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[However, Kennedy adjusted the numbers to account for undecided black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, and said the runoff election currently stands in Blanco's favor. With that adjustment, Blanco would get 53 percent of the vote, compared to Jindal's 47 percent]
Republican Primary Trial Heat (among Republican voters): Cecil Underwood 30% Robin Capehart 8% Sarah Minear 8% Dan Moore 3% Monty Warner 3% Doug McKinney 2% Other 3% Undecided 43%
Democratic Primary Trial Heat (among Democratic voters): Joe Manchin 46% Darrell McGraw 11% John Perdue 5% Jim Humphreys 4% Lloyd Jackson 3% Jim Lees 3% Spike Maynard 2% Robin Davis 2% Other 1% Undecided 25%
Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark called on Friday for an independent probe of the Bush administration's use of intelligence before the Iraq war, calling it "twisted" and possibly criminal.
The retired four-star Army general and NATO commander who entered the 2004 White House race two weeks ago amid a flood of publicity and instantly rose among the leaders in some polls, said the American public needed to know if it was "intentionally deceived."
In his harshest indictment yet of President Bush, Clark said the administration's "irresponsible" Iraq policy had put Americans in danger and the United States in crisis mode at home and abroad.
Going further than his nine rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, most of whom have called for a special counsel to probe the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name, Clark also demanded an independent commission investigate the "possible manipulation" of intelligence leading to the war in Iraq.
"Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a war based on false claims," he told a conference of military reporters and editors. "Its handling of intelligence and its retaliation against its critics may have been criminal."
"INTELLIGENCE GAP"
"We need to know if we face an intelligence gap ... because the system has been twisted to suit the prejudices of the policy makers," Clark said.
Bush defended on Friday his decision to attack Iraq, brushing aside questions about his justifications for war and citing what he said was preliminary evidence from the top CIA weapons hunter that Baghdad had been developing unconventional weapons even though none have so far been found.
Clark, who retired from the military three years ago, said he had seen "no compelling" evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and depicted the war in Iraq as a policy hatched "behind the scenes."
He said he heard the arguments that the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks justified an invasion to oust Saddam, that it provided an opportunity to remake the region and that there was "a list of states they want to take down in the Middle East."
"I had hoped it was just Pentagon hallway scuttlebutt ... but it looks like it was more than that," he said.
Clark accused the Bush administration of having an answer before they knew the question.
"They seized on Sept. 11 as proof of a problem that required the solution of attacking Iraq," he said. "Saddam was involved in Sept. 11, they implied, and Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, so they made Iraq a centerpiece in the war on terror."
Clark, who has portrayed himself as the best Democratic candidate to challenge Bush on national security issues, charged the administration with violating the principles of American democracy by retaliating against anyone who expressed dissent or questioned logic.
The Justice Department is investigating who disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband had challenged Bush's claims about Iraq's weapons threat. - Source
Criminal leak investigations are notoriously futile, and the identity of the administration officials who illegally blew the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame may never be known. But one name keeps coming up, and so far it hasn't provoked a specific, emphatic White House denial: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, assistant to the president and Vice President Dick Cheney's powerful chief of staff.
On Wednesday the New York Daily News reported that "Democratic congressional sources said they would like to hear from Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby." On MSNBC's "Buchanan and Press" on Wednesday, Pat Buchanan asked an administration critic who claims to know the leaker's name point blank if "Scooter Libby" was the culprit (the critic wouldn't answer). And Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska made a veiled reference on CNBC this week, suggesting that President Bush could better manage the current crisis by "sitting down with [his] vice president and asking what he knows about it."
But below the surface there's even more chatter. Says one former senior CIA officer who served under President Bush's father, "Libby is certainly suspect No. 1."
Libby might feel more secure if the White House would issue a blanket denial about his involvement, the way it did for Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, who was the focus of attention early in the week as the possible source. At a press briefing this week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was adamant: "The president knows [Rove] wasn't involved ... It's simply not true."
And later, McClellan dismissed as "ridiculous" any suggestions that Rove may have played a role, adding, "There is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."
But when a reporter asked about Libby, McClellan cut him off with a non-response.
"Does [Bush] know whether or not the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby ..." the reporter began. McClellan interrupted: "Do you have any specific information to bring to my attention? Like I said, there has been nothing that's been brought to our attention."
Asked for a comment about speculation surrounding Libby, Cheney's spokeswoman Cathie Martin tells Salon, "This is a serious matter and we shouldn't be speculating in light of an ongoing investigation."
By all accounts, Libby was certainly at the heart of the administration's high-level arm-twisting in the intelligence community, trying to massage evidence to make the case that Iraq was an imminent danger to the world. He and his boss Cheney, along with a cadre of administration hawks, took the lead in trying to sell a number of bogus claims, from the notion that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger to the false assertion that hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi spy before 9/11.
The Plame controversy, of course, stems from a New York Times opinion piece written by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, in July. In it, he revealed that in 2002 he traveled to Niger on an assignment for the CIA to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from the African nation. Wilson wrote that he reported back that the claims were likely bogus, yet President Bush still included mention of the uranium plot in this year's State of the Union address.
One week after Wilson's Op-Ed, conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote a piece defending the White House, arguing that Wilson's trip to Niger was arranged by his wife, Valerie Plame, "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
Novak wasn't the only journalist who received such a briefing back in July (five others reportedly got the same tip), but he was the only one who went public with the information. The leak was in violation of a 1982 federal law that prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of the identity of a clandestine intelligence officer. And the guessing game has become heated.
