
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 15, 2005
/ 14 Kislev, 5766
Make the Barrett report public!
By
Bob Tyrrell
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
All's well, Sen. Byron Dorgan of the great state of North Dakota has done come clean. Dorgan is the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. In that capacity he accepted $67,000 in contributions from Indian tribes represented by the recently-indicted Jack Abramoff, a fabulous fixer here in the capital of the Free World. Abramoff, a Republican, has obviously been an equal-opportunity fixer, and apparently Dorgan was not above accepting his help, though Dorgan claims he never met the rogue and never backed any of his programs knowingly. Now there is an adverb to contemplate: "knowingly." The senator's aides admit that their boss did advocate some of Abramoff's programs while he was accepting the tribes' contributions, but he did not do so knowingly.
That is a good start on Dorgan's road back to respectability. Yet there is another far more serious bit of funny business he has been involved in. He, along with several crafty Democrats, has been attempting to deny the public the contents of an Independent Counsel's report that is believed to contain evidence of serious corruption and misuse of the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department back in the Clinton Administration. In this cover-up the Democrats have had assistance from a few dubious Republicans. It is time to let the public see this report.
The report is the work of the staff of Independent Counsel David Barrett. He was tapped back in the Clinton days to investigate allegations that then Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI and committed tax fraud in attempting to conceal money he had paid a mistress. Cisneros pled guilty back in 1999, and that would have been the end of it had Barrett's investigators not found serious misbehavior in Justice and in the IRS related to Cisneros' problems. Cisneros was a very promising Texas Democrat, and the Clintons did not want him to come a cropper.
When Barrett completed his report the Clintons' lawyers, led by that legendary Clinton pettifogger, David Kendall, tried to kill off the report either by gutting it with redactions or by getting it buried altogether. Kendall entered some 140 motions pursuant to this goal. The report has been ready for publication since August, 2004 but Kendall's nuisance tactics have worked, and now what do we hear from the Clintonistas? They complain that Barrett has cost too much and taken too long. As they are themselves are the reason for much of the cost and delay, advocates of good government should be up in arms. This stratagem has been used too frequently by the Clintonistas to smear an officer of the court.
Barrett wants the report released in full. The reports of every other Independent Counsel have been released to the public in full, with only minor redactions where classified material might be revealed. There is a serious public-policy concern for releasing this report. It is the first independent investigation of the IRS by investigators armed with subpoena power. Civil libertarians concerned about the heavy-handedness of the IRS and its use as an instrument of political repression by the executive branch of the government know that this is very important.
Dorgan has led the campaign to deny the report's contents to the public. Last April he attempted to end Barrett's funding. He was thwarted then, but more recently he tried a new ploy. With Democratic Sens. Richard Durbin and John Kerry, he bootlegged into an Iraq-war appropriations bill an amendment that would suppress the report completely. Some Republicans defeated this attempt, but Dorgan and his allies are clever. Into a later appropriations bill they got language that would suppress 120 pages of the report relating to Clinton Justice Department and IRS misbehavior. If the butchered report were published in this shape, they promised to do nothing further to delay its appearance. Amazingly key Republicans in these negotiations agreed, Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Joe Knollenberg. As things stand now, the expurgated report will appear and the public will be none the wiser as to how the IRS and Justice Department can be used to obstruct justice and harass private citizens.
Corrupt administrations in the future will have a free hand at playing politics the way they are played in a banana republic, or 20th-century Arkansas.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2005, Creators Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|