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Today's Stories August 1, 2007 Debbie Nathan More Secret Payments by Former NYT Reporter to Web Porn Star Surface in Nashville Courtroom Fred Gardner Antonioni and Me July 31, 2007 Kathy Kelly Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud Clancy Sigal The Ghosts of Passchendaele Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Baby Doll to Cheney Joe DeRaymond Return to the Republic of Death? Diane Christian "Winning": What Bush Could Learn from the Shade of Achilles Chris Floyd Good News is No News: Why the Bush Adm. Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations Ramzy Baroud Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine Alan Farago Battle for the Soul of Florida Fidel Castro In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan American Games Dan Bacher The Fish Terminator: Schwarzenegger's Campaign to Build the Delta Canal and More Dams   July 30, 2007 Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time Patrick Cockburn Four Million Iraqis on the Run Peter Quinn Irish in America Uri Avnery A Warning to Tony Blair John Ross Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth Ron Jacobs Free the San Francisco 8 David Vest Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone Jeffrey St. Clair T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues Website of the Day Collateral Repair Project   July 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq Ralph Nader Rotten Justice Robert Fantina American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism Fred Gardner Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise   Yves Engler Handwashing and the Bottomline   July 27, 2007 John Ross Bombing Pemex--or Not? Arthur Neslen Gaza was a Gas for Blair Dave Lindorff Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat Julene Blair The Environmentalist Within Christopher Brauchli Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine Jesse Hagopian Fund the Wounded, Not the War Charles Modiano Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds Bill Day The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio Walter Brasch Leaders Afraid to Lead M.D. Mitchell Farm Based Camps Website of the Day Fighting Sarcoma   July 26, 2007 Kathleen Christison The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams Andy Worthington Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke Clancy Chassay How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon Marjorie Cohn Showdown Over Executive Privilege Susie Day Apartheid Americana David Price Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges Marie Trigona Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest Norman Solomon Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of) William S. Lind How to Win in Iraq Natsu Saito Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado John Stauber Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore? Website of the Day Sticking It to the Man   July 25, 2007 Andy Worthington Gains and Losses at Gitmo Gary Leupp Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria Ray McGovern The Sad Decline of John Conyers Dr. Susan Block Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker Joshua Frank Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke Tina Richards What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill Ben Terrall Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism Farzana Versey God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim Mohammad Ali Salih A Bomb in My Briefcase? Laura Carlsen A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum Ron Jacobs Come to Kennebunkport! Sunsara Taylor Knocked Up is F**ked Up Website of the Day Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers July 24, 2007 Saul Landau How to Walk in Bushtime Kathy Kelly The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Russell Mokhiber The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing M. Shahid Alam Islam Now, China Then Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh Meeting in Baghdad Dave Lindorff Overcoming John Conyers Binoy Kampmark You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium Richard Neville Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal Cindy Sheehan We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual Evelyn Pringle Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks? Norman Solomon Media Corrections We'd Like to See CP Newswire Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful Website of the Day Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival   July 23, 2007 Andy Worthington Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees Uri Avnery A Trap for Fools Patrick Cockburn Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq Sousan Hammad The Children Without a Title John Walsh Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation Harvey Wasserman Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke Martha Rosenberg The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer Collin Baber Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq Reza Fiyouzat Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement Stephen Lendman Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders Website of the Day The Port Huron Project   July 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Giuliani and the Dogs of War Werther How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate Ralph Nader Atomic Blowback David Keen Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War Fred Gardner Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People Gary Leupp Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?" Robert Fantina Fear in Iraq Saker