wonder how much Enron, Halliburton, The Carlyle Group, CentGas, The RAND Corporation, Chevron, and UNOCAL and their stockholders benefited from the $1.6 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% that Republicans now refuse to roll back, even after hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma?

One year from this week, when it’s time to vote, I hope that people who can’t afford to invest in the stock market and have to pay so much for oil to fuel their homes and to fill their tanks so they can drive to work will remember who lied to us and how many Americans have had to die because of those lies.