From a confused Associated Press:

A voter shows off his voting sticker after casting a vote in the Texas Primary in Seguin, March 4, 2008.

Obama wins most Texas delegates

Mon Mar 31

WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama has won the overall delegate race in Texas thanks to a strong showing in Democratic county conventions this past weekend.

Obama picked up seven of nine outstanding delegates, giving him a total of 99 Texas delegates to the party’s national convention this summer. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the other two, giving her a total of 94 Texas delegates, according to an analysis of returns by The Associated Press.

Texas Democrats held both a presidential primary and caucus. Clinton narrowly won the popular vote in the state’s primary March 4, earning her 65 national convention delegates to Obama’s 61.

Precinct caucuses began immediately after polls closed primary night and quickly devolved into chaos in many parts of the state because of an unprecedented turnout of more than 1 million Democrats. The state party was never able to provide complete results from the caucuses, which is why the AP withheld nine delegates…

Obama won 38 delegates through the caucus/convention system, and Clinton won 29.

The final delegate allocation will be decided at the party’s state convention June 6-7, and the numbers could change if either campaign is unable to maintain the level of support they had over the weekend…

Never mind what we were being authoritatively told not even a month ago:

Enlarge

Indeed there were hundreds of articles proclaiming Mrs. Clinton’s historic comeback victory.

Still, it made for a very stirring story — for a while, anyway.

A nine year old article from the general counsel and chief of staff of the Watergate era House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Zeifman, via the New York Post:

HILLARY’S WATERGATE SCANDAL

August 16. 1999

By Jerry Zeifman

IN December 1974, as general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, I made a personal evaluation of Hillary Rodham (now Mrs. Clinton), a member of the staff we had gathered for our impeachment inquiry on President Richard Nixon. I decided that I could not recommend her for any future position of public or private trust.

Why? Hillary’s main duty on our staff has been described by as "establishing the legal procedures to be followed in the course of the inquiry and impeachment." A number of the procedures she recommended were ethically flawed. And I also concluded that she had violated House and committee rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons.

Hillary had conferred personally with me regarding procedural rules. I advised her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O’Neill and I had previously agreed not to advocate anything contrary to the rules already adopted and published for that Congress. I quoted Mr. O’Neill’s statement that: "To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series."

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted and would not advocate any such rules changes. I soon learned that she had lied: She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them.

In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. This, though in our then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in our offices. I later learned that the Douglas files were then removed from our general files without my permission, transferred to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff, and were no longer accessible to the public.

The young Ms. Rodham had other bad advice about procedures, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should neither 1) hold any hearings with or take the depositions of any live witnesses, nor 2) conduct any original investigation of atergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon – but to rely instead on prior investigations conducted by other committees and agencies.

The committee rejected Ms. Rodham’s recommendations: It agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This unfair recommendation was rejected by the full House. (The committee also vetoed her suggestion that it leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow special staffers.)

The recommendations advocated by Hillary were apparently initiated or approved by Yale Law School professor Burke Marshall – in violation of committee and House rules on confidentiality. They were also advocated by her immediate supervisors, Special Counsel John Doar and Senior Associate Special Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, both of whom had worked under Marshall in the Kennedy Justice Department.

It was not until two months after Nixon’s resignation that I first learned of still another questionable role of Ms. Rodham. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee, wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into a troubling set of events. That spring, Wiggins and other committee members had asked "that research should be undertaken so as to furnish a standard against which to test the alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon." And, while "no such staff study was made available to the members at any time for their use," Wiggins had just learned that such a study had been conducted – at committee expense – by a team of professors who completed and filed their reports with the impeachment-inquiry staff well in advance of our public hearings.

The report was not made available to members of Congress. But after the impeachment-inquiry staff was disbanded, it was published commercially and sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote that he was "especially troubled by the possibility that information deemed essential by some of the members in their discharge of their responsibilities may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff during the course our investigation."

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: "Hillary Rodham of the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work. … After the staff received the report it was reviewed by Ms. Rodham, briefly by Mr. Labovitz and Mr. Sack, and by Mr. Doar. The staff did not think the manuscript was useful in its present form."

On the charge of willful suppression, he wrote: "That was not the case … The staff did not think the material was usable by the committee in its existing form and had not had time to modify it so it would have practical utility for the members of the committee. I was informed and agreed with the judgment."

During my 14-year tenure with the House Judiciary Committee, I had supervisory authority over several hundred staff members. With the exception of Ms. Rodham, Doar and Nussbaum, I recommend all of them for future positions of public and private trust.

