Capital deals with full plate

Insight on the News, June 3, 2002 by Paul M. Rodriguez

It began with a bang--that is, the week's news reporting. From Israel to France, and on to Germany, Afghanistan, Holland and back to the good ol' USA. Suicide bombers, urban destruction, furious elections, mourning after a mass shooting at a school, bitter fighting, murder, confusing policy ukases about the Middle East, insubordination at the Department of Defense (DoD) over a huge piece of artillery that some lunatic had named "The Crusader" (an insult and pejorative throughout the Muslim world), confirmation of Cuban support for biological terrorism and on and on. Bang! Pop! Zowee!

To an increasing number of federal security and intelligence officials perhaps the most upsetting news was a decision by Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, not to void the plea agreement with convicted traitor Robert P. Hanssen--who has been less than candid--and seek the death penalty. In fact, INSIGHT is told that not only has Hanssen's memory often failed about secrets he sold to the former Soviet Union and later to its Russian successor, but the turncoat FBI special agent now sentenced to life in prison without parole reportedly even punched out a polygraph examiner.

To many at the Justice Department the decision not to seek Hanssen's execution is about as stupid as the Supreme Court's decision handed down a few weeks ago that the First Amendment protects virtual child pornography, its makers and the perverts who buy it. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) is one of many who believe that had the high court actually seen the indistinguishable images of real children and those created by computer composite and morphing technology the justices would have affirmed the law's extremely narrow focus to ban this smut that medical professionals and perpetrators say is a trigger to sexual molestation and even murder of children. Congress is working on a fix.

Meanwhile, CIA and Justice Department inspectors say that if top people at Justice actually had reviewed the videotapes of the Hanssen debriefings and listened to the experts instead of the lawyers, Hanssen would be facing the death penalty.

The ongoing revelations of child sexual abuse, rape and even alleged orgies with perverts in South Florida continues to plague the Catholic Church and its leaders, many of whom still don't seem to get it. Cardinal Bernard Law of the Archdiocese of Boston had to be ordered by a judge to submit to a videotaped deposition following a broken civil settlement with at least 86 victims of rogue priests under his authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also came to Washington loaded for bear with proof that Arab and Muslim leaders are funding terrorist activities, even paying large sums to families of the suicide murderers.

Then there were titillating stories emerging from the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner, among them reports that MTV "family man" and notorious rocker Ozzy Osbourne tried to score some prescription narcotics from a winged actress. At least the dinner's entertainer, Drew Carey, was funny and helped remind those in attendance of what a privilege it is to be an American supported by everyday heroes and a first-rate military defending the Ozzy Osbournes and Al Gores along with the rest of us. Carey even reminded the predominantly liberal audience with the White House press passes that Gore lost the election. His advice that they "Get over it!" drew laughs and even applause.

President George W. Bush, in the meantime, challenged Senate Democrats to consider that message, too, when he called on them to unblock the 100 federal judicial nominations that have been held hostage in the Senate Judiciary Committee without hearings. Bush also called on Republicans and Democrats alike to end their selfish jousting over pork-barrel spending. Mitch Daniels, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), really laid it on the line in an exclusive interview with INSIGHT last week (see picture profile, May 27).

That said, the White House signaled it was willing to sign yet another budget-busting farm bill--one that even Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) could not support regardless of side deals between Democrats and White House political generals who seemed to be able to agree only on fighting terrorists overseas and throwing money at likely 2002 election battleground states. Until the president is drawn into the fray to knock heads, not everyone within the administration will be on the same page. For example, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on the Sunday talk shows with messages so different that, if they were on the same page, they were singing verses from different songs. And, over at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the decision to scrap the Crusader artillery system, a huge but supposedly mobile gun mounted on a tanklike device that the old artillerymen of the Army are determined to have. But someone in Army Secretary Thomas White's office, refusing to salute and back Rumsfeld, circulated talking points on Capitol Hill to thwart his effort.