Many of the clues pointing toward Libby come from Novak himself, who's provided a number of details about his source. (Yes, there were two Novak sources, but according to the columnist, after a senior administration source gave him Plame's identity, the second source merely confirmed that when Novak told him he knew.)
For instance, the source "is no partisan gunslinger," according to Novak's Wednesday column. That description would certainly rule out the hyper-political Rove. The "no partisan gunslinger" tag fits Libby better. A consummate Washington Republican insider, Libby rarely throws bombs in the press, or parades in front of the talking-head cameras. Instead, he's considered a behind-the-scenes power broker who bounces back and forth between senior government jobs and his lucrative Beltway law practice. Between 1995 and 2000 Libby served as fugitive billionaire Marc Rich's attorney.
And yes, Condi Rice seems to be off the hook; on TV Novak has referred to his source as "he."
But more significantly, it's important to remember what Novak was looking for when he dialed up his "senior administration source" last July. According to his accounts, Novak wasn't fishing for Plame's identity. Instead he was looking for an answer to the question: Why was Wilson chosen to go to Africa?
Novak told CNN he thought Wilson was a strange choice, since he'd donated to Democratic campaigns and had no experience with weapons of mass destruction.
Wilson's July Op-Ed appeared on a Sunday. "On Monday, I began to report on something that I thought was very curious," Novak told CNN. As he explained in his Wednesday column, "During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger."
The question is, where would have been the logical place for Novak to start his inquiry about Wilson's trip? One obvious answer is in Cheney's office. As Wilson had explained in his column, it was because of Cheney that he was sent to Niger: "In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office."
We don't know whether Libby served as an anonymous contact for Novak inside the VP's office. But courtesy of Time.com, we do know Libby was talking to reporters about Wilson at around the time Novak's column ran.
Headlined "At War on Wilson?" and posted online in July, the Time.com article detailed how since the publication of the New York Times Op-ed, "Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson." It also noted, "Some government officials have noted [in private] to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official."
In other words, Time.com was getting anonymous administration tips about the same information Novak received. But from whom?
Dissecting the piece, it's interesting to note the three administration officials who were quoted. The first two were then-spokesman Ari Fleischer and CIA director George Tenet. But their quotes about Wilson and his trip were made in front of a group of reporters. The third administration source, whose quote came during "an exclusive interview" with Time, was Libby. He denied Cheney had anything to do with requesting Wilson's trip or that he knew about the former ambassador's subsequent report.
One of the simplest shortcuts in journalism when trying to identify an anonymous quote or source of information is to see who is quoted on the record within in the same story, since often during an interview with reporters, sources will interrupt and suggest a specific fact or quote be on background or off the record. So it's hard not to wonder: During his "exclusive interview" with Time, did Libby, as an aside, pass along the information about Plame, and ask that it not be attributed to him? Or did Time independently confirm the CIA operative's identity from other administration sources, and then talk to Libby? We aren't likely to ever get an answer, but the questions are intriguing.
And there are other small clues. According to a Wednesday USA Today article, "Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, met with officials at the [CIA's] Non-Proliferation Center before the invasion of Iraq to discuss reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa."
Plame works at the Non-Proliferation Center. The paper noted that she did not attend the meetings with Libby, but it's plausible that he found out about her employment while he was there.
Libby and Cheney, in highly unusual moves, visited the CIA several times before the war, in what many observers saw as an attempt to pressure analysts to produce more damaging assessments about Saddam Hussein's arsenal or any connection with al-Qaida.
According to a Washington Post report on Monday, Cheney and Libby continued to press the story about 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta's meeting with an Iraqi spy in Prague long after the intelligence community had dismissed it. The two even insisted, on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council last February, that the charge be included in Powell's indictment of Iraq defying the council's resolutions.
Someone so steeped in CIA intelligence could have been a helpful source on the Plame story.
Several more telling clues about Libby came Wednesday during an MSNBC appearance by Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA and the State Department.
Earlier in the week Johnson, who calls himself a registered Republican who donated to the Bush campaign, made a media splash with his appearance on PBS's "Newshour" by confirming that Plame did indeed work undercover for the CIA. It was a key assertion because since Novak's column first ran, the columnist had tried to back off the claim he made in July that she was an operative. Instead, claimed Novak, she was simply an analyst -- the implication being, making her identity known was not that big a deal. Johnson shot that theory down, and to date nobody from the CIA, or any other reporter, has come forward to question his veracity (though several critics have noted that his claim that Plame was an operative "for three decades" was implausible since Plame is only 40.)
Appearing on Wednesday's "Buchanan & Press," Johnson told the hosts, "I know the name of the person that spoke with Bob Novak," and that the person worked "at the White House," and more specifically, "in the Old Executive Office Buildings." The vice president's office is located inside the Old Executive Office Building.
And when Buchanan asked Johnson point-blank, "Scooter Libby. Now, is Scooter Libby the name you heard?" Johnson said simply, "I'm not going to comment on that." - Source
An expert close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday cast doubt on new U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had been planning to revive its atomic weapons program until the U.S. invasion in March.
Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the expert close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said David Kay's report was largely based on "statements and opinions by scientists and officials with no apparent supporting evidence."
Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in postwar Iraq, said Thursday his team had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was "evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons."
"The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons," Kay said of the interim report his team supplied to the U.S. Congress.
"They (said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons."
The allegation that Saddam Hussein had revived his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 was the main justification for the U.S.-led war to disarm Iraq.
But after returning to Iraq late in 2002 for four months of inspections in the buildup to the war, the IAEA said it had found no evidence that Saddam had revived his clandestine atomic weapons program, a program the IAEA detected in 1991 and says it had dismantled by 1995.
"The (Kay) report is filled with the use of the words 'belief' and 'may' and 'could have' and these sorts of things," the nuclear expert told Reuters.
"This is not how the IAEA operates," said the expert, who supported the agency's pre-war inspections in Iraq. "They would not have given credence to statements by individuals without having corroborating evidence to support their allegations. The IAEA only states what it can verify."
THE DEAD MAN SAID...
The source also questioned Kay's reliance on testimony from senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id, who was killed at a Baghdad roadblock by occupation forces on April 8.
In his statement to U.S. lawmakers, presented behind closed doors Thursday, Kay said: "Sa'id began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be applied to nuclear weapons development."
Calling that limited allegation "pretty pathetic," the nuclear expert close to the IAEA added that since Sa'id could no longer be questioned, his testimony should be treated with more than a grain of salt.
Thursday, Kay asked for Washington to provide $600 million for his team's work in Iraq in addition to the $300 million already allocated.
The source close to the IAEA said the agency's nuclear inspections, and those of the UNMOVIC inspection agency into Iraq's suspected chemical and biological weapons, together had a budget of only around $60 million for an entire year's work in Iraq.
The nuclear expert dismissed suggestions by Kay that Iraq's pre-war withholding from U.N. inspectors of documents about its pre-1991 nuclear weapons program indicated it had much left to hide.
"It's bad that they didn't report that to the IAEA, but that's about the program the IAEA knew inside out and had dismantled," the expert said. "Wasn't the whole idea to prove that Saddam had something ongoing? This seems to support the fact that he didn't." - Source
Kay's "we didn't find shit in Iraq" report notes that it found "live strains of the deadly botulinum bacteria" in Iraq. This will undoubtedly be used by the administration and its apologists as evidence of Saddam's deadly aspirations (or something like that).
RR, a PhD candidate in pathology and laboratory medicine, wrote in to explain what that meant (or actually, what it didn't mean:
Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria which produces botulinum toxin, is a normal soil bacterium. You've probably ingested large quantities of it yourself, if you've ever eaten vegetables straight out of a garden without washing them thoroughly, or if you've ever eaten unfiltered honey. Live C. botulinum is used in undergraduate microbiology labs as a teaching tool...the live bacteria are not dangerous, are ubiquitous in nature, and are ubiquitous in microbiology labs around the globe--even those not hell-bent on the destruction of American liberty & whatnot.
If Kay said that large quantities of purified botulinum toxin had been found, that would be significant. It's difficult to purify the toxin from the bacteria (which produce the toxin in exceedinly small amounts), and there's no good reason to have lots of it. (Although it would not mean much if only small amounts of purified botulinum toxin were found anywhere--small amounts of the toxin are injected by doctors into patients for the treatment of chronic pain and wrinkles--that's what BoTox is.)
In other words, Kay was reaching for anything that might help the administration make its case, and this is the best he could do.
Update: There's more to RR's email that I omitted since I couldn't find any references to Bush's speech. Now that Bush's words are being circulated, I offer the rest:
Anyhoo, notice the parsing of words--Bush emphasizes "live strains" and "bacteria", not just because "live strains" sounds scary, but because it is, I am sure, technically true. But that claim is also probably technically true of any American backyard, and thus is completely meaningless.
Perhaps Bush misspoke, and really meant "large quantities of botulinum toxin." If that's what Kay & Co. found, and that's what it says in the report, that means something. But what Bush actually said is meaningless. - Source
VALERIE PLAME'S REAL JOB....What does Valerie Plame actually do for the CIA? That's one of the $64,000 questions (the other is who the leakers are), so this might be a good time to gather together all the evidence in one place. Here's what various news reports have said so far:
Robert Novak's original column, July 14: Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.
David Corn in the Nation, July 16: ....a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material....a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm.
Newsday, July 21: Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
....A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.
Washington Post, September 29: She is a case officer in the CIA's clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Novak published her maiden name, Plame, which she had used overseas and has not been using publicly. Intelligence sources said top officials at the agency were very concerned about the disclosure because it could allow foreign intelligence services to track down some of her former contacts and lead to the exposure of agents.
MSNBC, September 30: CIA lawyers answered a series of 11 questions "affirming that the woman's identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak."
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, September 30: I know Joseph Wilson well enough to know that his wife was in fact a deep cover operative running a network of informants on what is supposedly this administration’s first-priority issue: Weapons of mass destruction.
Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst on NewsHour, September 30: I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades....she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised.... she's a woman of great integrity....This is a woman who is very solid, very low key and not about show boating.
CNN, October 1: Sources told CNN that Plame works in the CIA's Directorate of Operations -- the part of the agency in charge of spying -- and worked in the field for many years as an undercover officer. "If she were only an analyst, not an operative, we would not have filed a crimes report" with the Justice Department, a senior intelligence official said.
