ICE's Julie Myers at work, deporting 200k inmates a year.............?
The object is to deport illegals directly from the hundreds
of state and federal jail facilities after they serve their prison sentence
DOBBS: Among the top issues for voters in Michigan as throughout the nation,
illegal immigration. Immigrations and custom enforcement today, taking steps
to empty our jails of some 200,000 illegal alien convicts and to send
them home. But as Kitty Pilgrim now reports, this may be only a
fraction of the illegal aliens in this country's prisons.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A typical prison population. Which ones are illegal aliens? The answer is, federal officials don't know how many illegal aliens are in U.S. prisons. But now I.C.E. is boosting efforts to try to find out and is in process of identifying and start deportation proceedings on 200,000 inmates, both illegal aliens and immigrants who lost their legal status because they committed a crime.
JULIE MYERS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: Well, we're expanding our program. We're prioritizing the high-risk institutions and Congress gave us $200 million to make sure that we're identifying aliens in all facilities.
PILGRIM: The object is to deport illegals directly from the hundreds
of state and federal facilities after they serve their prison sentence
rather than the old way of releasing them onto the streets and then starting deportation hearings. The so-called criminal alien program is gaining ground.
In fiscal 2006, I.C.E. filed charges against 57,000 illegals to start the deportation process. That climbed to 164,000 in 2007 and an estimated 200,000 in fiscal 2008.
Some say more resources are needed to undertake this properly.
MICHAEL CUTLER, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: We don't have the tools
to properly identify many of these criminal aliens, I suspect.
Not all of them are going to jump up and be honest with you and
tell you that they're here illegal or deportable aliens.
PILGRIM: Once the removable process is started, many won't be deported for years, but at least prison authorities will know not to release them back into society.
see actual Lou Dobbs at www.loudobbs.com of CNN fame
www.mccainalert.com
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Former POW John Mccain Fights Public Access to his POW/MIA Files
Former POW John Mccain Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files
The War Secrets Senator John McCain Hides
Former POW Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files
By Sydney Schanberg
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) The voters who were drawn to John S. McCain in his run for the Republican presidential nomination this year often cited, as the core of his appeal, his openness and blunt candor and willingness to admit past lapses and release documents that other senators often hold back. These qualities also seemed to endear McCain to the campaign press corps, many of whom wrote about how refreshing it was to travel on the McCain campaign bus, The Straight Talk Express, and observe a maverick speaking his mind rather than a traditional candidate given to obfuscation and spin.
But there was one subject that was off-limits, a subject the Arizona senator almost never brings up and has never been open about his long-time opposition to releasing documents and information about American prisoners of war in Vietnam and the missing in action who have still not been accounted for. Since McCain himself, a downed Navy pilot, was a prisoner in Hanoi for 5 1/2 years, his staunch resistance to laying open the POW/MIA records has baffled colleagues and others who have followed his career. Critics say his anti-disclosure campaign, in close cooperation with the Pentagon and the intelligence community, has been successful. Literally thousands of documents that would otherwise have been declassified long ago have been legislated into secrecy.
For example, all the Pentagon debriefings of the prisoners who returned from Vietnam are now classified and closed to the public under a statute enacted in the 1990s with McCain’s backing. He says this is to protect the privacy of former POWs and gives it as his reason for not making public his own debriefing.
But the law allows a returned prisoner to view his own file or to designate another person to view it. APBnews.com has repeatedly asked the senator for an interview for this article and for permission to view his debriefing documents. He has not responded. His office did recently send APBnews.com an e-mail, referring to a favorable article about the senator in the Jan. 1 issue of Newsweek. In the article, the reporter, Michael Isikoff, says that he was allowed to review McCain’s debriefing report and that it contained nothing incriminating although in a phone interview Isikoff acknowledged that there were redactions in the document. Isikoff declined to say who showed him the document, but APBnews.com has learned it was McCain.
Many Vietnam veterans and former POWs have fumed at McCain for keeping these and other wartime files sealed up. His explanation, offered freely in Senate hearings and floor speeches, is that no one has been proven still alive and that releasing the files would revive painful memories and cause needless emotional stress to former prisoners, their families and the families of MIAs still unaccounted for. But what if some of these returned prisoners, as has always been the case at the conclusion of wars, reveal information to their debriefing officers about other prisoners believed still held in captivity? What justification is there for filtering such information through the Pentagon rather than allowing access to source materials? For instance, debriefings from returning Korean war POWs, available in full to the American public, have provided both citizens and government investigators with important information about other Americans who went missing in that conflict.
Would not most families of missing men, no matter how emotionally drained, want to know? And would they not also want to know what the government was doing to rescue their husbands and sons? Hundreds of MIA families have for years been questioning if concern for their feelings is the real reason for the secrecy.
Prisoners left behind
A smaller number of former POWs, MIA families and veterans have suggested there is something especially damning about McCain that the senator wants to keep hidden. Without release of the files, such accusations must be viewed as unsubstantiated speculation. The main reason, however, for seeking these files is to find out if there is any information in the debriefings, or in other MIA documents that McCain and the Pentagon have kept sealed, about how many prisoners were held back by North Vietnam after the Paris peace treaty was signed in January 1973. The defense and intelligence establishment has long resisted the declassification of critical records on this subject. McCain has been the main congressional force behind this effort.
The prisoner return in 1973 saw 591 Americans repatriated by North Vietnam. The problem was that the U.S. intelligence list of men believed to be alive at that time in captivity in Vietnam, Laos and possibly across the border in southern China and in the Soviet Union was much larger.
Possibly hundreds of men larger. The State Department stated publicly in 1973 that intelligence data showed the prisoner list to be starkly incomplete. For example, only nine of the 591 returnees came out of Laos, though experts in U.S. military intelligence listed 311 men as missing in that Hanoi-run country alone, and their field reports indicated that many of those men were probably still alive. Hanoi said it was returning all the prisoners it had. President Nixon, on March 29, 1973, seconded that claim, telling the nation on television: All of our American POWs are on their way home. This discrepancy has never been acknowledged or explained by official Washington. Over the years in Washington, McCain, at times almost single-handedly, has pushed through Pentagon-desired legislation to make it impossible or much harder for the public to acquire POW/MIA information and much easier for the defense bureaucracy to keep it hidden.
The Truth Bill
In 1989, 11 members of the House of Representatives introduced a measure they called The Truth Bill. A brief and simple document, it said: [The] head of each department or agency which holds or receives any records and information, including live-sighting reports, which have been correlated or possibly correlated to United States personnel listed as prisoner of war or missing in action from World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam conflict shall make available to the public all such records and information held or received by that department or agency. In addition, the Department of Defense shall make available to the public with its records and information a complete listing of United States personnel classified as prisoner of war, missing in action, or killed in action (body not returned) from World War II, the Korean conflict, and the Vietnam conflict.
Opposed by Pentagon
Bitterly opposed by the Pentagon, The Truth Bill got nowhere. It was reintroduced in the next Congress in 1991 and again disappeared. Then, suddenly, out of the Senate, birthed by the Arizona senator, a new piece of legislation emerged. It was called The McCain Bill. This measure turned The Truth Bill on its head. It created a bureaucratic maze from which only a fraction of the available documents could emerge. And it became law. So restrictive were its provisions that one clause actually said the Pentagon didn’t even have to inform the public when it received intelligence that Americans were alive in captivity.
First, it decreed that only three categories of information could be released, i.e., information … that may pertain to the location, treatment, or condition of unaccounted-for personnel from the Vietnam War. (This was later amended in 1995 and 1996 to include the Cold War and the Korean conflict.) If information is received about anything other than location, treatment or condition, under this statute, which was enacted in December 199l, it does not get disclosed.
Second, before such information can be released to the public, permission must be granted by the primary next of kin, or PNOK. In the case of Vietnam, letters were sent by the Department of Defense to the 2,266 PNOK. More than 600 declined consent (including 243 who failed to respond, considered under the law to be a no ).
Hurdles and limitations
Finally, in addition to these hurdles and limitations, the McCain act does not specifically order the declassification of the information. Further, it provides the Defense Department with other justifications for withholding documents. One such clause says that if the information may compromise the safety of any United States personnel … who remain not accounted for but who may still be alive in captivity, then the Secretary [of Defense] may withhold that record or other information from the disclosure otherwise required by this section.
Boiled down, the preceding paragraph means that the Defense Department is not obligated to tell the public about prisoners believed alive in captivity and what efforts are being made to rescue them. It only has to notify the White House and the intelligence committees in the Senate and House. The committees are forbidden under law from releasing such information.
At the same time, the McCain act is now being used to deny access to other sorts of records. For instance, part of a recent APBnews.com Freedom of Information Act request for the records of a mutiny on merchant marine vessel in the 1970s was rejected by a Defense Department official who cited the McCain act. Similarly, requests for information about Americans missing in the Korean War and declared dead for the last 45 years have been denied by officials who reference the McCain statute. (Read a denial letter.)
Another bill gutted in 1996
And then there is the Missing Service Personnel Act, which McCain succeeded in gutting in 1996. A year before, the act had been strengthened, with bipartisan support, to compel the Pentagon to deploy more resources with greater speed to locate and rescue missing men. The measure imposed strict reporting requirements.
McCain amended the heart out of the statute. For example, the 1995 version required a unit commander to report to his theater commander within two days that a person was missing and describe what rescue and recovery efforts were underway. The McCain amendments allowed 10 days to pass before a report had to be made.
In the 1995 act, the theater commander, after receiving the MIA report, would have 14 days to report to his Cabinet secretary in Washington. His report had to certify that all necessary actions were being taken and all appropriate assets were being used to resolve the status of the missing person. This section was stricken from the act, replaced with language that made the Cabinet secretary, not the theater commander, the recipient of the report from the field. All the certification requirements also were stricken. ‘Turn commanders into clerks’ This, said a McCain memo, transfers the bureaucracy involved out of the field to Washington. He argued that the original legislation, if left intact, would accomplish nothing but create new jobs for lawyers and turn military commanders into clerks.
In response, the backers of the original statute cited the Pentagon’s stained record on MIA’s and argued that military history had shown that speed of action is critical to the chances of recovering a missing man. Moving the bureaucracy to Washington, they said, was merely a way to sweep the issue under a rug.
Chilling effect cited
One final evisceration in the law was McCain’s removal of all its enforcement teeth. The original act provided for criminal penalties for anyone, such as military bureaucrats in Washington, who destroy or cover up or withhold from families any information about a missing man. McCain erased this part of the law. He said the penalties would have a chilling effect on the Pentagon’s ability to recruit personnel for its POW/MIA office.
McCain does not deal lightly with those who disagree with him on any of these issues or who suggest that the evidence indeed shows that a significant number of prisoners were alive and cached away as future bargaining chips when he came home in the group of 591 released in 1973.
Over the years, he has regularly vilified any group or person who keeps trying to pry out more evidence about MIAs. He calls them hoaxers and charlatans and conspiracy theorists. He decries the bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists and describes them as individuals primarily who make their living off of keeping the issue alive. Before he died last year of leukemia, retired Col. Ted Guy, a highly admired POW and one of the most dogged resisters in the camps, wrote an angry open letter to the senator in an MIA newsletter. In it, he said of McCain’s stream of insults: John, does this include Senator Bob Smith and other concerned elected officials? Does this include the families of the missing where there is overwhelming evidence that their loved ones were ‘last known alive? ’ Does this include some of your fellow POWs?
Sightings dismissed
McCain has said again and again that he has seen no credible evidence that more than a tiny handful of men might have been alive in captivity after the official prison return in 1973. He dismisses all of the subsequent radio intercepts, live sightings, satellite photos, CIA reports, defector information, recovered enemy documents and reports of ransom demands thousands and thousands of pieces of information indicating live captives as meaningless. He has even described these intelligence reports as the rough equivalent of UFO and alien sightings.
In Congress, colleagues and staffers who have seen him erupt in the open and, more often, in closed meetings profess themselves confounded by his behavior. Insisting upon anonymity so as not to invite one of his verbal assaults, they say they have no easy way to explain why a former POW would work so hard and so persistently to keep POW/MIA information from coming out. Typical is the comment of one congressional veteran who has watched McCain over many years: This is a man not at peace with himself. McCain’s sense of disgrace.
Some McCain watchers searching for answers point to his recently published best-selling autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, half of which is devoted to his years as a prisoner. In the book, he says he felt badly throughout his captivity because he knew he was being treated more leniently than his fellow POWs owing to his propaganda value as the son of Adm. John S. McCain II, who was then the CINCPAC commander in chief of all U.S. forces in the Pacific region, including Vietnam. (His captors considered him a prize catch and nicknamed him the Crown Prince. )
Also in the book, the Arizona Senator repeatedly expresses guilt and disgrace at having broken under torture and given the North Vietnamese a taped confession, broadcast over the camp loudspeakers, saying he was a war criminal who had, among other acts, bombed a school. I felt faithless and couldn’t control my despair, he writes. He writes, revealing that he made two half-hearted attempts at suicide. Most tellingly, he said he lived in dread that his father would find out. I still wince, he says, when I recall wondering if my father had heard of my disgrace.
After McCain returned home, he says he told his father about the confession, but never discussed it at length. The admiral, McCain says, didn’t indicate he had heard anything about it before.
McCain’s father died in 1981. McCain writes: I only recently learned that the tape … had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father.
McCain wasn’t alone it’s well-known that a sizeable percentage of prisoners of war will break down under torture. In fact, many of his supporters view McCain’s prison travails as evidence of his overall heroism. Fears unpublished details?
But how would McCain’s forced confession alone explain his endless campaign against releasing MIA/POW information?
Some veterans and other McCain watchers have speculated that McCain’s mortification, given his family’s proud military tradition (his grandfather was also an admiral), was so severe that it continues to haunt him and make him fear any opening up of information that could revive previously unpublished details of the era, including his own nagging history.
Another question that defies easy explanation is why there has never been any significant public outcry over the POWs who didn’t come home or about the machinations of public officials like McCain who carefully wove a blanket of secrecy around this issue. It can only be understood in the context of what the Vietnam War did to the American mind.
Forgetting the Vietnam War
It was the longest war in our history and the only one in which we accepted defeat and brought our troops home. It had roiled the country more than any conflict but the Civil War to the point where almost everyone, regardless of their politics, wanted to get away from anything that reminded them of this bloody failure. Only a small band of Americans, led by Vietnam veterans and MIA families, kept asking for more information about the missing men and demanding that the government keep its promise to do everything possible to bring them home. Everyone else seemed to be running away from all things Vietnam.
Knowledgeable observers note that it’s quite possible that Nixon, leading the country’s withdrawal, accepted the peace treaty of Jan. 27, 1973, while telling himself that somehow he would negotiate the release of the remaining POWs later. But when Congress refused to provide the $3 billion to $4 billion in proposed national development reparations that National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger had dangled as a carrot to Hanoi, the prospects for the abandoned men began to unravel.
Observers also point out that over the years that followed, Washington continued to reject paying what it branded as ransom money and so, across six presidencies, including the present one, the issue of POWs who may have been left behind remained unacknowledged by the White House and the Pentagon. Hanoi refused to correct the impression that all the prisoners had been returned, and Washington, for its part, refused to admit that it had known about abandoned POWs from the beginning.
Mainstream press indifferent
Of course, the government and many mainstream scholars reject this theory. And whether any such prisoners remain alive to this day is impossible for the outsider to know. Intelligence sources privately express the belief that most of the men had either died or been executed by the early 1990s. Presumably, these sources say, the POW’s lost their bargaining value to Hanoi as time passed and ransom dollars never materialized. Eventually Hanoi began seeking another path to the money the renewal of relations with Washington. Diplomatic ties were restored by President Clinton in 1994, and American economic investment quickly followed.
One factor in the nation’s indifference to the POWs was the stance of the national press. From the very start to the present, the mainstream media showed little interest. With just a smattering of exceptions, the journalistic community, like the rest of the country, ran away from the story. During the war, thousands of American journalists poured into Vietnam in shifts; now only a handful cover the country, most of them filing business stories about Nike and other conglomerates opening up factories to avail themselves of the cheap labor.
Even reporters who had covered the war came to view the MIA story, in the years afterward, as a concoction of the far right. Without doing much, if any, first-hand reporting, such as digging into the available documents in the National Archives, nearly all these journalists dismissed the MIA story as unfounded.
Generated a hero aura
In McCain’s recently suspended campaign for the presidency, it was almost as if, in the press’s eyes, he was to be treated differently and quite gingerly because of the hero aura generated by his POW experience. None of his political opponents ever dared criticize him for his legislative history on withholding POW information, and the press never brought itself to be direct enough to even question him on the issue.
It’s not that he didn’t give reporters plenty of openings to ask the right Vietnam questions. For one thing, he used his history as a Vietnam prisoner as a constant campaign theme in his speeches. Rarely did he appear without a larger-than- life photo backdrop showing him in battle gear as a Navy pilot before he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967.
Here is a passage typical of the soft, even erroneous reporting on McCain this from a March 4 story in The New York Times: His most striking achievement came when he joined with another Vietnam veteran, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to puncture the myth that Vietnam continued holding American prisoners. The piece went on to speak with admiration about his concern over the prisoners-of-war issue but, tellingly, it offered no details.
Tepid veterans’ vote
The press corps, covering the state-by-state primary vote, made an assumption, based apparently on sentiment, that McCain, as the war hero, would capture the significant veterans’ vote by stunning margins. Actually, he didn’t capture it at all. He carried veterans only in the states that he won, like Michigan and New Hampshire, but was rejected by them in the larger number of states that he lost, like New York, Ohio and California. Added together, when the states were tallied up, the veterans’ vote went to George W. Bush.
