For Bush's Ex-Aide, Quick Fall After Long Climb (NYT)

[Up2Late]

(Another "born again" evangelical, even though thay are trying to spin him as being a Catholic.)


Ron Edmonds/Associated Press
President Bush last year with his domestic adviser, Claude A. Allen.

For Bush's Ex-Aide, Quick Fall After Long Climb

By IAN URBINA and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: March 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, March 13 — Claude A. Allen often said his religious upbringing took him from a two-room apartment in a poor neighborhood of Washington to a post at the White House....

(clip)

...Through his lawyer, Mr. Allen denied the charges, saying there was a mix-up concerning his credit card. Maryland authorities charged Mr. Allen, 45, last Thursday with trying at least 25 times over the last five months to return and collect refunds for goods he never purchased, including a home theater system, clothes and items worth as little as $2.50.

The arrest was a puzzling turn in a career that had been on a straight climb. After coming to Washington as a staff member for Jesse Helms, the former Republican senator from North Carolina, he became a protégé of Justice Clarence Thomas and eventually an adviser to the president....

(clip)

...Although he attended Catholic school, he credited his grandfather, a former sharecropper, with inculcating in him a more evangelical faith, and he had become born again by the time he left college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....

(more at link below)

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/politics/14allen.html?ex=1299992400&en=005237c9376a18e1&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>

[OKNancy]

1. give it a rec - great feature article

:hi:

[fed-up]

2. Here's where he took a "wrong turn"-worked under Rove

He grew up a Democrat but took a job after college as press secretary for Bill Cobey, a Republican Congressional candidate in North Carolina.

Soon after, he switched parties. "I realized after the fact that I agree more with the Republican Party platform, that it talked about independence, that it talked about individual responsibility, individual rights, it talked about the ability to guarantee opportunities, not outcomes," he said in an interview with Armstrong Williams, another African-American conservative. "That was very much what my family stood for."

...and here:

...Although Mr. Allen had the vaunted title of assistant to the president for domestic policy and worked from a coveted West Wing office, he did not set policy so much as carry out the decisions of Mr. Bush's inner circle, particularly Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff. Mr. Allen managed some of the domestic policy paper flow between the White House and government agencies.

[jrw14125]

3. F'ing corporate media, STOP calling him an ex-aide!

I see the NYTs is no better than CNN when it comes to this...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/14/claude.allen.arrest.ap/index.html?eref=yahoo

I love how someone at the White House gets busted in January, leaves the White House a couple of weeks later to "spend more time with the family," then the corporate press calls that person an "ex-aide" when they admit to fraud a couple of weeks later.

The CNN article below is a perfect example of slanted journalism:

1. the headline says *Ex-WH aide*
2. they have the former white house aide statement at the top in bold
3. the caption (which is the second thing people read after the headline & subheading) says “President Bush speaks with his *former* domestic policy adviser Claude Allen in March 2005."
4. the lead sentence says it again.

So they have just beat us over the head with the fact that it is a *former* aide – which is inaccurate but enough of a technicality that they can get away with it. And they do mention once at the bottom that he was in the WH when busted, but most people won’t read to the bottom – it’s called “pyramid style” – put all of the important info at the top and trickle your way down to the bottom b/c it will either get cut or, if it stays, people are not really going to get that far. In this case – keep the facts in the bottom to best sway the public.


Wouldn't the more accurate description read something like: "A top White House aide who was arrested on a theft charge, and who recently left to 'spend more time with his family,' admitted to a store investigator he fraudulently returned merchandise that he didn't buy, according to charging documents" (he was a CURRENT WH aide when he committed the crime, when he was arrested, when he notified the WH about the arrest, and when he resigned for b.s. personal reasons, so why not make that clear?)

* They did the same thing with David Savavian a few months back, who was the WH top procurement officer, when he was busted lying to the grand jury about Abramoff ties.

* And they did the same thing when Libby was indicted, also for LYING to investigators and grand jury re: outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

* Dep't of Interior head Gale Norton quit last week "to spend more time with her family." Wonder what she's going to admit to in a week or 2. She's deeply tied up with Abramoff.

Note that every 1 of these crimes is a crime of dishonesty. Something you might think important for people who keep telling us to "trust them" on terror, wiretapping, voting, etc.

[moobu2]

4. Here’s a link to the official charging documents

with all the evidence against Allen.....6 pages.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/allen-charges/?resultpage=1&

[Up2Late]

5. Wow, he's not only a criminal, but a DUMB criminal!

Refunding all that stuff to his credit cards leaves a very definite paper trail, a smart criminal would have used cash.

Maybe he thought it as the best way to do it for Tax purposes. :crazy: