A Memorial Day Message...

Being Memorial Day, I'm expected to tell a story about American Veterans...something about bravery and courage under fire. But American Vets have shown courage under many types of "fire" and I will be a bit different...telling a different kind of story.

When the forces of Socialism, Fascism, Progressive Corporatism, and Imperialism were beaten back after long and costly fighting in Europe and the Pacific, millions of American men and women came home to a country still touched by all of these evils. These "isms" had grown and prospered in the US from the turn of the century...as they had in Europe and Asia...and had given us the Great Depression and taken root in the media of the day.

These men and women...our parents and grandparents...had seen the damage done to nations when these absurd "utopian dreams" were allowed to run rampant and out of control. Yet there were many in the US who still believed in such "progressive" nonsense.

One of the bravest things these returning, world-wise, Veterans would do was to form a bulwark against the ideas of the nation-state and to take a stand for the individual. They created what would become the modern Conservative movement and they did so by going back to college, opening their own businesses, and by voting their trusted European theatre commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, into the Presidency. He served there for eight years...leaving office in January of 1961 after reducing tax burdens and helping to create a climate where small businesses and individual initiative would thrive.

The speech he made at his leaving is still remembered today...and often quoted out of context or misunderstood...it was his famous "military industrial complex" speech.

When President Eisenhower spoke of the military industrial complex, it was not simply in regard to the defense industry that he was voicing his concern. To those who studied his agenda over the prior eight years, it was obvious he was speaking to the concepts of Corporatism which had dominated American economic planning for the three decades prior to his presidency. It was Progressive Corporatism, coupled with wage and price controls, which had given us the Great Depression and had kept our economy comatose throughout the thirties.

Eisenhower warned us of balance, between the needs of the government and the needs of the individual. To quote:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

But there were more threats to individual liberty seen by this world-wisened man. He spoke also of threats to academic freedom and individual initiative. He spoke in warning tones about the coming age of technological revolution:

"In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government."

"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers."

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."

"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

In these words we recognize that this man had an immediate and true grasp of human nature. He understood how academic freedoms could be thrown away, not only in science and technology, but as it turned out, in the social sciences as well. Even as diplomatic a soldier as Dwight Eisenhower had been...he still spoke as a soldier...spoke what was true and what he saw and feared in the future despite the unpopularity and unpleasantness of that truth.

And millions more, soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen...heard and took heed. That was nearly fifty years ago...and their legacy has been more than the winning of battles and the securing of freedom by fire. They secured our freedoms at the ballot boxes and in their homes and their businesses. They did so by serving in their State Legislatures, School Boards, and City Councils.

Now many of them are gone...and far too many Americans have no idea what they stood for and why. Far too many Americans are led by fashion and fad, bending to the will of smooth talking orators, taking their responsibilities to choose leaders not as a sacred and honorable duty, but as a popularity contest and in a party atmosphere.

There was one more warning "Ike" left us with...one of great prescience when viewed against the current administration, this congress, and their economic "policies."

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

This was the wisdom given us by "the greatest generation"...the men and women who lived through the Great Depression...the most terrible war ever imagined...and came out the other end with a renewed respect and love for their nation and for its constitution. They are remembered and honored by many of us. And to those of us who remember; it is our duty to reach out and teach those who don't...to tell about who these Veterans were...not only those who fell in battle, but those who came home and rebuilt an America which had, in many ways, lost its way.

It was an America forged anew by the fires of World War...and recalled to its original purpose and direction by those whose steel was tempered on the battlefields. Let us take a moment on this Memorial Day, 2009, to remember them and all of those who have given so much...and to set ourselve to take up their burden and do our part to preserve the liberty they bought for us at such cost.

The Professor

Amazing Political Statistics

This Certainly Explains a lot:

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out facts of 2008 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Democrats: 19
Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Democrats: 580,000
Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Democrats: 127 million
Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Democrats: 13.2
Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds:
"In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won by Republicans was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.