The Washington press corps had gone openly soft once before on the prisoner issue, again benefiting McCain. That was in 1991-93, during the proceedings of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. McCain starred on that committee, working hand in hand with his new ally, Sen. John Kerry, the panel’s co-chairman, to play down voluminous evidence that sizeable numbers of men were still held alive after the prisoner return in 1973. One example: At the time of the committee’s hearings, the Pentagon had received more than 1,600 firsthand sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand reports. The intelligence officers who gathered these reports from refugees and other informants in the field described a large number of them as credible and so marked the reports. Some of the informants had been given lie-detector tests and passed.
But the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, after reviewing all the reports, concluded that they do not constitute evidence that men were still alive at the time.
McCain and Kerry endorsed the Pentagon’s findings. They also treated both the Pentagon and the CIA more as the committee’s partners than as objects of its inquiry. As one committee staff investigator said, in a memo preserved from the period: Speaking for the other investigators, I can say we are sick and tired of this investigation being controlled by those we are supposedly investigating.
McCain stood out because he always showed up for the committee hearings where witnesses were going to talk about specific pieces of evidence. He would belittle and berate these witnesses, questioning their patriotism and otherwise scoffing at their credibility. All of this is on record in the National Archives.
Confrontation with witness
One such witness was Dolores Apodaca Alfond, chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families, an all-volunteer MIA organization. Her pilot brother, Capt. Victor J. Apodaca, out of the Air Force Academy, was shot down over Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, in the early evening of June 8, 1967. At least one person in the two-man plane survived. Beeper signals from a pilot’s distress radio were picked up by overhead helicopters, but the cloud cover was too heavy to go in. Hanoi has recently turned over some bone fragments that are supposed to be Apodaca’s. The Pentagon first declared the fragments to be animal bones. But now it is telling the family verbally that they came from the pilot. But the Pentagon, for unexplained reasons, will not put this in writing, which means Apodaca is still unaccounted for. Also the Pentagon refuses to give Alfond a sample of the fragments so she can have testing done by an independent laboratory.
Alfond’s testimony, at a hearing of the POW/MIA committee Nov. 11, 1992, was revealing. She pleaded with the committee not to shut down in two months, as scheduled, because so much of its work was unfinished. Also, she was critical of the committee, and in particular Kerry and McCain, for having discredited the overhead satellite symbol pictures, arguing there is no way to be sure that the [distress] symbols were made by U.S. POWs. She also criticized them for similarly discounting data from special sensors, shaped like a large spike with an electronic pod and an antenna, that were airdropped to stick in the ground along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
These devices served as motion detectors, picking up passing convoys and other military movements, but they also had rescue capabilities. Specifically, someone on the ground a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor detail could manually enter data into the sensor pods. Alfond said the data from the sensor spikes, which was regularly gathered by Air Force jets flying overhead, had showed that a person or persons on the ground had manually entered into the sensors as U.S. pilots had been trained to do no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 U.S. POWs who were lost in Laos.
Other than the panel’s second co-chairman, Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., not a single committee member attended this public hearing. But McCain, having been advised of Alfond’s testimony, suddenly rushed into the room to confront her. His face angry and his voice very loud, he accused her of making allegations that are patently and totally false and deceptive. Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks. And then he said, through clenched teeth: And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people’s [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours.
Brought to tears
By this time, tears were running down Alfond’s cheeks. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief. She tried to speak: The family members have been waiting for years years! And now you’re shutting down. He kept interrupting her. She tried to say, through tears, that she had issued no insults. He kept talking over her words. He said she was accusing him and others of some conspiracy without proof, and some cover-up. She said she was merely seeking some answers. That is what I am asking. He ripped into her for using the word fiasco. She replied: The fiasco was the people that stepped out and said we have written the end, the final chapter to Vietnam. No one said that, he shouted. No one said what you are saying they said, Ms. Alfond. And then, his face flaming pink, he stalked out of the room, to shouts of disfavor from members of the audience.
As with most of McCain’s remarks to Alfond, the facts in his closing blast at her were incorrect. Less than three weeks earlier, on Oct. 23, 1992, in a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush with John McCain standing beside him said: Today, finally, I am convinced that we can begin writing the last chapter in the Vietnam War.
The committee did indeed, as Alfond said they planned to do, shut down two months after the hearing.
Cannot discuss it
As for her description of the motion sensor evidence about prisoners in Laos, McCain’s response at the hearing was that this data was in a 1974 report that the committee had read but was still classified, so I cannot discuss it here. … We hope to get it declassified.
The question to the senator now is: What happened to that report and what happened to the pilots who belonged to those authenticator numbers? Intelligence sources in Washington say the report was never declassified. It became clear over the months of hearings and sparrings that the primary goal of the Kerry-McCain alliance was to clear the way for normalization of relations with Vietnam. They did it in two ways first, by regularly praising Hanoi for its cooperation in the search for information about the unaccounted-for prisoners and then by minimizing and suppressing the volume of evidence to the contrary that had been unearthed by the committee’s staff investigators.
Recasting the issue
Kerry and McCain also tried, at every opportunity, to recast the issue as a debate about how many men could still be alive today, instead of the real issue at stake: How many men were alive in 1973 after the 591 were returned? Although much evidence was kept out of the committee’s final report in January 1993, enough of it, albeit watered down by the committee’s majority, was inserted by the determined staff to demonstrate conclusively that all the prisoners had not come home. Still, if the reader didn’t plow through the entire 1,223-page report but scanned just the brief conclusions in the 43-page executive summary at the beginning, he or she would have found only a weak and pallid statement saying that there was evidence … that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number after the repatriation of 1973. On page 468 of the report, McCain provided his own personal statement, saying that we found no compelling evidence to prove that Americans are alive in captivity today. There is some evidence though no proof to suggest only the possibility that a few Americans may have been kept behind after the end of American’s military involvement in Vietnam.
Two defense secretaries
And even these meager concessions were not voluntary. They had been forced by the sworn public testimony before the Senate committee of two former defense secretaries from the Nixon Administration, Melvin Laird and James Schlesinger. Both these men testified that they believed in 1973, from strong intelligence data, that a number of prisoners in Vietnam and Laos had not been returned. Their testimony has never been challenged. Schlesinger, before becoming defense secretary, had been the CIA director. During his committee appearance, Schlesinger was asked why Nixon would have accepted the prisoners being held back in 1973. He replied: One must assume that we had concluded that the bargaining position of the United States … was quite weak. We were anxious to get our troops out and we were not going to roil the waters … Then he was asked a very simple question. In your view, did we leave men behind? ‘Some were left behind’ I think that as of now, replied the former Pentagon secretary, that I can come to no other conclusion [that] … some were left behind. The press went along once again with the debunkers. The Schlesinger-Laird testimony, which seemed a bombshell, became but a one-day story in the nation’s major media. The press never followed it up to explore its implications. On Jan. 26, 1994, when a resolution ardently backed by McCain and Kerry came up in the Senate calling for the lifting of the two-decade-old economic embargo against Vietnam, some members in an effort to stall the measure tried to present new evidence about men left behind. McCain rose to his feet and, offering no rebuttal evidence of his own, proceeded to chide the professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists and dime-store Rambos who attend this issue. The resolution passed, 62-38. ‘Isolated Personnel’ These days, the Pentagon seems to be moving toward closing its POW/MIA books completely. In recent statements and reports, it has begun describing prisoners not as POWs but as IPs Isolated Personnel.
And in a 1999 booklet, the Pentagon said: By the end of the year 2004, we will have moved from the way the US government conducts the business of recovery and accounting [now] to an active program of loss prevention, immediate rescues, and rapid post-hostility accounting. More important, there seems to be no allocation of funds in 2004 for the task force that now conducts POW/MIA investigations, searches for remains and does archival research. As for McCain, he continues to stonewall on his own POW records. Through numerous phone calls, faxes and letters to his office, APBnews.com has been trying since late January to interview the Senator and get his permission to view his POW debriefing. The response has been that the senator has been occupied by his campaign schedule.
Call for openness and disclosure
During the campaign, McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, had to address a controversy over queries he had made to the Commerce Department on behalf of a major campaign contributor. To deal with the press interest, he announced he was releasing all of his correspondence with the Commerce Department, not just the letters involving the one case. In addition, to show his full commitment to openness and disclosure, he called on every other government agency to release his communications with them. On Jan. 9 on the CBS program Face the Nation, he announced: Today, we are asking the federal government to release all correspondence that I’ve had with every government agency.
McCain’s staff has acknowledged that this request includes the Pentagon. But the Pentagon says it needs an official document from McCain designating a surrogate before it can show his debriefing report to anyone else. APBnews.com has repeatedly asked the senator for this waiver. He does not respond.
Sydney H. Schanberg is the editor of APBnews.com’s investigative unit. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his 1975 coverage of political and social chaos in Cambodia. His news reports and a best-selling book about his experiences in Southeast Asia became the basis for the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields.
http://www.vvof.org/mccain_hides.htm
The War Secrets Senator John McCain Hides
Former POW Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files
By Sydney Schanberg
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) The voters who were drawn to John S. McCain in his run for the Republican presidential nomination this year often cited, as the core of his appeal, his openness and blunt candor and willingness to admit past lapses and release documents that other senators often hold back. These qualities also seemed to endear McCain to the campaign press corps, many of whom wrote about how refreshing it was to travel on the McCain campaign bus, The Straight Talk Express, and observe a maverick speaking his mind rather than a traditional candidate given to obfuscation and spin.
But there was one subject that was off-limits, a subject the Arizona senator almost never brings up and has never been open about his long-time opposition to releasing documents and information about American prisoners of war in Vietnam and the missing in action who have still not been accounted for. Since McCain himself, a downed Navy pilot, was a prisoner in Hanoi for 5 1/2 years, his staunch resistance to laying open the POW/MIA records has baffled colleagues and others who have followed his career. Critics say his anti-disclosure campaign, in close cooperation with the Pentagon and the intelligence community, has been successful. Literally thousands of documents that would otherwise have been declassified long ago have been legislated into secrecy.
For example, all the Pentagon debriefings of the prisoners who returned from Vietnam are now classified and closed to the public under a statute enacted in the 1990s with McCain’s backing. He says this is to protect the privacy of former POWs and gives it as his reason for not making public his own debriefing.
But the law allows a returned prisoner to view his own file or to designate another person to view it. APBnews.com has repeatedly asked the senator for an interview for this article and for permission to view his debriefing documents. He has not responded. His office did recently send APBnews.com an e-mail, referring to a favorable article about the senator in the Jan. 1 issue of Newsweek. In the article, the reporter, Michael Isikoff, says that he was allowed to review McCain’s debriefing report and that it contained nothing incriminating although in a phone interview Isikoff acknowledged that there were redactions in the document. Isikoff declined to say who showed him the document, but APBnews.com has learned it was McCain.
Many Vietnam veterans and former POWs have fumed at McCain for keeping these and other wartime files sealed up. His explanation, offered freely in Senate hearings and floor speeches, is that no one has been proven still alive and that releasing the files would revive painful memories and cause needless emotional stress to former prisoners, their families and the families of MIAs still unaccounted for. But what if some of these returned prisoners, as has always been the case at the conclusion of wars, reveal information to their debriefing officers about other prisoners believed still held in captivity? What justification is there for filtering such information through the Pentagon rather than allowing access to source materials? For instance, debriefings from returning Korean war POWs, available in full to the American public, have provided both citizens and government investigators with important information about other Americans who went missing in that conflict.
Would not most families of missing men, no matter how emotionally drained, want to know? And would they not also want to know what the government was doing to rescue their husbands and sons? Hundreds of MIA families have for years been questioning if concern for their feelings is the real reason for the secrecy.
Prisoners left behind
A smaller number of former POWs, MIA families and veterans have suggested there is something especially damning about McCain that the senator wants to keep hidden. Without release of the files, such accusations must be viewed as unsubstantiated speculation. The main reason, however, for seeking these files is to find out if there is any information in the debriefings, or in other MIA documents that McCain and the Pentagon have kept sealed, about how many prisoners were held back by North Vietnam after the Paris peace treaty was signed in January 1973. The defense and intelligence establishment has long resisted the declassification of critical records on this subject. McCain has been the main congressional force behind this effort.
The prisoner return in 1973 saw 591 Americans repatriated by North Vietnam. The problem was that the U.S. intelligence list of men believed to be alive at that time in captivity in Vietnam, Laos and possibly across the border in southern China and in the Soviet Union was much larger.
Possibly hundreds of men larger. The State Department stated publicly in 1973 that intelligence data showed the prisoner list to be starkly incomplete. For example, only nine of the 591 returnees came out of Laos, though experts in U.S. military intelligence listed 311 men as missing in that Hanoi-run country alone, and their field reports indicated that many of those men were probably still alive. Hanoi said it was returning all the prisoners it had. President Nixon, on March 29, 1973, seconded that claim, telling the nation on television: All of our American POWs are on their way home. This discrepancy has never been acknowledged or explained by official Washington. Over the years in Washington, McCain, at times almost single-handedly, has pushed through Pentagon-desired legislation to make it impossible or much harder for the public to acquire POW/MIA information and much easier for the defense bureaucracy to keep it hidden.
The Truth Bill
In 1989, 11 members of the House of Representatives introduced a measure they called The Truth Bill. A brief and simple document, it said: [The] head of each department or agency which holds or receives any records and information, including live-sighting reports, which have been correlated or possibly correlated to United States personnel listed as prisoner of war or missing in action from World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam conflict shall make available to the public all such records and information held or received by that department or agency. In addition, the Department of Defense shall make available to the public with its records and information a complete listing of United States personnel classified as prisoner of war, missing in action, or killed in action (body not returned) from World War II, the Korean conflict, and the Vietnam conflict.
Opposed by Pentagon
Bitterly opposed by the Pentagon, The Truth Bill got nowhere. It was reintroduced in the next Congress in 1991 and again disappeared. Then, suddenly, out of the Senate, birthed by the Arizona senator, a new piece of legislation emerged. It was called The McCain Bill. This measure turned The Truth Bill on its head. It created a bureaucratic maze from which only a fraction of the available documents could emerge. And it became law. So restrictive were its provisions that one clause actually said the Pentagon didn’t even have to inform the public when it received intelligence that Americans were alive in captivity.
First, it decreed that only three categories of information could be released, i.e., information … that may pertain to the location, treatment, or condition of unaccounted-for personnel from the Vietnam War. (This was later amended in 1995 and 1996 to include the Cold War and the Korean conflict.) If information is received about anything other than location, treatment or condition, under this statute, which was enacted in December 199l, it does not get disclosed.
Second, before such information can be released to the public, permission must be granted by the primary next of kin, or PNOK. In the case of Vietnam, letters were sent by the Department of Defense to the 2,266 PNOK. More than 600 declined consent (including 243 who failed to respond, considered under the law to be a no ).
Hurdles and limitations
Finally, in addition to these hurdles and limitations, the McCain act does not specifically order the declassification of the information. Further, it provides the Defense Department with other justifications for withholding documents. One such clause says that if the information may compromise the safety of any United States personnel … who remain not accounted for but who may still be alive in captivity, then the Secretary [of Defense] may withhold that record or other information from the disclosure otherwise required by this section.
Boiled down, the preceding paragraph means that the Defense Department is not obligated to tell the public about prisoners believed alive in captivity and what efforts are being made to rescue them. It only has to notify the White House and the intelligence committees in the Senate and House. The committees are forbidden under law from releasing such information.
At the same time, the McCain act is now being used to deny access to other sorts of records. For instance, part of a recent APBnews.com Freedom of Information Act request for the records of a mutiny on merchant marine vessel in the 1970s was rejected by a Defense Department official who cited the McCain act. Similarly, requests for information about Americans missing in the Korean War and declared dead for the last 45 years have been denied by officials who reference the McCain statute. (Read a denial letter.)
Another bill gutted in 1996
And then there is the Missing Service Personnel Act, which McCain succeeded in gutting in 1996. A year before, the act had been strengthened, with bipartisan support, to compel the Pentagon to deploy more resources with greater speed to locate and rescue missing men. The measure imposed strict reporting requirements.
McCain amended the heart out of the statute. For example, the 1995 version required a unit commander to report to his theater commander within two days that a person was missing and describe what rescue and recovery efforts were underway. The McCain amendments allowed 10 days to pass before a report had to be made.
In the 1995 act, the theater commander, after receiving the MIA report, would have 14 days to report to his Cabinet secretary in Washington. His report had to certify that all necessary actions were being taken and all appropriate assets were being used to resolve the status of the missing person. This section was stricken from the act, replaced with language that made the Cabinet secretary, not the theater commander, the recipient of the report from the field. All the certification requirements also were stricken. ‘Turn commanders into clerks’ This, said a McCain memo, transfers the bureaucracy involved out of the field to Washington. He argued that the original legislation, if left intact, would accomplish nothing but create new jobs for lawyers and turn military commanders into clerks.
In response, the backers of the original statute cited the Pentagon’s stained record on MIA’s and argued that military history had shown that speed of action is critical to the chances of recovering a missing man. Moving the bureaucracy to Washington, they said, was merely a way to sweep the issue under a rug.
Chilling effect cited
One final evisceration in the law was McCain’s removal of all its enforcement teeth. The original act provided for criminal penalties for anyone, such as military bureaucrats in Washington, who destroy or cover up or withhold from families any information about a missing man. McCain erased this part of the law. He said the penalties would have a chilling effect on the Pentagon’s ability to recruit personnel for its POW/MIA office.
McCain does not deal lightly with those who disagree with him on any of these issues or who suggest that the evidence indeed shows that a significant number of prisoners were alive and cached away as future bargaining chips when he came home in the group of 591 released in 1973.
