Bring Speicher Home

Reuters News Service is now reporting that Baghdad has yet again asked the US Government to send an official delegation to discuss the ongoing case of Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher - the F-18 Navy pilot shot down in 1991 on the first day of the Gulf War.

While new reports are being 'leaked' in Washington and London of recent sightings of Speicher, the US Government is resisting the call to send an official delegation - accompanied by US press - to Baghdad.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, "I don't believe very much what the regime of Saddam Hussein puts out. They're masters of propaganda." White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, at his daily briefing, said that the administration didn't have enough information to evaluate the Iraqi statement.

The Bush Administration clearly does not want to negotiate with Baghdad - about Speicher - or anything else. They are afraid of getting caught up in haggling over details as the Clinton Administration did over the UN Arms Inspectors. Baghdad looks like they are cooperating as long as they are holding talks; Washington wants the world to see that Baghdad is not cooperating.

The problem is simple: Scott Speicher is most likely alive in captivity in Baghdad.

The mistake the first Bush Administration - then-Defense Secretary Cheney in particular - made in 1991 was declaring him dead the very day he was shot down. How could they possibly have known he was dead - before a search and rescue team had even gone to the crash site?

And when, years later, a careful search was made of the site, what did they find? A secret 'E&E' code - a specific and unique Escape and Evade signal given individually to each pilot. Such a signal could only mean one thing: Speicher had indeed survived his shootdown in good enough shape to scratch the E&E code into the surrounding terrain.

Thus, all subsequent live-sightings of "an American pilot" must be given credence. And there have been many beginning with an Iraqi defector who claimed to have driven an American pilot to Baghdad. Later, when shown 'mug shots' he was able to pick Speicher's photo out of a collection of similar looking men.

Then came credible intelligence reports from foreign governments of Scott Speicher being held in an underground detention facility - either directly under Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters - or in the area of Salman Park where all sorts of military and covert training have been observed.

Then, just before the Clinton Administration went out of office in January 2001, they received new evidence that Speicher was alive. Clinton even said so publicly. And they then changed his status from Killed-in-Action (KIA) to Missing-in-Action(MIA).

Now the Pentagon admits they are considering yet another status change to Prisoner-of-War (POW).

Yet, despite this flurry of activity and amid indications that Speicher is alive, the Bush Administration chooses to play word games with the Iraqi Government. Secretary Rumsfeld claims the offer to send a team to Baghdad was not an "official" request. So then Baghdad issues yet another invitation and our government again tries to ignore or dismiss it.

The fate of now-Commander Scott Speicher is of the utmost importance. The Bush Administration should do everything - including going to Baghdad - to bring that hero pilot home.

If the Bush Team is worried about eroding their argument for a war against Saddam, they shouldn't worry too much. The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of such a war. That will not change; the American people have felt that way since Bush I failed to finish the job in 1991.

Right now with the Mid-East in total turmoil and our Arab so-called allies not in favor of a war against Saddam anyway, our government should go over there and solve - once and for all - the case of Scott Speicher.

America is not America as long as we leave one of our people behind.

THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL

Both Israeli and American intelligence are reporting that at a Summit meeting last year in Moscow - while PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat met with Russian President Vladimir Putin - there was a secret meeting between Iranian agents and PLO representatives.

That secret meeting resulted in a new alliance between the PLO and Iran in which the oil-rich Iranians would covertly fund PLO groups with millions of dollars and supply them with weapons.

Tehran vehemently denies any such meeting occurred - or that any such alliance exists.

Of course, Tehran also denied any participation in a shipload of Iranian weapons to the PLO which was intercepted several months ago by the US Navy.

You may recall that President Bush then lumped Iran into his Axis of Evil speech along with Iraq and North Korea. At that time Iran protested the label - and argued that the Iranian government has taken a 'moderate' turn.

Now, let us analyze this report:

If both Israeli and American intelligence are leaking that such a 'secret' meeting indeed took place in Moscow, then a key question is: Did the Russians know about it?