Jerry Zeifman is the author of "Without Honor: The Impeachment of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot," which describes the above matters in more detail.

Please see part two and part three.

A more recent article from the general counsel and chief of staff of the Watergate era House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Zeifman, via Op Ed News:

Hillary’s Crocodile Tears in Connecticut

by Jerry Zeifman  

Feb 6, 2008

I have just seen Hillary Clinton and her former Yale law professor both in tears at a campaign rally here in my home state of Connecticut. Her tearful professor said how proud he was that his former student was likely to become our next President. Hillary responded in tears.

My own reaction was of regret that, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations.

Hillary as I new her in 1974

At the time of Watergate I had overall supervisory authority over the House Judiciary Committee’s Impeachment Inquiry staff that included Hillary Rodham — who was later to become First Lady in the Clinton White House.

During that period I kept a private diary of the behind the scenes congressional activities. My original tape recordings of the diary and other materials related to the Nixon impeachment provided the basis for my prior book Without Honor and are now available for inspection in the George Washington University Library.

After President Nixon’s resignation a young lawyer, who shared an office with Hillary, confided in me that he was dismayed by her erroneous legal opinions and efforts to deny Nixon representation by counsel — as well as an unwillingness to investigate Nixon. In my diary of August 12, 1974 I noted the following:

"John Labovitz apologized to me for the fact that months ago he and Hillary had lied to me [to conceal rules changes and dilatory tactics.] Labovitz said. ‘That came from Yale.’ I said "You mean Burke Marshall [Senator Ted Kennedy's chief political strategist, with whom Hillary regularly consulted in violation of House rules.] ‘ Labovitz said, ‘Yes.’ His apology was significant to me, not because it was a revelation but because of his contrition."

At that time Hillary Rodham was 27 years old. She had obtained a position on our committee staff through the political patronage of her former Yale law school professor Burke Marshall and Senator Ted Kennedy. Eventually, because of a number of her unethical practices I decided that I could not recommend her for any subsequent position of public or private trust.

Her patron, Burke Marshal, had previously been Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Robert Kennedy. During the Kennedy administration Washington insiders jokingly characterized him as the Chief counsel to the Irish Mafia. After becoming a Yale professor he also became Senator Ted Kennedy’s lawyer at the time of Chappaquidick — as well as Kennedy’s chief political strategist. As a result, some of his colleagues often described him as the Attorney General in waiting of the Camelot government in exile.

In addition to getting Hillary a job on the Nixon impeachment inquiry staff, Kennedy and Marshall had also persuaded Rodino to place two other close friends of Marshall in top positions on our staff. One was John Doar; who had been Marshall’s deputy in the Justice Department "" whom Rodino appointed to head the impeachment inquiry staff. The other was Bernard Nussbaum, who had served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York "" who was placed in charge of conducting the actual investigation of Nixon’s malfeasance.

Marshall, Doar, Nussbaum, and Rodham had two hidden objectives regarding the conduct of the impeachment proceedings. First, in order to enhance the prospect of Senator Kennedy or another liberal Democrat being elected president in 1976 they hoped to keep Nixon in office "twisting in the wind"- for as long as possible. This would prevent then-Vice President Jerry Ford from becoming President and restoring moral authority to the Republican Party.

As was later quoted in the biography of Tip O’Neill (by John Farrell) a liberal Democrat would have become a "shoe in for the presidency in 1976"- if had Nixon been kept in office until the end of his term. However, both Tip O’Neil and I — as well as most Democrats — regarded it to be in the national interest to replace Nixon with Ford as soon as possible. As a result. as described by O’Neill we coordinated our efforts to "keep Rodino’s feet to the fire."-

A second objective of the strategy of delay was to avoid a Senate impeachment trial, in which as a defense Nixon might assert that Kennedy had authorized far worse abuses of power than Nixon’s effort to "cover up"- the Watergate burglary (which Nixon had not authorized or known about in advance). In short, the crimes of Kennedy included the use of the Mafia to attempt to assassinate Castro, as well as the successful assassinations of Diem in Vietnam and Lumumba in the Congo.

After hiring Hillary, Doar assigned her to confer with me regarding rules of procedure for the impeachment inquiry. At my first meeting with her I told her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader "Tip"- O’Neill, Parliamentarian Lou Deschler and I had previously all agreed that we should rely only on the then existing House Rules, and not advocate any changes.

I also quoted Tip O’Neill’s statement that: "To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series."

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted, and would not advocate, any such rules changes. However, as documented in my personal diary, I soon learned that she had lied. She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them.

