Whoa. What else can we expect to find out?

[whometense]

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070211/ENT19/702110361

'America at Night' reveals seamy side of politics
Author details plot to sabotage John Kerry's presidential bid

Originally posted on February 11, 2007


It sounds like tabloid flapdoodle: Two rogue CIA agents plot to sabotage John Kerry's presidential bid by implicating campaign treasurer Robert Farmer in al-Qaida money laundering and secret communications.

But when the tale is being told by a former CIA operative named Larry J. Kolb, writing from a safe house on an undisclosed Florida beach, and features annotations that comprise a fifth of the book, even a doubting Thomas wants a closer look.

From its opening line ("Unfortunately, this is a true story"), Kolb's riveting "America at Night" (Riverhead, $26.95) takes us inside the covert world of political dirty tricks for a look at one that might have destroyed the Kerry campaign...


In 2004, Kolb had retired from the CIA and blown his own cover with a memoir, "Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy." One day over lunch, a buddy asked what he knew of a onetime operative named Robert Sensi and a mysterious figure named Richard Marshall (nee Hirschfeld). Kolb recalled the two as having been involved in political dirty tricks.

Intrigued, Kolb dove into boxes of old case files and combed the Internet to discover a conspiracy he says reaches to the highest levels of the Republican administration.

Kolb is well aware how outrageous his tale seems.

"It's a story that, if it weren't provable in the public record, I would tend to doubt," he admits. "First of all, I lived it so I know it's true, and secondly, that's why I put in a really extensive bibliography and notes section, so people can see for themselves."

Kolb divulged the plot he'd uncovered to the Kerry camp just as the Swift Boat smear campaign was making headlines. The senator faced the same dilemma in both: Should he dignify the attacks with a strong response, or take the high road and trust the American public to see through them?

The day after he spilled the beans, Kolb suddenly discovered he had a shadow...

The book: http://www.amazon.com/America-Night-Operatives-Presidential-Election/dp/1594489009/sr=8-1/qid=1171257724/ref=sr_1_1/104-9811707-4707966?ie=UTF8&s=books

[whometense]

1. Hi, blm! This stuff can make a person very dizzy.

More on Richard Marshall Hirschfeld. There are seven chapters to the story at that link.

Robert Sensi. EVERYTHING connects back to Iran/Contra: http://www.amazon.com/Mafia-CIA-George-Bush/dp/1561712035

Okay, I'm going to bed now, before my head spins off my neck.

[kerrygoddess]

2. WTF!

OMG! My head is spinning too. I was just turning in and found this.

[blm]

9. And don't think the Clintons aren't part of it - they ARE. Kerry HAD to lose.

The coverups need to continue.

[karynnj]

3. OMG

What complete sleases - but Tay Tay had posted a long time ago about how they tried to frame Kerry on drug running in the Reagan years when they - not Kerry - were quilty of it.

[globalvillage]

4. I started reading this yesterday.

I'll post my review tonight.
:-)

[fedupinBushcountry]

5. Will be very interested

in your take on it.

[whometense]

6. Can't wait to hear

what you have to say. Is it an interesting read?

[Island Blue]

14. Looking forward to your review.

;)

[MBS]

7. my guess is that this is but the tip of the iceberg,

in terms of sabotage by Repubs, Dem rivals, and the media. I want to see the whole, dirty, unvarnished truth, and for people to SEE it when it's all revealed. As it will be. The truth will come out.

[whometense]

8. I certainly hope it will.

And I agree that it's the tip of the iceberg. People even on DU treat blm as if she's a :tinfoilhat: wearer, but she understands this stuff. It's scary to think about, because it makes you feel helpless, and leads to cynicism and apathy. Which is what those people are all about, and why they stand in 100% opposition to Kerry and everything he stands for.

It's just frustrating that it takes so damned long to expose. But of course, no matter how long it takes, it must all come out.

(P.S. Can you believe the uproar over that fact that the best qualified person to be president of Harvard happens to be a woman???? I frankly find that kind of shocking)

[MBS]

18. yes, crazy about the uproar, isn't it?

especially when Brown, Penn, and Princeton already have had women presidents for several years. By now , this should be old news. (BTW, do note that my prediction last month was--ta-da!- spot-on correct!)

[blm]

10. I hope you repost this in GD - there's a few others who share this perspective

.and would appreciate it.

[whometense]

11. I'd be happy to.

Sure it's not already out there?

Okay: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3108945

[blm]

12. add your follow up post with the added info you found to your original.

I always wanted to be a 'director' heh

[whometense]

13. Already did.

;-)

bossy, bossy. :D

[blm]

15. If *I* were the King of the forrrrresssssstttttt ...........

.

[ray of light]

16. I need to read this book. Though I'm worried it will be over my head.

[globalvillage]

17. I read it.

I saw the review and couldn't resist. It reads like fiction, but I suspect it's not. The story does draw you in, and I kept having to remind myself that this is not a novel. If what he says is true, he makes a connection between a failed attempt to take down Sen Kerry's campaign, to some powerful Republicans via a really nasty guy named Richard Hirschfeld.
The book is not about Sen Kerry. And there's nothing in it that is in any way damaging to him. It's about Hirschfeld and his acquaintances, including some very familiar names. Mohammed Ali. Orin Hatch. James Sensenbrenner. Both Bushes.
The book has a lot of background on Hirschfeld and his partner Bob Sensi and others. But the attempt to derail the Senator's campaign via a business relationship between Robert Farmer (Sen Kerry's campaign treasurer) and a tenuous link to some potentially damaging stuff via a merger, designed (according to the author) to take down the campaign, doesn't materialize. The story is not so much about Hirschfeld's plan to destroy Sen Kerry as it is about the fact that truly evil people like Hirschfeld are out there and how easily they can change the course of our country.
Also, there's a kind of strange part where the author happens to run into Sen Kerry on the street outside a NY hotel, his only direct contact with the Senator.
It's not that I disbelieve the author. I think he's put the pieces together and drawn the correct conclusion. It just doesn't surprise me, and anyone who has read 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' knows people like Hirschfeld exist.
Read it. You won't find anything you didn't already suspect, but it's a page-turner.