It is difficult to believe that such a 'secret' meeting could take place in Moscow and the Russian intelligence agencies not know of it. After all, that is a regime that in the past basically bugged every hotel room in Moscow just to listen in to all foreigners' conversations.

A former Congressman once told me of a time he visited Moscow and, upon checking into his room, he said aloud to the chandelier hanging in his sitting room, "Gee, I don't have any towels in my bathroom."

Not five minutes later there was a knock on his door and a maid appeared with a fresh supply of towels!

If his room was bugged, it is inconceivable that Iranian and PLO agents could meet in Moscow and the Russians not know of it.

Thus, we all must ask: how complicit in this PLO-Iranian alliance is Putin? And, if Putin knew of this meeting - or perhaps even arranged it - why isn't Russia included in Bush's Axis of Evil?

Moscow and Tehran have long had a close relationship. Moscow has recently been assisting Iran in the construction of a nuclear power plant. Russia cultivates nations like Iran which have hard currency (from oil sales) and want to buy Russian military hardware.

A year ago a new President Bush said he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and determined that "he is a good man with a soul."

Such a naive and sophomoric assesment may very well be proven to be tragically false - especially if Russia is brokering an agreement which will result in a war against Israel.

Russia - and Red China - have not changed their stripes. It's just that our Big Business wants to make money there.

It is time we faced facts: the Axis of Evil contains more governments than just Baghdad, Tehran and Pyongyang. Perhaps Moscow and Beijing should also be included.

POLITICAL NEWCOMERS


2002 is an election year and we must remember than what happens in these mid-term congressional races could be a precursor to the 2004 presidential race. With that in mind, let us examine a few late developments:

1) Possible Veep Candidate? Last week’s Texas Democrat gubernatorial primary supplied us with a potential new national political star: Tony Sanchez.

Mr. Sanchez handily won his primary – using more than $20 million of his own money which he earned as well-respected oil and banking figure in Texas. He now faces Governor Rick Perry, a relatively weak and bland figure who took over when George W. Bush left for the White House.

Mr. Sanchez is well liked and well respected in the Texas business community. He is also a good candidate. Should he somehow defeat Governor Perry – and he might be able to even though Texas has become the most Republican state in the country – then he immediately becomes a hot national figure for the Democrats.

Sanchez would then be talked about as a Vice Presidential running mate for whoever emerges in the 2004 presidential primaries.

As a Hispanic governor from the President’s home state – who defeated the President’s own Lt. Governor – Sanchez could also help with Hispanics in other key states including California, Florida and New Jersey.

Keep you eye on the Texas governor’s race this November.


2) California Dreamin’: Almost two weeks since the GOP primary saw a shocking victory of businessman Bill Simon, Jr. and polls show the race to be dead-even. In fact, one poll has Simon ahead 48%-41% over Governor Gray Davis.

Davis is in Big Trouble.

He has $28 million in the bank while Simon spent his wad on the primary. Davis should already be on TV ‘defining’ Simon in an unfavorable light before Simon can define himself. That is what Hillary Clinton did to Rick Lazio last year when Rudy Giuliani suddenly dropped out of the race.

The longer Simon can keep it close, the better chance he has of winning this race. There is just ‘something’ about Davis that isn’t wearing well. His approval ratings are awful. His strategy is simply to demonize Simon as the “lesser of two evils.”

That approach has failed before – specifically in New York when Mario Cuomo ran for his fourth term against George Pataki. So unpopular was Cuomo by then that all he could do was attack Pataki; Cuomo could not even brag about anything good he had done.

When things get that negative, you know the incumbent is in big trouble.

If Simon can win this race then he – like Sanchez – is an automatic ‘mention’ as a potential Veep candidate should Dick Cheney not run.


3) Liddy Dole’s poor performance: all of Washington is abuzz with talk about what a lousy political candidate Elizabeth Dole is turning out to be down in her native North Carolina. Two years ago – as a presidential candidate – she proved to have a political tin ear. Campaigning up in New Hampshire she called for gun control! In a GOP primary!

Scripted, programmed, tense and tight – she does not ‘connect’ with audiences.

While still favored to win Jesse Helms’ seat, her likely opponent, former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, is not to be underestimated. The recent unfavorable press coverage of Dole’s campaign will only help Bowles’ fundraising.

As one DC insider put it, “How can someone (Liddy Dole) who went to Duke and Harvard Law School (when few women could get in there) be so dumb politically?”

The answer is simple: political smarts can’t be taught in a fancy Ivy League School.

This November we’ll see if Sanchez, Simon and Bowles have those smarts or not.

CHENEY'S TRIP BOMBS


Vice President Dick Cheney left for the Middle East ten days ago with one agenda: prepare those Arab states, plus Turkey, for the coming war to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

Now that the trip is over, it is clear that the War Against Saddam is on the back burner – perhaps for a long time.

To put it bluntly, those Arab states – with the exception of Bahrain – told the Bush/Cheney Administration to stuff it. Their concern: the rapidly deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Until that situation is improved, forget Saddam” was the message repeatedly delivered to Cheney.

For those of us who want a “regime change” in Baghdad, the Cheney trip was a fiasco. The momentum toward removing Saddam and his Ba’th Party has been lost – and the situation on the ground in Israel is growing more dire by the minute.

What went wrong:

1) The CIA – with the tacit assent of the Bush White House – fingered only Osama bin Laden for September 11 – despite good evidence to the contrary. The now-infamous Prague meeting between lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi agent Ahmed al-Ani last April was ‘debunked’ and pooh-poohed by CIA immediately after 9-11. Why?

2) A careful reading of Laurie Mylroie’s book about the 1993 World Trade bombing indeed proves that it was Saddam who masterminded that revenge attack in payback for the Gulf War.

3) Patience and vindictiveness are the watchwords of ‘Evil-Doers’ like Saddam and Osama. When the 1993 WTC bombing failed to bring about the intended result – the two towers falling upon each other like trees in a forest - they went back to the drawing board. It took eight years of recruiting, training, planning, flight schools, visas, structural engineers designing a plan, but they accomplished their goal.

4) It is naïve of us to believe 9-11 was the result of AL Qaeda by itself. State sponsorship had to be involved.

5) But CIA’s debunking of Iraq’s role in 9-11 has now made it all but impossible to pin 9-11 on Saddam. CIA Director George Tenet, an incompetent boob who never should have been kept on by G.W. Bush, yesterday kept open the ‘possibility’ that Iraq was involved in 9-11. A little late, no? It looks like we are ‘concocting’ a new rationale for attacking him.

6) Israel now becomes the unwitting victim of CIA’s stupidity. In order to re-enlist the Arab states in a new Coalition to oust Saddam, we have to come down hard on Israel to stop the viiolence there. But it is not their fault! It is entirely the fault of Arafat and Hamas – supported by the very Arab states we are wooing!


Cheney and Team Bush are fooling themselves if they think they can bring about a meaningful settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is a quagmire no one ever emerges successfully from.

Ironically, Prime Minister Sharon has shown remarkable patience and restraint – and yet the Bush Administration – trying in vain to curry favor with the Arabs – comes down hard on Sharon for being too tough.

Team Bush will regret their decision to placate the Arabs because if Sharon fails – and his government falls – it will be replaced by Bibi Netanhayu. And his government will show no restraint whatsoever.

Bottom line?

CIA and the White House should have told the ‘whole’ truth on September 11 and the days immediately following. They should have shown the Baghdad connections to both WTC attacks.

That way the entire world would have been ready, willing and able to remove Saddam from power.

HEARTLESS IN DC


It is awful “that anybody would be so cold and heartless as to hold an American flier for all this period of time without notification to his family.”

