Ruminations, April 5, 2009

Michelle the trend setter

Last week, Michelle Obama went to Europe wearing, at times, off-the-rack items from J. Crew. Sales of these items at J. Crew immediately soared.

Now, if we could get Michelle to drive a Chrysler, we might be in good shape.

Interesting

Borrowing money for the stimulus program (or for any deficits, for that matter) requires that we will, as a matter of course, spend more on the interest that borrowing incurs.

Based upon President Obama’s budget projections, in ten years, we will spend more on debt interest than we will on education, energy and transportation — combined.

Interesting.

Honest graft

Former Democratic New York state senator George Washington Plunkitt (1842-1924) was a defender of what he called “honest graft.”  A member of the Tammany Hall crew, what Plunkitt called “honest graft” was something akin to what we would call insider trading; he knew what the government was about to do and took financial advantage of it.

But honest graft was more than accumulating wealth – it was what you did with the money. In the days before “social safety nets,” Tammany provided immediate aid to its constituents. When a man lost his job in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, he had nothing to keep his family fed or pay his rent. Tammany Hall did that; they would provide him with a loan, maybe some cash for groceries, maybe a job or anything they could to bail him out. In return, the man supported the Tammany politicians and, when he could, steered honest graft their way.

When Senator Chris Dodd (D, CT) was again caught with his hand in the cookie jar (getting a special deal on his mortgage from Countrywide, an inordinate deal on a vacation house in Ireland, supporting bonuses for AIG and receiving huge “campaign” contributions from AIG and Fannie Mae), he said that he had done nothing wrong and furthermore was the author of the Family Leave Act and supported the State Children Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). What he was trying to say, in effect, was that what he took was honest graft.

When U.S. Representatives John Murtha (D, PA), Peter Visclosky (D-IN) and Ike Skelton (D-Mo) funneled $320 million in earmarks through their colleague Paul Magliocchetti and received in return cash contributions bundled in nice little packages, they looked askance at January raids by the Justice Department that could expose their operation. Murtha said that they had done nothing wrong and, on his website, added "The responsible application of earmarked funds has widespread benefits for our communities, our state and our nation,” He might have called it honest graft.

The difference between Tammany’s “honest graft” and that of the aforementioned congressional representatives is that Tammany funneled some of the money into the pockets of the needy. Dodd, Murtha, Visclosky and Skelton seem to be merely funneling money into their own pockets while performing their normal duties.

Tammany Senator Plunkitt said that when he died, wanted the epitaph inscribed on his tombstone to read: "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em." Maybe the stonecutters up at Rock of Ages can do the same for Dodd, Murtha, Visclosky and Skelton.

Ruminations redux: I don’t buy Berger’s bits

(Sometimes things are left hanging that we shouldn’t forget. The following item appeared in December 24, 2006, Ruminations.)

The 2003 story of Sandy Berger walking off from the National Archives with secret documents relating to terrorist attacks on the United States has come to the front pages again. Berger, who was President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, was preparing for testimony before the September 11 commission (formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States) and went to the National Archives to reread classified documents to refresh his memory. Nothing wrong there.

Then the fun began. Berger, according to a report from National Archives Inspector-General Paul Brachfeld, left the Archives with the classified documents in his pockets – documents that are not to leave the Archives. (The report that Berger also stuffed papers into his socks is evidently erroneous – Berger says that he had cheap shoelaces that kept coming untied and cheap socks that kept falling down and that this explains why he kept bending over and making adjustments. No doubt the white that National Archives personnel observed as Berger adjusted his socks were his pasty white ankles and not documents.)

According to the report, after Berger left the Archives, in order to avoid detection, he “headed toward a construction area on 9^th Street. Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the Archives and the DOJ [Department of Justice], and did not see anyone. He removed the documents from his pockets, folded the notes into a ‘V’ shape and inserted the documents into the center [of a chain-link fence]. He walked inside the construction fence and slid the documents under a trailer.”  Berger later came back to retrieve the documents.

Wait. It gets better. Berger admits that he then took the documents home and cut up three of them and threw them in the trash. Those cut-up documents were never recovered.

Berger’s lawyer says that this was all a “mistake,” no original information was lost. Berger paid a $50,000 fine. He has called the incident an “honest mistake” and said that he had “unintentionally” destroyed some documents.

Sorry. I don’t buy it. It does not at all sound like a mistake. It sounds like Berger knew exactly what he was doing. Berger has a B.A. degree from Cornell and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He practiced law for 15 years and served in the upper echelons of government for more than 10 years – he’s no dummy. This is not a “Whoops. What was I ever thinking?” kind of thing.

Why did Berger do it?

1. Did the document contain top-secret information that couldn’t be made public? No, top-secret stuff could have been redacted.
2. Was Berger trying to cover up the Clinton Administration’s involvement in 9/11 attack? Nonsense. Whatever you think of former President Clinton, he was not a traitor.
3. Was it to cover up a mistake made by the Clinton Administration that led to 9/11? No. Everyone knows that both the Clinton and Bush Administrations were not as vigilant as they could have been and both made mistakes.
4. Was it to cover an indiscretion by President Clinton? No. These were official documents and would not contain information of that sort.
5. Was there information regarding Iraq on the documents? President Clinton did consider launching an attack on Iraq and information regarding Iraq could be politically and internationally volatile. This was something the current administration would have the call on and not something that Berger would be afraid of releasing to the Committee.

Former President Clinton made a hollow attempt at covering for Berger (Oh, good old Sandy is naturally sloppy and loses things all the time – really, Mr. President? Is that why he was selected as National Security Advisor?).

I don’t know why Berger absconded with these documents or what he did with them. Did the documents or margin notes contain political maneuvering that backfired? Did Berger destroy documents to conceal an action that would be damaging to Senator Hillary Clinton’s future? I don’t know but the worst intentions will be suspected until the truth is known. And I, for one, don’t buy Berger’s innocent and inadvertent bit.

Quote without comment

Former U.S. Senator and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater: “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”

Robert J. Kulak

West Hartford, Connecticut