In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. In so doing she simply ignored the fact that in the committee’s then most recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I had also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in the committee offices. She later removed the Douglas files without my permission and carried them to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff — where they were no longer accessible to the public.

Hillary had also made other ethical flawed procedural recommendations, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should: not hold any hearings with "" or take depositions of — any live witnesses; not conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon; and should rely solely on documentary evidence compiled by other committees and by the Justice Departments special Watergate prosecutor .

Only a few far left Democrats supported Hillary’s recommendations. A majority of the committee agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This recommendation was voted down by the full House. The committee also rejected her proposal that we leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow impeachment inquiry staffers.

It was not until two months after Nixon’s resignation that I first learned of still another questionable role of Hillary. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee, wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into "a troubling set of events."- That spring, Wiggins and other committee members had asked "that research should be undertaken so as to furnish a standard against which to test the alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon." And, while "no such staff study was made available to the members at any time for their use," Wiggins had just learned that such a study had been conducted – at committee expense – by a team of professors who completed and filed their reports with the impeachment- inquiry staff well in advance of our public hearings.

The report was kept secret from members of Congress. But after the impeachment- inquiry staff was disbanded, it was published commercially and sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote: "I am especially troubled by the possibility that information deemed essential by some of the members in their discharge of their responsibilities may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff during the course our investigation." He was also concerned that staff members may have unlawfully received royalties from the book’s publisher.

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: "Hillary Rodham of the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work. The staff did not think the manuscript was useful in its present form." No effort was ever made to ascertain whether or not Hillary or any other person on the committee staff received royalties.

Two decades later Bill Clinton became President. As was later to be described in the Wall Street Journal by Henry Ruth — the lead Watergate courtroom prosecutor– "The Clintons corrupted the soul of the Democratic Party."

Please see also parts one and three.

Lastly, a write-up of a recent interview with Mr. Zeifman, the Watergate-era House Judiciary’s Chief of Staff, from the North Star Writers Group:

Watergate-Era Judiciary Chief of Staff: Hillary Clinton Fired For Lies, Unethical Behavior

March 31, 2008

Dan Calabrese

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

“As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer,” Zeifman said.

The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files. So what did Hillary do?

“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman says that if Hillary, Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even participate in the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.

Of course, Nixon’s resignation rendered the entire issue moot, ending Hillary’s career on the Judiciary Committee staff in a most undistinguished manner. Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodman would be of interest to anyone 34 years later.

But they show that the pattern of lies, deceit, fabrications and unethical behavior was established long ago – long before the Bosnia lie, and indeed, even before cattle futures, Travelgate and Whitewater – for the woman who is still asking us to make her president of the United States.

For the record, I believe Mr. Calabrese has overstated or mischaracterized Mr. Zeifman’s claims. Or perhaps Mr. Zeifman himself is doing so now.

For in previous interviews and articles Mr. Zeifman has only said that Ms. Rodham should have been fired, but not that she was indeed fired.

I only raise this quibble because such an error in facts will only give the Clinton campaign and her lackeys in the media an easy way to dismiss the larger story.

For further elucidation, please see parts one and two as well.

From today’s press release out of HillaryClinton.com:

HUBdate: For the Long Run

3/30/2008

If You Read One Thing Today: From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.” Read more.

And here is the more of which they speak, from the erstwhile embodiment evil, Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Hillary, reassessed

By Richard M. Scaife
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 30, 2008

Hillary Clinton walked into a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conference room last Tuesday to meet with some of the newspaper’s editors and reporters and declared, "It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do."

The room erupted in laughter. Her remark defused what could have been a confrontational meeting.

More than that, it said something about the New York senator and former first lady who hopes to be America’s next president.

More than most modern political figures, Sen. Clinton has been criticized regularly, often harshly, by the Trib. We disagreed with many of her policies and her actions in the past. We still disagree with some of her proposals.

The very morning that she came to the Trib, our editorial page raised questions about her campaign and criticized her on several other scores.

Reading that, a lesser politician — one less self-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign issues, less confident of her positions — might well have canceled the interview right then and there.

Sen. Clinton came to the Trib anyway and, for 90 minutes, answered questions.

Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her.

Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.

Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today’s most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on.

Particularly regarding foreign policy, she identified what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation’s security. Those include an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America.

Like me, she believes we must pull our troops out of Iraq, because it is time for Iraqis to handle their own destiny — and, more important, because it is past time to end the toll on our soldiers there, to begin rebuilding our military, and to refocus our attention on other threats, starting with Afghanistan.