This was George W. Bush on Wednesday speaking of the possibility that Saddam Hussein is holding Gulf War pilot Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher as a POW in Baghdad.

“Sit down and shut up!”

That was then-President George H.W. Bush yelling at hundreds of POW/MIA family members in June 1992 when they were pleading with him to tell the truth about the US POW’s left behind in Vietnam at the end of the war.

Funny, isn’t it, how indignant this President can be about a US POW left behind by his father’s administration in Iraq – and how ‘sympathetic’ he can act toward that POW’s family. Yet his father’s administration lied to, insulted, and demeaned those very families.

And virtually each and every member of the father’s administration who dealt with the POW issue is now in a key post in this administration.

Cheney, Powell, Armitage, Wolfowitz, Scowcroft – and Rummy, too, from his days as Defense Secretary in the mid-1970’s – all have been guilty of covering up, lying and writing off the POW’s.

So now all of a sudden we are supposed to buy this ‘sympathy act’?

On Wednesday at his 4:00PM press conference, President Bush said of Hussein, “Let me just say this to you: I know the man has had an MIA status, and it reminds me once again about the nature of Saddam Hussein, if in fact he (Speicher) is alive.”

This Bush Administration may want to use the fact that Saddam has kept Speicher as a POW as a pretext – as if we need another one - to attack the Iraqi regime.

But this sudden indignation – Speicher would now have been held for eleven years – is as phony as anything any President has ever faked.

Where was the anger and indignation from Bush, the father, or Cheney or Powell in 1991 or 1992 – while they were still in power? And what about for the past 13 months?

It was only because of Monday’s new revelation that British intelligence had months ago given the CIA and the DIA intelligence that Speicher is alive that President Bush even talked of the Speicher case.

And, if holding a US pilot as a POW indicates the “nature” of a government, what about our coalition partner, Russia, who still has US POW’s from Vietnam, according to Boris Yeltsin?

And what about Hanoi? This President Bush signed into law a comprehensive trade bill with Vietnam and everyone in DC now acts as if the Vietnam War never happened. Everyone is kissing each other over our new ‘friendship’ with the communists in Vietnam – who are exactly the same people who ran the war 25 years ago. Those officials in Hanoi are also still holding hundreds of US POW’s – and then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush knew it all the way back in 1976. And guess who served in that administration and worked on the POW issue? Cheney, Armitage, Scowcroft and Rumsfeld.

Much, much more is to come out about this travesty – and the Bush Team’s total hypocrisy.

When all is said and done the American people need to know the truth. Of course, Saddam, the Russian KGB veterans like Putin and the communists in Hanoi are – to use W’s phrase, ‘Evil-Doers.’ But the senior officials of the two Bush Administrations are the true ‘heartless’ liars and cover-uppers who were complicit with the abandonment of our POW’s.

Our anger over the holding of US POW’s must also be aimed at these Team Bush members – including the two George Bushes for allowing it to happen.

SAME OLD...SAME OLD COVER-UP

Well, it didn’t take them long. One day, in fact.

The Cover-Up crowd inside the CIA and the Pentagon has already gone into overdrive to debunk and besmirch any story and any source that claims that Baghdad is holding Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher alive.

Through careful anonymous leaks, the US Intel Community has already been able to tamp down the excitement over yesterday’s revelation in the WASHINGTON TIMES that British intelligence has information that Speicher is indeed alive – 11 years after Dick Cheney declared him dead.

In today’s follow-up story in the WASHINGTON TIMES - http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020312-2969672.htm – intelligence and administration figures will not speak on the record. Instead, they hide behind the cloak of anonymity as they try to deceive us about Speicher’s status. For example, yesterday a high administration official was quoted by Reuters as saying, "We have no evidence whatsoever that he is alive."

Oh, really?

We are supposed to believe that the Brits are such fools that they came up with totally bogus information?