Over the years, he has regularly vilified any group or person who keeps trying to pry out more evidence about MIAs. He calls them hoaxers and charlatans and conspiracy theorists. He decries the bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists and describes them as individuals primarily who make their living off of keeping the issue alive. Before he died last year of leukemia, retired Col. Ted Guy, a highly admired POW and one of the most dogged resisters in the camps, wrote an angry open letter to the senator in an MIA newsletter. In it, he said of McCain’s stream of insults: John, does this include Senator Bob Smith and other concerned elected officials? Does this include the families of the missing where there is overwhelming evidence that their loved ones were ‘last known alive? ’ Does this include some of your fellow POWs?
Sightings dismissed
McCain has said again and again that he has seen no credible evidence that more than a tiny handful of men might have been alive in captivity after the official prison return in 1973. He dismisses all of the subsequent radio intercepts, live sightings, satellite photos, CIA reports, defector information, recovered enemy documents and reports of ransom demands thousands and thousands of pieces of information indicating live captives as meaningless. He has even described these intelligence reports as the rough equivalent of UFO and alien sightings.
In Congress, colleagues and staffers who have seen him erupt in the open and, more often, in closed meetings profess themselves confounded by his behavior. Insisting upon anonymity so as not to invite one of his verbal assaults, they say they have no easy way to explain why a former POW would work so hard and so persistently to keep POW/MIA information from coming out. Typical is the comment of one congressional veteran who has watched McCain over many years: This is a man not at peace with himself. McCain’s sense of disgrace.
Some McCain watchers searching for answers point to his recently published best-selling autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, half of which is devoted to his years as a prisoner. In the book, he says he felt badly throughout his captivity because he knew he was being treated more leniently than his fellow POWs owing to his propaganda value as the son of Adm. John S. McCain II, who was then the CINCPAC commander in chief of all U.S. forces in the Pacific region, including Vietnam. (His captors considered him a prize catch and nicknamed him the Crown Prince. )
Also in the book, the Arizona Senator repeatedly expresses guilt and disgrace at having broken under torture and given the North Vietnamese a taped confession, broadcast over the camp loudspeakers, saying he was a war criminal who had, among other acts, bombed a school. I felt faithless and couldn’t control my despair, he writes. He writes, revealing that he made two half-hearted attempts at suicide. Most tellingly, he said he lived in dread that his father would find out. I still wince, he says, when I recall wondering if my father had heard of my disgrace.
After McCain returned home, he says he told his father about the confession, but never discussed it at length. The admiral, McCain says, didn’t indicate he had heard anything about it before.
McCain’s father died in 1981. McCain writes: I only recently learned that the tape … had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father.
McCain wasn’t alone it’s well-known that a sizeable percentage of prisoners of war will break down under torture. In fact, many of his supporters view McCain’s prison travails as evidence of his overall heroism. Fears unpublished details?
But how would McCain’s forced confession alone explain his endless campaign against releasing MIA/POW information?
Some veterans and other McCain watchers have speculated that McCain’s mortification, given his family’s proud military tradition (his grandfather was also an admiral), was so severe that it continues to haunt him and make him fear any opening up of information that could revive previously unpublished details of the era, including his own nagging history.
Another question that defies easy explanation is why there has never been any significant public outcry over the POWs who didn’t come home or about the machinations of public officials like McCain who carefully wove a blanket of secrecy around this issue. It can only be understood in the context of what the Vietnam War did to the American mind.
Forgetting the Vietnam War
It was the longest war in our history and the only one in which we accepted defeat and brought our troops home. It had roiled the country more than any conflict but the Civil War to the point where almost everyone, regardless of their politics, wanted to get away from anything that reminded them of this bloody failure. Only a small band of Americans, led by Vietnam veterans and MIA families, kept asking for more information about the missing men and demanding that the government keep its promise to do everything possible to bring them home. Everyone else seemed to be running away from all things Vietnam.
Knowledgeable observers note that it’s quite possible that Nixon, leading the country’s withdrawal, accepted the peace treaty of Jan. 27, 1973, while telling himself that somehow he would negotiate the release of the remaining POWs later. But when Congress refused to provide the $3 billion to $4 billion in proposed national development reparations that National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger had dangled as a carrot to Hanoi, the prospects for the abandoned men began to unravel.
Observers also point out that over the years that followed, Washington continued to reject paying what it branded as ransom money and so, across six presidencies, including the present one, the issue of POWs who may have been left behind remained unacknowledged by the White House and the Pentagon. Hanoi refused to correct the impression that all the prisoners had been returned, and Washington, for its part, refused to admit that it had known about abandoned POWs from the beginning.
Mainstream press indifferent
Of course, the government and many mainstream scholars reject this theory. And whether any such prisoners remain alive to this day is impossible for the outsider to know. Intelligence sources privately express the belief that most of the men had either died or been executed by the early 1990s. Presumably, these sources say, the POW’s lost their bargaining value to Hanoi as time passed and ransom dollars never materialized. Eventually Hanoi began seeking another path to the money the renewal of relations with Washington. Diplomatic ties were restored by President Clinton in 1994, and American economic investment quickly followed.
One factor in the nation’s indifference to the POWs was the stance of the national press. From the very start to the present, the mainstream media showed little interest. With just a smattering of exceptions, the journalistic community, like the rest of the country, ran away from the story. During the war, thousands of American journalists poured into Vietnam in shifts; now only a handful cover the country, most of them filing business stories about Nike and other conglomerates opening up factories to avail themselves of the cheap labor.
Even reporters who had covered the war came to view the MIA story, in the years afterward, as a concoction of the far right. Without doing much, if any, first-hand reporting, such as digging into the available documents in the National Archives, nearly all these journalists dismissed the MIA story as unfounded.
Generated a hero aura
In McCain’s recently suspended campaign for the presidency, it was almost as if, in the press’s eyes, he was to be treated differently and quite gingerly because of the hero aura generated by his POW experience. None of his political opponents ever dared criticize him for his legislative history on withholding POW information, and the press never brought itself to be direct enough to even question him on the issue.
It’s not that he didn’t give reporters plenty of openings to ask the right Vietnam questions. For one thing, he used his history as a Vietnam prisoner as a constant campaign theme in his speeches. Rarely did he appear without a larger-than- life photo backdrop showing him in battle gear as a Navy pilot before he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967.
Here is a passage typical of the soft, even erroneous reporting on McCain this from a March 4 story in The New York Times: His most striking achievement came when he joined with another Vietnam veteran, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to puncture the myth that Vietnam continued holding American prisoners. The piece went on to speak with admiration about his concern over the prisoners-of-war issue but, tellingly, it offered no details.
Tepid veterans’ vote
The press corps, covering the state-by-state primary vote, made an assumption, based apparently on sentiment, that McCain, as the war hero, would capture the significant veterans’ vote by stunning margins. Actually, he didn’t capture it at all. He carried veterans only in the states that he won, like Michigan and New Hampshire, but was rejected by them in the larger number of states that he lost, like New York, Ohio and California. Added together, when the states were tallied up, the veterans’ vote went to George W. Bush.
The Washington press corps had gone openly soft once before on the prisoner issue, again benefiting McCain. That was in 1991-93, during the proceedings of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. McCain starred on that committee, working hand in hand with his new ally, Sen. John Kerry, the panel’s co-chairman, to play down voluminous evidence that sizeable numbers of men were still held alive after the prisoner return in 1973. One example: At the time of the committee’s hearings, the Pentagon had received more than 1,600 firsthand sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand reports. The intelligence officers who gathered these reports from refugees and other informants in the field described a large number of them as credible and so marked the reports. Some of the informants had been given lie-detector tests and passed.
But the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, after reviewing all the reports, concluded that they do not constitute evidence that men were still alive at the time.
McCain and Kerry endorsed the Pentagon’s findings. They also treated both the Pentagon and the CIA more as the committee’s partners than as objects of its inquiry. As one committee staff investigator said, in a memo preserved from the period: Speaking for the other investigators, I can say we are sick and tired of this investigation being controlled by those we are supposedly investigating.
McCain stood out because he always showed up for the committee hearings where witnesses were going to talk about specific pieces of evidence. He would belittle and berate these witnesses, questioning their patriotism and otherwise scoffing at their credibility. All of this is on record in the National Archives.
Confrontation with witness
One such witness was Dolores Apodaca Alfond, chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families, an all-volunteer MIA organization. Her pilot brother, Capt. Victor J. Apodaca, out of the Air Force Academy, was shot down over Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, in the early evening of June 8, 1967. At least one person in the two-man plane survived. Beeper signals from a pilot’s distress radio were picked up by overhead helicopters, but the cloud cover was too heavy to go in. Hanoi has recently turned over some bone fragments that are supposed to be Apodaca’s. The Pentagon first declared the fragments to be animal bones. But now it is telling the family verbally that they came from the pilot. But the Pentagon, for unexplained reasons, will not put this in writing, which means Apodaca is still unaccounted for. Also the Pentagon refuses to give Alfond a sample of the fragments so she can have testing done by an independent laboratory.
Alfond’s testimony, at a hearing of the POW/MIA committee Nov. 11, 1992, was revealing. She pleaded with the committee not to shut down in two months, as scheduled, because so much of its work was unfinished. Also, she was critical of the committee, and in particular Kerry and McCain, for having discredited the overhead satellite symbol pictures, arguing there is no way to be sure that the [distress] symbols were made by U.S. POWs. She also criticized them for similarly discounting data from special sensors, shaped like a large spike with an electronic pod and an antenna, that were airdropped to stick in the ground along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
These devices served as motion detectors, picking up passing convoys and other military movements, but they also had rescue capabilities. Specifically, someone on the ground a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor detail could manually enter data into the sensor pods. Alfond said the data from the sensor spikes, which was regularly gathered by Air Force jets flying overhead, had showed that a person or persons on the ground had manually entered into the sensors as U.S. pilots had been trained to do no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 U.S. POWs who were lost in Laos.
Other than the panel’s second co-chairman, Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., not a single committee member attended this public hearing. But McCain, having been advised of Alfond’s testimony, suddenly rushed into the room to confront her. His face angry and his voice very loud, he accused her of making allegations that are patently and totally false and deceptive. Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks. And then he said, through clenched teeth: And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people’s [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours.
Brought to tears
By this time, tears were running down Alfond’s cheeks. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief. She tried to speak: The family members have been waiting for years years! And now you’re shutting down. He kept interrupting her. She tried to say, through tears, that she had issued no insults. He kept talking over her words. He said she was accusing him and others of some conspiracy without proof, and some cover-up. She said she was merely seeking some answers. That is what I am asking. He ripped into her for using the word fiasco. She replied: The fiasco was the people that stepped out and said we have written the end, the final chapter to Vietnam. No one said that, he shouted. No one said what you are saying they said, Ms. Alfond. And then, his face flaming pink, he stalked out of the room, to shouts of disfavor from members of the audience.
As with most of McCain’s remarks to Alfond, the facts in his closing blast at her were incorrect. Less than three weeks earlier, on Oct. 23, 1992, in a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush with John McCain standing beside him said: Today, finally, I am convinced that we can begin writing the last chapter in the Vietnam War.
The committee did indeed, as Alfond said they planned to do, shut down two months after the hearing.
Cannot discuss it
As for her description of the motion sensor evidence about prisoners in Laos, McCain’s response at the hearing was that this data was in a 1974 report that the committee had read but was still classified, so I cannot discuss it here. … We hope to get it declassified.
The question to the senator now is: What happened to that report and what happened to the pilots who belonged to those authenticator numbers? Intelligence sources in Washington say the report was never declassified. It became clear over the months of hearings and sparrings that the primary goal of the Kerry-McCain alliance was to clear the way for normalization of relations with Vietnam. They did it in two ways first, by regularly praising Hanoi for its cooperation in the search for information about the unaccounted-for prisoners and then by minimizing and suppressing the volume of evidence to the contrary that had been unearthed by the committee’s staff investigators.
Recasting the issue
Kerry and McCain also tried, at every opportunity, to recast the issue as a debate about how many men could still be alive today, instead of the real issue at stake: How many men were alive in 1973 after the 591 were returned? Although much evidence was kept out of the committee’s final report in January 1993, enough of it, albeit watered down by the committee’s majority, was inserted by the determined staff to demonstrate conclusively that all the prisoners had not come home. Still, if the reader didn’t plow through the entire 1,223-page report but scanned just the brief conclusions in the 43-page executive summary at the beginning, he or she would have found only a weak and pallid statement saying that there was evidence … that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number after the repatriation of 1973. On page 468 of the report, McCain provided his own personal statement, saying that we found no compelling evidence to prove that Americans are alive in captivity today. There is some evidence though no proof to suggest only the possibility that a few Americans may have been kept behind after the end of American’s military involvement in Vietnam.
Two defense secretaries
And even these meager concessions were not voluntary. They had been forced by the sworn public testimony before the Senate committee of two former defense secretaries from the Nixon Administration, Melvin Laird and James Schlesinger. Both these men testified that they believed in 1973, from strong intelligence data, that a number of prisoners in Vietnam and Laos had not been returned. Their testimony has never been challenged. Schlesinger, before becoming defense secretary, had been the CIA director. During his committee appearance, Schlesinger was asked why Nixon would have accepted the prisoners being held back in 1973. He replied: One must assume that we had concluded that the bargaining position of the United States … was quite weak. We were anxious to get our troops out and we were not going to roil the waters … Then he was asked a very simple question. In your view, did we leave men behind? ‘Some were left behind’ I think that as of now, replied the former Pentagon secretary, that I can come to no other conclusion [that] … some were left behind. The press went along once again with the debunkers. The Schlesinger-Laird testimony, which seemed a bombshell, became but a one-day story in the nation’s major media. The press never followed it up to explore its implications. On Jan. 26, 1994, when a resolution ardently backed by McCain and Kerry came up in the Senate calling for the lifting of the two-decade-old economic embargo against Vietnam, some members in an effort to stall the measure tried to present new evidence about men left behind. McCain rose to his feet and, offering no rebuttal evidence of his own, proceeded to chide the professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists and dime-store Rambos who attend this issue. The resolution passed, 62-38. ‘Isolated Personnel’ These days, the Pentagon seems to be moving toward closing its POW/MIA books completely. In recent statements and reports, it has begun describing prisoners not as POWs but as IPs Isolated Personnel.
And in a 1999 booklet, the Pentagon said: By the end of the year 2004, we will have moved from the way the US government conducts the business of recovery and accounting [now] to an active program of loss prevention, immediate rescues, and rapid post-hostility accounting. More important, there seems to be no allocation of funds in 2004 for the task force that now conducts POW/MIA investigations, searches for remains and does archival research. As for McCain, he continues to stonewall on his own POW records. Through numerous phone calls, faxes and letters to his office, APBnews.com has been trying since late January to interview the Senator and get his permission to view his POW debriefing. The response has been that the senator has been occupied by his campaign schedule.
Call for openness and disclosure
During the campaign, McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, had to address a controversy over queries he had made to the Commerce Department on behalf of a major campaign contributor. To deal with the press interest, he announced he was releasing all of his correspondence with the Commerce Department, not just the letters involving the one case. In addition, to show his full commitment to openness and disclosure, he called on every other government agency to release his communications with them. On Jan. 9 on the CBS program Face the Nation, he announced: Today, we are asking the federal government to release all correspondence that I’ve had with every government agency.
McCain’s staff has acknowledged that this request includes the Pentagon. But the Pentagon says it needs an official document from McCain designating a surrogate before it can show his debriefing report to anyone else. APBnews.com has repeatedly asked the senator for this waiver. He does not respond.
Sydney H. Schanberg is the editor of APBnews.com’s investigative unit. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his 1975 coverage of political and social chaos in Cambodia. His news reports and a best-selling book about his experiences in Southeast Asia became the basis for the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields.
http://www.vvof.org/mccain_hides.htm
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
McCain lost five U.S. Navy aircraft.....
McCain lost five U.S. Navy aircraft
Navy pilot John Sidney McCain III should have never been allowed
to graduate from the U.S. Navy flight school. He was a below
average student and a lousy pilot. Had his father and
grandfather not been famous four star U.S. Navy admirals,
McCain III would have never been allowed in the cockpit
of a military aircraft.
His father John S. "Junior" McCain was commander of U.S. forces
in Europe later becoming commander of American forces in Vietnam
while McCain III was being held prisoner of war. McCain III's
grandfather John S. McCain, Sr. commanded naval aviation at
the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
During his relative short stunt on flight status, McCain III
lost five U.S. Navy aircraft, four in accidents and one in combat.
Robert Timberg, author of The Nightingale's Song, a book about
Annapolis graduates and their tours in Vietnam, wrote that McCain
"learned to fly at Pensacola, though his performance was below par,
at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it."
McCain III lost jet number one in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi
Bay while practicing landings. He was knocked unconscious by the
impact coming to as the plane settled to the bottom.
McCain's second crash occurred while he was deployed in the Mediterranean.
"Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula," Timberg wrote,
"he took out some power lines [reminiscent of the 1998 incident
in which a Marine Corps jet sliced through the cables of a
gondola at an Italian ski resort, killing 20] which led to a spate
of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral."
McCain's third crash three occurred when he was returning from flying
a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game.
Timberg reported that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" and went through standard relight procedures three times before ejecting at
one thousand feet. McCain landed on a deserted beach moments before
the plane slammed into a clump of trees.
McCain's fourth aircraft loss occurred July 29, 1967, soon after
he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain's plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship.
McCain's fifth loss happened during his 23rd mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, when McCain's A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. McCain ejected from the plane breaking both arms and a leg in the process and subsequently parachuted into Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi.
After being drug from the lake, a mob gathered around McCain, spit on him, kicked him and stripped him of his clothing. He was bayoneted in his left foot and his shoulder crushed by a rifle butt. He was then transported to the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton.
After being periodically slapped around for "three or four days" by his captors who wanted military information, McCain called for an officer on his fourth day of captivity. He told the officer, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." -U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain.
"Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I [McCain] did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant." Page 193-194, Faith of My Fathers by John McCain.