On domestic policy, Sen. Clinton and I might find more areas on which we disagree. Yet we also agree on others. Asked about the utter failure of federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans since the Katrina disaster, for example, she called it just what it has been — "not just a national disgrace (but) an international embarrassment."

Does all this mean I’m ready to come out and recommend that our Democrat readers choose Sen. Clinton in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary?

No — not yet, anyway. In fairness, we at the Trib want to hear Sen. Barack Obama’s answers to some of the same questions and to others before we make that decision.

But it does mean that I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday’s meeting — and it’s a very favorable one indeed.

Call it a "counterintuitive" impression.

Richard M. Scaife is the owner of the Tribune-Review.

And, no, your eyes are not deceiving you.

Hillary is proud of her support from the erstwhile ringmaster of the "Vast Rightwing Conspiracy."

It’s all about principles, you know.

For those with a strong constitution, here is what Mrs. Clinton had to say about Mr. Scaife in her ghostwritten autobiography, Living History:

According to [David] Brock, the success of the trooper article inspired Richard Mellon Scaife, an ultraconservative billionaire from Pittsburgh, to fund similar stories through a clandestine enterprise called “the Arkansas Project.” Through an educational foundation, Scaife also pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Spectator to support its anti-Clinton vendetta.

The plot described by Brock and others is convoluted and the cast of characters preposterous. But it is important for Americans to know what was taking place behind the scenes to understand fully the meaning of Troopergate, the tabloid scandals that preceded it and those that would follow. This was all-out political war.

“[I]n pursuit of my budding career as a right-wing muckraker,” writes Brock, “I let myself get mixed up in a bizarre and at times ludicrous attempt by well-financed right-wing operatives to tar Clinton with sleazy personal allegations. Operating in conjunction with, but outside of, official GOP or movement organizations and well below the radar of the American public and the press corps as the election campaign unfolded, the effort went far beyond the opposition research typically conducted by political campaigns―not only in its secretiveness and its single-mindedness, but also in its lack of fidelity to any standard of proof, principle or propriety. These activities … were a very early hint of how far the political right would go in the coming decade to try to destroy the Clintons.”

Along with other members of Scaife’s secret Arkansas Project, Brock took on the task of planting and nourishing seeds of doubt about Bill Clinton’s character and his fitness to govern. According to Brock’s memoir, the “country was being conditioned to see an invention made up entirely by the Republican right…. from virtually the first moment that they stepped out of Arkansas and onto the national stage, the country never again saw the Clintons.” …

Neither random nor spontaneous, this protest was part of a well-organized campaign to disrupt the health care reform bus caravan and neutralize its message, according to journalists David Broder and Haynes Johnson. Everywhere the buses stopped, they were met with demonstrators. The protests were openly sponsored by a benign-sounding political interest group called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). Reporters eventually discovered and disclosed the fact that CSE worked in concert with Newt Gingrich’s Washington office. And, as Broder and Johnson wrote in their book, The System, the generous sponsor behind the group was none other than the reclusive but increasingly active Richard Mellon Scaife, the right-wing billionaire who was also financing the Arkansas Project…

Although the presiding judge at the McDougal-Tucker trial wouldn’t admit evidence of most of Hale’s lucrative connections into court records and the full story would not come out for years, details of the secret Arkansas Project began to be aired in public for the first time. Hale was a well-paid pawn in a furtive campaign designed to discredit Bill and bring down his administration. Not only was Hale paid at least $56,000 in cash by the OIC after he agreed to testify, Hale was also secretly paid by the Arkansas Project. Journalist David Brock later disclosed that Hale was paid from the “educational” slush fund at the American Spectator financed by Richard Mellon Scaife. Brock later wrote, “At its inception … the Arkansas Project was a means of providing covert support for Hale to implicate Clinton in a crime.”

When Judge Henry Woods was shown evidence of the group’s complicity in the smear campaign against him, he demanded a federal investigation of the Arkansas Project. The federal judges of his district―who had been appointed by both Democrats and Republicans―unanimously joined in this demand. But no investigation of Judge Woods’s charges ever took place…

A month earlier, in February 1997, Kenneth Starr’s prosecutorial career took a bizarre turn when he announced that he was resigning as independent counsel to accept a position at Pepperdine University as Dean of the law school and head of its new school of public policy. But Starr’s exit strategy backfired when right-wing pundits blasted him for quitting the investigation before finding something to implicate us. At the same time, some in the media picked up a thread that directly connected the supposedly impartial independent counsel to one of his decidedly partisan patrons. It turned out that Starr’s Deanship was to be underwritten by a generous gift from Richard Mellon Scaife, a regent of Pepperdine University. Within days, Starr bowed to pressure from the right and changed his mind about taking the job. He apologetically announced that he would stay on as independent counsel until his work was done…

Sure enough, the “vast conspiracy” line got Starr’s attention. He took the unusual step of firing off a statement complaining that I had cast aspersions on his motives. He called the notion of a conspiracy “nonsense.” As they say in Arkansas, “It’s the hit dog that howls.” My comment seemed to have touched a nerve.