Or is the truth simpler: we screwed up 11 years ago when we declared him Killed in Action (KIA) and we now don’t want to admit our mistake?

More particularly, Cheney and Colin Powell – and former President Bush – all wrote off Speicher and now, back in power - can’t admit they blew it.

This “cover-up” is always worse than the crime itself. Why didn’t they just admit the truth back in 1991? All evidence then was that he survived his shootdown – and no body was ever recovered. So what happened to him? The Iraqis aren’t stupid. They saw in Vietnam and other conflicts how we Americans value each human life – especially captured military personnel. Certainly Saddam, who follows Soviet military doctrine, knew then and knows now that holding a US POW gives him tremendous leverage and negotiating ability.

Now, with the Bush Administration making threatening noises about a “regime change” in Baghdad, it is ‘interesting’ how all of a sudden the Speicher case is back front and center.

The Bush Team doesn’t want another Iranian Hostage Crisis – where they are squeezed daily to bring our people home but can’t do it.

So what do they do?

Deny the POW is alive after all.

That way the pressure is off – and the Administration can proceed on its own agenda at its own speed.

Someone – Baghdad or London perhaps – has tried to throw a monkey wrench named Speicher into that equation.

The Vietnam POW’s have suffered a similar fate to Speicher. Hanoi kept ‘em – to trade for money. Washington didn’t want to be ‘pressured’ by Hanoi so we simply wrote the men off. They simply no longer existed. Their families were told, “Sorry, but your man is dead. So move on with your life.”

But then new information started coming from refugees, boat people, defectors and fellow inmates in Vietnamese prisons. POW’s were alive after all!

That’s where CIA/DIA comes in. They were tasked with ‘debunking’ and ‘shooting down’ these reports and thus to keep the ‘heat’ off the government.

A generation later these same debunkers are masters of the art. They could deny the very air they breathe!

Yesterday and today these oily, slimy fellows went to work to deny, debunk, disprove and deflect all evidence that poor Michael Scott Speicher is still alive.

Our stupid media buys these denials – even if some skeptical US Senators – Smith and Roberts – know better.

Let us hope that a miracle occurs and Lt. Commander Speicher – he would be an Admiral by now – can somehow be recovered.

Sadly, I have little faith that our government even wants that.

POW ALIVE IN BAGHDAD


Today’s WASHINGTON TIME front page story (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020311-40815350.htm) that Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher is indeed alive and held as a POW in Baghdad is a huge story with many ramifications.

Speicher was shot down on the first day of the Gulf War, January 17, 1991 and was immediately proclaimed dead by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, with then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell standing next to him.

There was then – and has been many times since then – strong evidence to refute Cheney’s quick-draw pronouncement of death.

Numerous on-the-ground sources have seen Speicher in an underground facility in Baghdad. These reports have been given to the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) over the years – and nothing has been done.

Late in Bill Clinton’s final days he suddenly changed Speicher’s status from KIA to Missing in Action (MIA) and said there was strong evidence that Speicher was alive.

In the 14 months since then, the Speicher case has again disappeared from the news.

Now today’s TIMES’ piece claims new evidence from British Intelligence proving Speicher’s status as a POW was given to CIA and DIA “several months ago.” But, guess what? Again nothing has been done to bring him home.

Analysis: the Brits are furious over the possibility that we are going to invade Iraq soon. Stories have recently claimed that some of Tony Blair’s Cabinet have threatened to resign if he goes along with an Iraqi invasion. Today now-Vice President Dick Cheney arrives in London on a ten-day trip designed to form a new coalition to go to war against Iraq. Is it merely coincidental that this story – based on British intelligence – leaks in the WASHINGTON TIMES on the same day Cheney gets to London?

No.

This is a deliberate leak by the British Government. They are furious over the Cheney/Powell cover-up of Speicher’s existence. And they are furious that nothing was done with the intelligence they provided to the US Government.