When the communist learned that McCain's father was Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific, he was rushed to Gai Lam military hospital (U.S. government documents), a medical facility normally unavailable for U.S. POWs.
The communist Vietnamese figured, because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank, that he was of royalty or the governing circle. Thereafter the communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince."
For 23 combat missions (an estimated 20 hours over enemy territory), the U.S. Navy awarded McCain a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service medals.
"McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs -- the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys -- grunts on the ground -- who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I'm sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."
For years, McCain has been an unchecked master at manipulating an overly friendly and biased news media. The former POW turned Congressman, turned U.S. Senator, has managed to gloss over his failures as a pilot and collaborations with the enemy by exaggerating his military service and lying about his feats of heroism.
McCain has sprouted a halo and wings to become America's POW-hero presidential candidate.
see more info on Mccain.......
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm
more info on Mccain
Navy pilot John Sidney McCain III should have never been allowed
to graduate from the U.S. Navy flight school. He was a below
average student and a lousy pilot. Had his father and
grandfather not been famous four star U.S. Navy admirals,
McCain III would have never been allowed in the cockpit
of a military aircraft.
His father John S. "Junior" McCain was commander of U.S. forces
in Europe later becoming commander of American forces in Vietnam
while McCain III was being held prisoner of war. McCain III's
grandfather John S. McCain, Sr. commanded naval aviation at
the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
During his relative short stunt on flight status, McCain III
lost five U.S. Navy aircraft, four in accidents and one in combat.
Robert Timberg, author of The Nightingale's Song, a book about
Annapolis graduates and their tours in Vietnam, wrote that McCain
"learned to fly at Pensacola, though his performance was below par,
at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it."
McCain III lost jet number one in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi
Bay while practicing landings. He was knocked unconscious by the
impact coming to as the plane settled to the bottom.
McCain's second crash occurred while he was deployed in the Mediterranean.
"Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula," Timberg wrote,
"he took out some power lines [reminiscent of the 1998 incident
in which a Marine Corps jet sliced through the cables of a
gondola at an Italian ski resort, killing 20] which led to a spate
of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral."
McCain's third crash three occurred when he was returning from flying
a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game.
Timberg reported that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" and went through standard relight procedures three times before ejecting at
one thousand feet. McCain landed on a deserted beach moments before
the plane slammed into a clump of trees.
McCain's fourth aircraft loss occurred July 29, 1967, soon after
he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain's plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship.
McCain's fifth loss happened during his 23rd mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, when McCain's A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. McCain ejected from the plane breaking both arms and a leg in the process and subsequently parachuted into Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi.
After being drug from the lake, a mob gathered around McCain, spit on him, kicked him and stripped him of his clothing. He was bayoneted in his left foot and his shoulder crushed by a rifle butt. He was then transported to the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton.
After being periodically slapped around for "three or four days" by his captors who wanted military information, McCain called for an officer on his fourth day of captivity. He told the officer, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." -U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain.
"Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I [McCain] did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant." Page 193-194, Faith of My Fathers by John McCain.
When the communist learned that McCain's father was Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific, he was rushed to Gai Lam military hospital (U.S. government documents), a medical facility normally unavailable for U.S. POWs.
The communist Vietnamese figured, because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank, that he was of royalty or the governing circle. Thereafter the communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince."
For 23 combat missions (an estimated 20 hours over enemy territory), the U.S. Navy awarded McCain a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service medals.
"McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs -- the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys -- grunts on the ground -- who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I'm sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."
For years, McCain has been an unchecked master at manipulating an overly friendly and biased news media. The former POW turned Congressman, turned U.S. Senator, has managed to gloss over his failures as a pilot and collaborations with the enemy by exaggerating his military service and lying about his feats of heroism.
McCain has sprouted a halo and wings to become America's POW-hero presidential candidate.
see more info on Mccain.......
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm
more info on Mccain
audio recording of Mccain while as a POW ?
audio recording of Mccain while as a POW ?
I thought the North Vietnamese made audio recording of what Senator mccain said.
I also thought Mccain uncle or father had the code of conduct revised, prior to mccain's release, so as to avoid the stockade for Mccain
I thought the North Vietnamese made audio recording of what Senator mccain said.
I also thought Mccain uncle or father had the code of conduct revised, prior to mccain's release, so as to avoid the stockade for Mccain
John Mccain crashes and burns again in Michigan
John Mccain crashes and burns again in Michigan
CNN predicts a 40% victory for Romney
well his fellow Navy pilots did call him "crash" for his flying skills
CNN predicts a 40% victory for Romney
well his fellow Navy pilots did call him "crash" for his flying skills
Monday, January 14, 2008
WILL NYC MAYOR MIKE BLOOMBERG RUN?
WILL NYC MAYOR MIKE BLOOMBERG RUN?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 11, 2008.
While Obama and Clinton wrestle and the four Republican candidates face one another, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s shadow increasingly falls over their playing field. Armed with as much money as he could possibly need to run, this Democrat-turned-Republican could throw the entire race into chaos.
Bloomberg can wait and watch the primaries unfold before making his move. A byproduct of the front loading of the primaries in both parties is that the nominees will probably be chosen with plenty of time for a third party candidate to enter the field. The New York City mayor could either get himself nominated by the Green Party, formerly the vehicle for gadfly Ralph Nader, or set up his own party by petition in the 50 states. His massive financial resources make it possible for him to wait until early Spring before he has to begin collecting signatures if he goes the petition route.
The increasingly bitter nominating contests in both parties seem likely to offer an ample supply of disgruntled voters from whom Bloomberg could draw. Hillary and Obama are girding for a take-no-prisoners battle and the Republican fight seems likely to get equally acrimonious.
But a third party candidacy must gain its traction and impetus from discontent with the other two candidates. It is only frustration with the outcome of the Democratic and Republican nominating processes that would make a Bloomberg candidacy attractive.
Beyond the obvious difficulty Bloomberg would have running against Giuliani, both McCain and Obama would seem to pose obstacles to a viable third party candidacy. Political androgynous candidates, they draw well among both Democrats and Republicans and, so far, seem to alienate relatively few voters. Obama’s charisma has set much of the country ablaze and he appears to have done so without making a lot of enemies.
Boomberg's drawback — inexperience — is not likely to enflame enough voters to power a third party. John McCain may not win the Republican nomination precisely because his ideology and record is so appealing to those outside his party. He is the Democratic Party’s favorite Republican. If he wins the nomination, he can probably count on sufficient popularity on both sides of the race to make a Bloomberg candidacy problematic.
But if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination and either Huckabee or Romney gets the Republican nod, it is easy to see Bloomberg emerging as a very strong alternative. Hillary has a unique ability to make enemies and to polarize the electorate. If she wins the Democratic nomination, tens of millions of Democrats and Independents will want to look elsewhere in the general election. If she wins after a bitter fight with Obama, she might well alienate enough African American voters to make a third party candidacy successful, particularly with Bloomberg’s excellent record in attracting minority support in New York City.
If Huckabee is nominated by the Republicans, he may not be able to escape the evangelical ghetto and might have limited appeal to mainstream voters. Romney would also leave a lot of voters cold if he were to be nominated. The limited national security credentials of both Republicans might also open the door to Bloomberg, who has had extensive experience in fighting terrorism in New York City.
So Bloomberg needs to wait and watch as the other parties choose their nominees. If Hillary is the Democrat and either Huckabee or Romney wins the Republican nomination, he will find enough running room to make it worthwhile to take the shot.
Who would he help and hurt? He’d probably help Hillary more than the Republicans, although he’d draw votes from both parties. But, above all, he would help himself. Bloomberg could win. His money combined with his political savvy acquired facing the second toughest press corps in the nation might make it possible for him to pull it off if the other parties nominate the right people.
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 11, 2008.
While Obama and Clinton wrestle and the four Republican candidates face one another, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s shadow increasingly falls over their playing field. Armed with as much money as he could possibly need to run, this Democrat-turned-Republican could throw the entire race into chaos.
Bloomberg can wait and watch the primaries unfold before making his move. A byproduct of the front loading of the primaries in both parties is that the nominees will probably be chosen with plenty of time for a third party candidate to enter the field. The New York City mayor could either get himself nominated by the Green Party, formerly the vehicle for gadfly Ralph Nader, or set up his own party by petition in the 50 states. His massive financial resources make it possible for him to wait until early Spring before he has to begin collecting signatures if he goes the petition route.
The increasingly bitter nominating contests in both parties seem likely to offer an ample supply of disgruntled voters from whom Bloomberg could draw. Hillary and Obama are girding for a take-no-prisoners battle and the Republican fight seems likely to get equally acrimonious.
But a third party candidacy must gain its traction and impetus from discontent with the other two candidates. It is only frustration with the outcome of the Democratic and Republican nominating processes that would make a Bloomberg candidacy attractive.
Beyond the obvious difficulty Bloomberg would have running against Giuliani, both McCain and Obama would seem to pose obstacles to a viable third party candidacy. Political androgynous candidates, they draw well among both Democrats and Republicans and, so far, seem to alienate relatively few voters. Obama’s charisma has set much of the country ablaze and he appears to have done so without making a lot of enemies.
Boomberg's drawback — inexperience — is not likely to enflame enough voters to power a third party. John McCain may not win the Republican nomination precisely because his ideology and record is so appealing to those outside his party. He is the Democratic Party’s favorite Republican. If he wins the nomination, he can probably count on sufficient popularity on both sides of the race to make a Bloomberg candidacy problematic.
But if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination and either Huckabee or Romney gets the Republican nod, it is easy to see Bloomberg emerging as a very strong alternative. Hillary has a unique ability to make enemies and to polarize the electorate. If she wins the Democratic nomination, tens of millions of Democrats and Independents will want to look elsewhere in the general election. If she wins after a bitter fight with Obama, she might well alienate enough African American voters to make a third party candidacy successful, particularly with Bloomberg’s excellent record in attracting minority support in New York City.
If Huckabee is nominated by the Republicans, he may not be able to escape the evangelical ghetto and might have limited appeal to mainstream voters. Romney would also leave a lot of voters cold if he were to be nominated. The limited national security credentials of both Republicans might also open the door to Bloomberg, who has had extensive experience in fighting terrorism in New York City.
So Bloomberg needs to wait and watch as the other parties choose their nominees. If Hillary is the Democrat and either Huckabee or Romney wins the Republican nomination, he will find enough running room to make it worthwhile to take the shot.
Who would he help and hurt? He’d probably help Hillary more than the Republicans, although he’d draw votes from both parties. But, above all, he would help himself. Bloomberg could win. His money combined with his political savvy acquired facing the second toughest press corps in the nation might make it possible for him to pull it off if the other parties nominate the right people.
MAN TO BEAT: MCCAIN'S CROSS-PARTY APPEAL
MAN TO BEAT: MCCAIN'S CROSS-PARTY APPEAL
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 12, 2008.
John McCain is starting to look like the candidate to beat for the GOP nomination. Not long ago, he was dismissed, unable to compete with Rudy Giuliani's star power. But with New Hampshire, the tortoise has overtaken the hare.
If McCain wins Michigan on Tuesday (as he did in 2000), Rudy may find himself so far behind before he starts to run that he can never catch up.
McCain could even beat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. His record taps into a latent populism that attracts Republicans, Democrats and Independents. His battle against big tobacco, efforts to address global warming, opposition to torture during interrogations and fight to reform corporate governance and to protect investors and pensioners appeal to voters of all stripes.
His issues cut across party and ideological lines, for an attraction far broader than the single notes sung by the evangelical Mike Huckabee and the anti-terror Giuliani. His heroism is apparent and his independence from special interests notable. He's pro-life and suitably conservative on social issues, so he attracts conservatives as well as moderates. And his credentials on terrorism and other national-security issues are outstanding.
He's got two main obstacles to overcome: his support for amnesty for illegal immigrants and his age.
* McCain denies that he backed amnesty (citing the fines that illegals would've had to pay to regularize their status under his bill), but conservatives have pinned the label on him so indelibly that it's unlikely to come off no matter how hard he scrubs.
Ultimately, though, he can likely transcend the nativist vote and appeal to the broad spectrum of Republicans. Polls indicate that nobody really believes it is feasible to deport 11 million people back to their home nations. If we can't do that, they'll linger on our streets and in our fields forever, as illegal tomorrow as they are today, unless we move to meet them halfway.
The Pat Buchanans of the world will split their votes between Mitt Romney and Huckabee, so this negative is not likely to prove any more lethal in Michigan, New York or California than it was in New Hampshire.
* His age is a bigger problem. The New Hampshire and Iowa contests were animated by record turnouts. One Granite State voter in five had never voted before in a primary. (Obama carried them by 20 points.) An incredible 11 percent of voters were under 24. (Obama won them, 3 to 1.) With young people storming the polls, a 71-year-old candidate labors under a huge handicap.
But consider his competition: Giuliani, who draws from the same well, has squandered his early lead in what can only be described as a determined passivity. Fred Thompson is also catatonic.
And each primary provides more proof of how how unattractive voters find Romney. Despite massive spending and a field organization with all the efficiency and busy-tailed enthusiasm of a good car-rental company, he still can't sell because people don't like him. His vast checkbook will let him linger on past Michigan, but he loses traction with each balloting.
Huckabee has yet to show an ability to transcend social-conservative issues. His pledge to repeal the IRS and instead adopt a fair tax (i.e., a national sales tax) might help him "go secular," but until he achieves that, he's just a regional candidate - a good vice president pick, not top-tier material.
For the general election, McCain is unique among the GOP field because he can attract centrist votes. He's every Democrat's and independent's favorite Republican. He doesn't have Rudy's hard edges or family problems, and he knows how to push a lot of populist hot buttons, from CEO pay to credit-card overcharges to hedge-fund tax shelters to subprime chicanery.
Being able to win doesn't mean he will win. But McCain is clearly back.
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 12, 2008.
John McCain is starting to look like the candidate to beat for the GOP nomination. Not long ago, he was dismissed, unable to compete with Rudy Giuliani's star power. But with New Hampshire, the tortoise has overtaken the hare.
If McCain wins Michigan on Tuesday (as he did in 2000), Rudy may find himself so far behind before he starts to run that he can never catch up.
McCain could even beat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. His record taps into a latent populism that attracts Republicans, Democrats and Independents. His battle against big tobacco, efforts to address global warming, opposition to torture during interrogations and fight to reform corporate governance and to protect investors and pensioners appeal to voters of all stripes.
His issues cut across party and ideological lines, for an attraction far broader than the single notes sung by the evangelical Mike Huckabee and the anti-terror Giuliani. His heroism is apparent and his independence from special interests notable. He's pro-life and suitably conservative on social issues, so he attracts conservatives as well as moderates. And his credentials on terrorism and other national-security issues are outstanding.
He's got two main obstacles to overcome: his support for amnesty for illegal immigrants and his age.
* McCain denies that he backed amnesty (citing the fines that illegals would've had to pay to regularize their status under his bill), but conservatives have pinned the label on him so indelibly that it's unlikely to come off no matter how hard he scrubs.
Ultimately, though, he can likely transcend the nativist vote and appeal to the broad spectrum of Republicans. Polls indicate that nobody really believes it is feasible to deport 11 million people back to their home nations. If we can't do that, they'll linger on our streets and in our fields forever, as illegal tomorrow as they are today, unless we move to meet them halfway.
The Pat Buchanans of the world will split their votes between Mitt Romney and Huckabee, so this negative is not likely to prove any more lethal in Michigan, New York or California than it was in New Hampshire.
* His age is a bigger problem. The New Hampshire and Iowa contests were animated by record turnouts. One Granite State voter in five had never voted before in a primary. (Obama carried them by 20 points.) An incredible 11 percent of voters were under 24. (Obama won them, 3 to 1.) With young people storming the polls, a 71-year-old candidate labors under a huge handicap.
But consider his competition: Giuliani, who draws from the same well, has squandered his early lead in what can only be described as a determined passivity. Fred Thompson is also catatonic.
And each primary provides more proof of how how unattractive voters find Romney. Despite massive spending and a field organization with all the efficiency and busy-tailed enthusiasm of a good car-rental company, he still can't sell because people don't like him. His vast checkbook will let him linger on past Michigan, but he loses traction with each balloting.
Huckabee has yet to show an ability to transcend social-conservative issues. His pledge to repeal the IRS and instead adopt a fair tax (i.e., a national sales tax) might help him "go secular," but until he achieves that, he's just a regional candidate - a good vice president pick, not top-tier material.
For the general election, McCain is unique among the GOP field because he can attract centrist votes. He's every Democrat's and independent's favorite Republican. He doesn't have Rudy's hard edges or family problems, and he knows how to push a lot of populist hot buttons, from CEO pay to credit-card overcharges to hedge-fund tax shelters to subprime chicanery.
Being able to win doesn't mean he will win. But McCain is clearly back.
Immigration in their own words
Immigration in their own words
From: Steve Elliott (alert@grassfire.net)
From the Desk of:Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance
++ Click here to access video footage ofeach of the G.O.P candidates and theirposition on immigration.
http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 ed, This may be the most important update you will receive from Grassfire.orgall year, and I urge you to forward it immediately to your friends andfamily. ed, our research team has compiled special videos from this pastweekend's debates on each of the candidates’ statements on immigration. As the Election Cycle begins in earnest, it is imperative that Grassfireteam members and concerned citizens know what each of the candidates aresaying about immigration. Don't just read what they said, and wade through the media spin. Insteadclick on the link below and actually listen to what each candidate says--in their own words--free from spin.
Click here to access the videos: http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 , I believe there is a very real possibility that the big winnerin the 2008 Presidential race could be the amnesty message.
You heard meright.Unless grassroots citizens--the very same ones who fought so hard to holdblanket amnesty at bay and secure our borders--stay atop the issue, andknow what each candidate is saying, we could end up the biggest loser! Please click below and review each of the video clips,and then forward this message directly to 30-40 friendsand family.
