08.31.06
Acorns…Prince of Darkness…Evans
Dems lead in 16 Repug held seats, close in a dozen more.
Repug lead in one Dem district, close in nine more.
‘04 In O-hi-o…
With paper ballots from the 2004 presidential election in Ohio scheduled to be destroyed next week, the secretary of state in Columbus, under pressure from critics, said yesterday that he would move to delay the destruction at least for several months.
Critics, including an independent candidate for governor and a team of statisticians and lawyers, say preliminary results from their ballot inspections show signs of more widespread irregularities than previously known.
The critics say the ballots should be saved pending an investigation. They also say the secretary of state’s proposal to delay the destruction does not go far enough, and they intend to sue to preserve the ballots.
After eight months inspecting 35,000 ballots from 75 rural and urban precincts, the critics say that they have found many with signs of tampering and that in some precincts the number of voters differs significantly from the certified results.
In Miami County, in southwestern Ohio, official tallies in one precinct recorded about 550 votes. Ballots and signature books indicated that 450 people voted.
In Miami County, Mr. Rosenfeld said, the team found discrepancies of 5 percent or more in some precincts between the people in the signature books and the certified results.
In 10 southwestern counties, he said, the team found thousands of punch card ballots that lacked codes identifying the precinct where the ballot was cast. The codes are typically necessary for the machines processing the ballots to “know’’ to record which candidate receives the votes.
In January 2005, the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee issued a report finding “massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies” in the election.
In March 2005, the Democratic National Committee issued a report that said 2 percent of the Ohio electorate, or “approximately 129,543 voters,” had intended to vote but did not do so because of long lines and other problems at polling stations.
A proud moment for Karl Rove, but another stain on the Constitution of the United States of America…
Targeting Children?
Campaigners yesterday accused the Israel Defence Force of leaving a “minefield” of deadly bomblets in villages and fields after firing hundreds of cluster shells, rockets and bombs across its northern border in the three days before hostilities ended earlier this month.
United Nations officials said that 12 people had been killed, and another 49 injured by such bombs since the war ended and that the casualty rate was likely to rise.
Chris Clarke, head of the UN mine action service in southern Lebanon, said: “This is without a doubt the worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination I have ever seen.”
In a presentation at the international conference on conventional weapons in Geneva yesterday, he said that the “vast majority” of cluster bombs had been fired by the Israeli Defence Force in the final three days of the conflict, prompting campaigners to accuse the Israeli government of targeting civilian populations.
Simon Conway, director of the British charity Landmine Action, condemned Israel’s “cynical” use of the weapons. He said: “The premeditated targeting of residential areas with high failure-rate cluster munitions in the final days of the conflict means that the rubble-filled villages of southern Lebanon have been deliberately turned into minefields that will indiscriminately kill civilians for years to come.”
The citizens of Israel should find out who ordered this and hold them accountable. And US citizens might want to ask why we won’t see this story on CNN?
“Unhelpfull”
In an interview yesterday, Shays said the charges by Cheney and Rumsfeld are “over the top” and unhelpful. “The president should be trying to bring the country together and not trying to divide us,” he said. Shays, a longtime supporter of the war who just returned from his 14th trip to Iraq and faces a tough reelection battle, said he plans to outline next month a deadline for replacing U.S. troops doing police-style patrols with Iraqi forces. But he fears the Bush administration might not be supportive.
Other GOP incumbents, such as Reps. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.) and Michael G. Fitzpatrick (Pa.), are also raising serious concerns about Bush’s Iraq policy.
Today is Kommander KooKoo Bananas turn to rant the praises of civil war in Iraq, and to blame it’s continued failure on “godless sodomites” and the so far unidentifiable “terrorist supporters” in the media elite. It always did take him several day’s to memorize the contents of a 3by5 card or learn to read a new catchphrase off a telepromter. Islamic fascists is something of a tongue twister I guess. For those still able to stomach listening to his unique combination of babbling confused, meaningless, three and four word catchphrases over and over again, this could be very funny…
08.30.06
Countdown…Keith! Keith! Keith!
Tonight on Countdown: The KeiMaster is back; and he’s pissed…
Yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once again attacked Administration critics, asserting those questioning its Iraq and anti-terror policies are trying to appease “a new type of fascism,” calling them sufferers of “moral or intellectual confusion.”
Tonight, Keith Olbermann returns to “Countdown” with a special commentary on Rumsfeld’s remarks. You can catch Olbermann’s full response at 8 p.m. ET on MSNBC, but here’s a sneak peek:
“Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom;
And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it is right—and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.”