This ‘leak’ was a clear shot across Cheney’s – and both Bushes’ – bow. The Brits are going to use the Speicher case – and our own government’s obvious cover-up of it – to thwart our intended war with Saddam or at least to modify its scope and range.

The United States Congress needs to get off its duff and look at the Speicher case in the context of the repeated failure of our intelligence agencies – specifically the CIA and the DIA (which takes its orders from CIA anyway) – to do anything right and to tell it straight. Their record is deplorable.

Congress needs to open a large public investigation of the Speicher Case as a way to examine all the other lies we have been told by our own government.

Personally I know that hundreds of US POW’s are also still alive and held against their will in S.E. Asia. Our government has lied about them, too.

How long are we going to allow this deplorable conduct to go unpunished?

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!

You read it here first: Bill Simon, Jr. indeed won yesterday’s crucial GOP gubernatorial primary – and Gary Condit was soundly defeated in his own party’s congressional primary.

Here is what these two races portend:

1) California for decades has been ‘ahead of the rest of the nation’ as a social and political laboratory. What first appears in California often then sweeps the rest of the nation an election cycle or two later. Let’s remember Proposition 13 – the grass roots movement to lower property taxes in California. Virtually everyone - including then former Governor Ronald Reagan – thought it would never make it. But, when it did, Old Dutch happily embraced it as part of his tax-cutting philosophy.

Soon, similar propositions were cropping up in almost every state.

Yesterday’s nomination of Bill Simon, Jr., is a new movement toward reigning in government’s out-of-control growth. One of Mr. Simon’s main planks was a 15% across the board cut in the cost of government in Sacramento.

Don’t we wish a similar reduction were possible in Washington?

Politically, Simon has a tough road ahead because many rock-ribbed conservative Republican voters have abandoned the state for nearby environs. Still, his defeat of the squishy, fuzzy moderate – Richard Riordan – is a decided vote against the recent drift of the GOP away from its principles in an effort to look ‘Democrat Lite.’

This race is the single most important election in November for the GOP. Because if we can re-capture California, then we can easily keep the White House in 2004 and perhaps beyond.


2) Condit: The people have spoken – and decidedly so. They blew his doors in – and he’s toast politically – and perhaps legally, too.


The sitting Grand Jury in DC will now step up the pressure on Condit. He’s finished politically and broke financially. He probably will not even be able to pay his lawyers. So the Feds are going to move in now and exert maximum pressure. And nary a peep will come from his House colleagues. They will now treat him as if he doesn’t exist. He’s an ‘invisible man’ as far as they are concerned.

And the girls? They won’t want any part of this political leper any more.

Gary Condit has now started to pay for whatever happened between him and Chandra Levy.

Let us hope the truth about her disappearance can soon come to light.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME!



Tomorrow – Tuesday March 5 – is a huge day in the political evolution of this decade.

Because it is Primary Day in California – the single biggest and most important state in the nation.

And the key races tomorrow are the Republican primary for governor – and the final race for Gary Condit. First, the GOP primary:

For months President Bush and the White House have been urging former LA Mayor Richard Riordan – a moderate-to-liberal independent businessman – to run against Governor Grey Davis. After much hemming and hawing, Riordan agreed. And then he ran a thoroughly miserable campaign.

Figuring he had the GOP nomination in the bag, he ignored hard-charging conservative business man William E. Simon, Jr., the son of the former Treasury Secretary and author of the bestseller, A TIME FOR TRUTH.

Bill Simon, Jr. – in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson – knows that the conservative candidate is going to win the GOP primary. Running “to the center” before you secure the nomination is a huge mistake. So, while Riordan concentrated on next fall’s general election – and while Grey Davis spent millions attacking Riordan in the GOP primary! figuring he would be a tougher opponent in the fall - Simon trudged along concentrating solely on GOP primary voters.

Sure enough the latest spate of polls have all shown huge upward momentum for Simon – and a leveling or downward directions for Riordan.