(An earlier version of this story quoted CNN reporter David Ensor saying, "This is a person who did run agents. This is a person who was out there in the world collecting information.")
Mel Goodman, former CIA analyst, Washington Post online Q&A, October 1: ....I've worked in Washington for the past 38 years, including 24 years at the CIA...and I know Ambassador Wilson....and I did not know that his wife was an agency employee. Let's face it....this was targetted information as part of a political vendetta....a pure act of revenge.
Jim Marcinkowski, former CIA case officer, LA Times, Ocotber 1: The exposure of Valerie Plame — who I have reason to believe operated undercover — apparently by a senior administration official, is nothing less than a despicable act for which someone should be held accountable. This case is especially upsetting to me because she was my agency classmate as well as my friend.
New York Times, October 2: Valerie Plame was among the small subset of Central Intelligence Agency officers who could not disguise their profession by telling friends that they worked for the United States government.
That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover.
New York Daily News, October 2: Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service.
Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief.
Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said.
Four separate ex-CIA employees are now on the record saying Plame was undercover and ran a network of informants, and a fifth who knew Wilson and had 24 years at the Agency says he didn't know Plame worked there — which means her status was hardly common knowledge.
Against this, we have Robert Novak's increasingly lonely assertion that Plame was "an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives" and "It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA."
President Bush expressed support of radio star Rush Limbaugh in conversations with top staff on Thursday, a senior administration source told the DRUDGE REPORT.
"Rush is a great American," the president said of the beleaguered host, who has championed the conservative movement for decades. "I am confident he can overcome any obstacles he faces right now."
Limbaugh is to host his daily broadcast from New York City on Friday.
MORE
Meanwhile, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER is contemplating releasing on to the Internet audio tapes of Limbaugh made by his former housekeeper. The ENQUIRER carried allegations made by the housekeeper claiming Limbaugh bought prescription painkillers off the blackmarket.
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER held back reporting on Limbaugh for nearly two years, a publishing source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.
The tabloid's editors felt more confidence after police began an investigation. - Source
Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh may be returning to television. He recently auditioned for a job as color commentator on ABC's "Monday Night Football." The tryout followed weeks of self-promotion by the self-styled "truth detector" to the millions who listen daily to his syndicated radio show on some 600 stations.
Limbaugh's audition is stirring controversy. Sports columnist Thomas Boswell quipped that if Limbaugh joins "Monday Night Football" then baseball's game of the week broadcasters might "team up with John Rocker."
Veteran sports writer Michael Wilbon, who is black, indicated a boycott might result: "If Rush Limbaugh is put in that booth, I will NOT listen to the broadcast," he wrote in a Washington Post chat session. "His views on people like me are well documented and I would find it insulting and hypocritical to watch him…There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands who feel the same way I do."
If ABC hires Limbaugh, it's not clear a boycott will materialize. What is clear is that his expressed views on racial matters -- from the spiteful to the sophomoric -- would make him an odd color commentator. Indeed, CBS Sports dismissed Jimmy the Greek Snyder for ignorant racial remarks, less derisive than some of Limbaugh's.
As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." A decade ago, after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
In 1992, on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X: "Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out."
In a similar vein, here is Limbaugh's mocking take on the NAACP, a group with a ninety-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
When Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the "Movin' On Up" theme song from TV's "Jeffersons" when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting "ax" for "ask"-- when discussing black leaders.
Such quotes and antics -- many compiled by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) for our 1995 book -- offer a whiff of Limbaugh's racial sensibility. So does his claim that racism in America "is fueled primarily by the rantings and ravings" of people like Jesse Jackson. Or his ugly reference two years ago to the father of Madonna's first child, a Latino, as "a gang-member type guy" -- an individual with no gang background.
In 1994, Limbaugh mocked St. Louis for building a rail line to East St. Louis "where nobody goes." East St. Louis is home to roughly 40,000 residents -- 98 percent of whom are African-Americans. One of its 40,000 "nobodies" is star NFL linebacker Bryan Cox.
Once, in response to a caller arguing that black people need to be heard, Limbaugh responded: "They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?" That's not an unusual response for a talk radio host playing to an audience of "angry white males." It may not play so well among National Football League players, 70 percent of whom are African American.
Compared to some talk radio hosts, racism is not central to Rush Limbaugh's shtick. But there has been a pattern of commentary indicating his willingness to exploit prejudice against blacks to further his on-air arguments.
ABC has the right to hire Limbaugh, even at the risk of alienating members of its audience. ("Monday Night Football" is the second-most watched TV show in black households). Thrust into the world of pro football where Limbaugh himself would be something of a racial minority, is it possible that he'd rise above his history of racial bigotry and insensitivity? Not likely.
When all is said and done, the athletes are the key players on "Monday Night Football." It would be great to know how they'd feel about a color man who seems to have trouble with people of color. - Source
Bush Administration’s tax cuts falling short in job creation
The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which took effect in July 2003, its “Jobs and Growth Plan.” The president’s economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would raise the level of growth enough to create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—344,000 new jobs each month, starting in July 2003. Last month, September 2003, the jobs and growth plan fell 287,000 jobs short of the administration’s projection. The cumulative shortfall since July 2003—the amount by which the projected jobs exceeded actual job growth in August and September—is now 672,000.
