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By David R. Guarino

Read Guarino’s Road to Boston Blog

Wednesday, July 7, 2004

John Edwards talks a lot about the “two Americas,” railing against a government that rewards the rich and shackles the poor.

He should know.

Edwards has been on the winning side of that societal equation for almost 30 years.

He pulled in verdicts and settlements worth some $150 million - a large chunk of which he pocketed - and recently sold his Washington home to the government of Hungary for $3 million.

Not bad for a millworker’s son.

Financial disclosure forms released by Edwards show he took in an income last year of about $1.5 million, mostly in stock sales and the buyout from his old law firm.

The North Carolina senator has an estimated net worth believed to be about $36 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

During his presidential campaign, Edwards made more than $50,000 in profit on sales of IBM stock last year. He reported capital gains of $15,000 to $50,000 each on sales of stock in 3M Co., Caterpillar, Cisco Systems and Merck.

During the buildup and aftermath of the Iraq war, Edwards bought and sold stock in several defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, General Electric, British Petroleum, and General Dynamics.

Edwards, who owns multiple homes in North Carolina, sold his Washington home last year for $3 million, $800,000 more than he paid for it in 1999.

Before the sale to the government of Hungary, Edwards entertained an offer that could get him in some campaign trouble.

The $3.52 million offer was from a public relations specialist hired by Saudi Arabia to influence Congress and the public after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Edwards, who at the time was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was investigating Saudi and U.S. terrorism lapses, said he learned months after the offer was made, but before the deal fell apart, that registered foreign agent Michael Petruzzello worked for Saudi Arabia.

By David R. Guarino

Read Guarino’s Road to Boston Blog

Wednesday, July 7, 2004

John Edwards talks a lot about the “two Americas,” railing against a government that rewards the rich and shackles the poor.

He should know.

Edwards has been on the winning side of that societal equation for almost 30 years.

He pulled in verdicts and settlements worth some $150 million - a large chunk of which he pocketed - and recently sold his Washington home to the government of Hungary for $3 million.

Not bad for a millworker’s son.

Financial disclosure forms released by Edwards show he took in an income last year of about $1.5 million, mostly in stock sales and the buyout from his old law firm.

The North Carolina senator has an estimated net worth believed to be about $36 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

During his presidential campaign, Edwards made more than $50,000 in profit on sales of IBM stock last year. He reported capital gains of $15,000 to $50,000 each on sales of stock in 3M Co., Caterpillar, Cisco Systems and Merck.

During the buildup and aftermath of the Iraq war, Edwards bought and sold stock in several defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, General Electric, British Petroleum, and General Dynamics.

Edwards, who owns multiple homes in North Carolina, sold his Washington home last year for $3 million, $800,000 more than he paid for it in 1999.

Before the sale to the government of Hungary, Edwards entertained an offer that could get him in some campaign trouble.

The $3.52 million offer was from a public relations specialist hired by Saudi Arabia to influence Congress and the public after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Edwards, who at the time was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was investigating Saudi and U.S. terrorism lapses, said he learned months after the offer was made, but before the deal fell apart, that registered foreign agent Michael Petruzzello worked for Saudi Arabia.

By Boston Herald editorial staff

Saturday, July 10, 2004

When in doubt, play the Vietnam card. That’s long been a tactic embraced by Sen. John Kerry and his aides in the face of political trouble.

It’s what the Kerry camp resorted to again Thursday to excuse the vile criticism of President Bush by the Democratic nominee’s Hollywood backers at a New York fund-raiser.

“Performers have a right to speak their minds even when we don’t agree with everything they say. That’s the freedom John Kerry put his life on the line to defend,” Kerry spokesmen David Wade said (emphasis ours).

And what was Kerry defending? John Mellencamp singing a song with the lyrics, “Texas Bandito, how much money did you put in your pocket today?” And “He’s just another cheap thug who sacrifices our young?”

Then there was Whoopi Goldberg’s elongated sexual pun using the president’s last name.

And surely Kerry fought valiantly in Vietnam to ensure Chevy Chase could opine: “Clinton plays the sax, John plays the guitar, and the president’s a liar.”

Instead of denouncing the repugnant comments, as Howard Dean did when racial remarks and profanity were used at one of his fundraisers, Kerry simply went on with his stump speech. He only took issue with Goldberg calling running mate John Edwards a “kid.”

