Romney's 5 Sons Avoid Military Service?

Also from Salon's War Room
by Tim Grieve

Maybe they saw the president on the front lines

Asked on CNN this morning whether the fact that none of his five sons has served in the U.S. military might be a political issue for him, Iraq surge supporter and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said: "Each of my five sons gave two years of their life to the service of their church, and I consider that service to be laudable. But I very highly value those who serve in the military. But it is a volunteer military and I hope that we keep it that way."

Abu Ghraib investigator: I was pushed out

From Salon's War Room:
"I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting." -- Retired Army Maj. Gen Antonio Taguba, who tells Seymour Hersh that the Pentagon forced him into early retirement because his report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib told Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others more than they wanted to hear.

Court Denies FCC Ruling - Is There No Decency Anymore?

The New York Times Editorial, Expletive Policy Deleted , stated; "In a very welcome decision, a federal appeals court overturned the F.C.C.’s indecency policy for live broadcasts"

Of course it did. It (the court) had to. Otherwise, all of the coverage of Cheney addressing Democrats in the U.S. Senate would have rendered CSpan an outlaw network.

... Not to mention Fox News' bad little sister network, Fox TV.

I Beg Your Pardon - Is This Administration Above the Law?

Dan Froomkin noted in today's column that William Otis of the Federalist Society wrote, "To pardon Scooter Libby would not be consistent with the imperative that the mechanisms of law be able to demand, and receive, the truth. But to leave the sentence undisturbed would be an injustice to a person who, though guilty in this instance, is not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal."

Perhaps Otis didn't finish his sentence. I'm sure he meant to add "the rich and members of the Republican White House." It's doubtful he thinks that it's OK to lie under oath for some middle income person being asked about something a friend of theirs might have done illegally. I also doubt he thinks it's OK for someone who is poor to lie to protect a friend who may have stolen for their family just to eat and stay alive another day. They would be OBVIOUS criminals to Mr. Otis. These are people he must feel need to understand that "the law is the law, and must be obeyed at any cost."

But someone who lies to federal prosecutors in order to circumvent the outing of a CIA agent's identity? Someone he might call treasonous were they a Democrat? No, this is someone he sees as misunderstood, and "not someone most" (rich, conservative, Republican - words he may have accidentally left out? ) "people would, or should think of as a criminal".

At least that is how it will read to every other American who sees that it's OK for folks from this administration to lie to the Justice Department under oath, to release the name of a covert CIA agent and declare they weren't covert, to fire federal prosectors without reason, and to do whatever it takes for themselves to stay in power, no matter what.

With this behavior rewarded; with any young person doubting that they can trust their government to support them should they choose a career in the CIA; or wondering if they might be sent - several times over - to a war declared by US, not started against us, if they enlist in the National Guard; and that their thought-to-be limited term can be extended to any length deemed necessary by a Presidency, is there any reason for any young person to rush to be part of service to their country?

Not if those they are expecting to protect will use any means against them while doing so, as it suits their purposes, or if they will forget them once they're wounded and no longer of use.

Pardoning Libby would send a message that would resonate with many generations to come in this country - the wrong one. That message would be that "this country is for the rich, and service is by those who aren't for those who are, and more, that the law only applies to those who aren't".

Dick Cheney Rules , Editorial, NY Times, June 3, 2007

(Note from Greetings: Well written editorial from the Times. Is this a surprise? Has this country ever been so run by one corporation (Haliburton)? And has it ever seen it run from the VP's office? - A Vice President who holds millions in profits in "deferred salary payments" from the war in Iraq and the cleanup of Katrina. a catastrophe helped along by the inaction of this administration, but now profited from by his former company - Profits he once promised would go to charity)

Americans are accustomed to Vice President Dick Cheney’s waiting out a terrorist threat in a “secure undisclosed location.” Now it seems that Mr. Cheney wears the cloak of invisibility in secure disclosed locations.

The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.

This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.

In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to “demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.”

Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll.

From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Cheney received “deferred salary payments” from Halliburton that far exceeded what taxpayers gave him. Mr. Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of stock options that have ballooned by millions of dollars as Halliburton profited handsomely from the war in Iraq.

Reviewing this record — secrecy, impatience with government regulations, backroom dealings, handsome paydays — it dawned on us that Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States.