Professor Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

A Historical Document worth Reading

There have always been those in the media who are prone to celebrity worship. It may be part of why some people become part of the media in the first place; the desire to get close to the famous or infamous or to have access to "the powerful" or "the influential." They may simply have a need to be perceived as being part of the "right crowd."

The reasons why some people feel such needs are varied and not really relevant to the end result. Of course there will always be real reporters and journalists in the media as well. The occassional muck-raker, uncovering tales of corruption and impropriety, may seem a personage of the past but is alive and well...more often being printed in books and on the internet than embraced by corporate media.

It's more common to find the sycophants and apologists posing as "hard ball" reporters while using labels, rhetoric, or simple volume, to delude themselves and their audience that they are not who they truly are. In reality, they gush praise and attribute absurd qualities to the subjects of their worship while pretending to be hard-nosed.

It's a historical reality that such sycophants are so easily swayed in their attempts to join in the limelight, that they often make extremely bad judgements as to those whom they worship. They are also quick to cover-up these errors in judgement or to even switch their positions...swearing they were never in camp...nevertheless a rabid camp follower. As soon as a celebrity, whom more clear headed people saw as a fraud all along, is uncovered, these same media vultures will turn and feign disgust with their fallen idol.

In the twentie's and the thirtie's a large number of westerners, both in the US and in Europe held authoritarian government in high regard. The Socialist movements in Europe, the most successful being the Fascistas in Italy and the National Socialists in Germany (the N.A.Z.I) were held up as models of progressive and innovative government.

In the US, the Progressive movement championed the National Socialists of Italy. Woodrow Wilson himself stated that he was the American Fascist as Mr. Mussolini was the Italian Progressive. He drew a direct comparison in his own efforts to control wages and prices in the US, in order to give government control over business, to Benito Mussolini's strong control of business in Italy. Of course, some fifteen years of those controls in the US led us into the Great Depression; a massive recession which strangled the American economy for more than a decade.

A majority of young people who hear me set up this historical background are prone to dismissive eye-rolling and wise-cracks about how history is "old stuff" with no bearing on their world. Such an attitude has always been about, and those of us who study history understand that human nature is not "old stuff"...in fact human nature never changes and never will. Only the names and places change...everything else just repeats over and over again in cycles.

A perfect example of all I just related: for years the western press gushed over Adolf Hitler...hard to believe now isn't it? But they did...and after the war a massive effort was made to erradicate all record of this slobbering love affair with a foreign dictator whom so many had viewed as the coming saviour of the world.

To be fair; though thousands of gushy praise pieces were printed about the German leader, there were also reporters and columnists who wrote of him in alarm...who sensed that there was something dangerous going on in the world. The number of such alarmists grew as Germany flexed her military might and began to subjugate her neighbors.

At that time media communicated through magazines, newspapers, and on the radio. Radio broadcasts were rarely taped and easily forgotten. Newsprint and magazines were normally tossed out or used as fuel...and the archives kept by publishers were purged diligently, after the war, of writings that could be "misconstrued" in their original intent.

This was a shame, of course, as this was history...and history is always valuable...even when embarrassing to certain parties. Very few of these stories survive today; an example being one praise piece on Herr Hitler discovered a few years back in a closet in Britain. It was a November, 1938, edition of a popular British magazine...and when discovered was immediately recognized for its historic importance.

The article on Hitler was immediately photographed and put onto the internet for the use of historians. Almost instantaneously media lawyers in Britain brought civil action to quash it's reproduction and to have the one remaining copy of the magazine returned to parties "owning the copyright." The publishers eventually backed off when the matter threatened to become too sensational to control.

But before that happened, the article was removed from the web, only to return off and on, removed again...jumped around the internet as believers in free-speech sought to keep it in the public domain, and is now once again available to be viewed by the public.

There is a great deal to learn about human nature and the nature of media by reading and comparing this puff-piece on Adolf Hitler with similar puff-pieces done of politicians today. There is a also a good deal to learn about media people by their reactions to the uncovering of this article.