Looking back, I see that I might have phrased my point more artfully, but I stand by the characterization of Starr’s investigation. At that point, I didn’t know the truth about the charges against Bill, but I knew about Starr and his connection to my husband’s political opponents. I do believe there was, and still is, an interlocking network of groups and individuals who want to turn the clock back on many of the advances our country has made, from civil rights and women’s rights to consumer and environmental regulation, and they use all the tools at their disposal―money, power, influence, media and politics―to achieve their ends. In recent years, they have also mastered the politics of personal destruction. Fueled by extremists who have been fighting progressive politicians and ideas for decades, they are funded by corporations, foundations and individuals like Richard Mellon Scaife. Many of their names were already in the public record for any enterprising journalist who went looking for them. A few in the media began searching…

Bill and I were greeting our guests in the Blue Room when a moonfaced man reached out to shake hands. As the military aide announced his name and a White House photographer prepared to snap his picture, I realized it was Richard Mellon Scaife, the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill’s Presidency. I had never met Scaife, but I greeted him as I would any guest in a receiving line. The moment passed unnoticed, but later, when the guest list was released, some journalists were shocked to learn that I had approved him. When asked why he had been invited, I said that Scaife had every right to attend the event because of his financial contribution to White House preservation during the Bush Administration. But I was astonished that he chose to stand in line to meet the enemy…

But that was then.

And this is now.

From the Politico:

Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills

By: Kenneth P. Vogel
March 30, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.

Their cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer, highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama…

The New York senator’s presidential campaign ended February with $38 million in the bank, according to a report filed last week with the Federal Election Commission, but only $16 million of that can be spent on her battle with Obama.

The rest can be spent only in the general election, if she makes it that far, and must be returned if she doesn’t. If she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills she reported as debt and had not loaned her campaign $5 million, the cash she would have had available at the end of last month to spend on television ads and other upfront expenses would have been less than $2 million.

By contrast, if you subtract Obama’s $625,000 in debts and his general-election-only money from his total cash on hand at the end of last month, he’d still be left with $31 million…

It’s not just the size of Clinton’s debts that’s noteworthy. It’s also that her unpaid bills extend beyond the realm of high-priced consultants who typically let bills slide as part of the cost of doing business with powerful clientele whose success is linked to their own.

Some of Clinton’s biggest debts are to pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn, who’s owed $2.5 million; direct mail company MSHC Partners, which is owed $807,000; phone-banking firm Spoken Hub, which is waiting for $771,000; and ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who’s owed $467,000.

Clinton also reported debts more than one month old to a slew of apolitical businesses and organizations, large and small, in the states through which this historically expensive Democratic primary campaign has raged.

She owed Iowa’s Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees $3,500 for catering and venue costs, New Hampshire’s Winnacunnet Cooperative School District $4,400 in event costs, Qwest $24,000 for phone service, various branches of the Iowa-based supermarket chain Hy-Vee $15,000 for food, beverages and catering, and $7,700 to Ohio and Massachusetts branches of the theatrical stage employees’ union, for equipment costs.

In fact, about a third of the nearly 700 individual debts Clinton reported at the end of February were for various types of “event expenses,” including $319,000 for catering and venue costs, $420,000 for equipment, $11,000 for photography and $9,000 for security…

And word is getting around that Clinton’s campaign does not promptly pay those who labor to make her events look good, said an employee of the event production company Forty Two of Youngstown, Ohio.

“I feel insulted by the way that the campaign treated this company and treated us personally,” said the employee, who did not want to be named talking about a client.

The Clinton campaign paid the company $16,500 to set up a stage, press riser, sound system and backdrops at a Youngstown high school last month for a raucous union rally, where an aggressive Clinton stump speech drew thunderous applause. But the Clinton campaign has yet to pay Forty Two for two other February events, and the employee said the campaign has stopped returning phone calls, e-mails and didn’t respond to a certified letter.