This is a message that must be heard. http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 As always, thank you for taking a stand with Grassfire. Steve Elliott, PresidentGrassfire.org
From: Steve Elliott (alert@grassfire.net)
From the Desk of:Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance
++ Click here to access video footage ofeach of the G.O.P candidates and theirposition on immigration.
http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 ed, This may be the most important update you will receive from Grassfire.orgall year, and I urge you to forward it immediately to your friends andfamily. ed, our research team has compiled special videos from this pastweekend's debates on each of the candidates’ statements on immigration. As the Election Cycle begins in earnest, it is imperative that Grassfireteam members and concerned citizens know what each of the candidates aresaying about immigration. Don't just read what they said, and wade through the media spin. Insteadclick on the link below and actually listen to what each candidate says--in their own words--free from spin.
Click here to access the videos: http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 , I believe there is a very real possibility that the big winnerin the 2008 Presidential race could be the amnesty message.
You heard meright.Unless grassroots citizens--the very same ones who fought so hard to holdblanket amnesty at bay and secure our borders--stay atop the issue, andknow what each candidate is saying, we could end up the biggest loser! Please click below and review each of the video clips,and then forward this message directly to 30-40 friendsand family.
This is a message that must be heard. http://www.firesociety.com/article/20930/?src=111 As always, thank you for taking a stand with Grassfire. Steve Elliott, PresidentGrassfire.org
HERE COME THOSE TEARS
HERE COME THOSE TEARS
By DICK MORRIS
Published on January 8, 2008.
Why did Hillary cry during an ABC interview yesterday?
Some say it was phony, contrived to make her appear more human and empathetic. Wrong. She must have known the political consequences, particularly for a female candidate, of tears. Ed Muskie watered his political grave in New Hampshire in 1972 by crying in public over the false accusation that he had used a derogatory ethnic term to describe French Canadians. Nixon’s dirty tricks people had planted the phony story. But the tears ended Muskie’s candidacy.
Others say that the tears reflected genuine emotion and sorrow for the diminished future prospects of America now that it would not have Hillary Clinton to lead it into the future. Wrong again. Even she is not that arrogant.
The real reason was that her frustration at not being able to control events boiled over and metastasized into tears.
I know because I saw it once before in 1994 after the Democrats lost Congress due, in large part, to her failed health care reform initiative. A few days after the election, she sobbed to me over the phone that she was “bewildered” and that “nothing I do seems to work out.” She confessed to being “totally at a loss” and not to grasp why “nothing is working.”
Hillary is a control freak whose most admirable quality (yes, there are some) is her amazing self-discipline. She wears the right clothing, exercises properly, eats sensibly, stays on script when she answers questions, memorizes the briefing papers, follows the strategy, hits all the right talking points, gets her makeup and hair just right. So why is she losing? The essential equation for her is that if she disciplines herself sufficiently and prepared arduously, she will prevail.
But when she doesn’t, she is at sea. She becomes frustrated by her loss of control and doesn’t know where to turn. She has great faith in gurus and chooses them carefully. But once she invests her faith in one of them, she follows their lead to the end of the earth. But if she doesn’t achieve her objective, if the guru’s instructions prove flawed, she is at a loss as to what to do and she becomes very emotional.
A person who never bends, she sometimes breaks.
Contrast her reaction to adversity with Bill’s. The former president becomes furious. He rants and raves to all who will listen about the injustices being done to him (or to Hillary) and demands redress. He refuses to concede the merit in his attackers but, red in the face, screams in rage at his adversity.
For us the question is which we would rather have as president, an angry, determined, energized chief executive or one who is lost, awash in self-pity and confused by failure? The answer is obvious. Hillary lacks the temperament to be president.
What is the political consequence of her lapse on ABC? Probably huge. Americans are warmed when a politician is moved to tears by the plight of someone else. But they get turned off when it is their own plight that the public figure bewails. Pity for others is positive. Self-pity unforgiveable in our politics. We want a president who will not go to pieces when the missiles start flying.
And, on Monday, in the snows of New Hampshire, Hillary Rodham Clinton failed the test.
By DICK MORRIS
Published on January 8, 2008.
Why did Hillary cry during an ABC interview yesterday?
Some say it was phony, contrived to make her appear more human and empathetic. Wrong. She must have known the political consequences, particularly for a female candidate, of tears. Ed Muskie watered his political grave in New Hampshire in 1972 by crying in public over the false accusation that he had used a derogatory ethnic term to describe French Canadians. Nixon’s dirty tricks people had planted the phony story. But the tears ended Muskie’s candidacy.
Others say that the tears reflected genuine emotion and sorrow for the diminished future prospects of America now that it would not have Hillary Clinton to lead it into the future. Wrong again. Even she is not that arrogant.
The real reason was that her frustration at not being able to control events boiled over and metastasized into tears.
I know because I saw it once before in 1994 after the Democrats lost Congress due, in large part, to her failed health care reform initiative. A few days after the election, she sobbed to me over the phone that she was “bewildered” and that “nothing I do seems to work out.” She confessed to being “totally at a loss” and not to grasp why “nothing is working.”
Hillary is a control freak whose most admirable quality (yes, there are some) is her amazing self-discipline. She wears the right clothing, exercises properly, eats sensibly, stays on script when she answers questions, memorizes the briefing papers, follows the strategy, hits all the right talking points, gets her makeup and hair just right. So why is she losing? The essential equation for her is that if she disciplines herself sufficiently and prepared arduously, she will prevail.
But when she doesn’t, she is at sea. She becomes frustrated by her loss of control and doesn’t know where to turn. She has great faith in gurus and chooses them carefully. But once she invests her faith in one of them, she follows their lead to the end of the earth. But if she doesn’t achieve her objective, if the guru’s instructions prove flawed, she is at a loss as to what to do and she becomes very emotional.
A person who never bends, she sometimes breaks.
Contrast her reaction to adversity with Bill’s. The former president becomes furious. He rants and raves to all who will listen about the injustices being done to him (or to Hillary) and demands redress. He refuses to concede the merit in his attackers but, red in the face, screams in rage at his adversity.
For us the question is which we would rather have as president, an angry, determined, energized chief executive or one who is lost, awash in self-pity and confused by failure? The answer is obvious. Hillary lacks the temperament to be president.
What is the political consequence of her lapse on ABC? Probably huge. Americans are warmed when a politician is moved to tears by the plight of someone else. But they get turned off when it is their own plight that the public figure bewails. Pity for others is positive. Self-pity unforgiveable in our politics. We want a president who will not go to pieces when the missiles start flying.
And, on Monday, in the snows of New Hampshire, Hillary Rodham Clinton failed the test.
NOW BARACK BETTER BRACE FOR BARRAGE
NOW BARACK BETTER BRACE FOR BARRAGE
By DICK MORRIS
Published in the New York Post on January 9, 2008.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's stunning comeback victory in New Hampshire duplicates the feat of Bill Clinton who overcame the draft and Gennifer Flowers in the Granite State primary in 1992.
But Hillary did Bill one better. He placed second. She won. Those who counted Hillary out don't know her and don't know the Clintons.
The clear message of the New Hampshire primary is there is no front-runner, but it's a two-way race between the queen and the challenger that won't be decided by an early knockout.
But Hillary approaches the balance of the month in very good shape.
The Battle of Hillary, in a sense, is over.
She has been challenged and hit, but stayed on her feet. She has weathered the negatives, lost her momentum, and still emerged, in effect, tied for the lead.
Now the Battle of Obama is about to begin.
The negative researchers and detectives who staff the Clinton campaign - we call them the secret police - now go into overdrive combing through the Illinois senator's life for any shred of poison to use.
What did he say (or what does a disgruntled student recall him saying) in each of his constitutional law classes? What causes did he work for as an organizer in Chicago? How did he vote on every issue that came before the Illinois legislature? What are the precise details of his financial life going back to the beginning?
Obama had it right when he joked yesterday that he saw a dump truck pull up alongside him and start beeping! And the theme of Hillary's attack will be that Obama cannot win, that he's not "electable."
By that, she will mean, but never say, that a black man cannot be elected president in middle America. As surely as Bill used the race card by attacking rap singer Sister Souljah in 1992, Hillary will use race to win in 2008.
Hillary has withstood the full force of Obama's momentum. Now we will see if Barack can stand the onslaught he is about to face.
A big question for Obama is whether John Edwards will stay in the race. With less than 20 percent of the New Hampshire vote, he is clearly splitting the anti-Clinton vote.
In recent days, he has gone out of his way to praise Obama. Could he be running for vice president again?
On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has paid the price for his refusal to campaign actively in the early primaries. He now must contend with John McCain.
The voters of New Hampshire did America a favor by knocking Mitt Romney back and possibly out of the race.
The GOP race will boil down to McCain, Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, a tough choice for down-the-line conservatives, but a choice among candidates who are most electable in November.
Whether or not Huckabee can win is debatable. But McCain and Giuliani sure can depending on which Democrat they end up facing.
THANK YOU!
By DICK MORRIS
Published in the New York Post on January 9, 2008.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's stunning comeback victory in New Hampshire duplicates the feat of Bill Clinton who overcame the draft and Gennifer Flowers in the Granite State primary in 1992.
But Hillary did Bill one better. He placed second. She won. Those who counted Hillary out don't know her and don't know the Clintons.
The clear message of the New Hampshire primary is there is no front-runner, but it's a two-way race between the queen and the challenger that won't be decided by an early knockout.
But Hillary approaches the balance of the month in very good shape.
The Battle of Hillary, in a sense, is over.
She has been challenged and hit, but stayed on her feet. She has weathered the negatives, lost her momentum, and still emerged, in effect, tied for the lead.
Now the Battle of Obama is about to begin.
The negative researchers and detectives who staff the Clinton campaign - we call them the secret police - now go into overdrive combing through the Illinois senator's life for any shred of poison to use.
What did he say (or what does a disgruntled student recall him saying) in each of his constitutional law classes? What causes did he work for as an organizer in Chicago? How did he vote on every issue that came before the Illinois legislature? What are the precise details of his financial life going back to the beginning?
Obama had it right when he joked yesterday that he saw a dump truck pull up alongside him and start beeping! And the theme of Hillary's attack will be that Obama cannot win, that he's not "electable."
By that, she will mean, but never say, that a black man cannot be elected president in middle America. As surely as Bill used the race card by attacking rap singer Sister Souljah in 1992, Hillary will use race to win in 2008.
Hillary has withstood the full force of Obama's momentum. Now we will see if Barack can stand the onslaught he is about to face.
A big question for Obama is whether John Edwards will stay in the race. With less than 20 percent of the New Hampshire vote, he is clearly splitting the anti-Clinton vote.
In recent days, he has gone out of his way to praise Obama. Could he be running for vice president again?
On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has paid the price for his refusal to campaign actively in the early primaries. He now must contend with John McCain.
The voters of New Hampshire did America a favor by knocking Mitt Romney back and possibly out of the race.
The GOP race will boil down to McCain, Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, a tough choice for down-the-line conservatives, but a choice among candidates who are most electable in November.
Whether or not Huckabee can win is debatable. But McCain and Giuliani sure can depending on which Democrat they end up facing.
THANK YOU!
Building Momentum For Victory
To: McCain Team
From: Rick Davis, Campaign Manager
Date: January 11, 2008
Subject: Building Momentum For Victory
The confetti from the victory party is cleaned up, but the energy on the campaign trail is just as strong as it was on Tuesday night in New Hampshire. John McCain hit the ground running Wednesday with an early flight to Michigan for two exciting rallies before heading down to South Carolina.
I wanted to give you a quick update on our campaign's strategy as we head into these two important primaries -- Michigan on Tuesday and South Carolina on Saturday, January 19th. The momentum and energy from New Hampshire's victory is propelling us toward wins in these two states, but we all know we have much more work ahead of us.
We know our opponents are hungry for an early state win and are throwing their resources at these next two states. However, the good news is that John McCain is positioned to do very well in both contests.
John McCain won the Michigan primary in 2000, and eight years later we believe he's in a strong position in this state. We know that once voters hear John McCain, they respond. Michigan voters are starting to get the McCain message of improving our economy and keeping America safe in the struggle against radical Islamic extremism. Like New Hampshire, Michigan voters appreciate a candidate who is authentic and gives them straight talk on the issues, and we believe that momentum will continue to build in this important state. Moreover, New Hampshire exit polls confirm that John McCain does well with both Republican and Independent voters, and we believe broad-based appeal will play an important role in helping John McCain win in Michigan.
We're also focusing on building a strong team in South Carolina. Thanks to the efforts of our great South Carolina leadership, including Senator Lindsey Graham, Attorney General Henry McMaster, State House Speaker House Bobby Harrell and many others, we've built an enthusiastic base of support in the Palmetto State. One important group in South Carolina is a large coalition of veterans. If anyone understands the need to stand strong against radical Islamic extremists, it is our veterans, and so far reaction has been very positive and support is building for their fellow veteran, John McCain.
While some of our opponents are focusing exclusively on one state, we believe John McCain is prepared to have solid performances in both contests. We've already built strong networks of supporters in both states, and will spend the week ahead working hard to build on the momentum we gained in New Hampshire. Our campaign boasts strong organizations in these states and we have headquarters throughout each where supporters can come and be a part of the momentum on the ground. Our rallies are larger than ever with filled-to-capacity crowds coming to hear Senator McCain's authentic and straight talk on the issues that matter most.
In addition to these two states, we're working hard to build support in Florida. Florida's primary on January 29th represents the last chance to build support heading into "Super Tuesday" on February 5th. This is a large state, which is why we're beginning to organize support and build our Florida Victory Fund right away.
As John McCain reminded us on Tuesday night, our victory in New Hampshire is just the first step in this process - now we must begin again in Michigan, South Carolina and Florida. Early indications are good for our campaign, but that just means it's more important than ever to redouble our efforts to nominate the man we all know is uniquely prepared to be our next commander in chief - John McCain.
You can play an important role in these efforts by doing three simple things today:
First, forward this message to five of your friends to help us build our team. The McCain bandwagon is growing and we're always looking for more people to join our team! Tell them why you are supporting John McCain and invite them to become a part of this exciting campaign.
Next, sign up to make phone calls to Michigan and South Carolina voters to tell them why you support John McCain. You can make these calls right from your own home using our online phone bank tool. Click here to get started today with this important effort.
Finally, help us get our message out in Michigan, South Carolina and beyond by making an online contribution immediately. The great news about online donations is they can immediately be put to use and your donation will help us make important strategic decisions to continue our momentum and keep winning.
Keep up the great work and on to victory!
Rick Davis
Campaign Manager
From: Rick Davis, Campaign Manager
Date: January 11, 2008
Subject: Building Momentum For Victory
The confetti from the victory party is cleaned up, but the energy on the campaign trail is just as strong as it was on Tuesday night in New Hampshire. John McCain hit the ground running Wednesday with an early flight to Michigan for two exciting rallies before heading down to South Carolina.
I wanted to give you a quick update on our campaign's strategy as we head into these two important primaries -- Michigan on Tuesday and South Carolina on Saturday, January 19th. The momentum and energy from New Hampshire's victory is propelling us toward wins in these two states, but we all know we have much more work ahead of us.
We know our opponents are hungry for an early state win and are throwing their resources at these next two states. However, the good news is that John McCain is positioned to do very well in both contests.
John McCain won the Michigan primary in 2000, and eight years later we believe he's in a strong position in this state. We know that once voters hear John McCain, they respond. Michigan voters are starting to get the McCain message of improving our economy and keeping America safe in the struggle against radical Islamic extremism. Like New Hampshire, Michigan voters appreciate a candidate who is authentic and gives them straight talk on the issues, and we believe that momentum will continue to build in this important state. Moreover, New Hampshire exit polls confirm that John McCain does well with both Republican and Independent voters, and we believe broad-based appeal will play an important role in helping John McCain win in Michigan.
We're also focusing on building a strong team in South Carolina. Thanks to the efforts of our great South Carolina leadership, including Senator Lindsey Graham, Attorney General Henry McMaster, State House Speaker House Bobby Harrell and many others, we've built an enthusiastic base of support in the Palmetto State. One important group in South Carolina is a large coalition of veterans. If anyone understands the need to stand strong against radical Islamic extremists, it is our veterans, and so far reaction has been very positive and support is building for their fellow veteran, John McCain.
While some of our opponents are focusing exclusively on one state, we believe John McCain is prepared to have solid performances in both contests. We've already built strong networks of supporters in both states, and will spend the week ahead working hard to build on the momentum we gained in New Hampshire. Our campaign boasts strong organizations in these states and we have headquarters throughout each where supporters can come and be a part of the momentum on the ground. Our rallies are larger than ever with filled-to-capacity crowds coming to hear Senator McCain's authentic and straight talk on the issues that matter most.
In addition to these two states, we're working hard to build support in Florida. Florida's primary on January 29th represents the last chance to build support heading into "Super Tuesday" on February 5th. This is a large state, which is why we're beginning to organize support and build our Florida Victory Fund right away.
As John McCain reminded us on Tuesday night, our victory in New Hampshire is just the first step in this process - now we must begin again in Michigan, South Carolina and Florida. Early indications are good for our campaign, but that just means it's more important than ever to redouble our efforts to nominate the man we all know is uniquely prepared to be our next commander in chief - John McCain.
You can play an important role in these efforts by doing three simple things today:
First, forward this message to five of your friends to help us build our team. The McCain bandwagon is growing and we're always looking for more people to join our team! Tell them why you are supporting John McCain and invite them to become a part of this exciting campaign.
Next, sign up to make phone calls to Michigan and South Carolina voters to tell them why you support John McCain. You can make these calls right from your own home using our online phone bank tool. Click here to get started today with this important effort.