States plagued by higher unemployment
Given the grim national job picture, it’s not surprising that most states are facing troubled job markets. In every state the unemployment rate is still higher than it was when the recession started. In 32 states across the country, at least a full percentage point more of the labor force cannot find work than at the official start of the recession in March 2001. Eight states have seen at least a two percentage point increase in the unemployment rate.
The job losses observed for the nation as a whole are pervasive across the states. Nearly two and a half years after March 2001, 36 states still have fewer jobs than they did at the onset of the recession, compared to only 19 states with fewer jobs after the recession of the 1990s (see state data and organizations).
Greatest employment contraction since the Great Depression Since the recession began 30 months ago in March 2001, 3.2 million private sector jobs have disappeared, a 2.8% contraction. This is the largest sustained loss of jobs since the Great Depression. Since the official end of the recession in November 2001, there has been a 1.1 million loss in private sector jobs, a 1.0% contraction. Unemployment has risen to nine million people, as the unemployment rate increased from 4.0% in 2000 to 6.1% in September 2003. - Source
I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means.
For example, special counsel Chuck Colson, once considered the best hatchet man of modern presidential politics, went to prison for leaking false information to discredit Daniel Ellsberg's lawyer. Ellsberg was being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for disclosing the so-called Pentagon Papers (the classified study of the origins of the Vietnam War). But Colson at his worst could barely qualify to play on Bush's team. The same with assistant to the president John Ehrlichman, a jaw-jutting fellow who left them "twisting in the wind," and went to jail denying he'd done anything wrong in ordering a break-in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, where the burglars went and looked for, but did not find, real information to discredit Ellsberg.
But neither Colson nor Ehrlichman nor anyone else I knew while working at the Nixon White House had the necessary viciousness, or depravity, to attack the wife of a perceived enemy by employing potentially life-threatening tactics.
So let me share a bit of history with Ambassador Wilson and his wife. And, well aware that gratuitous advice is rightfully suspect, let me also offer them a suggestion -- drawn from some pages of Watergate history that till now I've only had occasion to discuss privately. Long before Congress became involved and a special prosecutor was appointed, Joe Califano, then general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and later a Cabinet officer, persuaded his Democratic colleagues to file a civil suit against the Nixon reelection committee. And that maneuver almost broke the Watergate coverup wide open. In seeking justice from the closed ranks of the Bush White House, Wilson and Plame should follow a similar strategy.
The hardball politics of Nixon and his people, of course, first surfaced with the bungled break-in and attempted wiretapping at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), when the head of security of Nixon's reelection campaign was arrested there along with a small army of Cuban Americans. These activities were, of course, only the tip of an iceberg, a first bit of public evidence of a White House mentality oblivious to the law.
DNC chairman Lawrence O'Brien, an experienced political operator, correctly suspected the worst. He had been harassed by the IRS, deducing (correctly) but not knowing for certain that the audit was being pushed by Nixon himself. After the Watergate break-in, O'Brien quickly realized that Nixon's Department of Justice was not likely to expose this criminal activity, so he filed a civil lawsuit. In his memoir, he later explained why:
"We wanted to get to the bottom of [the Watergate break-in] -- we wanted the whole story, no matter where it led. There was reason to suspect that the break-in and wiretapping had been authorized by the officials of the CRP [Nixon's reelection committee]; and there was the possibility that the trail might even lead higher. We wanted the facts, and we knew they would not be easily attained. One decision we made, acting on [DNC general counsel] Joe Califano's legal advice, was to file a lawsuit against CRP. In this way, the judicial process would help us get to the truth."
Few appreciate the significance of this lawsuit in the unraveling of Watergate. It has been largely overlooked by history. A few years ago, I told Joe Califano about the impact his lawsuit had: Within the White House, it was considered one of the most difficult problems to deal with during the investigations of Watergate. The FBI was no problem -- no one has to talk to an FBI agent. And no Department of Justice is going to haul White House aides before a grand jury. But a subpoena demanding the production of documents, or an appearance to give testimony under oath at a deposition -- that was a serious threat. It also troubled the FBI and Justice Department, keeping them on their toes. It was remarkably effective.
Regardless of whether or not a special prosecutor is selected, I believe that Ambassador Wilson and his wife -- like the DNC official once did -- should file a civil lawsuit, both to address the harm inflicted on them, and, equally important, to obtain the necessary tools (subpoena power and sworn testimony) to get to the bottom of this matter. This will not only enable them to make sure they don't merely become yesterday's news; it will give them some control over the situation. In the case of the DNC's civil suit, Judge Charles Richey, a good Republican, handled it in a manner that was remarkably helpful to the Nixon reelection effort. But any judge getting a lawsuit from Wilson and Plame today would be watched a lot more carefully.
While I have made no effort to examine all the potential causes of action that Wilson and Plame might file, several come to mind. For example, given the fact that this leak was reportedly an effort to harm them, a civil action for intentional infliction of emotional distress could be appropriate. (Because I am not aware of their residence -- the District of Columbia, Maryland or Virginia -- I will only state the law generally.)
Typically, there will be a statute to this effect: "One who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the other results from it, for such bodily harm." Most often, these actions fail because the conduct is not sufficiently outrageous. But blowing the cover of a CIA operative by anyone with access to such classified information is outrageous by any standard. By way of comparison, it's been found outrageous for a doctor to refuse to treat an unconscious infant and leave mother and child out in the cold; it has been ruled outrageous for a mortician to mishandle a corpse and lie about it; and it was considered outrageous to recklessly issue a report of a person's death that had not happened.