The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start? Mike Whitney The Crisis in Hedgistan Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation Monica Benderman Facing the Truth Dan Bacher Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills Michael Baney Fujimori's Long Race From Justice Missy Beattie Here, There and Everywhere Ron Jacobs Tremble, Tyrants Adam Engel Radical Language: an Introduction Thomas Naylor California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger Poets' Basement Landau, Ford and Engel Website of the Weekend Surge in Action   July 20, 2007 Eliza Szabo Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Pam Martens Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck Alan Farago Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash Harvey Wasserman Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!" Marjorie Cohn Iraqis will be the Deciders Dave Zirin White Noise and the Black Athlete Anthony DiMaggio American Public Opinion and Israel Scott Liebertz Oaxaca on Edge Linn Washington, Jr. British Cops Assault Rape Allegations Bill Piper / Anthony Papa Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar Ramzy Baroud Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing Website of the Day The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins   July 19, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Next Invasion of Iraq Remi Kanazi Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport Winslow T. Wheeler The Surging Costs of the Iraq War Sharon Smith Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric Dave Lindorff Killing Cabbies in Iraq Conn Hallinan Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan D. K. Wilson The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are Joshua Frank Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran Norman Solomon The Ghost of Wayne Morse Russell Hoffman Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke Ray McGovern Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills Website of the Day Protesting Power July 18, 2007 Brenda Norrell Spy Towers on the US Border Col. Dan Smith How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia Martha Rosenberg Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black Conn Hallinan Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan Binoy Kampmark The SIM Card Terror Case Patrick Bond / Rehana Dada Who Killed Sajida Khan? Tom Johnson The Long Road ... to Nowhere Paul Craig Roberts A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth? Bob Quellos Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home Felice Pace Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution Robert Weissman National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient CP Newswire Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture Website of the Day Gilad Atzmon Live!   July 17, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed Marjorie Cohn Out of Control: Executive Power Plays Evelyn Pringle Inside Bush's FDA David Rosen Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan Susan Miller Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall Franklin Lamb Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms? Don Monkerud Considering Victory in Iraq Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Surge Russell Hoffman Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet Dave Lindorff Feingold Turns to Dross Dave Zirin Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction Website of the Day Che at the UN: 1964   July 16, 2007 Gary Leupp Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran Ellen Cantarow The Untold Story of Iraqi Women Paul Craig Roberts Impeach Now Allan J. Lichtman The D.C. Madam's Public Service Dan Bacher Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill? Patrick Cockburn The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan Manuel Garcia, Jr. Property is Racism James Brooks AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat Liaquat Ali Khan The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan Julie Flint Suleiman Jamous in Limbo Website of the Day Free Suleiman Jamous!   July 14 / 15. 2007 Alexander Cockburn Support Their Troops? Andy Worthington Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man Ralph Nader Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence Robert Fantina The Illegalities of the Iraq War Ron Jacobs Architecture as Military Strategy Joshua Frank Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD War and Dissociation John Ross No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement Fred Gardner Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol? Rannie Amiri A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak Charles Modiano ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man Anthony DiMaggio America's Parochial Press China Hand Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy Missy Comley Beattie Reprobate Rhetoricians Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr. Harry Potter Battles Big Brother Kenneth Rexroth On Thomas More's "Utopia" Poets' Basement Engel, Davies and Orloski Website of the Weekend GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