Finally, help us get our message out in Michigan, South Carolina and beyond by making an online contribution immediately. The great news about online donations is they can immediately be put to use and your donation will help us make important strategic decisions to continue our momentum and keep winning.
Keep up the great work and on to victory!
Rick Davis
Campaign Manager
Saturday, January 12, 2008
John "crash" Mccain on Jobs ?
John "crash" Mccain on Jobs ?
look want he done for his home state of Arizona....shit
"crash" was his handle /nickname given to him by his his fellow Navy pilots.
does getting captured by the enemy in Vietnam make you a war hero ?
www.mccainalert.com
look want he done for his home state of Arizona....shit
"crash" was his handle /nickname given to him by his his fellow Navy pilots.
does getting captured by the enemy in Vietnam make you a war hero ?
www.mccainalert.com
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Big media hide truth about immigration
Dobbs: Big media hide truth about immigration
By Lou Dobbs
CNN
Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Bush administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party are preparing to take another legislative leap at imposing a massive illegal alien amnesty on American citizens.
And the mainstream media are complicit in advancing this thinly veiled blanket amnesty. Instead of asking and answering important questions about why our immigration laws aren't being enforced and why we're permitting pervasive document fraud, the national media seem hell-bent on trying to obfuscate the issue, shamelessly playing with language, equating legal immigration with illegal immigration while obviously trying to preserve the illusion of objectivity.
Too often, the language of the national media describes illegal immigration as "migration" and illegal aliens as "undocumented immigrants," even though many of them have lots of documents, most of which are fraudulent or stolen. Some media outlets have taken to calling illegal aliens "entrants." Whether such language is meant to engender sympathy or to intentionally blur the distinction between legal and illegal, the mainstream media are taking sides in this debate.
The Arizona Republic, for example, used "undocumented immigrant" more than 80 times in 36 separate stories in the past month alone; the term appeared as many as 12 times in one article on "migration," according to our Lexis-Nexis search. At the same time, "illegal alien" appeared a total of only nine times during that span, with seven of the references coming from readers' opinions, one from a quotation and one from an editorial.
The mainstream media report as if America would no longer be a welcoming nation if we stopped illegal immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why do the national media conveniently and routinely neglect to report that the United States brings in more lawful immigrants than the countries of the rest of the world combined? Each year, we accept 2 million immigrants legally. We give a million legal immigrants permanent residency every year. We bestow citizenship on 700,000 people a year and provide almost half a million work-related visas a year.
Illegal immigration, in fact, has the potential to change the course of American history: Demographers at the Brookings Institution and the Population Reference Bureau paint a troubling picture of the future of our democracy. As more illegal aliens cross our borders and settle in large states like California, Texas and Florida, congressional seats will be redistributed to these bigger states following each decennial Census. States with low levels of immigration will ultimately lose seats as a result. Unfortunately for American citizens, this seismic shift in political representation will be decided by noncitizens that cannot vote.
Congress will soon take up so-called comprehensive immigration reform, and a bipartisan House bill would probably admit 400,000 guest workers a year. And since any plan calling for eventual legalization would include family members who live outside the United States, the legislation would open our borders to tens of millions of people. The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector estimated that the 2006 version of the McCain-Kennedy bill would have added an additional 66 million immigrants over the next 20 years. The bill may change, but that estimate has yet to be refuted.
There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working citizens and their families. Professor Carol Swain, professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University and author of "Debating Immigration," would like to see more people speak up for the sectors of society most affected by illegal immigration.
"How many African-American leaders have you seen come out and address the impact that high levels of illegal immigration [are] having in the communities when it comes to jobs, when it comes to education, when it comes to health care?" she asked. "And often, these low-skilled, low-wage workers compete in the same sectors for jobs."
Let's have a vigorous open debate on illegal immigration in this country, and let's begin with the facts. Estimates of illegal aliens in this country range from 12 million to 20 million people. Why doesn't our government know how many there are?
Shouldn't this Congress and this president at least recognize that the industries in which illegal aliens are employed in the greatest percentages also are suffering the largest wage declines? And shouldn't there be an economic impact statement researched and delivered to this Congress, this president and the rest of us before any legislation granting amnesty is even considered?
Shouldn't we first bring the facts of illegal immigration out of the shadows?
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
more news
By Lou Dobbs
CNN
Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Bush administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party are preparing to take another legislative leap at imposing a massive illegal alien amnesty on American citizens.
And the mainstream media are complicit in advancing this thinly veiled blanket amnesty. Instead of asking and answering important questions about why our immigration laws aren't being enforced and why we're permitting pervasive document fraud, the national media seem hell-bent on trying to obfuscate the issue, shamelessly playing with language, equating legal immigration with illegal immigration while obviously trying to preserve the illusion of objectivity.
Too often, the language of the national media describes illegal immigration as "migration" and illegal aliens as "undocumented immigrants," even though many of them have lots of documents, most of which are fraudulent or stolen. Some media outlets have taken to calling illegal aliens "entrants." Whether such language is meant to engender sympathy or to intentionally blur the distinction between legal and illegal, the mainstream media are taking sides in this debate.
The Arizona Republic, for example, used "undocumented immigrant" more than 80 times in 36 separate stories in the past month alone; the term appeared as many as 12 times in one article on "migration," according to our Lexis-Nexis search. At the same time, "illegal alien" appeared a total of only nine times during that span, with seven of the references coming from readers' opinions, one from a quotation and one from an editorial.
The mainstream media report as if America would no longer be a welcoming nation if we stopped illegal immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why do the national media conveniently and routinely neglect to report that the United States brings in more lawful immigrants than the countries of the rest of the world combined? Each year, we accept 2 million immigrants legally. We give a million legal immigrants permanent residency every year. We bestow citizenship on 700,000 people a year and provide almost half a million work-related visas a year.
Illegal immigration, in fact, has the potential to change the course of American history: Demographers at the Brookings Institution and the Population Reference Bureau paint a troubling picture of the future of our democracy. As more illegal aliens cross our borders and settle in large states like California, Texas and Florida, congressional seats will be redistributed to these bigger states following each decennial Census. States with low levels of immigration will ultimately lose seats as a result. Unfortunately for American citizens, this seismic shift in political representation will be decided by noncitizens that cannot vote.
Congress will soon take up so-called comprehensive immigration reform, and a bipartisan House bill would probably admit 400,000 guest workers a year. And since any plan calling for eventual legalization would include family members who live outside the United States, the legislation would open our borders to tens of millions of people. The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector estimated that the 2006 version of the McCain-Kennedy bill would have added an additional 66 million immigrants over the next 20 years. The bill may change, but that estimate has yet to be refuted.
There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working citizens and their families. Professor Carol Swain, professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University and author of "Debating Immigration," would like to see more people speak up for the sectors of society most affected by illegal immigration.
"How many African-American leaders have you seen come out and address the impact that high levels of illegal immigration [are] having in the communities when it comes to jobs, when it comes to education, when it comes to health care?" she asked. "And often, these low-skilled, low-wage workers compete in the same sectors for jobs."
Let's have a vigorous open debate on illegal immigration in this country, and let's begin with the facts. Estimates of illegal aliens in this country range from 12 million to 20 million people. Why doesn't our government know how many there are?
Shouldn't this Congress and this president at least recognize that the industries in which illegal aliens are employed in the greatest percentages also are suffering the largest wage declines? And shouldn't there be an economic impact statement researched and delivered to this Congress, this president and the rest of us before any legislation granting amnesty is even considered?
Shouldn't we first bring the facts of illegal immigration out of the shadows?
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
more news
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
John McCain is a CROOK! (The last surviving KEATING FIVE SCANDAL senator
On Jan 6, 11:57 pm, MURS radios wrote:
John McCain is a CROOK! (The last surviving KEATING FIVE SCANDAL
> Senator!):http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/
"Crook" is about the mildest thing one can say about the illegal alien
loving
bastard.
greg
www.mccainalert.com
John McCain is a CROOK! (The last surviving KEATING FIVE SCANDAL
> Senator!):http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/
"Crook" is about the mildest thing one can say about the illegal alien
loving
bastard.
greg
www.mccainalert.com
Senator John "crash" Mccain still playing the war hero card?
Senator John Mccain still playing the war hero card? with all due repect?
He was captured by the enemy, to me that doesn't make him a hero
more of a victim.
He was a victim of the Vietnam war, that was the 5th plane he lost.
his fellow pilots gave him the nick name of "crash" that shows something,
He barely graduated from the Naval Academy, almost last in his class. Problaby
with a little nudge from the his admiral uncle.
While captured by the North Vietnamese he made tape recordings for them.
He would have been in the stockade after the war for his pow behavior,
but his admiral uncle had the rules changed to avoid imprisionment for him.
This has all been documented, but the media still treats him as a sort of
war hero/pilot.
Wish someone in the media pick up on past and shed a little light
on his real military career.
I am stumped as to why ?
www.mccainalert.com
more insight into Senator John Mccain
He was captured by the enemy, to me that doesn't make him a hero
more of a victim.
He was a victim of the Vietnam war, that was the 5th plane he lost.
his fellow pilots gave him the nick name of "crash" that shows something,
He barely graduated from the Naval Academy, almost last in his class. Problaby
with a little nudge from the his admiral uncle.
While captured by the North Vietnamese he made tape recordings for them.
He would have been in the stockade after the war for his pow behavior,
but his admiral uncle had the rules changed to avoid imprisionment for him.
This has all been documented, but the media still treats him as a sort of
war hero/pilot.
Wish someone in the media pick up on past and shed a little light
on his real military career.
I am stumped as to why ?
www.mccainalert.com
more insight into Senator John Mccain
Hillary Clinton's Menopausal moment with a tear,,,
Hillary Clinton's Menopausal moment with a tear,,,
Senator Hillary Clinton's menopausal moment with a tear,talking about elections and pizzas?
was that a sympton of late menopausal ?
www.mccainalert.com
Senator Hillary Clinton's menopausal moment with a tear,talking about elections and pizzas?
was that a sympton of late menopausal ?
www.mccainalert.com
Monday, January 07, 2008
wow, Mccain could be 80+ years old in the White House ?
wow, Mccain could be 80+ years old in the White House ?
a disturbing thought for all americans...........
a disturbing thought for all americans...........
Sunday, January 06, 2008
remember the Mccain-Kennedy Amensty bill ?
remember the Mccain-Kennedy Amensty bill ?
is this a Senator Kerry type of flip flop ?
www.mccainalert.com
www.mccainalert.blogspot.com
is this a Senator Kerry type of flip flop ?
www.mccainalert.com
www.mccainalert.blogspot.com
when grandpa mccain loses his 2nd presidential bid
when grandpa mccain loses his 2nd presidential bid who's gonna replace him as the Arizona senator ? he is 72 years old ????
www.mccainalert.com
see more on Mccain
www.mccainalert.com
see more on Mccain
Saturday, January 05, 2008
WHO NEEDS WHAT FROM IOWA TODAY?
WHO NEEDS WHAT FROM IOWA TODAY?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 3, 2008.
The Iowa caucuses mean different things to different candidates. Of course Obama, Clinton and Edwards, for the Democrats, and Huckabee and Romney, for the Republicans, are vying for a win in Iowa. But there are separate sub-primaries going on as well: Obama v Edwards for the position of chief challenger to Clinton, McCain v Giuliani for the right to wear the “moderate” Republican mantle, and Fred Thompson v Oblivion for the right to stay in the race.
So here’s the scorecard to use in keeping track of what each candidate needs to get from Iowa.
Hillary Clinton
If she scores a decisive triumph, the race for the nomination is almost over. A victory here would likely propel her to a win in New Hampshire and the nomination would be hers’. But she doesn’t need to win. Her national base is so strong that she just has to stop anyone else from winning. If no clear winner emerges, but the results show, instead, a three-way tie with Obama and Edwards, or a two-way tie between herself and either of her challengers, she comes out the winner. But if she clearly loses by a good margin or finishes third, she has blown a major opportunity and is in for a long cold winter of primaries. She won’t be knocked out in Iowa no matter what, but she could be knocked down.
Barack Obama
He’s got to win in Iowa. He is so far behind Hillary in the national standings that he needs a decisive victory to give him the momentum to prevail in New Hampshire and to compete in Florida and on Super Tuesday. He also needs to leave the pesky John Edwards far behind so he can consolidate the anti-Hillary vote behind his candidacy.
John Edwards
His immediate need is to finish close to or ahead of Obama so he can show that a vote for him is not wasted. With pro and anti Hillary sentiment so strong, Edwards risks being excluded as an also ran if he doesn’t make it. He also needs Hillary not to win decisively so that the race stays alive. He has a decent shot in New Hampshire if he can stay in the race and make sure there still is one.
Mike Huckabee
Win or die are his choices. The Huck-a-boom will be right in the ancient history books with the Howard Dean surge in September of 2004. But even if Huckabee wins in Iowa, he’ll probably lose in New Hampshire. Then his candidacy will come back to another game-set-match point in Michigan the following week.
Mitt Romney
He doesn’t have to win, place, or show. He’s got a big checkbook so he can survive any kind of showing and stay in the game. But, a defeat in Iowa might make him vulnerable to McCain in New Hampshire. A loss in the first two states would cost him Michigan and he would limp into super Tuesday with only a checkbook to protect him. Only.
John McCain
He’s got to finish third – or, in other words, beat Rudy. If he does, he has a good shot at winning New Hampshire and getting back into the game. If he doesn’t, Romney will win New Hampshire and McCain will be out of the race. Huckabee has to hope McCain does finish third so Romney doesn’t win New Hampshire and, therefore, doesn’t win Michigan. Got it?
Rudy Giuliani
The Republican front runner is in a parallel situation with Hillary. He won’t be knocked out no matter how badly he does. But finishing below McCain means that he has to split the moderate vote with the charismatic Arizona Senator and could weaken his chances in Florida and on Super Tuesday. Rudy can lose Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina and still survive to compete in the big states that follow. But he lost a golden chance to avoid a fight by winning in Iowa.
And, if Hillary wins big in Iowa, it will help McCain and hurt Romney in New Hampshire. Why? All the independents who would have voted for or against Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire will pile into the Republican Primary and may boost McCain to victory (if he survives Iowa).
And…by the same token, Rudy needs Hillary to win in the early rounds so he can draw independents into the Republican Primary to vote for him rather than the religious right crowd.
Having fun yet?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 3, 2008.
The Iowa caucuses mean different things to different candidates. Of course Obama, Clinton and Edwards, for the Democrats, and Huckabee and Romney, for the Republicans, are vying for a win in Iowa. But there are separate sub-primaries going on as well: Obama v Edwards for the position of chief challenger to Clinton, McCain v Giuliani for the right to wear the “moderate” Republican mantle, and Fred Thompson v Oblivion for the right to stay in the race.
So here’s the scorecard to use in keeping track of what each candidate needs to get from Iowa.
Hillary Clinton
If she scores a decisive triumph, the race for the nomination is almost over. A victory here would likely propel her to a win in New Hampshire and the nomination would be hers’. But she doesn’t need to win. Her national base is so strong that she just has to stop anyone else from winning. If no clear winner emerges, but the results show, instead, a three-way tie with Obama and Edwards, or a two-way tie between herself and either of her challengers, she comes out the winner. But if she clearly loses by a good margin or finishes third, she has blown a major opportunity and is in for a long cold winter of primaries. She won’t be knocked out in Iowa no matter what, but she could be knocked down.
Barack Obama
He’s got to win in Iowa. He is so far behind Hillary in the national standings that he needs a decisive victory to give him the momentum to prevail in New Hampshire and to compete in Florida and on Super Tuesday. He also needs to leave the pesky John Edwards far behind so he can consolidate the anti-Hillary vote behind his candidacy.
John Edwards
His immediate need is to finish close to or ahead of Obama so he can show that a vote for him is not wasted. With pro and anti Hillary sentiment so strong, Edwards risks being excluded as an also ran if he doesn’t make it. He also needs Hillary not to win decisively so that the race stays alive. He has a decent shot in New Hampshire if he can stay in the race and make sure there still is one.
Mike Huckabee
Win or die are his choices. The Huck-a-boom will be right in the ancient history books with the Howard Dean surge in September of 2004. But even if Huckabee wins in Iowa, he’ll probably lose in New Hampshire. Then his candidacy will come back to another game-set-match point in Michigan the following week.
Mitt Romney
He doesn’t have to win, place, or show. He’s got a big checkbook so he can survive any kind of showing and stay in the game. But, a defeat in Iowa might make him vulnerable to McCain in New Hampshire. A loss in the first two states would cost him Michigan and he would limp into super Tuesday with only a checkbook to protect him. Only.
John McCain
He’s got to finish third – or, in other words, beat Rudy. If he does, he has a good shot at winning New Hampshire and getting back into the game. If he doesn’t, Romney will win New Hampshire and McCain will be out of the race. Huckabee has to hope McCain does finish third so Romney doesn’t win New Hampshire and, therefore, doesn’t win Michigan. Got it?
Rudy Giuliani
The Republican front runner is in a parallel situation with Hillary. He won’t be knocked out no matter how badly he does. But finishing below McCain means that he has to split the moderate vote with the charismatic Arizona Senator and could weaken his chances in Florida and on Super Tuesday. Rudy can lose Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina and still survive to compete in the big states that follow. But he lost a golden chance to avoid a fight by winning in Iowa.
And, if Hillary wins big in Iowa, it will help McCain and hurt Romney in New Hampshire. Why? All the independents who would have voted for or against Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire will pile into the Republican Primary and may boost McCain to victory (if he survives Iowa).
And…by the same token, Rudy needs Hillary to win in the early rounds so he can draw independents into the Republican Primary to vote for him rather than the religious right crowd.
Having fun yet?
HILLARY ON THE ROPES
HILLARY ON THE ROPES
January 5th, 2008
HILLARY ON THE ROPES
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 4, 2008.