Also, there is an entire body of law relating to civil actions based on criminal statutes and constitutional activities. Suffice it to say that there are a number of potential causes of action, and I have no doubt that a good civil litigator can fashion a powerful lawsuit for Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson.
A key question is: Who would they sue? No one has admitted to the dirty deed. In Watergate, the DNC had a hook: They named not only the burglars arrested in their offices but also the Nixon reelection committee, charging a conspiracy to deny the civil rights of Larry O'Brien and other Democrats. From a tactical standpoint, as any lawyer will tell the Wilsons, what's vital is to survive a motion to dismiss, or other such summary action, so that they can conduct all the necessary discovery to find everyone who should be named. Newspaper accounts suggest the first potential defendant might be Karl Rove, who, Ambassador Wilson has been told by reporters, has repeatedly said Wilson's wife was "fair game." And we know this is not the first time Rove might have leaked to Robert Novak, who broke the Wilson story; Rove was removed from the 1992 George H.W. Bush campaign for just such a smearing leak, according to many reports (which Rove has denied).
An attorney will only file such a lawsuit for the Wilsons if he can, in essence (as required under the federal court rules), attest that to the best of his or her knowledge, information and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, the lawsuit has not been filed for an improper purpose, that the claims aren't frivolous, that the claims are based on solid law, and that the allegations have evidentiary support -- or will have such support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery. In short, while there is a minimum threshold for filing such a suit, it is not a very high barrier. I have little doubt such a lawsuit could be fashioned with little difficulty.
If the Bush White House is anything like the Nixon White House -- and there is increasing evidence of the similarities -- it will respond to such a lawsuit like a stuck pig. Leaking the name of a CIA official can under no circumstances be considered a part of any potential defendants' official duties, so they will not be given representation by the Department of Justice. But how about Wilson and Plame: Should they have to bear the expense of a lawsuit to deal with the harm they have suffered and get to the bottom of what happened? I don't think so, and after talking with several lawyers in Washington, I find I am not alone. I have good reason to believe that one or more law professors in the area might handle the case pro bono, or one or more of the public interest groups might underwrite the lawsuit. Needless to say, that will only cause more squealing by those who want this to go away. They will cry that it's all politics. This is an empty contention -- it was the attack on the Wilsons that was pure politics. But the Bush folks appear to have messed with the wrong man (and woman).
Time after time, Nixon tried to stem Watergate by declaring it was pure politics. But what were his people doing in the Democratic headquarters? Was that not merely dirty politics? To fight the investigations of Watergate, the White House and the Republican National Committee, the Nixon reelection committee kept their surrogates working full time. Democrats who criticized Nixon for not getting to the bottom of who was involved in the DNC break-in were endlessly accused of playing politics with nothing but "a third-rate attempted burglary." This sort of defense, of course, has already commenced from the Bush White House, with the president's surrogates similarly downplaying this vile act of political revenge against the Wilsons. Apparently, they don't realize how Nixonian this behavior is, and Nixon and his aides did not exactly set the gold standard for conduct for any presidency.
Bush's Justice Department, not unlike Nixon's, faces insidious conflicts of interest when investigating the White House. Given the close ties of those on the White House staff with the political appointees at Justice, the conflict is real, not merely an appearance, and actually more serious for the Bush administration's people than Nixon's because there are many more longstanding ties. Equally troubling, the Justice Department has a poor record in this area. For decades, it has been notorious for its inability to uncover leaks, and it has only prosecuted cases handed to it by other agencies that have taken on the work of flushing out leakers. The CIA, for example, refers leaks regularly to Justice, but nothing ever happens. As those familiar with this dismal performance can tell you, one reporter at the Washington Times has printed over 200 classified national security secrets. How the Justice Department has failed to uncover even one is stunning.
But when it is important, the source of a leak can be found. A good example is that of former chief judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who during the Clinton administration's Whitewater/Lewinsky investigations became exasperated with grand jury leaks (since grand jury information is equal to highly classified national security information). The leaks were coming from the office of independent counsel Kenneth Starr, so rather than have Justice probe the leak, Judge Johnson appointed a special master, who found the leaker -- Starr's deputy, Charles Bakaly. The judge tried Bakaly, in a non-jury trial for contempt, and then let him off the hook. She'd made her point. Her inquiry also makes the point that when there is a will to find a leaker, there is a way.
As for claims by the Bush administration that it can avoid conflict-of-interest problems by turning the investigation of leaks about Plame over to career professionals rather than to Bush political appointees, that's nonsense. That would merely turn the clock back to the initial Watergate investigation, which was conducted by career professionals. Years ago, I testified about how helpful those career attorneys were, and as the White House tapes later proved, these professionals (men with impeccable credentials) kept the Nixon White House fully informed of their investigation, as did the FBI, thereby facilitating the coverup.
Of course, Attorney General Ashcroft should appoint an independent prosecutor, or even two, as Calvin Coolidge did (a Republican and a Democrat) to investigate Teapot Dome. That would be the smart move, with a staggering 70 percent of Americans saying he should appoint a special prosecutor, and 83 percent of those polled saying this is a serious matter, according to the Washington Post.