At the last minute, Riordan threw some of his own millions into the race – but it probably is too little too late.

Prediction: Bill Simon, Jr. will win the primary by a substantial margin.

The general election next November? That is hard to gauge right now. Davis remains ‘damaged goods’ since last year’s disastrous energy shortages. But California is also not the same California that used to elect statewide Republicans. Many GOP voters have abandoned the state for neighboring states such as Nevada, Arizona and Oregon.

If Simon could somehow defeat Davis, he would automatically become a national political figure of major significance. He would be mentioned for Vice President in 2004, should Cheney not run again.

California is where Clinton won twice and Gore soundly thrashed Bush. But if the GOP could suddenly recapture it, Bill Simon, Jr. would be the toast of the GOP.

Up north, near Modesto, hopefully we will see the end of Gary Condit’s arrogant political career. Even his own party’s leaders have abandoned him – and rightly so.

All polls show him losing badly to his former staffer, Dennis Cardozo, who received the endorsements of Democrats from all across the state – and many in DC, too.

Clearly the Democrat Party has had enough of this man who has caused so much pain and embarrassment to so many.

Prediction: Not only will Condit be soundly defeated in the primary, but not long thereafter the Grand Jury that is now exploring the Chandra Levy disappearance will ratchet up the pressure on Condit.

Once he is a lame duck, the Feds will delight in squeezing Condit without the fear of his congressional peers coming to his defense.

For Condit tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of a cushy, easy life where everyone has catered to his every whim.

And then, maybe, the truth can be uncovered about what really happened to Chandra.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME!



Tomorrow – Tuesday March 5 – is a huge day in the political evolution of this decade.

Because it is Primary Day in California – the single biggest and most important state in the nation.

And the key races tomorrow are the Republican primary for governor – and the final race for Gary Condit. First, the GOP primary:

For months President Bush and the White House have been urging former LA Mayor Richard Riordan – a moderate-to-liberal independent businessman – to run against Governor Grey Davis. After much hemming and hawing, Riordan agreed. And then he ran a thoroughly miserable campaign.

Figuring he had the GOP nomination in the bag, he ignored hard-charging conservative business man William E. Simon, Jr., the son of the former Treasury Secretary and author of the bestseller, A TIME FOR TRUTH.

Bill Simon, Jr. – in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson – knows that the conservative candidate is going to win the GOP primary. Running “to the center” before you secure the nomination is a huge mistake. So, while Riordan concentrated on next fall’s general election – and while Grey Davis spent millions attacking Riordan in the GOP primary! figuring he would be a tougher opponent in the fall - Simon trudged along concentrating solely on GOP primary voters.

Sure enough the latest spate of polls have all shown huge upward momentum for Simon – and a leveling or downward directions for Riordan.

At the last minute, Riordan threw some of his own millions into the race – but it probably is too little too late.

Prediction: Bill Simon, Jr. will win the primary by a substantial margin.

The general election next November? That is hard to gauge right now. Davis remains ‘damaged goods’ since last year’s disastrous energy shortages. But California is also not the same California that used to elect statewide Republicans. Many GOP voters have abandoned the state for neighboring states such as Nevada, Arizona and Oregon.

If Simon could somehow defeat Davis, he would automatically become a national political figure of major significance. He would be mentioned for Vice President in 2004, should Cheney not run again.

California is where Clinton won twice and Gore soundly thrashed Bush. But if the GOP could suddenly recapture it, Bill Simon, Jr. would be the toast of the GOP.

Up north, near Modesto, hopefully we will see the end of Gary Condit’s arrogant political career. Even his own party’s leaders have abandoned him – and rightly so.

All polls show him losing badly to his former staffer, Dennis Cardozo, who received the endorsements of Democrats from all across the state – and many in DC, too.

Clearly the Democrat Party has had enough of this man who has caused so much pain and embarrassment to so many.