How many people are dead because Rumsfeld believed we needn’t secure the weapons bunkers in Iraq? How many because he delayed deployment of the troops tasked to guarding our supply lines? How many because he lied to start this war? How many because he keeps lying to continue it? I don’t understand why people don’t laugh in his face whenever he holds a press conference.
Curiouser and Curiouser…
The NTSB also released other details about the incident, including information about the crew members’ experience and their activities the morning of the crash. Polehinke had 5,424 hours of flight experience and 3,564 hours in the CRJ-100, Hersman said.
The pilot, Jeffrey Clay, 35, had 4,700 hours and 3,000 hours in the CRJ-100, she said.
Clay arrived in Lexington about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, and Polehinke arrived about 2 a.m. Saturday, she said.
Hersman said investigators interviewed hotel employees and others to determine what the pilots had done the night and day before the flight. She declined to release any details about those activities.
She said the pilots arrived at the airport about 5:15 a.m., got onto the wrong aircraft and began the process of readying it for flight. A gate worker caught the mistake and told the pilots to go to another aircraft. The pilots then boarded the right airplane, Hersman said.
Is it normal for a copilot to have more hours on a plane than the pilot? I suppose with the way airlines are run these days, and the way they screw over unions maybe so. Getting on the wrong plane is easy enough too, might even make you embarassed and distracted enough to screw up something else. But it is pretty strange. Is the NTSB sending a message here or what?
08.29.06
‘Bout Damn Time..
Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was taken into custody after he and two other people were pulled over late Monday by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, FBI spokesman David Staretz said.
The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.
Since May, Jeffs has been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, with a $100,000 reward offered for information leading to his capture.
The other two people in the vehicle were identified as one of Warren Jeffs’ wives, Naomi Jeffs, and a brother, Isaac Steve Jeffs, both 32, Staretz said. They were being interviewed by the FBI in Las Vegas but were not arrested.
Jeffs was in federal custody in Las Vegas pending a court hearing on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, Staretz said. It was not immediately clear if Jeffs would face extradition to Arizona or Utah.
Jeffs was indicted in June on an Arizona charge of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man, and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is charged in Utah with two felony counts of rape as an accomplice, for allegedly arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to an older man in Nevada.
This isn’t polygamy, it’s slavery. It’s time we start locking up the religous fascists in this country.
Repegnant Party Sleaze Overturned…
A federal judge on Monday struck down a Florida law that imposes hefty fines on third parties that take too long to submit voter registration forms, saying it threatens free speech rights and unfairly exempts political parties.
The law imposes a fine of $250 for each form submitted to election officials more than 10 days after it is collected from an individual. Penalties can reach $5,000 for each form that is collected but never submitted.
The ruling “will send a signal to officials in Florida and other states that you cannot erect unreasonable barriers to voter registration,” said Wendy Weiser, co-counsel for the third-party groups and deputy director of the Democracy Program at the New York University law school’s Brennan Center for Justice.
Voter registration drives now can begin ahead of the Nov. 7 general election, several groups said. Plaintiffs included the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Florida AFL-CIO.
The deadline for voter registration applications for this year’s general election is Oct. 10. The deadline for next week’s primary has already passed.
“At this point, we respectfully disagree with the ruling and plan to take the issue up on appeal,” said Sterling Ivey, spokesman for the Florida secretary of state.
Republicans don’t want more people to vote. Unless you’re a motivated bigot, of course.
The Iraqi Army…Apparently Off Cutting Brush This Week…
With American combat aircraft providing cover, U.S.-backed Iraqi troops battled radical Shiite militiamen Monday in the southern city of Diwaniyah in one of the first major clashes between the two forces. At least 20 Iraqi soldiers and eight civilians were killed, a U.S. military official said, citing initial reports. Seventy people were injured.
Also, a suicide bombing in Baghdad killed 15 and injured 35, capping one of the bloodiest 24 hours in Iraq in recent weeks
The more-than-12-hour battle in Shiite Muslim-dominated Diwaniyah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, illustrates the growing strength and confidence of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is increasingly challenging the authority of the Iraqi government and, by extension, the United States.
Some Iraqi soldiers were captured and beheaded, Iraqi army officials said. As of late Monday, it was unclear how many militiamen had died.
Nine U.S. soldiers also were killed over the weekend in and around Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday, making it one of the most lethal weekends for American troops in recent months. Seven U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bomb attacks and one by gunfire on Sunday, while another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday.
On Sunday, gunmen and bombers killed at least 69 people, the deadliest of the attacks taking place outside Baghdad, in northern cities.
The more-than-12-hour battle in Shiite Muslim-dominated Diwaniyah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, illustrates the growing strength and confidence of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is increasingly challenging the authority of the Iraqi government and, by extension, the United States.