But most importantly, I believe that Wilson and Plame hold the keys to resolving this matter: with a civil lawsuit. This was one of the hidden keys to Watergate, though it was never fully turned. But had Joe Califano's lawsuit not been slowed down by a Nixon-friendly judge, Watergate would have ended much earlier. So can this scandal -- if the Wilsons choose to take that route. - Source
A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.
The three common mistaken impressions are that:
U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There's clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists.
People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it.
Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at least one of those views in polls reported between January and September by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, based at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the polling firm, Knowledge Networks based in Menlo Park, Calif.
"While we cannot assert that these misperceptions created the support for going to war with Iraq, it does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer members of the public had these misperceptions," said Steven Kull, who directs Maryland's program.
In fact, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. U.S. intelligence has found no clear evidence that Saddam was working closely with al-Qaida or was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Gallup polls found large majorities opposed to the war in most countries.
PIPA's seven polls, which included 9,611 respondents, had a margin of error from 2 to 3.5 percent.
The analysis released Thursday also correlated the misperceptions with the primary news source of the mistaken respondents. For example, 80 percent of those who said they relied on Fox News and 71 percent of those who said they relied on CBS believed at least one of the three misperceptions.
The comparable figures were 47 percent for those who said they relied most on newspapers and magazines and 23 percent for those who said they relied on PBS or National Public Radio.
The reasons for the misperceptions are numerous, Kull and other analysts said.
They noted that the Bush administration had misstated or exaggerated some of the intelligence findings, with Bush himself saying in May: "We found the weapons of mass destruction … and we'll find more as time goes by."
The Bush administration has also been a factor in persistent confusion.
Last month, for example, Bush said there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack after Vice President Dick Cheney suggested a link. Cheney, in a "Meet the Press" interview, had described Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9-11."
Why some news audiences had more accurate impressions than others was less clear.
Kull cited instances in which TV and newspapers gave prominent coverage to reports that banned weapons might have been found in Iraq, but only modest coverage when those reports turned out to be wrong.
Susan Moeller, a University of Maryland professor, said that much reporting had consisted of "stenographic coverage of government statements," with less attention to whether the government's statements were accurate.
The study found that belief in inaccurate information often persisted, and that misconceptions were much more likely among backers of the war. Last month, as in June, for example, nearly a quarter of those polled thought banned weapons had been found in Iraq. Nearly half thought in September that there was clear evidence that Saddam had worked closely with al-Qaida.
Among those with one of the three misconceptions, 53 percent supported the war. Among those with two, 78 percent supported it. Among those with three, 86 percent backed it. By contrast, less than a quarter of those polled who had none of the misconceptions backed the war. - Source
A powerful and potentially addictive painkiller used by millions of Americans is causing rapid hearing loss, even deafness, in some patients who are misusing the drug, according to hearing researchers in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
So far, at least 48 patients have been identified by doctors at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles and several other medical centers who have treated patients with sudden hearing loss. The hearing problems appear to be limited to people who abuse Vicodin and other chemically comparable prescription drugs by taking exceptionally high dosages for several months or more, doctors said.
Vicodin, one of the most commonly prescribed painkillers, is frequently used improperly.
"This has become such a popular drug of abuse," says Dr. John W. House, president of the House Institute in Los Angeles, one of the nation's leading centers of hearing-related research.
Actress Melanie Griffith and Cindy McCain, wife of U.S. Sen John McCain, have acknowledged their struggle to overcome their addiction to Vicodin, which they both were prescribed for severe back pain.
But it's not just notables who are getting hooked.
Christina Jaeger of Sherman Oaks was prescribed Vicodin in 1993 after a back injury. Gradually, she got addicted. She would wean herself off Vicodin for brief periods, only to relapse when doctors continued to prescribe the drug for her recurring pain.
Then, earlier this year, the 36-year-old model and fitness trainer suddenly began to lose her hearing. When her doctors couldn't explain what was happening, she went to the House Institute, where specialists concluded that Vicodin was to blame. Jaeger immediately entered a treatment program to kick her Vicodin habit. But it was too late. By the time she completed the program, she was deaf.
"If I had only known, I would have tried anything to stop," Jaeger said. "The lack of information is what I'm most furious about. That, and the proclivity of doctors to write prescriptions for Vicodin like it's candy."
Some experts believe that doctors' willingness to liberally prescribe potent narcotic painkillers may be contributing to the rise in abuse.
A government survey found that more than 1.6 million Americans began using painkillers like Vicodin in 1998 for nonmedical reasons, up from fewer than 500,000 in 1990. A new U.S. survey on drug use due out in a few weeks will likely find "an upswing" in improper use of prescription pain drugs, said Frank J. Vocci, director of treatment research and development at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Vicodin, a synthetic opiate that is a chemical cousin of heroin and morphine, has long been known to doctors as a potentially addictive medication. "As soon as Vicodin hit the market, there was a steady stream of addicts," said Dr. Drew Pinsky, medical director for the chemical dependency program at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena. "It's such a huge problem already that I don't know how much bigger it could be."
Researchers at the House Institute were among the first to connect Vicodin use with sudden hearing loss. They now have identified 29 people who heavily abused the painkiller and who subsequently suffered a sudden hearing loss; 16 of those were diagnosed in the last two years. UCLA scientists said they have seen an additional 14 patients with opiate-inducing hearing loss, mostly from overuse of Vicodin, and other ear experts around the country report seeing at least five more of these cases.