The amazing victories by Obama and Huckabee in Iowa are truly historic. They demonstrate the impact and viability of a message of change in both parties. In the Democratic Party, Obama, winning in a totally white state, shows that racism is gone as a factor in American politics. On the Republican side, Huckabee’s win shows how a truly compassionate conservative can win by harvesting voters who want the message of concern for the poor and for values to prevail.
But what of Hillary? She’s down but she’s not out. Hillary Clinton, in the first really contested election of her own political career, lost dismally– outclassed, outdrawn, and outpolled by Barack Obama.
Her campaign professionals (including Bill) decided to stress experience, precisely the wrong message in a Democratic primary. Prematurely appealing to the center and abandoning the left, she fell between two chairs – not sufficiently centrist to win independents or liberal enough to attract Democrats.
On the Republican side, Huckabee brought a new phenomenon into politics. A New Testament Christian politician, he takes the Biblical message to the center-left, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry. His refusal to indulge in negative advertising sent a message to Iowa voters showing his strength under fire.
The Obama victory in Iowa probably presages a victory in New Hampshire and follow up victories in Nevada and South Carolina. (Hillary will win Michigan because she is alone on the ballot). Suddenly, Hillary’s argument that she should be the candidate because she has a record of defeating the “Republican attack machine” will backfire. Sold as a winner, she will be exposed as a loser. The overhang of Iowa will dog her for all of the early primaries.
Particularly important for Obama is the poor finish of John Edwards, who has campaigned in Iowa for six years. Now Obama can count on being the nearly unanimous choice of the anti-Hillary voters. No longer will the vote be divided.
Hillary faces a serious problem: Voters rejected her and rejected Bill on a very personal basis. Iowa was a referendum on Hillary and she lost 30-70. Her argument of experience only reinforced her phoniness and her issues positioning showed how contrived her ideology is. This is a stinging personal defeat for Hillary.
But what will happen next? With the limelight comes the spotlight. Obama will suddenly become the putative candidate of the Democratic Party and will be subject to the scrutiny that comes with the title. Can he weather the examination?
Perhaps not. Democrats may turn on Obama, worried that he may not win in November. The doubts about Obama, up to now hidden behind concerns about Hillary’s candidacy, will be on center stage. I wonder if he can stand the scrutiny.
Much the same process will evolve on the Republican side. Ignored in the Iowa result, Giuliani appears to be in even worse shape than Hillary with his fifth place finish. But the same process that will unfold for the Republican Party may take place on the Democratic side. Voters may wonder if all that stands between the White House and the Democratic Party is a Mormon, a Christian evangelical, and a 70-year old. Rudy, like Hillary, may look better once the rest of the field unfolds.
But don’t write off Obama or Huckabee. Their appeals are truly unique and obviously resonate with voters. Their approaches are now and the outcome shows how relevant their message is.
January 5th, 2008
HILLARY ON THE ROPES
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 4, 2008.
The amazing victories by Obama and Huckabee in Iowa are truly historic. They demonstrate the impact and viability of a message of change in both parties. In the Democratic Party, Obama, winning in a totally white state, shows that racism is gone as a factor in American politics. On the Republican side, Huckabee’s win shows how a truly compassionate conservative can win by harvesting voters who want the message of concern for the poor and for values to prevail.
But what of Hillary? She’s down but she’s not out. Hillary Clinton, in the first really contested election of her own political career, lost dismally– outclassed, outdrawn, and outpolled by Barack Obama.
Her campaign professionals (including Bill) decided to stress experience, precisely the wrong message in a Democratic primary. Prematurely appealing to the center and abandoning the left, she fell between two chairs – not sufficiently centrist to win independents or liberal enough to attract Democrats.
On the Republican side, Huckabee brought a new phenomenon into politics. A New Testament Christian politician, he takes the Biblical message to the center-left, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry. His refusal to indulge in negative advertising sent a message to Iowa voters showing his strength under fire.
The Obama victory in Iowa probably presages a victory in New Hampshire and follow up victories in Nevada and South Carolina. (Hillary will win Michigan because she is alone on the ballot). Suddenly, Hillary’s argument that she should be the candidate because she has a record of defeating the “Republican attack machine” will backfire. Sold as a winner, she will be exposed as a loser. The overhang of Iowa will dog her for all of the early primaries.
Particularly important for Obama is the poor finish of John Edwards, who has campaigned in Iowa for six years. Now Obama can count on being the nearly unanimous choice of the anti-Hillary voters. No longer will the vote be divided.
Hillary faces a serious problem: Voters rejected her and rejected Bill on a very personal basis. Iowa was a referendum on Hillary and she lost 30-70. Her argument of experience only reinforced her phoniness and her issues positioning showed how contrived her ideology is. This is a stinging personal defeat for Hillary.
But what will happen next? With the limelight comes the spotlight. Obama will suddenly become the putative candidate of the Democratic Party and will be subject to the scrutiny that comes with the title. Can he weather the examination?
Perhaps not. Democrats may turn on Obama, worried that he may not win in November. The doubts about Obama, up to now hidden behind concerns about Hillary’s candidacy, will be on center stage. I wonder if he can stand the scrutiny.
Much the same process will evolve on the Republican side. Ignored in the Iowa result, Giuliani appears to be in even worse shape than Hillary with his fifth place finish. But the same process that will unfold for the Republican Party may take place on the Democratic side. Voters may wonder if all that stands between the White House and the Democratic Party is a Mormon, a Christian evangelical, and a 70-year old. Rudy, like Hillary, may look better once the rest of the field unfolds.
But don’t write off Obama or Huckabee. Their appeals are truly unique and obviously resonate with voters. Their approaches are now and the outcome shows how relevant their message is.
Friday, January 04, 2008
WHO NEEDS WHAT FROM IOWA TODAY?
WHO NEEDS WHAT FROM IOWA TODAY?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 3, 2008.
The Iowa caucuses mean different things to different candidates. Of course Obama, Clinton and Edwards, for the Democrats, and Huckabee and Romney, for the Republicans, are vying for a win in Iowa. But there are separate sub-primaries going on as well: Obama v Edwards for the position of chief challenger to Clinton, McCain v Giuliani for the right to wear the “moderate” Republican mantle, and Fred Thompson v Oblivion for the right to stay in the race.
So here’s the scorecard to use in keeping track of what each candidate needs to get from Iowa.
Hillary Clinton
If she scores a decisive triumph, the race for the nomination is almost over. A victory here would likely propel her to a win in New Hampshire and the nomination would be hers’. But she doesn’t need to win. Her national base is so strong that she just has to stop anyone else from winning. If no clear winner emerges, but the results show, instead, a three-way tie with Obama and Edwards, or a two-way tie between herself and either of her challengers, she comes out the winner. But if she clearly loses by a good margin or finishes third, she has blown a major opportunity and is in for a long cold winter of primaries. She won’t be knocked out in Iowa no matter what, but she could be knocked down.
Barack Obama
He’s got to win in Iowa. He is so far behind Hillary in the national standings that he needs a decisive victory to give him the momentum to prevail in New Hampshire and to compete in Florida and on Super Tuesday. He also needs to leave the pesky John Edwards far behind so he can consolidate the anti-Hillary vote behind his candidacy.
John Edwards
His immediate need is to finish close to or ahead of Obama so he can show that a vote for him is not wasted. With pro and anti Hillary sentiment so strong, Edwards risks being excluded as an also ran if he doesn’t make it. He also needs Hillary not to win decisively so that the race stays alive. He has a decent shot in New Hampshire if he can stay in the race and make sure there still is one.
Mike Huckabee
Win or die are his choices. The Huck-a-boom will be right in the ancient history books with the Howard Dean surge in September of 2004. But even if Huckabee wins in Iowa, he’ll probably lose in New Hampshire. Then his candidacy will come back to another game-set-match point in Michigan the following week.
Mitt Romney
He doesn’t have to win, place, or show. He’s got a big checkbook so he can survive any kind of showing and stay in the game. But, a defeat in Iowa might make him vulnerable to McCain in New Hampshire. A loss in the first two states would cost him Michigan and he would limp into super Tuesday with only a checkbook to protect him. Only.
John McCain
He’s got to finish third – or, in other words, beat Rudy. If he does, he has a good shot at winning New Hampshire and getting back into the game. If he doesn’t, Romney will win New Hampshire and McCain will be out of the race. Huckabee has to hope McCain does finish third so Romney doesn’t win New Hampshire and, therefore, doesn’t win Michigan. Got it?
Rudy Giuliani
The Republican front runner is in a parallel situation with Hillary. He won’t be knocked out no matter how badly he does. But finishing below McCain means that he has to split the moderate vote with the charismatic Arizona Senator and could weaken his chances in Florida and on Super Tuesday. Rudy can lose Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina and still survive to compete in the big states that follow. But he lost a golden chance to avoid a fight by winning in Iowa.
And, if Hillary wins big in Iowa, it will help McCain and hurt Romney in New Hampshire. Why? All the independents who would have voted for or against Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire will pile into the Republican Primary and may boost McCain to victory (if he survives Iowa).
And…by the same token, Rudy needs Hillary to win in the early rounds so he can draw independents into the Republican Primary to vote for him rather than the religious right crowd.
Having fun yet?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 3, 2008.
The Iowa caucuses mean different things to different candidates. Of course Obama, Clinton and Edwards, for the Democrats, and Huckabee and Romney, for the Republicans, are vying for a win in Iowa. But there are separate sub-primaries going on as well: Obama v Edwards for the position of chief challenger to Clinton, McCain v Giuliani for the right to wear the “moderate” Republican mantle, and Fred Thompson v Oblivion for the right to stay in the race.
So here’s the scorecard to use in keeping track of what each candidate needs to get from Iowa.
Hillary Clinton
If she scores a decisive triumph, the race for the nomination is almost over. A victory here would likely propel her to a win in New Hampshire and the nomination would be hers’. But she doesn’t need to win. Her national base is so strong that she just has to stop anyone else from winning. If no clear winner emerges, but the results show, instead, a three-way tie with Obama and Edwards, or a two-way tie between herself and either of her challengers, she comes out the winner. But if she clearly loses by a good margin or finishes third, she has blown a major opportunity and is in for a long cold winter of primaries. She won’t be knocked out in Iowa no matter what, but she could be knocked down.
Barack Obama
He’s got to win in Iowa. He is so far behind Hillary in the national standings that he needs a decisive victory to give him the momentum to prevail in New Hampshire and to compete in Florida and on Super Tuesday. He also needs to leave the pesky John Edwards far behind so he can consolidate the anti-Hillary vote behind his candidacy.
John Edwards
His immediate need is to finish close to or ahead of Obama so he can show that a vote for him is not wasted. With pro and anti Hillary sentiment so strong, Edwards risks being excluded as an also ran if he doesn’t make it. He also needs Hillary not to win decisively so that the race stays alive. He has a decent shot in New Hampshire if he can stay in the race and make sure there still is one.
Mike Huckabee
Win or die are his choices. The Huck-a-boom will be right in the ancient history books with the Howard Dean surge in September of 2004. But even if Huckabee wins in Iowa, he’ll probably lose in New Hampshire. Then his candidacy will come back to another game-set-match point in Michigan the following week.
Mitt Romney
He doesn’t have to win, place, or show. He’s got a big checkbook so he can survive any kind of showing and stay in the game. But, a defeat in Iowa might make him vulnerable to McCain in New Hampshire. A loss in the first two states would cost him Michigan and he would limp into super Tuesday with only a checkbook to protect him. Only.
John McCain
He’s got to finish third – or, in other words, beat Rudy. If he does, he has a good shot at winning New Hampshire and getting back into the game. If he doesn’t, Romney will win New Hampshire and McCain will be out of the race. Huckabee has to hope McCain does finish third so Romney doesn’t win New Hampshire and, therefore, doesn’t win Michigan. Got it?
Rudy Giuliani
The Republican front runner is in a parallel situation with Hillary. He won’t be knocked out no matter how badly he does. But finishing below McCain means that he has to split the moderate vote with the charismatic Arizona Senator and could weaken his chances in Florida and on Super Tuesday. Rudy can lose Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina and still survive to compete in the big states that follow. But he lost a golden chance to avoid a fight by winning in Iowa.
And, if Hillary wins big in Iowa, it will help McCain and hurt Romney in New Hampshire. Why? All the independents who would have voted for or against Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire will pile into the Republican Primary and may boost McCain to victory (if he survives Iowa).
And…by the same token, Rudy needs Hillary to win in the early rounds so he can draw independents into the Republican Primary to vote for him rather than the religious right crowd.
Having fun yet?
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
DUI probation court feels weight of harsher laws
DUI probation court feels weight of harsher laws
Jill Redhage, Tribune
Combine the new stricter punishments for drunken drivers with law enforcement’s holiday DUI crackdown, and you get a lot more people eligible for DUI probation court, a DUI Court judge says.
Recently, the number of participants in the program — an alternative to regular probation for people convicted of a felony associated with drunken driving — has climbed to almost 400.
Serious DUI offenders will first face the state’s new laws, which went into effect on Sept. 19. The law requires anyone guilty of driving with a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.20 or higher to spend at least 45 days in jail, to pay at least $500 in fines and to use an ignition interlock device for 18 months.
A second DUI conviction within seven years earns the driver no fewer than 180 days in jail, at least $1,000 fine and two years driving with an interlock device.
Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Steven Lynch said DUI probation court has been so successful that the court would like to expand it, but its prospects are unclear given a tight county budget. Lynch also said the program is limited geographically to where its counseling centers are located.
The three-step program, typically taking 18-24 months to complete, is meant not only to punish people who drive drunk, but also to help them recover from substance abuse problems and to reduce recidivism.
‘MORE STRENUOUS’
“DUI probation court is so much more strenuous than regular probation,” said Lynch, who holds probation court in his 1 W. Madison St. courtroom in Phoenix three Friday mornings each month.
“But if you complete the program, your likelihood of reoffending is much lower than someone who’s just completed standard probation.” Lynch said the recidivism rates drop well over 50 percent for participants.
The program combines group counseling, one-on-one counseling, drug and alcohol testing, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, paying court fines and attending DUI probation court meetings.
The participants, often beginning with electronic monitoring anklets that detect alcohol in their blood, earn increasingly more freedom as they progress successfully through the program.
Former presiding Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Colin Campbell started DUI probation court in the late 1990s. Since then, the program has grown to serve 300 to 400 people at a time. Participants are screened when convicted to determine if they’d be a good match for the program; usually people with significant substance abuse problems, but not a criminal past, are the best candidates.
In 2002, presiding Superior Court Judge Barbara Rodriguez Mundell began Spanish DUI probation court, staffed by a Spanish-speaking county attorney, public defender, probation officer, counselor and herself. Mundell has said participants in the Spanish program, meeting every five weeks, are more likely to graduate than those in the English program.
During a recent probation court meeting, 48 people crammed into a small basement courtroom and listened for their names to be called.
Lynch first called the names of four people he’d be taking into custody, because they’d violated the terms of the program. Two were no-shows, and he issued warrants for their arrests.
Then came the four program graduates. All received framed diplomas, congratulations from the judge and a chance to speak before their peers.
“Do everything you gotta do. Keep your eye on the prize,” one graduate advised.
Another graduate said, “This has not been an easy 16 months for me.” He spoke of relapsing several times, forbidden by the program. But one day he switched his way of thinking — he got positive — he said, and breezed through the program.
“It changed my life,” he said.
After the graduate spoke, Lynch commended the “stars” — participants who have worked especially hard, attended extra meetings, paid off fines and who otherwise have proven their desire to succeed. Lynch singled out 11 for this honor, greeting them with a
“Congratulations,” a handshake and a note in their records.
‘COLLECTIVE BENEFIT’
“The whole idea is when you see people being praised, others being sanctioned — there’s a collective benefit for everyone,” Lynch said. “For a lot of these folks, they just have no other support in their lives.”
Following the “stars” and before meeting the new recruits, Lynch spoke with 22 participants in varying stages of the program experiencing varying levels of success.
He asked a woman to tell the group about a class she’d taken describing the possible consequences of driving drunk, such as causing a fatal motor vehicle collision.
“I’m glad I got caught when I did,” she said.
Jill Redhage, Tribune
Combine the new stricter punishments for drunken drivers with law enforcement’s holiday DUI crackdown, and you get a lot more people eligible for DUI probation court, a DUI Court judge says.
Recently, the number of participants in the program — an alternative to regular probation for people convicted of a felony associated with drunken driving — has climbed to almost 400.
Serious DUI offenders will first face the state’s new laws, which went into effect on Sept. 19. The law requires anyone guilty of driving with a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.20 or higher to spend at least 45 days in jail, to pay at least $500 in fines and to use an ignition interlock device for 18 months.
A second DUI conviction within seven years earns the driver no fewer than 180 days in jail, at least $1,000 fine and two years driving with an interlock device.
Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Steven Lynch said DUI probation court has been so successful that the court would like to expand it, but its prospects are unclear given a tight county budget. Lynch also said the program is limited geographically to where its counseling centers are located.
The three-step program, typically taking 18-24 months to complete, is meant not only to punish people who drive drunk, but also to help them recover from substance abuse problems and to reduce recidivism.
‘MORE STRENUOUS’
“DUI probation court is so much more strenuous than regular probation,” said Lynch, who holds probation court in his 1 W. Madison St. courtroom in Phoenix three Friday mornings each month.
“But if you complete the program, your likelihood of reoffending is much lower than someone who’s just completed standard probation.” Lynch said the recidivism rates drop well over 50 percent for participants.
The program combines group counseling, one-on-one counseling, drug and alcohol testing, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, paying court fines and attending DUI probation court meetings.
The participants, often beginning with electronic monitoring anklets that detect alcohol in their blood, earn increasingly more freedom as they progress successfully through the program.