August 1, 2007 James Buchanan, the First Gay President, and Other Tales of Sex and Power in Washington America's Top Ten Sex Scandals By DAVID ROSEN Does the current wave of sex scandals signify something new in American politics or merely the continuation of something as old and established in politics as payoffs, bribes, favors and business-as-usual corruption? The unfolding sex scandal involving a growing number of Republican worthies has been fun to watch. Two upstanding moralists, David Vitter, Louisiana’s Republican senator, and Randall L. Tobias, former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have been exposed as clients of the “DC Madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey. They join their fellow civic leaders, disgraced congressmen Mark Fowley (R-FL) and Don Sherwood (R-PA) as well as the defrocked Rev. Ted Haggard, who have been undone by those deeper desires that their simplistic morality could not contain. To this growing list of politicians recently unmasked for moral hypocrisy if not worse (as in the case of Fowley for possible illegal solicitation of underage males pages), there are the withering carcasses of still other politicos who have been exposed in recent years for there inappropriate sexual excesses. Obviously Bill Clinton trysts with Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick and who knows how many others tops this list. While he is the only president to be impeached for oral sex (and, of course, denying it), he is not the alone for being undone by their desires. As Newt Gingrich (Cong., R-GA) attempts to cleanup his act for the 2008 presidential beauty pageant, one wonders if a conscientious reporter will remind this Christian conservative stalwart that his former campaign worker, Anne Manning, admitted that she gave him a blow job while he was still married to his first wife. Similarly, one wonders if any good-old-boy will recall the career of Bob Allen (Sen., R-FL), that upstanding citizen caught soliciting an undercover male police officer inside a Titusville, FL, restroom to perform oral sex for $20? Nor should we forget Dan Burton (Cong., R-IN), who, as a born-again purist, fathered a child with another woman while married. And what about the mysterious deaths of Lori Klausutis and Chandra Levy who had close relationships with former conservative Congressmen Joe Scarborough (R-FL) and Gary Condit (D-CA)? Then there’s Ken Calvert (Cong, R-CA), a champion of the Christian Coalition, who was caught by the police in a compromising position with a prostitute in a parked car and attempted to flee the scene. And, lastly, there’s Robert Livingston, the Louisiana Republican congressman ousted by none other than Vetter for his moral failing, adultery. These are but the tip of an iceberg of sexual scandals involving American national political figures going back to the nation’s founding. Adding to this national list the scandals involving state and local politicos (one need only think of “Arnoid” Schwarzenegger and Rudi Guiliani) and one can appreciate how moral hypocracy is a defining characteristic of American political life. In this light, it is helpful to contextualize the legacy of sex scandals involving politicos in term of what can be called “America’s Top 10 Grandest Political Sex Scandals.” Scandal #10: George W. Bush While many are aware of Bush’s dubious participation in the National Guard and his alcohol and cocaine problems, little attention has been paid to the alleged sex scandals that took place while he was Texas governor. He has been the subject of two sex scandals that were successfully dismissed as crank complaints, effectively sweeping them under the proverbial rug. The first involved a criminal complaint and lawsuit of rape by Margie Schoedinger that took place in 2000 and who later allegedly committed suicide; the second was an accusation by Tammy Phillips, a former stripper, of having an affair with Bush that ended in 1999 and she later disappeared. Scandal #9: Helen Chenoweth Chenoweth, a conservative Republican congresswoman from Idaho, admitted in 1995 to a six-year affair with a married associate; she claimed her case was different from Clinton’s indiscretions in that she was, at the time, single and had received a pardon from a higher authority: "I've asked for God's forgiveness, and I've received it." She’s appears to be the only woman national-political office holder to have been caught-up in a sex scandal. As more women enter official national politics, we can expect an increase in sex scandals involving women. Scandal #8: Clarence Thomas When nominated for the Supreme Court in 1981, a FBI report was leaked concerning Thomas’ alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill, a former colleague at DOE and EEOC, that nearly sunk his appointment. Before a national TV audience, Senator Orrin Hatch's questions revealed national politics as the soap opera it really is: "[D]id you ever say in words or substance something like there is a pubic hair in my Coke?" and "Did you ever use the term Long Dong Silver in conversation with Professor Hill?" Failing to substantiate Hills’ claims, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a 52-48 vote, the closest confirmation vote for a Justice in the 20th century. Scandal #7: Strom Thurmond As a lustful lad, Thurmond had sexual liaision with his family’s African-American maid, Carrie Butler. One unanswered question is whether Ms. Butler was a consenting partner or the victim of rape; another is her age at the time of sexual engagement, whether she was 15 or 16 years and, thus, whether the future senator and committed racist was guilty of violating age-of-consent laws and, therefore, a pedophile. This part of Thurmond’s pasts only became public when the daughter of his ill-fated liaison, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, revealed it; further complicating Thurmond’s darker past is the revelation that, genetically, he and the Rev. Al Sharpton share the same family line. Scandal #6: James Buchanan Buchanan appears to be America’s only gay president. While homosexuality was a far different phenomenon in the 19th century then it is today, Buchanan lived for many years with William Rufus King, an Alabama