Prediction: Not only will Condit be soundly defeated in the primary, but not long thereafter the Grand Jury that is now exploring the Chandra Levy disappearance will ratchet up the pressure on Condit.

Once he is a lame duck, the Feds will delight in squeezing Condit without the fear of his congressional peers coming to his defense.

For Condit tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of a cushy, easy life where everyone has catered to his every whim.

And then, maybe, the truth can be uncovered about what really happened to Chandra.

OUR HONOR IS OUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET



What a two weeks we have had.

Human nature never changes.

From the Olympics to Enron to historians admitting their plagiaristic behavior, we are rife with lying, dishonesty and cheating.

Out at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics – obtained through Utah officials bribing the decision-makers in the International Olympic Committee – we witnessed gross misconduct by the French pairs figure skating judge who clearly rigged her vote under pressure from above. Was that pressure merely confined to the French Figure Skating Association, or did the Russians – who ultimately “won” the gold medal – also make a deal with her?

Then we had the case of a new substance aimed at increasing red blood cells – and thus enabling cross-country skiers to ‘carry’ more oxygen during their grueling events. A Spaniard (German, actually) and two Russians were stripped of their medals.

None of this was new to the Olympics. We have seen almost identical behavior in each and every Olympic games.

While our attention was on the beauty of sports – and the ugliness of the cheaters – we had the sad spectacle of Jeffrey Skilling, my Harvard Business School section mate, twice telling Congress while under oath that he knew nothing was amiss at Enron.

Of course no one believes him. Not a word, in fact. And that is what is so sad. How can this obviously smart man be so dumb? How can he allow himself to look so pathetic – and venal – and vain and arrogant to the entire world?

The answer? Pure greed and total arrogance – and a total disregard for everything and everybody who gets in his way.

Twenty four years ago at Harvard Business School Skilling and I sat through a few classes taught by Professor Bruce Scott who made a point of telling us all how “you need balance in your life. If you get too skewed toward work, work, work the result will be sad: you’ll be rich, divorced and unhappy.”

Jeff Skilling – a very able and talented – man, obviously thought he knew better. And now, 24 years later, he is divorced, rich beyond anyone’s imagination and ridiculed on Jay Leno and David Letterman. He is the subject of federal criminal probes; congressional investigators are exploring perjury charges against him – and ripped-off shareholders and Enron employees have filed numerous civil suits aimed at stripping Skilling of all his money.

Skilling is in for a long, tough time ahead. But no matter how it all turns out for him, he has lost something more precious than the millions he has earned – or ‘taken’, some would say – or the freedom he may forsake if he is tried and convicted. He has lost – forever – his honor

Meanwhile, Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Harvard teacher of mine (she taught a basic Supreme Court course), is now going through the awful process of being stripped of her credibility after admitting she plagiarized “passages” from other writers.

The other famous ‘Television Historian’ – Stephen Ambrose – has already been forced to admit that he, too, literally stole the works of others without attribution.

What Goodwin and Ambrose did would have caused a student to be expelled from Harvard for plagiarism. Now all that seems to happen is they lose a TV gig or two. In fact, they have lost one of their most important attributes: their credibility.


All of these people have made mistakes motivated by the ago old sins of greed, avarice and excessive pride.

This is happening more and more today because our society has gotten seriously off track. What used to count more than anything else: one’s honor has been cast aside for a short-term enjoyment of fame and riches.

Too bad – for all concerned. Because what has made the United States a special place is that personal characteristics have in the past made one special. Honesty, selflessness, caring, empathy and optimism were what made our country survive the awful times of our birth and two World Wars since.

When we lose those special characteristics, we will lose our special place as a nation in a world looking for moral leadership.



A note to all of you who have emailed me. I apologize that so far I have not yet been able to answer each and every one of you, as I always try to do. I am swamped with emails – Thank You! – and just have not yet had the time to write everyone. But I will try!