Change the Teamsters can believe in, part 2
POWERLINE
The Teamsters union has had a long and storied relationship with the Mafia. To take just one vivid example, consider the case of Anthony Senter. Senter was the Mafia hit man who arranged a deal with a Teamsters local for a pension after he was convicted of being a member of a mob hit squad in New York City that committed 25 murders and dismembered most of the victims.
Senter's attempt to secure a pension from his friends at the Teamsters was disrupted in 1994 by the Independent Review Board. The IRB is the body created by a 1989 consent decree to monitor the Teamsters for corruption. Since 1999 the Teamsters has sought to have the consent decree dissolved. The Department of Justice has not thought that such a good idea. The Teamsters would like new leadership at the Department of Justice with a better attitude.
In 1989 the Teamsters entered into the consent decree with the government. The decree was entered into before, and signed by, Judge David Edelstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The consent decree resolved the government's prosecution of the Teamsters for racketeering.
Certain provisions of the decree were enforced by a permanent injunction. The injunction ordered the Teamsters to refrain from racketeering activity (as defined under federal law) and from knowingly associating with the Mafia. The consent decree also provided for the creation of the three-member IRB in 1992. The jurisdiction of the IRB is limited to the prevention of corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, extortion, loan sharking, and other serious violations of federal law, or control and influence of the Teamsters by the Mafia.
Today's page-one Wall Street Journal story shines a spotlight on the Teamsters' endorsement of Barack Obama. According to the Journal, Obama advised the Teamsters prior to its endorsement of him that he supported dissolving the permanent injunction to which the Teamsters agreed in 1989 and under which it has been operating ever since. Dissolution of the consent decree would require judicial blessing, but if the government were to seek dissolution of the decree, it would be highly likely to secure it.
Taking a leaf from the Clinton scandal management playbook, the Obama campaign dismisses the Journal story as old news. Even it it is old news, the Journal story provides the detail and attention that the story richly deserves.
In 2002, the left-wing Nation magazine frankly condemned Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa's goal of eliminating federal oversight of the Teamsers as "a bad idea." It still is. Are the corruption and exploitation of the Teamsters no longer a serious threat? Someone really should ask Barack Obama why not.
The Nation article notes that in May 2002 the IRB permanently barred from the union two of Hoffa's closest associates (William Hogan Jr., president of Chicago's Joint Council 25, and Dane Passo, Hoffa's former Midwest campaign manager and special assistant). According to the article, they were disciplined for trying over an extended period of time to force the Las Vegas local to permit a mob-linked labor broker (of which Hogan's brother was vice president) to provide low-wage, nonunion workers for convention setup work, thus threatening to undermine the Teamsters contract and displace union members.
Some Democrats recently sought the impeachment of an attorney general for politicizing justice by the firing of eight United States Attorneys. Many Democrats joined in driving the attorney general from office on the charge. I believe the charge was bogus in the case of Alberto Gonzales. But Democrats are now about to nominate a presidential candidate who is engaged in something that looks very much like the genuine article.
JOHN adds: Barack Obama, old-fashioned corrupt pol! Well, of course, a lot of those corrupt Democratic pols got elected.
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Why won't the Washington Post review War and Decision?
Douglas Feith's invaluable book War and Decision: Iniside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism is the quintessential Washington story. First, it's about what is probably the most fateful set of decisions to come out of Washington this decade - the decision to wage war in Iraq and how to proceed there after Saddam Hussien's overthrow. Second, it provides an inside account of bureaucratic battles, the lifeblood of Washington news and gossip hounds. Third, it provides new information including the details of the Defense Department's plan for dealing with post-Saddam Iraq, a plan that was approved by President Bush. The conventional wisdom is that there was no such plan, and Feith told me that no account of the plan has appeared elsewhere. Fourth, War and Decision contains three dozen pages of documents that illuminate the decision-making regarding Iraq. Many of these documents, if leaked to the Washington Post, would likely have been sufficient to generate a front-page story.
Yet the Post has decided not to review Feith's inside, revisionist account of the most momentous and controversial decisions of the decade. Why?
The reason the Post gave Feith is that the book was already the subject of a front-page news story. But that story does not purport to be an attempt to engage the book, nor could it have been. Tom Ricks, one of the authors of the article, confirmed that he and co-author Karen DeYoung read the approximately 500 pages of not-yet-editied type-set, interviewed Feith and Paul Bremer, and wrote the article all on a one-day deadline. They used that time, understandably, to unearth newsworthy nuggets. That's a far cry from serious consideration of the work as whole.
It's doubtful, moreover, that the Post typically regards the publication of a front-page story about a book as the basis for not reviewing it. Common sense suggests that a work important enough to merit a major news story is more, not less, worthy of a review. Does the Post decline to review Bob Woodward's books on the grounds they it has already run excerpts?
To review a book is not to endorse it. The Post could have handed off the review to someone they expected would be highly critical, such as its clown prince Dana Milbank, author of a recent snarky attack on Feith (assuming Milbank isn't contractually exempt from having to read stuff). More legitimately, it might have asked someone like Dan Senor to write the review. Senor worked in Iraq with Paul Bremer, who comes in for substantial criticism in War and Decision. Although he disagrees with Feith on important matters, Senor recently praised aspects of the book, including its amazing documentation.
Feith says that if someone had told him the Post would decline to review his book, he would have attributed the statement to right-wing paranoia. And even I would not have predicted this outcome. It's difficult, then, to escape the conclusion that those who made the decision did so based on some combination of dislike for the administration, disapproval of Feith's views (as they understand them), and a desire to see the liberal narrative of the war go unchallenged in the public's mind.
UPDATE: What non-fiction books has the Washington Post been reviewing instead of War and Decision? This Sunday, the book review section reviewed two biographies of Julie Andrews. It also reviewed three sets of books pertaining to conservatism. The burden of most of the books and all three of the reviews is that conservatism has lost its way.
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The Wright context
In the just-published issue of National Review, Stanley Kurtz provides a detailed look at Rev. Wright's black liberation theolgy. He concludes that "the only thing worse than quoting Jeremiah Wright out of context is quoting him in context."
Unfortunately, I understand that, pursuant to usual policy regarding articles in its magazine, National Review is not providing a link to Kurtz's piece. When I have more time, I may try to write a reasonably thorough summary.
Kurtz is mainly interested in Wright's ideology and the closely related theories of his mentor James Cone. He does an excellent job of showing how these ideological underpinnings have led Wright to the conclusions that Obama and his defenders mistakenly dismiss as "sound bites" and "snippets."
Kurtz inevitably considers the question of Obama's decision to remain in Wright's church. He writes: "Nearly every sermon Wright preaches, as well as his now-infamous bulletins and church magazines, is filled with his radicalism, and it's therefore impossible not to conclude that Obama was broadly attracted to Wright's politics."
Significantly, Wright's radicalism sparked a mass exodus from the church on several occasions. By 1975, nearly all of the members who had invited Wright to become their pastor in 1972 had defected. In 1983, "a group of particularly active and prominent members uncomfortable with Wright left Trinity. . .for a local Pentacostal Apostolic church." Wright's radicalism also caused his relations with the United Church of Christ to be rocky at times.
These facts make Obama's decision to remain in Wright's flock all the more telling. |