Some Iraqi soldiers were captured and beheaded, Iraqi army officials said. As of late Monday, it was unclear how many militiamen had died.
By late afternoon, the fighting had subsided. It was soon clear who had won.
“The city is fully controlled by the militia of Jaish al-Mahdi now,” said Ahmed Fadhil, 45, a school teacher living in the center of Diwaniyah, using the Arabic term for Sadr’s militia. “There are no police or Iraqi army in the streets of the city. I can see only the gunmen of Mahdi Army in the streets.”
Nine U.S. soldiers also were killed over the weekend in and around Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday, making it one of the most lethal weekends for American troops in recent months. Seven U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bomb attacks and one by gunfire on Sunday, while another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday.
On Sunday, gunmen and bombers killed at least 69 people, the deadliest of the attacks taking place outside Baghdad, in northern cities.
Meanwhile, new allegations of indiscriminate killings by U.S. troops surfaced Monday. Relatives and neighbors of seven civilians shot dead during a gun battle in a Baghdad neighborhood on Sunday said U.S. soldiers had stepped out of their vehicles and randomly fired at their car.
Lt. Col Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that seven civilians were killed Sunday in Ghazaliyah, a volatile western Baghdad neighborhood where U.S. forces have bolstered their efforts to tame sectarian violence. But he said the civilians were caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between U.S. troops and insurgents.
Still playing whack-a-mole with too few troops. After the Iraqi army arrested some Mahdi followers, the Mahdi militia took to the streets and the Iraqi army and police disappeared. Discipline among our own troops is breaking down. We need a new President, we need a better way.
Another Not Fired for Leaking Top Secret Information…
Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson’s wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA. (The memo made no reference to her undercover status.) Armitage had met with Novak in his State Department office on July 8, 2003—just days before Novak published his first piece identifying Plame. Powell, Armitage and Taft, the only three officials at the State Department who knew the story, never breathed a word of it publicly and Armitage’s role remained secret.
Armitage, a well-known gossip(with a top-secret clearance?…Priceless) who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn’t thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame’s identity.
Another criminal in the Bush cabal not even charged for revealing top secret information…
Laffey, Bigot and a Drug Abuser…How Special…
U.S. Senate candidate Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, acknowledged writing the columns denigrating gays in a story published Saturday in the Providence Journal. The paper reported that it received copies of the columns anonymously in the mail earlier in the week.
Laffey, 44, running a closely watched race against moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, said whoever sent the articles wanted to smear him before the Sept. 12 primary.
The Republican candidate wrote them in 1983 and 1984 while studying at Bowdoin College in Maine. The articles appeared in a paper published by campus Republicans.
In one column, Laffey said he has never seen a happy homosexual.
“This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet,” he wrote. “All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.”
In another column he wrote that pop music was turning the children of America into sissies, and criticized the singer Boy George, referring to him as “it.”
“It wears girl’s clothes and puts on makeup,” he wrote. “When I hear it sing, ‘Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,’ I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs.”
If his Tweety interview was any indication, he’s also on prescription amphetamine, probably his kids ADHD drugs. Tweety praised his “energy”. I noted the constant rocking forward and back, and the pinpoint pupils and thought “speed freak”. Brings a whole new dimension to cranky Repugnants…
Time to Make the Donuts (Oh, and Cider)
The Yates Cider Mill is NOW OPEN!!!
The little donuts make this place a must see, plain and cinnamon, both are excellent.
Your Tax Dollars at Work…
Presenting the Pentagon’s Iraq Budget, The Purrfect Angelz…My objection? Where are the male dancers for our women in arms?
One by one, the marines took the stage for one of the most coveted photo opportunities of the war. Tanea sat on a knee of an eager marine while Laurie rested on the other.
Hands on their miniskirted hips, Amber and Renee posed at each side. Dani stood behind and held the marine’s rifle as the camera snapped the photo. Some of the young marines who lined up for the memento were so mesmerized by the experience that they had to be reminded not to leave their weapons behind.At Haditha Dam, the marines have the Purrfect Angelz, as the dancers are known. Their tours, which organizers say are paid for by the military, have occasionally stirred some controversy. During the group’s 2005 visit to Baghdad, a female Air Force officer complained that the dancers’ wardrobes and routines encouraged insensitive attitudes toward women in the military.
On the group’s third tour of Iraq, there were no complaints from the boisterous crowd of male marines at the dam or the solitary soldier in the audience from Azerbaijan, who mistook the Oklahoma-born Tanea for a Russian. A small group of Iraqi Army officers who are being trained by the marines were so enthusiastic they all but rushed the stage and filled their digital cameras with this sampling of American culture.