Dr. Richard Wiet, a professor of otology at Northwestern University, said he began noticing cases of hearing loss tied to Vicodin use after learning of the findings of House Institute researchers. "Then I started watching for it and found two patients. There's definitely something to this."
But researchers at a dozen other medical institutions said in interviews that they were unaware of similar cases. "It's an interesting observation, but there's really no way to prove as yet that Vicodin caused this problem," said Dr. Steven D. Rauch, an associate professor of otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass.
Doctors at the House Institute reported the hearing loss incidents to the Food and Drug Administration in 1999, and then again last month. Last year, Knoll Pharmaceutical Co., the firm that makes Vicodin, added a warning about the potential for hearing loss to the drug's label. But the label change appears to have gone largely unnoticed, even among some top hearing specialists. Knoll is now owned by Abbott Laboratories.
Susan Cruzan, an FDA spokeswoman in Rockville, Md., said the agency worked with the manufacturer on the wording of the label. No further action is planned, Cruzan said, because the FDA considers the hearing loss problem to be "a very rare side effect that is associated with using the drug in an inappropriate manner."
The 48 cases identified so far may seem small considering that 36 million prescriptions for Vicodin-type products were written in 2000, according to IMS Health, a health information company in Westport, Conn. (Vicodin is a combination of acetaminophen and hydrocodone and is also sold under the brand names Lorcet, Lortab and Hydrocet.)
But the hearing loss problem may be "much more prevalent than we think," said Dr. Akira Ishiyama, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at UCLA Medical School who has treated nearly a dozen cases. Some doctors, he said, may not have drawn a connection between Vicodin use and sudden hearing loss in patients because they "haven't been looking for it."
When doctors see isolated cases of sudden hearing loss, they may believe it's just a chance occurrence. At the same time, patients may not realize--or admit-- their addiction to painkillers. Vicodin is typically prescribed for short-term use of two to three weeks at most, with patients taking one pill every six hours. But many of the patients who have suffered hearing loss were taking 20 pills or more a day for at least two months, doctors said.
"This seems to be a relatively new phenomenon," House said. "Because we see thousands of hearing impaired patients a year, we can spot trends faster than the average ear, nose and throat doctor." The House Institute pioneered the development of cochlear implants, which are tiny electronic devices that aid in processing sounds for people who are deaf. Consequently, the research center sees a high number of people with sudden hearing loss.
House Institute researchers believe they saw their first patient with Vicodin-induced hearing loss in 1993, although they didn't realize then what caused the patient's condition. Until then, there had been no reports linking hearing deficits to this painkiller, which has been on the market since 1982.
Generally, if an adult with normal hearing experiences a sudden and rapidly progressing hearing loss, the cause is either certain medications, like antibiotics or diuretics, or the onset of an autoimmune disease. Usually, when a patient stops taking the antibiotics or diuretics, his or her hearing returns. Similarly, people stricken with autoimmune-related hearing loss respond to treatment with steroids.
That first patient at the House Institute, however, didn't fit the usual pattern. He wasn't taking antibiotics or diuretics, nor was he suffering from an autoimmune disorder. He ran a successful construction company in the west San Fernando Valley, owned a home and had a wife and kids--but also a secret vice: Vicodin.
He initially began taking the painkiller after two knee surgeries. He developed a tolerance and the drug lost its effect. Soon he was taking 20 to 30 pills a day. "I didn't even realize I was addicted," he said. "After all, this was a prescription drug. It took the pain away, and I functioned normally."
His life changed, however, in November 1993, when he started experiencing ringing in his ears. Then sounds became muffled, first in one ear, then the other, like an electrical short circuit in an amplifier. Alarmed, he went to see his doctor, who referred him to the House Institute. Doctors prescribed steroids, but the drugs didn't help. Four weeks after his first symptoms, he was completely deaf.
The construction manager blames his addiction and deafness for the loss of his business and the demise of his marriage. "I lost everything," he said. "All because of a stinking little pill."
Soon, other patients with the same symptoms began showing up at the House Institute. All admitted abusing drugs containing the hydrocodone-acetaminophen mix. Researchers began tracking these cases and, in April 1999--after identifying 13 patients--shared their findings with hearing specialists at a professional meeting in Palm Springs. At the time, House scientists considered the handful of cases an anomaly. Soon, however, 16 more people showed up with the same problem.
Hearing researchers are still trying to find out how these painkillers cause deafness. They know the delicate hair cells inside the inner ear are permanently damaged in people with opiate-induced hearing loss. These hair cells are like tiny microphones, picking up sound vibrations and transforming them into nerve impulses that are transmitted to the brain. Once they're destroyed, people lose the ability to sense sounds.
Researchers also suspect that the inner ear contains opioid receptors, or nerve endings that are highly sensitive to stimulation by drugs like morphine, heroin or hydrocodone. They believe that there is a connection between these two phenomena. "But we're still unclear as to the exact mechanism of damage," said Dr. Robert W. Baloh, a professor of neurology and head and neck surgery at UCLA Medical School.
It's unclear whether the damage can be reversed once patients start experiencing symptoms. "Some patients have retained some hearing if they stop using the painkillers immediately," House said. "But for most, the damage is already done. Once the process starts, it seems irreversible." - Source
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