Senator. The two men were considered inseparable and were the butt of much mockery. Andrew Jackson dubbed King "Miss Nancy" and Aaron Brown, a prominent Democrat, writing to Mrs. James K. Polk, referred to him as Buchanan's "better half," "his wife" and "Aunt Fancy . . . rigged out in her best clothes." The only question for his contemporaries was whether Buchanan’s infatuation with King rose to the level of a scandal. Scandal #5: John F. Kennedy Kennedy’s affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson; Inga Arvad, a Danish journalist; the stripper, Blaze Starr; Judith Exner Campbell, mistress to mob boss Sam Giancana; and White House secretaries Priscilla Weir and Jill Cowan, who were referred to as “Fiddle” and “Faddle,” have moved from scandal to presidential lore. Like the affairs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (with Lucy Page Mercer, Marguerite Alice (Missy) LeHand and Crown Princess Marta of Norway) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (with Kay Summersby), Kennedy’s extramarital liasions were effectively surpressed. Scandal #4: Arthur Brown Brown was one of Utah's first Senators, elected when the state joined the union. He was shot and killed in Washington, DC, by his mistress for many years, Anna Maddison Bradley, for failing in his promise to leave his wife and marry her. After securing a divorce and making a financial settlement, Brown returned to Utah and, to Bradley’s chagrin, claimed to have made a full reconciliation with is wife. Bradley, three months pregnant with a second child she insisted Brown had fathered, could take no more of his lies. Scandal #3: Alexander Hamilton While serving as secretary of the treasury, Hamilton was living in Philadelphia with his wife, Elizabeth, and children. He was approached by a young damsel in distress, Maria Reynolds, and got involved in a two year sexual liaison that turned into a blackmail scheme. Reynolds, in collusion with her husband, James, shook down Hamilton for an estimated $1,000 to continue their affair. However, James Reynolds sought support from some of Hamilton’s political enemies by suggesting that Hamilton was providing him with insider information about government finances. When challenged, Hamilton showed intimate letters with the Reynolds that cleared his name regarding insider trading, but only made his role in the adulterous affair more pathetic. Scandal #2: Warren G. Harding Harding is reported to have had an affair for fifteen year with Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a friend, James Phillips. As president, he had a relationship with Nan Britton, thirty years his junior. She insisted that they had sexual liaisons in the White House and later wrote: … [H]e introduced me to one place [in the White House] where, he said, he thought we might share kisses in safety. This was a small closet in the anteroom, evidently a place for hats and coats, but entirely empty most of the times we used it, for we repaired there many times in the course of my visits to the White House. …” She concludes her intimate reflection with remarkable candor, “… and in the darkness of a space not more than five feet square the President of the United States and his adoring sweetheart made love.” Their adulterous affair culminated with the birth of an illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ann. When Harding died unexpectedly in 1923 from ptomaine poisoning, rumor circulated widely at the time that his wife, Florence, poisoned him. Scandal #1: Thomas Jefferson Jefferson’s relation with Sally Hemings, the African-American slave who was his wife’s half-sister (they had the same father) and with whom he had six children, makes this America’s most scandalous sex scandal. As a bachelor, he was accused of attempting to seduce his close friend John Walker’s wife, Betsy, and, after his wife Martha died, he apparently had an affair in Paris with Mrs. Maria Cosway. However, according to Sally Hemings’ son, Madison, she served Jefferson at Monticello as chambermaid, seamstress, nursemaid-companion and, later, lady’s maid to his daughters; he referred to his mother as “Jefferson’s concubine.” Four of the children that Hemings had with Jefferson survived to adulthood, two females and two males – all appeared to be white in complexion and Jefferson set them all free. Ironically, Hemings was not freed by Jefferson but given “her time” (a form of unofficial freedom so she could live in Virginia) by his daughter, Martha Randolph. We all have our favorite Top 10 Sex Scandals, but looking back from the vantage point of 21st century morality, one can well appreciate what the fear of public exposure has on politicians. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, which lead to his impeachment, serves as much as a warning for those challenging Christian conservative hypocrisy as an indicator of the barbarity inherent to partisan politics. And it says as much about the ability of those with powerful political connections, like George Bush, to suppress questionable behavior, whether involving sex, drugs or military service. At the end, however, politicians from Jefferson to Bush are but all-too-human beings struggling within the deeper crisis of repression, the battle between what Christian propriety demands to maintain patriarchy and the deeper drives of the unconscious to overcome sexual repression. Each politician’s behavior is not unlike that of ordinary Americans caught in the cultural vise that deforms us as civilized people. Their lessons should not be lost as we witness the current crop of political sex scandals. David Rosen can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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