A Pentagon spokesman said he had no immediate information on what the tour cost or the financial arrangements.
A recent show began with an entreaty by a diligent sergeant who saw the event as an opportunity to appeal to the marines to re-enlist. He was loudly shouted down. An announcer who was traveling with the dance group told the marines not to pay attention to news media reports that the American public did not support the war. The nation, she said, was solidly behind them.
Entertainment or propaganda? If this is for morale, great, but who really thinks the Pentagon really gives a crap about morale?
Gay White Woman from a Black District in Alabama?
A battle over race that had divided Alabama’s Democratic Party came to an end yesterday when the party’s executive committee reinstated a white woman as its nominee to represent a historically black Birmingham district in the state legislature.
The nominee, Patricia Todd, is a lesbian and, because she faces no opponent in November’s general election, is in line to become the state’s first gay legislator.
On Thursday, she had been disqualified by a party panel for failing to comply with a technicality that candidates had disregarded for years.
“I’m just relieved,” Todd said yesterday. “The democratic process worked today.”
Yesterday’s decision has its roots in a June primary in which Todd received more votes than four other candidates, all of whom were black. In a July 18 runoff, she defeated businesswoman Gaynell Hendricks by 59 votes.
Allies of Hendricks then challenged Todd’s nomination, arguing she had not met a deadline set in the party’s bylaws for the filing of campaign finance disclosure forms.
The allies — led by Hendricks’s mother-in-law(Bullshit, it was led by Reed) — suggested that Todd missed the deadline intentionally, to delay disclosing that she’d made campaign payments to two primary opponents who later endorsed her and that she’d received thousands of dollars in contributions from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a Washington-based organization that backs gay candidates.
Among those opposed to Todd’s candidacy was Joe L. Reed, the state party’s vice chairman of minority affairs. He called on voters to elect another black person to replace George Perdue, who has represented the district for more than two decades.
The campaign finance rule had not been enforced since 1988. Nevertheless, a five-person panel voted to disqualify Todd — and Hendricks — as candidates to be the party’s nominee.
The final decision, though, was up to a full vote yesterday of the party executive committee. It rejected the panel’s decision, 95 to 87.
The vote “was largely on racial lines,” but “there was some crossover,” said Jim Spearman, the executive director of the state party and a Todd supporter.
Hendricks and Reed could not be reached yesterday for comment. Reed had earlier told reporters that through the challenge he was just trying to enforce a party rule.
Wow…Freaking Alabama…and Reed tried to screw her with a technicality…’cause she’s not black.
08.26.06
Katy Harris…God Loves Her, Everyone Else Thinks She’s an A##hole…
“If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,” she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.
“Whenever we legislate sin,” she said, “and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong. . . .”
Harris also said the separation of church and state is a “lie we have been told” to keep religious people out of politics.
In reality, she said, “we have to have the faithful in government” because that is God’s will. Separating religion and politics is “so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers,” she said.
“And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women,” then “we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s [sic] certainly isn’t what God intended.”
Rabbi Rick Sherwin, president of the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis, and others also said Harris appeared to be voicing support for a religious state when she said God and the founding fathers did not intend the U.S. to be a “nation of secular laws.”
The alternative, they said, would be a nation of religious laws.
“She’s talking about a theocracy,” said Sherwin. “And that’s exactly opposite of what this country is based on.”
University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said the comments will appeal to Christian fundamentalists who typically turn out for Republican primaries.
But he said the strong evangelical tone could alienate non-Christians and more moderate Republicans who had been thinking of supporting Harris.
“It’s insane,” he said. “But it’s not out of character for Katherine Harris.”
Boy that George Bush guy sure is loyal to his friends. Without Katy violating state laws for him that doofus would be cutting brush 12 months a year ’stead of just three or four…
I’m sure he’ll be down for a rally and a couple fundraisers any day now…
Katy you just wait by the phone…and remember: We still love you! 
“because they don’t know any better”, wow, a little too much celery salt in those last ten bloody marys me thinks…
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…Another Guy Thing…Bite Me!…Please!
Watching it more than ten times in a row may be hazardous to your health…But then what the fuck do I know?
Me or You’re Lyin’ Eyes???
Armed looters ransacked an abandoned British base in southern Iraq on Friday as Iraqi soldiers guarding the camp stood by and watched, heightening concerns that Iraqi troops are still ill-equipped to take control of security from U.S.-led coalition forces.A crowd of as many as 5,000 people, including hundreds armed with AK-47 assault rifles, attacked Camp Abu Naji and hauled away window and door frames, corrugated roofing and metal pipes, despite the presence of a 450-member Iraqi army brigade meant to guard the base.