“We worked very hard to put together these events on a moment’s notice and do absolutely everything to a ‘t’ to make it look perfect on television for her and for her campaign,” said the employee. “Sen. Clinton talks about helping working families, people in unions and small businesses. But when it comes down to actually doing something that shows that she can back up her words with action, she fails.” …

Show Tyme Exhibits, another Youngstown event production company, has produced political events for years and had never had problems getting paid before Clinton, according to owner Jim Phillips.

He said he’s still waiting for a payment for setting up the sound system and stage for Clinton’s February tour of a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

“It was only $607, but I’m a small guy; I could use that,” said Phillips, adding, “Everyone I can tell, I do tell about it. You tell somebody something bad about somebody, they tell 10 other people.”

Both Phillips and the Forty Two employee said they voted for Clinton in Ohio’s March 4 primary, which she won handily, but regret their votes and are reluctant to work for her campaign again…

The (self-proclaimed) smartest woman in the world can’t even run a campaign — against an unknown neophyte.

The (self-proclaimed) most "fiscally responsible" of the candidates can’t even manage to pay her bills, even though she started with the largest war chest.

From a deeply disappointed Reuters:

Iraq’s Sadr orders followers off streets

Sun Mar 30, 2008

By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq March 30 (Reuters) – Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on his followers on Sunday to stop battling government forces after a week of fighting in Iraq’s south and the capital threatened to spiral out of control.

The government immediately welcomed Sadr’s statement, saying it would help the authorities impose security in Iraq.

A government crackdown on Sadr’s followers in the southern oil port of Basra has sparked an explosion of violence that risks undoing recent improvements in Iraq’s fragile security and jeopardising U.S. plans to withdraw troops.

"Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed … we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces," Sadr said in a statement given to journalists by his aides in the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf.

"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us," the statement said.

Sadr also called on the government to stop "random illegal arrests" of his followers and to implement an amnesty law passed by Iraq’s parliament in February to free prisoners…

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered Shi’ite fighters in Basra to lay down their arms and has extended a 72-hour deadline until April 8 for them to turn over heavy and medium weapons in return for cash.

But a top aide to Sadr, Hazem al-Araji, said Mehdi Army fighters would not hand over their guns. He also said that Sadr’s followers had received a guarantee from the government that it would end "random arrests" of Sadr followers.

"As the government of Iraq we welcome this statement," Maliki’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in response to Sadr’s comments. "We believe this will support the government of Iraq’s efforts to impose security." …

Alas, this was our watchdog media’s last best hope for a US defeat.

According to the 2000 US Census, via Wikipedia:

Tinley Park, Illinois

Tinley Park is a village located primarily in Cook County, Illinois, United States with a small portion in Will County. The population was 48,401 at the 2000 census, and 58,322 in the 2007 census. Tinley Park is one of the fastest growing suburbs south of Chicago. The ZIP codes of the village are 60477 and 60487.

Demographics

As of the 2000 census^[4], there were 48,401 people, 17,478 households, and 12,793 families residing in the village. The population density was 3,236.9 people per square mile (1,250.0/km²). There were 18,037 housing units at an average density of 1,206.2/sq mi (465.8/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 93.16% White, 1.92% African American, 0.13% Native American, 2.38% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.11% from other races, and 1.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.13% of the population.

The top five ancestries reported in Tinley Park as of the 2000 census were Irish (25.5%), German (23.1%), Polish (19.7%), Italian (14.3%) and Dutch (5.3%).^[5] …

The median income for a household in the village was $61,648, and the median income for a family was $71,858. Males had a median income of $50,595 versus $34,401 for females. The per capita income for the village was $25,207. About 1.1% of families and 2.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.5% of those under age 18 and 3.6% of those age 65 or over.

4. ^ American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.

5. ^ Profile of Selected Social Characteristics, Tinley Park, Illinois. U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed 2007-07-11.

It sure sounds awfully middle-class (or worse).

In fact, it would appear to be an outright rejection of Trinity’s famed "Black Value System":

BLACK VALUE SYSTEM

These Black Ethics must be taught and exampled in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect the following concepts:

Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”

Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must keep the captive ignorant educationally, but trained sufficiently well to serve the system. Also, the captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Those so identified as separated from the rest of the people by:

Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.

Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.

Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us” …

But do as he says, not as he does.

From those defenders of the faith at CNN:

A demonstrator holds a banner with a photo of Geert Wilders during a demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. [Note the demonstrator's neckwear, which symbolizes solidarity with the non-extremist Palestinians.]

Film critical of Islam dropped from Web site

LONDON, England (CNN) — A London-based Web site has dropped a Dutch lawmaker’s film that features disturbing images of terrorist acts juxtaposed with verses from the Quran to paint Islam as a threat to Western society, citing threats to its staff.

LiveLeak.com said in a statement Friday that it decided to remove the film a day after it was posted "following threats to our staff of a very serious nature."

Attempts to reach LiveLeak for further comment were unsuccessful. However, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkanende said the government was concerned that Geert Wilders’ film "Fitna" could provoke a violent backlash.

"The possibilities are there of real threats," Balkanende said. "I have already warned Dutch people that there could be enormous consequences on the basis of our intelligence services and what we heard from the business sector."

Early response in the Netherlands was restrained, but hundreds of Muslims rallied in Pakistan, where the government temporarily blocked access to YouTube last month over a trailer for Wilders’ film. The protesters burned the Dutch flag and called on Pakistan to cut ties with the Netherlands.

The Dutch government and others, including the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, have rejected the film. Still, Wilders stood by his project.

"My intention was not to offend in any way but to show the truth — at least, the truth as I see it," Wilders said. "And if the truth hurts and could be offensive, well, this of course is not my problem."

Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament from the conservative Party for Freedom and an outspoken critic of Islam, said he doesn’t hate Muslims. But he said he has "big problems" with the Prophet Mohammed, the Quran and "everything that is stated inside this terrible book."

Despite LiveLeak’s decision to drop the film, "Fitna" was posted on several other Web sites, including Google Video and YouTube, a Google subsidiary.

The film was easily accessible via Google, but YouTube posted a disclaimer with the video and required a login to view it.

In a statement, YouTube said, "YouTube allows individuals to express themselves and to communicate with a global audience. The diversity of the world in which we live … means that some of the beliefs and views of some individuals may offend others."

The film is also hosted on a Dutch Web site. The Web site of Wilders’ political party also links to sites where the film can be viewed.

The title of the 15-minute film, "Fitna," translates in Arabic to "strife" or "conflict" of the type that occurs within families or any other homogenous group.

Criticism of Wilders and the film grew Friday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the film, calling it "offensively anti-Islamic" while urging calm.

"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence," he said in a statement. "The right of free expression is not at stake here."

Ah yes, the courageous United Nations. Always on the wrong side of every issue.

Here is what LiveLeak now has up:

The miserable cowards.

But here is a copy that is still viewable (for the moment) via YouTube:

(Thanks to Clarissimus for the YouTube link.)

From the Chicago CBS affiliate, CBS 2:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright Makes Surprise Appearance

Sen. Obama’s Controversial Former Pastor Spoke In Public For First Time Since Scandal Broke

March 28, 2008

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The Rev. Jeremiah Wright made a surprise appearance in Chicago Friday night.

Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor appeared at Saint Sabina church to hear famed African American poet Maya Angelou speak, and only CBS 2 cameras were there.

Wright has been laying low ever since some of his controversial sermons surfaced, and his appearance Friday seemed to come as a surprise to the audience — but they quickly showed their support.

Wright received a thunderous welcome. The audience had no idea the man at the center of a national political firestorm for the past three weeks was even coming to their church.

Rev. Wright was invited by Saint Sabina’s pastor, Father Michael Pfleger to attend an event at which Maya Angelou spoke. She was the main draw of the church’s African American speaking series.

Wright was looking tan and smiling as the audience sang happy birthday to Dr. Angelou, who turned 82.

His friends that CBS 2′s Diann Burns spoke with did not bring up with him the latest comment from Obama on national television Friday, distancing himself from Wright.

"Had the Reverend not retired, and, had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people, and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church," Obama said on "The View."

People who know Wright believe it is clear the ordeal has taken a toll. It is not clear how the pastor feels about the senator distancing himself from him, his spiritual advisor of 20 years.

Just as suddenly as he appeared Friday night, Wright was invited to speak, and he did.

Wright did not mention Obama, or the tapes that won’t go away. He simply gave the benediction, received another round of thunderous applause.

"He looked affected. I mean, it’s hard not to be affected when that many things are said on a national stage about what you are," said Chicago School Board President Rufus Williams. "It’s hard to ignore it and it’s hard to not be affected by that."

After he spoke, Wright went to an office off the pulpit, where dozens of people lined up to greet him.

"I wanted him to come tonight as a guest, because he loves Dr. Angelou, and I wanted him to see the love of people for him," Pfleger said. "And so when I asked him about coming he said it would be an honor to come and it was a blessing having him here."

Apparently the church had top-notch security, since everyone seems to have survived unscathed. At least physically.