That Kerry, by his silence, tacitly endorsed the content of his supporters’ remarks says something troubling about the tone of his campaign. That he allowed his military service to be used once again like some prop in a movie, says something even more troubling about his character.

By Boston Herald editorial staff

Saturday, July 10, 2004

When in doubt, play the Vietnam card. That’s long been a tactic embraced by Sen. John Kerry and his aides in the face of political trouble.

It’s what the Kerry camp resorted to again Thursday to excuse the vile criticism of President Bush by the Democratic nominee’s Hollywood backers at a New York fund-raiser.

“Performers have a right to speak their minds even when we don’t agree with everything they say. That’s the freedom John Kerry put his life on the line to defend,” Kerry spokesmen David Wade said (emphasis ours).

And what was Kerry defending? John Mellencamp singing a song with the lyrics, “Texas Bandito, how much money did you put in your pocket today?” And “He’s just another cheap thug who sacrifices our young?”

Then there was Whoopi Goldberg’s elongated sexual pun using the president’s last name.

And surely Kerry fought valiantly in Vietnam to ensure Chevy Chase could opine: “Clinton plays the sax, John plays the guitar, and the president’s a liar.”

Instead of denouncing the repugnant comments, as Howard Dean did when racial remarks and profanity were used at one of his fundraisers, Kerry simply went on with his stump speech. He only took issue with Goldberg calling running mate John Edwards a “kid.”

That Kerry, by his silence, tacitly endorsed the content of his supporters’ remarks says something troubling about the tone of his campaign. That he allowed his military service to be used once again like some prop in a movie, says something even more troubling about his character.

Report Disputes Wilson’s Claims on Trip, Wife’s Role

By Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday’s report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched “yellowcake” uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame’s role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush’s foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame’s identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson’s bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

“Valerie had nothing to do with the matter,” Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. “She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.”

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: “I don’t see it as a recommendation to send me.”

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA’s request to her husband, saying, “there’s this crazy report” about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife’s suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”

“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson’s reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq — which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq.”

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has “not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa.”

Report Disputes Wilson’s Claims on Trip, Wife’s Role

By Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday’s report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched “yellowcake” uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame’s role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush’s foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame’s identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson’s bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

“Valerie had nothing to do with the matter,” Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. “She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.”

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: “I don’t see it as a recommendation to send me.”

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA’s request to her husband, saying, “there’s this crazy report” about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife’s suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”

“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson’s reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq — which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq.”

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has “not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa.”

Jul 11, 7:02 PM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

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WASHINGTON (AP) - John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards as his running mate was received favorably by the public, polls suggest, but it has made little difference so far in the race with President Bush.

Kerry strategists are trying to lower expectations for a “bounce” in the polls that presidential candidates sometimes get after choosing a running mate or attending a convention. Bush strategists were quick to raise expectations of a double-digit “bounce” for the Kerry-Edwards team by the end of the Democratic National Convention.

Tad Devine, a Kerry campaign strategist, said he does not believe Republican claims about “a double-digit” bounce of 12 percentage points to 15 percentage points.

“We’ve gotten the bounce already that we’re going to get,” Devine said. “If you look at the Democratic vote, it has already consolidated behind John Kerry.”

Both Devine and Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd said on “Fox News Sunday” that they have detected slight gains for Kerry in the polls after the Edwards’ choice.

Kerry’s announcement Tuesday was followed by a tour of several states by the candidates and their families.

Kerry has “gotten a slight uptick, whether it’s temporary or not,” Dowd said.

But those looking for a Kerry surge in the polls after the Edwards pick saw a shift of a few points, often within a poll’s margin of error.

An AP-Ipsos poll released Thursday offered an early hint there would not be a post-Edwards bounce for Kerry.

Bush had a slight lead over Kerry as voters expressed increasing confidence about the economy. Bush was at 49 percent, Kerry at 45 percent and independent Ralph Nader at 3 percent, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Other polls in the next few days showed Bush and Kerry essentially tied in a three-way contest. Kerry had a slight edge in a two-way race with Bush in some polls.

As the deadlocked polls became public, Kerry campaign pollster Mark Mellman issued a campaign memo Friday cautioning he does not expect a bounce in the polls from either the Edwards choice or the convention.

