http://counterpunch.com/martens09082008.htmlThe Man Who Vetted Palin
The bold type headlines on newsstands last week with their titillating pronouncements of “dark secrets,” “scandal” and “lies,” have missed the real story by 23 years. And the insatiable pondering of how a proper vetting process of VP hopeful Sarah Palin could have overlooked an animal rights train wreck, an ongoing ethics investigation, a coziness with a secessionist group, and a potential foray into censoring library books in small town America also misses the mark.
The vetting process worked exactly as it was supposed to work: it delivered a Republican candidate with a heaping plate of character flaws and serial judgment lapses who thus wouldn’t wince at reading fiction from a TelePrompTer to 37 million Americans. (What’s the difference between George W. Bush and Sarah Palin? Lipstick.)
The real dark secret is that our country has been held hostage to this democracy-gutting strategy since the Reagan administration allowed money launderers, gun runners and their criminal defense lawyers to seize power in what is still inadequately called Iran-Contra. (Had much of the record not been classified or shredded, the public would have seen a personal profiteering operation as well as an illicit arms network involving the U.S., Israel, Iran and Central America. And until the complete record is expunged and all the players are dead, it matters greatly to the Iran-Contra gang who runs the country and has access to what’s left of that classified material.)
The man assigned to vet Sarah Palin is Arthur B. Culvahouse, currently Chairman of the giant corporate law firm, O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Could a man with the following credentials fail to sleuth out Palin’s character issues when most are readily available in newspaper and internet archives and the public domain? Mr. Culvahouse was a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction; the Counterintelligence Advisory Panel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1989-1990); the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) and the President's Intelligence Oversight Board.
Here’s what the White House says the PIAB does: “Through meetings with intelligence principals, substantive briefings, and visits to intelligence installations, the PIAB seeks to identify deficiencies in the collection, analysis, and reporting of intelligence….”
If there is anyone in the country who has access to high level intelligence, it is Arthur B. Culvahouse. So if he had this massive dossier of negative intel on Sarah Palin, why wasn’t she passed over as McCain’s running mate? Unless, of course, this was precisely the profile being sought.
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it is not political fun and games
it is the game of blood and money