But isn’t reassuring to see such a warm reception for such an America-hating racist?

Still, I hope the celebrants remembered to tell each other "good morning." That is my all time favorite Maya Angelou quote. I use it all the time. (Admittedly, sometimes without proper citation.)

One also wonders if the poet laureate Angelou is still a Hillary backer. If not, maybe she and Mr. Wright could collaborate on another literary epic.

Maybe something called "Ridin’ Dirty."

From those fans of terrorism at Reuters:

Sheik Salman al-Feraiji, Muqtada al-Sadr’s chief representative in Sadr City, talks to a group of Iraqi police officers who came to lay down their weapons in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 29, 2008.

Maliki says Sadrist foes "worse than al Qaeda"

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the stakes in his five-day-old crackdown on Shi’ite militants on Saturday, describing his foes as "worse than al Qaeda."

The death toll rose as fighting raged in Basra and Baghdad, where U.S. forces have been drawn deeper into a confrontation that started as an Iraqi initiative.

U.S. forces said they had killed 48 militants in air strikes and gun battles across the capital the previous day.

At least 133 bodies and 647 wounded have been brought to five hospitals in the eastern half of Baghdad over five days of clashes, the head of the health directorate for eastern Baghdad, Ali Bustan, said.

In Basra, government troops say they have killed 120 fighters. Scores of people have been reported killed in other towns across the south where fighting has spread.

"We used to talk about al Qaeda. Unfortunately it seems there are some among us who are worse than al Qaeda," Maliki said in a televised meeting with tribal leaders in Basra, where he has personally overseen the crackdown since Tuesday…

A Sadr aide said his representatives had made an overture to the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shi’ite authority, in a bid to end the violence.

Maliki has announced he will fight the militants in Basra "until the end." He issued orders to his commanders in Baghdad to pursue militants in the capital with "no mercy."

But Mehdi Army fighters in black masks still control the streets of much of Iraq’s second-biggest city, manning checkpoints and openly brandishing rifles, machineguns and rocket launchers, reuters reporters in the town said.

"We will fight on and never give up our weapons," Mehdi Army deputy military commander in Basra Abu Hassan al-Daraji told Reuters by telephone. "We will not turn over a single bullet."

Mehdi Army fighters clashed with government forces on the western outskirts of Kerbala, one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest cities. Iraqi commander Major-General Raad Jawdat said his forces had killed 21 "outlaws" and arrested 57 others…

Speaking of the meeting with Sistani, the Sadr aide, Salah al-Ubaidi, said Sistani had called for a peaceful solution.

Sistani almost never intervenes in politics. His views, if made public, would carry authority among Shi’ites in Sadr’s movement and in the political parties that support Maliki…

No mention of the previously announced deadline for the Sadr-ites to surrender.

I hope they don’t decide to let them (and him) off the hook yet again.

From a very understanding Reuters:

Chinese security forces seal off Tibet capital

By Lindsay Beck and John Ruwitch

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese security forces sealed off parts of Lhasa on Saturday and Tibet’s government-in-exile said it was investigating reports of fresh protests, weeks after the city was shaken by an anti-government riot.

The reports coincided with a visit by a group of diplomats, who were led on a closely guarded tour of the city that has been at the heart of unrest throughout China’s ethnic Tibetan regions just months before the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

"We don’t know how many people, but it seems it’s quite a lot of people," Tenzin Taklha, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama said of the events in Lhasa. "I think it’s timed with the visit of the diplomats."

The London-based International Campaign for Tibet said it had heard from three sources that security forces had surrounded Lhasa’s main temples, Jokhang and Ramoche.

"The whole area has been shut down," said the group’s spokeswoman, Kate Saunders.

"I don’t know what form the protest took. I think people in Lhasa may have been aware of the diplomats’ visit, just as they were aware of the journalists’ visit," she said…

On Saturday, China offered to pay compensation to the families of the 18 civilians it says died in the Lhasa violence. The Dalai Lama’s representatives, which deny he is orchestrating the demonstrations, say the death toll is closer to 140.

The government does not permit free access to the areas, making the reports difficult to check. Chinese media has portrayed the violence on March 14 as a riot by a Tibetan mob beating up innocent people, many of them ethnic Chinese.

Their families would each receive 200,000 yuan ($28,530), a notice from Tibet’s regional government said.

"Measures are to be taken to help people repair their homes and shops damaged in the unrest or to build new ones," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted it as saying…

So much for the supposed power of world outrage.

Unfortunately for the Tibetans, the Chinese government doesn’t get up every morning worrying about world opinion.