Back and forth political tides in America are part of the once globally envied system of checks and balances in our democracy (though there are days I really don’t feel like we are anywhere near the democratic standards we used to boast in our pre-9/11 history).
A couple of cool things have come our way today. First, I just discovered Ben Lando’s Iraq Oil Report which has at the top of the blog a story about Hunt Oil coordinating with the US State Department before signing an oil exploration and development agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Armand Hammer always wanted a Nobel Peace Prize — and so did Japan shipbuilding and auto racing tycoon Ryoichi Sasakawa. They tried to buy it and brow beat for it.
John Edwards has made a statement denying rumors of an extramarital liaison with any other woman — though not mentioning Rielle Hunter. I’m going to turn off my cynical gene for a moment and fully accept John Edwards statement at face value. We all probably should.
(House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos) When I lived in Los Angeles, I was riding my bike westward on Wilshire Boulevard just past the Los Angeles Country Club when I saw in the distance a car speed up the curb, over the sidewalk, and into a tree.
According to a former senior intelligence official I met with recently, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and CIA Director Michael Hayden were all in the intel game when the Jonathan Pollard case came to light. They all felt “gamed by Israeli intelligence” back then, according to my source.
MyDD’s Jerome Armstrong has secured a statement from Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom John Edwards has been accused of having an affair. From MyDD’s site: “The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the internet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous.
Pam Spaulding has an excellent piece referencing some of the Blackwater questions I posted below. And a TWN reader who also happens to be one of America’s most distinguished former Ambassadors raised questions about the applicability of international law to the Blackwater case: Excellent questions.
The lesson that some people are taking away from the Iraq boondoggle is that values-driven foreign policy should be rejected. Since prominent neoconservatives plotted a course according to values and not interests, they say, we need to get back to pursuing interests.
This is either true — or it’s a lie. If part of a dirty tricks operation, it’s odd that John Edwards would be the target. I like and respect Huffington Post‘s Sam Stein who wrote the first thoughtful inquiry into what might be going on. Others have rushed to judgment, perhaps wrongly.