I just watched E.J. Dionne with Lawrence O’Donnell and know why the Clintons love him. His education, and it was not even Jesuit, as I suspected. It was Benedictine. Imagine that! The guy not only knows logic, he knows how to apply it in daily life.
The fault, in the faux comparison between the Watergate investigation and the Benghazi “investigation” was the target of Dionne’s laser-beam tonight. Using few words, E.J. managed to illustrate why there can be no comparison between the real scandal of the Watergate cover-up and the in-construction of a Benghazigate cover-up.
Eminence-grise that he is, E.J. hearkened back to a bi-partisan effort to find facts via hearings. Having gathered the evidence, the special committee on Watergate arrived at a conclusion of a cover-up conspiracy. E.J. then contrasted the partisan effort of Darryl Issa, Jason Chaffetz, & Co. on Benghazi that, having decided on a conclusion of a cover-up, now attempts, by way of cherry-picked hearings, to construct a web of evidence.
Thomas Pickering, co-chair of the Accountability Review Board appointed by then Secretary of State Clinton, and other officials from the State Department and the Department of Defense, volunteered to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today to balance the information and testimony offered by the “Whistleblowers.” Those offers were declined.
Clearly there is an agenda here, and E.J. spotlighted it like a professor with a laser light. The two sets of hearings work from two opposing constructs.
The Watergate hearings, having listened to a wide variety of testimonies arrived at a specific proposition: there was a cover-up. Deduction, my dear Watson.
The Darryl Issa war on Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is an inductive effort. Let’s find enough testimony to point to a cover-up conspiracy – just in case she runs. Find evidence for this proposition.
N.B. This is not pure induction. It is, having decided on a conclusion, cherry-picking the evidence, not a true investigation. If Issa really wanted a pure conclusion, he would have invited all who were willing to testify, including Ambassador Pickering.
The Huffington Post | By Hunter Stuart Posted: 04/18/2013 7:46 pm EDT
A Muslim woman wearing a hijab said she was attacked in the Boston area by a man who shouted that Muslims had perpetrated the twin bombings that killed three people and wounded about 170 Monday.
Heba Abolaban, a Palestinian doctor who immigrated to the United States from Syria, says she was punched in the shoulder in Malden, Mass., on Wednesday by a man who shouted “F*** you Muslims!” and “You are involved in the Boston explosions,” according to the Malden Patch.
The man, described as a white male in his 30s, allegedly shouted at Abolaban for about two minutes before continuing on his way, Patch reports.
Read more >>>>
Boston Bombing Suspects’ Identity Sparks Fear Of Backlash For American Muslims, Sikhs
Posted: 04/19/2013 6:17 pm EDT | Updated: 04/19/2013 9:14 pm EDT
WASHINGTON — For Arab-Americans — and people who are mistaken to be Arab — there’s an extra layer of fear that rides along with the frightening news of a possible terror attack: the very real possibility that they will be blamed.
Linda Sarsour, the national advocacy director for the National Network for Arab American Communities, knows it happens. But when the bombs exploded Monday at the Boston Marathon, it was her 13-year-old son who brought that reality home with startling and personal impact.
He did it with a simple text message about an hour after the news broke that asked: “Mom, who did it?”
For Sarsour, it showed just how deeply the fear of guilt by bogus association is embedded in the Arab-American community, even in children born and raised in the United States whose prime obsessions tend to be video games, not race relations.
Read more >>>>