Even though the race remains close, weekend polls found encouraging news for Edwards.

Almost half, 47 percent, said in a Time-CNN poll that Edwards would make a better president than the current vice president, Dick Cheney, while 38 percent said Cheney would be better.

When people were asked in a Newsweek poll who they would pick if they could vote separately for vice president, they chose Edwards by 52 percent to 41 percent for Cheney.

Asked earlier this week about Edwards’ campaigning and personal skills, the president was asked at a news conference this week how Edwards compared with Cheney. “Dick Cheney can be president,” Bush said quickly.

In an interview done for “60 Minutes,” Kerry said of Edwards: “He is more qualified, more prepared in national affairs and national issues than George Bush was when he became president.”

Jul 11, 7:02 PM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

Google sponsored links

Presidential Candidates - Get Political News with the Online Journal - Free Trial Here.

www.WallStreetJournal.com

Democrat Buttons 2004 - Campaign buttons, pins, & More All Presidential Candidates

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WASHINGTON (AP) - John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards as his running mate was received favorably by the public, polls suggest, but it has made little difference so far in the race with President Bush.

Kerry strategists are trying to lower expectations for a “bounce” in the polls that presidential candidates sometimes get after choosing a running mate or attending a convention. Bush strategists were quick to raise expectations of a double-digit “bounce” for the Kerry-Edwards team by the end of the Democratic National Convention.

Tad Devine, a Kerry campaign strategist, said he does not believe Republican claims about “a double-digit” bounce of 12 percentage points to 15 percentage points.

“We’ve gotten the bounce already that we’re going to get,” Devine said. “If you look at the Democratic vote, it has already consolidated behind John Kerry.”

Both Devine and Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd said on “Fox News Sunday” that they have detected slight gains for Kerry in the polls after the Edwards’ choice.

Kerry’s announcement Tuesday was followed by a tour of several states by the candidates and their families.

Kerry has “gotten a slight uptick, whether it’s temporary or not,” Dowd said.

But those looking for a Kerry surge in the polls after the Edwards pick saw a shift of a few points, often within a poll’s margin of error.

An AP-Ipsos poll released Thursday offered an early hint there would not be a post-Edwards bounce for Kerry.

Bush had a slight lead over Kerry as voters expressed increasing confidence about the economy. Bush was at 49 percent, Kerry at 45 percent and independent Ralph Nader at 3 percent, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Other polls in the next few days showed Bush and Kerry essentially tied in a three-way contest. Kerry had a slight edge in a two-way race with Bush in some polls.

As the deadlocked polls became public, Kerry campaign pollster Mark Mellman issued a campaign memo Friday cautioning he does not expect a bounce in the polls from either the Edwards choice or the convention.

Even though the race remains close, weekend polls found encouraging news for Edwards.

Almost half, 47 percent, said in a Time-CNN poll that Edwards would make a better president than the current vice president, Dick Cheney, while 38 percent said Cheney would be better.

When people were asked in a Newsweek poll who they would pick if they could vote separately for vice president, they chose Edwards by 52 percent to 41 percent for Cheney.

Asked earlier this week about Edwards’ campaigning and personal skills, the president was asked at a news conference this week how Edwards compared with Cheney. “Dick Cheney can be president,” Bush said quickly.

In an interview done for “60 Minutes,” Kerry said of Edwards: “He is more qualified, more prepared in national affairs and national issues than George Bush was when he became president.”

NewsMax.com Wires

Thursday, July 8, 2004

MONTPELIER, Vt. – At least five American flags have been found burned in public places in the city since mid-June, and several residents have reported their flags missing, police said.

Though no solid leads have developed, police Chief Douglas Hoyt said “it’s entirely possible” the incidents are related.

Desecrating a U.S. flag is not a crime, but the perpetrator could be prosecuted for theft or damaging someone else’s property, Hoyt said.

In one of the incidents, two mutilated flags were wrapped around an Ethan Allen statue at the Statehouse. In another, a U.S. flag was placed on a church’s Virgin Mary statue and set on fire.

A flag found Wednesday draped on a building had the stars burned out and the phrase “Stop the Corruption.” Some of the missing flags were displayed by the city for Independence Day festivities.

Like you didn’t already know that Vermont was one big moonbat refuge…