Former presiding Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Colin Campbell started DUI probation court in the late 1990s. Since then, the program has grown to serve 300 to 400 people at a time. Participants are screened when convicted to determine if they’d be a good match for the program; usually people with significant substance abuse problems, but not a criminal past, are the best candidates.
In 2002, presiding Superior Court Judge Barbara Rodriguez Mundell began Spanish DUI probation court, staffed by a Spanish-speaking county attorney, public defender, probation officer, counselor and herself. Mundell has said participants in the Spanish program, meeting every five weeks, are more likely to graduate than those in the English program.
During a recent probation court meeting, 48 people crammed into a small basement courtroom and listened for their names to be called.
Lynch first called the names of four people he’d be taking into custody, because they’d violated the terms of the program. Two were no-shows, and he issued warrants for their arrests.
Then came the four program graduates. All received framed diplomas, congratulations from the judge and a chance to speak before their peers.
“Do everything you gotta do. Keep your eye on the prize,” one graduate advised.
Another graduate said, “This has not been an easy 16 months for me.” He spoke of relapsing several times, forbidden by the program. But one day he switched his way of thinking — he got positive — he said, and breezed through the program.
“It changed my life,” he said.
After the graduate spoke, Lynch commended the “stars” — participants who have worked especially hard, attended extra meetings, paid off fines and who otherwise have proven their desire to succeed. Lynch singled out 11 for this honor, greeting them with a
“Congratulations,” a handshake and a note in their records.
‘COLLECTIVE BENEFIT’
“The whole idea is when you see people being praised, others being sanctioned — there’s a collective benefit for everyone,” Lynch said. “For a lot of these folks, they just have no other support in their lives.”
Following the “stars” and before meeting the new recruits, Lynch spoke with 22 participants in varying stages of the program experiencing varying levels of success.
He asked a woman to tell the group about a class she’d taken describing the possible consequences of driving drunk, such as causing a fatal motor vehicle collision.
“I’m glad I got caught when I did,” she said.
did Senator Ted Kennedy move his money offshore ?
did Senator Ted Kennedy move his money offshore ?
www.mccainalert.com
www.mccainalert.com
Arizona Lawmaker Will Sponsor New DUI Laws
Lawmaker Will Sponsor New DUI Laws
December 31st, 2007 Steve Soliz/KTAR
State Sen. Jim Waring, R-Phoenix, will push four new bills targeting drunken drivers in the next session of the Arizona Legislature, beginning in January.
Waring said his bills will not solve the ultimate problem of drunken drivers and will not affect all people arrested for DUI. ``But there are a few cases where these sanctions may come into play, and we're really just filling in the gaps," he said.
One proposal would take the license of anyone who is involved in an alcohol-related collision.
``We feel it's not right to give that person a license and send them right back out on the road, which is the current practice if you're charged, for example, with manslaughter," said Waring. He said a hearing would be held to decide whether the driver could have his license back.
Another bill would require convicted DUI offenders to finish all of their community service before being given new licenses.
``I'm confident that we're going to get to the point where people realize that this is just not a road they want to go down. And hopefully, we can eliminate, maybe 50 fatalities per year. What would that be worth to the state? I would say a great deal."
In Arizona, more than 600 people died this year in alcohol-related crashes, Waring said.
Meanwhile, DUI arrests keep building during the holiday season. More than 2,500 suspected drunken drivers have been pulled off the streets since Thanksgiving. The state's Holiday DUI Task Force stopped nearly 34,000 drivers and issued more than 10,000 tickets for violations other than DUI.
http://www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com
more Arizona news
December 31st, 2007 Steve Soliz/KTAR
State Sen. Jim Waring, R-Phoenix, will push four new bills targeting drunken drivers in the next session of the Arizona Legislature, beginning in January.
Waring said his bills will not solve the ultimate problem of drunken drivers and will not affect all people arrested for DUI. ``But there are a few cases where these sanctions may come into play, and we're really just filling in the gaps," he said.
One proposal would take the license of anyone who is involved in an alcohol-related collision.
``We feel it's not right to give that person a license and send them right back out on the road, which is the current practice if you're charged, for example, with manslaughter," said Waring. He said a hearing would be held to decide whether the driver could have his license back.
Another bill would require convicted DUI offenders to finish all of their community service before being given new licenses.
``I'm confident that we're going to get to the point where people realize that this is just not a road they want to go down. And hopefully, we can eliminate, maybe 50 fatalities per year. What would that be worth to the state? I would say a great deal."
In Arizona, more than 600 people died this year in alcohol-related crashes, Waring said.
Meanwhile, DUI arrests keep building during the holiday season. More than 2,500 suspected drunken drivers have been pulled off the streets since Thanksgiving. The state's Holiday DUI Task Force stopped nearly 34,000 drivers and issued more than 10,000 tickets for violations other than DUI.
http://www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com
more Arizona news
Arizona DUI arrests top 2,300 in statewide holiday crackdown
DUI arrests top 2,300 in statewide holiday crackdown
Sunday, December 30, 2007
PHOENIX (AP) -- Authorities participating in a statewide holiday drunken driving task force say they've now made more than 2,300 DUI arrests since the effort began last month.
On Friday alone, 182 drivers were booked on drunken driving charges.
The Governor's Office of Highway Safety coordinates the effort, which involves saturation patrols, DUI checkpoints and youth alcohol enforcement using officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies.
Authorities have stopped more than 32,000 drivers and issued more than 9,500 citations for driving offenses besides DUI.
Under a new state law, DUI offenders face a minimum 10 day jail term, fines and license suspensions and must install an ignition interlock device in their vehicles.
The task force continues through New Year's Day.
www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com
Sunday, December 30, 2007
PHOENIX (AP) -- Authorities participating in a statewide holiday drunken driving task force say they've now made more than 2,300 DUI arrests since the effort began last month.
On Friday alone, 182 drivers were booked on drunken driving charges.
The Governor's Office of Highway Safety coordinates the effort, which involves saturation patrols, DUI checkpoints and youth alcohol enforcement using officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies.
Authorities have stopped more than 32,000 drivers and issued more than 9,500 citations for driving offenses besides DUI.
Under a new state law, DUI offenders face a minimum 10 day jail term, fines and license suspensions and must install an ignition interlock device in their vehicles.
The task force continues through New Year's Day.
www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com
New Year's revelers face tougher DUI law
New Year's revelers face tougher DUI law
The Arizona Republic
Welcome to party weekend.
The next three days will help the Valley ring in the New Year, capped off with signature events Monday night, including fireworks, bands, crowds by the thousands and plenty of drinking.
Factor in Arizona's tough new DUI laws, and there's a sobering reality for revelers.
The new law requires 10 days of jail time, a suspended driver's license and an in-car testing device - for a first-time offender. Of course, there's the biggest danger: hurting someone else or yourself by getting behind the wheel when you're not OK to drive.
With such high stakes, many in the Valley are taking new steps.
http://www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com/arizona-dui-basics.htm
more dui information for arizona
The Arizona Republic
Welcome to party weekend.
The next three days will help the Valley ring in the New Year, capped off with signature events Monday night, including fireworks, bands, crowds by the thousands and plenty of drinking.
Factor in Arizona's tough new DUI laws, and there's a sobering reality for revelers.
The new law requires 10 days of jail time, a suspended driver's license and an in-car testing device - for a first-time offender. Of course, there's the biggest danger: hurting someone else or yourself by getting behind the wheel when you're not OK to drive.
With such high stakes, many in the Valley are taking new steps.
http://www.arizona-real-estate-pima-tucson.com/arizona-dui-basics.htm
more dui information for arizona
Monday, December 24, 2007
HILLARY HAD NO ROLE IN IRISH PEACE, DESPITE BILL’S CLAIMS
HILLARY HAD NO ROLE IN IRISH PEACE, DESPITE BILL’S CLAIMS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on Foxnews.com on December 21, 2007.
Recently, as only Hillary can do, she claimed that she was “deeply involved in the Irish peace process.” Bill has also picked up the theme, citing her “independent” role in resolving the century-old conflict as “experience” with which to justify a White House run.
How odd that Hillary forgot to mention her pivotal role in Ireland just four years ago, when she wrote her $8 million memoir, Living History. There, she told a very different story.
Her first mention of Ireland was in a discussion of Bill’s October 2004 trip:
“The trip highlighted Bill’s milestones in foreign affairs. In addition to his pivotal role in easing the tensions in the Middle East, he was now focusing on the decades Long Troubles in Northern Ireland.” (Emphasis added)
No memories of her own involvement in the Irish “troubles.”
Ireland next appeared in Hillary’s memoirs in 1995, when the Clintons visited Belfast and Dublin. According to Hillary, while Bill met with the “various factions” of Irish politics, Hillary met with women leaders of the peace movement. Rather than discuss the difficulties of the peace process, Hillary focused on a teapot used by the women:
“They poured tea from ordinary stainless steel teapots, and when I remarked how well they kept the tea warm, Joyce insisted that I take a pot to remember them by. I used that dented teapot every day in our small family kitchen in the White House...”
Other than to describe the women’s fear when their sons left the house and their support for a ceasefire and an end to the violence, Hillary doesn’t cover much policy.
She then describes a visit to Derry to meet John Hume, the charming Nobel Peace Prize winner, where “tens of thousands thronged the streets in the freezing cold to roar approval of Bill and America, and I was filled with pride and respect for my husband.” (Emphasis added)
After Derry, the Clintons went to Belfast to light the Christmas tree in front of City Hall. Following the ceremony, they attended a reception.
No mention of Hillary’s deep involvement.
From Belfast, the Clintons flew to Dublin, where Hillary addressed a group of women from both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. According to her recollections, she “praised the bravery of Irish women who had stood up for peace.”
After meeting the Irish president, the U.S. ambassador, Ted Kennedy’s sister, and the Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, Bono and the Clintons went shopping and tried to trace Bill Clinton’s mother’s genealogy.
Not exactly heavy-duty diplomacy.
Hillary returned to Ireland in 1997 where she attended a dinner in Dublin for Prime Minister Ahern and then flew to Belfast where she gave a speech in honor of the late Joyce McCartan, a respected promoter of peace and the women who had given Hillary the stainless teapot a few years earlier. Hillary brought the teapot back to Ireland with her as a tribute to the women of Ireland who sought peace. Hillary also attended a roundtable discussion with young Catholic and Protestant representatives.
In describing August 1998 in her book — the month when Ken Starr granted Monica Lewinsky immunity — Hillary lists world events, such as the end of the Soviet Union, and free elections in South Africa. She also mentions in passing that: “The peace talks and cease-fire were successful in Ireland.”
End of story. Nothing about her role in that process.
Later, she describes the setback to the peace process in Omagh, Northern Ireland, where a car bomb killed 28 people and injured hundreds of others, “damaging the peace process that Bill had worked so long and hard to nurture with Irish leaders.” (Emphasis added)
Hillary does recall that in her meetings with women in Ireland, she’d spoken with them about the troubles and how to find a way to “achieve peace and reconciliation.” But she turns that into a discussion of her own personal problems with Bill and Monica, “Now that’s what I had to try to do in the midst of my own heartbreaking troubles.”
Hillary makes one last mention of Ireland in her book, citing the important role of her husband and former Sen. George Mitchell in the peace process.
That’s it.
Bill’s memoirs are also totally devoid of any memories of any role at all by Hillary in the peace process. Other than the Christmas tree lighting and attending receptions and meeting celebrities — Bono, Seamaus Heaney, etc. — there is nothing substantive about Hillary.
In elaborating on her so-called role in the Irish peace process, candidate Hillary now says:
"And I know it’s frustrating. It took years before the Catholics and the Protestants before Sinn Fein and you know, the DUP would even talk to each other … I mean George Mitchell sat at a table sometimes for hours and nobody would say a word or if they would they would say: 'would you tell him this?' Or 'here's what I think'. And that went on for years. But eventually there were breakthroughs. You could build enough trust and connection."
So what does that have to do with her and what was her deep involvement in the Irish peace process? Hillary never explains.
But Bill Clinton said, as he desperately tried to help Hillary overcome her new found deficit in Iowa, that an unnamed man had said that Hillary had played "an independent role in the Irish peace process.”
Clinton offered no explanation of who the anonymous man was or what exactly this “independent” role was for Hillary.
But Bill does describe his own role — and Hillary was nowhere to be found:
"Good Friday was one of the happiest days of my presidency. Seventeen hours past the deadline for a decision, all the parties in Northern Ireland agreed to a plan to end 30 years of sectarian violence. I had been up most of the night, trying to help George Mitchell close the deal. Besides George, I talked to Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, David Trimble, and Gerry Adams twice, before going to bed at 2:30 a.m. At five, George woke me with a request to call Adams again to seal the deal.”
Hillary apparently slept through the night — perhaps dreaming her Walter Mitty dream of delivering the peace agreement single handedly.
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on Foxnews.com on December 21, 2007.
Recently, as only Hillary can do, she claimed that she was “deeply involved in the Irish peace process.” Bill has also picked up the theme, citing her “independent” role in resolving the century-old conflict as “experience” with which to justify a White House run.
How odd that Hillary forgot to mention her pivotal role in Ireland just four years ago, when she wrote her $8 million memoir, Living History. There, she told a very different story.
Her first mention of Ireland was in a discussion of Bill’s October 2004 trip:
“The trip highlighted Bill’s milestones in foreign affairs. In addition to his pivotal role in easing the tensions in the Middle East, he was now focusing on the decades Long Troubles in Northern Ireland.” (Emphasis added)
No memories of her own involvement in the Irish “troubles.”
Ireland next appeared in Hillary’s memoirs in 1995, when the Clintons visited Belfast and Dublin. According to Hillary, while Bill met with the “various factions” of Irish politics, Hillary met with women leaders of the peace movement. Rather than discuss the difficulties of the peace process, Hillary focused on a teapot used by the women:
“They poured tea from ordinary stainless steel teapots, and when I remarked how well they kept the tea warm, Joyce insisted that I take a pot to remember them by. I used that dented teapot every day in our small family kitchen in the White House...”
Other than to describe the women’s fear when their sons left the house and their support for a ceasefire and an end to the violence, Hillary doesn’t cover much policy.
She then describes a visit to Derry to meet John Hume, the charming Nobel Peace Prize winner, where “tens of thousands thronged the streets in the freezing cold to roar approval of Bill and America, and I was filled with pride and respect for my husband.” (Emphasis added)
After Derry, the Clintons went to Belfast to light the Christmas tree in front of City Hall. Following the ceremony, they attended a reception.
No mention of Hillary’s deep involvement.
From Belfast, the Clintons flew to Dublin, where Hillary addressed a group of women from both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. According to her recollections, she “praised the bravery of Irish women who had stood up for peace.”
After meeting the Irish president, the U.S. ambassador, Ted Kennedy’s sister, and the Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, Bono and the Clintons went shopping and tried to trace Bill Clinton’s mother’s genealogy.
Not exactly heavy-duty diplomacy.
Hillary returned to Ireland in 1997 where she attended a dinner in Dublin for Prime Minister Ahern and then flew to Belfast where she gave a speech in honor of the late Joyce McCartan, a respected promoter of peace and the women who had given Hillary the stainless teapot a few years earlier. Hillary brought the teapot back to Ireland with her as a tribute to the women of Ireland who sought peace. Hillary also attended a roundtable discussion with young Catholic and Protestant representatives.
In describing August 1998 in her book — the month when Ken Starr granted Monica Lewinsky immunity — Hillary lists world events, such as the end of the Soviet Union, and free elections in South Africa. She also mentions in passing that: “The peace talks and cease-fire were successful in Ireland.”
End of story. Nothing about her role in that process.
Later, she describes the setback to the peace process in Omagh, Northern Ireland, where a car bomb killed 28 people and injured hundreds of others, “damaging the peace process that Bill had worked so long and hard to nurture with Irish leaders.” (Emphasis added)
Hillary does recall that in her meetings with women in Ireland, she’d spoken with them about the troubles and how to find a way to “achieve peace and reconciliation.” But she turns that into a discussion of her own personal problems with Bill and Monica, “Now that’s what I had to try to do in the midst of my own heartbreaking troubles.”
Hillary makes one last mention of Ireland in her book, citing the important role of her husband and former Sen. George Mitchell in the peace process.
That’s it.
Bill’s memoirs are also totally devoid of any memories of any role at all by Hillary in the peace process. Other than the Christmas tree lighting and attending receptions and meeting celebrities — Bono, Seamaus Heaney, etc. — there is nothing substantive about Hillary.
In elaborating on her so-called role in the Irish peace process, candidate Hillary now says:
"And I know it’s frustrating. It took years before the Catholics and the Protestants before Sinn Fein and you know, the DUP would even talk to each other … I mean George Mitchell sat at a table sometimes for hours and nobody would say a word or if they would they would say: 'would you tell him this?' Or 'here's what I think'. And that went on for years. But eventually there were breakthroughs. You could build enough trust and connection."
So what does that have to do with her and what was her deep involvement in the Irish peace process? Hillary never explains.
But Bill Clinton said, as he desperately tried to help Hillary overcome her new found deficit in Iowa, that an unnamed man had said that Hillary had played "an independent role in the Irish peace process.”
Clinton offered no explanation of who the anonymous man was or what exactly this “independent” role was for Hillary.
But Bill does describe his own role — and Hillary was nowhere to be found:
"Good Friday was one of the happiest days of my presidency. Seventeen hours past the deadline for a decision, all the parties in Northern Ireland agreed to a plan to end 30 years of sectarian violence. I had been up most of the night, trying to help George Mitchell close the deal. Besides George, I talked to Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, David Trimble, and Gerry Adams twice, before going to bed at 2:30 a.m. At five, George woke me with a request to call Adams again to seal the deal.”
Hillary apparently slept through the night — perhaps dreaming her Walter Mitty dream of delivering the peace agreement single handedly.
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