In our nation, we have a constitution which guarantees freedom of speech to the individual...not to corporations and corporate media outlets...which seems to be a constant irritant to those outlets. Part of this is a natural dislike of any type of competition...particularly when the internet is taking over as a news source while newspapers are falling into bankruptcy. But part of this is also due to people in media realizing they are losing control of public opinion...making them as individuals less and less important.

Egos, once incredibly inflated, are being challenged...and the precious celebrities they once depended on to bolster their own images...are being shown in truer light than in the past. History tells us what happens when those individuals are no longer the "flavor of the month" and fall into disfavor. History also shows us, dramatically sometimes...as is the case in this magazine, what ends these folks can go to in order to maintain control of information flow.

To view and read this important historical magazine story yourself...go to:

http://wow.blogs.com/photos/hitler/

In addition to the article itself, there are a number of links to history and opinion regarding the attempted cover up of this article and its posting on the internet.

A letter from Historian Pam Geller

Pamela Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School .


I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these existbut they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. A perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demanded and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we know could never ever pay back? Why? We Learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine! And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.

Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why they are exceptional, and why they are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers arenot picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?).

We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing un-elected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free-fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and the entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 times ten. We are at war, with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

Now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, dripby drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter is more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom theydisagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.

And then when he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand (the Great Depression). Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country.

He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and…change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down,called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though .

Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U.S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors…all with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I canhope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.

Obama Apparently not real "open" on "open-ness"

Press Release from the US Justice Foundation:

A high-powered team of Los Angeles attorneys representing Barack Obama in his effort to keep his birth certificate, college records and passport documents concealed from the public, has suggested there should be "monetary sanctions" against a lawyer whose clients have brought a complaint alleging Obama doesn't qualify for the Oval Office under the Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen in that post.

The suggestion came in an exchange of e-mails and documents in a case brought by former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others in California. The case originally sought to have the state's electors ordered to withhold their votes for Obama until his eligibility was established. Since his inauguration, it has been amended to seek a future requirement for a vetting process, in addition to the still-sought unveiling of Obama's records.

In the case, being handled largely by Gary Kreep of the U.S. Justice Foundation, Kreep subpoenaed the records documenting the attendance by Obama, or Barry Soetero (his earlier name), from Occidental College.

The lawyer for the college, Stuart W. Rudnick of Musick, Peeler & Garrett, urgently contacted Fredric D. Woocher of Strumwasser & Woocher.

"This firm is counsel to Occidental College. The College is in receipt of the enclosed subpoena that seeks certain information concerning President-Elect Barack Obama," he wrote via fax. "Inasmuch as the subpoena appears to be valid on its face, the College will have no alternative but to comply with the subpoena absent a court order instructing otherwise."

Within hours, Woocher contacted Kreep regarding the issue, telling him, "It will likely not surprise you to hear that Obama opposes the production of the requested records.”

"In order to avoid the needless expense of our bringing and litigating a Motion to Quash the subpoena, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to agree voluntarily to cancel or withdraw the subpoena"

Woocher warned, "Please be advised, in particular, that in the event we are forced to file a motion to quash and we prevail in that motion, we will seek the full measure of monetary sanctions provided for in the Code of Civil Procedures."

Is it a coincidence that both the Occidental lawyers and the Obama lawyers have addresses at 100 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles? And, that Woocher, selected as a "Southern California Super Lawyer, 2009" practices "political law" (what's "political law?")

There are at least 48 legal cases attempting to gain access to various documents from Obama's past. In this one case, Obama is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hide his bona fides, and using a "Super Lawyer" to do it. You do the math. Obama is spending millions to hide his past from the American People.

Watch this case. Occidental's lawyers say they have to comply with Gary Kreep's subpoena. Watch to see how Obama's lawyers attempt to manipulate the justice system to quash this subpoena.

Brilliant Response from Andrew McCarthy

Andrew McCarthy was recently formally invited to join a "Task Force" to aid in decision making in regards to terrorists being currently held by the US military. The letter he sent to Attorney General Holder was both brilliant, honest, and courageous taking into consideration the persecution of citizens who disagree or speak out against the administration.

The letter has been copied below and is well worth reading:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.

The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section