The looters stole everything — even the bricks,” said Ahmed Mohammed Abdul Latief, 20, a student at Maysan University. “They almost leveled the whole base to the ground.”
The last of 12,000 British troops left the camp in Amarah, the capital of southern Maysan province, on Thursday after continued mortar attacks by a local Shiite Muslim militia that residents said was controlled by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Adopting guerrilla tactics used in North Africa during World War II, 600 of the soldiers will soon slip into the marshlands and deserts near the Iranian border to prevent weapons smuggling.
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the Iraqi army maintained full control of the camp, even during the looting, and had managed to eject the thieves by early evening. “Our confidence in the Iraqi security forces to maintain day-to-day order in Amarah remains unaffected,” he said.
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the Iraqi army maintained full control of the camp, even during the looting
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the Iraqi army maintained full control of the camp, even during the looting
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the Iraqi army maintained full control of the camp, even during the looting
Hilarious…
The looters stole everything — even the bricks
Acorn Guv’nor?…
Michigan: After falling behind wealthy businessman Dick DeVos (R) earlier this summer, incumbent Gov. Jennifer Granholm appears to have recovered her lead — albeit small — thanks to a barrage of ads from her campaign and the state party that seek to drive home the idea that she is working to improve the state’s economy, despite its poor handling at the federal level. DeVos is now on the air with negative spots that attack Granholm’s stewardship of the economy, which should have the effect of evening the race once again.
Maryland: After moving Maryland all the way up to #4 last month, we drop it back down again this time around. Why? Because no one we talk to thinks that incumbent Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) will go quietly into the good night, and some Democrats continue to fret that Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley (D) can’t take a punch. Ehrlich is sitting on $8.5 million, which he will spend (our guess) on a prolonged negative ad blitz about O’Malley’s stewardship of the city of Baltimore.
Arkansas: What once looked like a premier matchup between two rising stars has turned into a one-sided affair. In an independent survey released earlier this week, state Attorney General Mike Beebe (D) has a 52 percent to 31 percent lead over former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R). Beebe is using his fundraising advantage over Hutchinson to hit the television airwaves uncontested with ads that tout his humble upbringing and his support for the Second Amendment.
Ohio: Everything we hear out of Ohio says that the political environment is as bad as it gets for Republicans. And, if there is one race where voters will punish Republicans for the ethical transgressions of outgoing Gov. Bob Taft (R), it’s this one. National Republicans continue to stop in the state to raise money for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (R), but in June and July Rep. Ted Strickland outraised Blackwell $2.5 million to $2 million. The last independent poll done in the race showed Strickland up 20 points.
Looks like Bob Hackett might be one of those “all volunteer” Marines being dragooned back to Iraq, Home of miraculous Orchard of Terrorist Trees and Bubblegum Fairies.
And Sherwood “Needledick” Brown is still an Asshole…
08.25.06
Still Stuck With Stupid…Part III
Sean Wilentz says I told ya so…
The heart of Bush’s domestic policy has turned out to be nothing more than a series of massively regressive tax cuts — a return, with a vengeance, to the discredited Reagan-era supply-side faith that Bush’s father once ridiculed as “voodoo economics.” Bush crowed in triumph in February 2004, “We cut taxes, which basically meant people had more money in their pocket.” The claim is bogus for the majority of Americans, as are claims that tax cuts have led to impressive new private investment and job growth.
The lion’s share of benefits from the tax cuts has gone to the very richest Americans, while new business investment has increased at a historically sluggish rate since the peak of the last business cycle five years ago. Private-sector job growth since 2001 has been anemic compared to the Bush administration’s original forecasts and is chiefly attributable not to the tax cuts but to increased federal spending, especially on defense. Real wages for middle-income Americans have been dropping since the end of 2003: Last year, on average, nominal wages grew by only 2.4 percent, a meager gain that was completely erased by an average inflation rate of 3.4 percent.
The most scandal-ridden administration in the modern era, apart from Nixon’s, was Ronald Reagan’s, now widely remembered through a haze of nostalgia as a paragon of virtue. A total of twenty-nine Reagan officials, including White House national security adviser Robert McFarlane and deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver, were convicted on charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair, illegal lobbying and a looting scandal inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Three Cabinet officers — HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce, Attorney General Edwin Meese and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger — left their posts under clouds of scandal. In contrast, not a single official in the Clinton administration was even indicted over his or her White House duties, despite repeated high-profile investigations and a successful, highly partisan impeachment drive.
