The question everyone is now asking has a Patrick McGoohan-esque flavor: "Why did he resign?" Allen left the administration to "spend more time with his family" a little more than a month ago. That phrase has become a BushCo code word for "die" -- as in "I bought some Borax to help the cockroaches spend more time with their families."
Most presume that Allen left because someone in the administration got wind of the shoplifting. If that's true, then we must presume that the cops -- and the stores -- caved in to White House pressure to stand down for a few weeks. And if that's true, then we got ourselves a whole 'nother scandal. A worse scandal.
Do not discount the possibility that some other closeted skeleton (I choose my words carefully) forced Allen's removal. You might want to look at this May, 2003 post on Keith Boykin's blog. The body of the post is interesting in its own right, but the first comment (by someone named "Xavier") packs quite a wallop -- especially if you are familiar with Allen's history as a vehement gay-basher:
I happen to have gone to high school with both claude and his brother and upon reading the words he uttered concerning "queers" I find this very odd when in high school he was the "Queen of the Queers" and it is very easy to verify.Yes, I know. Reader commentary is hardly sworn testimony. The person making this claim offers no verification. He does not name the high school. He does not even name himself.
So why is my "Spidey sense" tingling...?
Having revisited 2003, I'd like to return you now to November of 2002. Remember? Winona Ryder was convicted of shoplifting (at least she didn't steal crap), and the right-wing pundits lost no opportunity to assail those horrible, ethics-free Hollywood LIE-berals. Here's a sample, by way of Google Groups:
The left wing elite crowd in Hollywood and across America is witnessing the first of many to fall. The ultra liberal and entertainment elite (including black athletes) who THINK they are above the law are in for a rude awakening. The LAW is the LAW and you will find out as integrity and conservatism returns to the courts behind the Republican controlled Congress and White House.Here we see a phenomenon I noted in an earlier post (the one comparing John Walker Lindh to church-burner Benjamin Nathan Moseley): Rightists believe that one may fairly damn an ideology by the actions of an individual -- but not when their ideology stands to be damned.
I suspect there is a lot more to the strange, sad case of Claude Allen. This story shouldn't be allowed to "spend time with its family." Not just yet.
This Republican propensity to crime makes a lot of sense, in exactly the same way that so many of the Republican fire and brimstone types turn out to be child-molesters, divorced deadbeats, serial adulterers and (though it's hardly a crime, and doesn't belong in this set) gay.
ReplyDeleteClearly, these people are pathologically obsessed. You don't have to be Freudian to acknowledge that someone who gets red in the face at the thought of homosexuality, or is routinely offering up invective on the subject, has something to hide.
Closet gay or not, Claude's petty crime goes with the wahabi territory. These are people attracted to a cramped, authoritarian, anesthetic world-view. Small wonder so many of them are lying and larcenous.
That we only acknowledge the disease when it turns up at Target is rather a pity.... That's what billions in public relations efforts has done for this crowd -- made them look normal.
Here are some dates:
ReplyDelete3/10 Arrrested and Charged
2/9 Resigned
1/2 Target apprehended Allen
Bush obviously covering his ass:
"I was shocked and my first reaction was one of disappointment, deep disappointment--if it's true--that we were not fully informed," Bush said...
"If the allegations are true, Claude Allen did not tell my chief of staff or legal counsel the truth, and that's deeply disappointing," the president said. "If the allegations are true, something went wrong in Claude Allen's life, and that is really sad."
~Miss Persistent
Just a few stats on the 535 members
ReplyDeleteof our United States Congress...
36
Have been accused of spousal abuse
7
Have been arrested for fraud
19
Have been accused of writing bad checks
117
Have directly or indirectly bankrupted
at -least- 2 businesses
3
Have done time for assault
71
yes, that's right. 71 cannot get a credit card
due to bad credit
14
Have been arrested on drug-related charges
8
Have been arrested for shoplifting
21
Currently are defendants in lawsuits
and
84
Have been arrested for drunk driving
in the last year
...and these are the people in charge
of cranking out hundreds of new laws
each year designed to keep -the rest-
of us in line.
Another interesting factoid about this case: he only targeted DEMOCRAT-owned chains:
ReplyDelete(It's from WMR, but if it's fact it's fact.)
March 11, 2006 -- Former White House domestic policy advisor Claude Allen "targeted" stores with Democratic roots for shoplifting. Former Bush domestic policy adviser and Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Claude Allen, arrested by Montgomery County, Maryland police for engaging in a form of shoplifting called "refund fraud," preyed upon Target and Hecht's. Hecht's was owned during World War II by Samuel Hecht of Baltimore, an alternate FDR delegate in 1940 to the Democratic National Convention and a later supporter of Roosevelt's war bonds drive. Target, before 2000, was known as Dayton Hudson Corp. Retiring Minnesota Democratic Senator Mark Dayton is heir to the Dayton Hudson fortune. With Allen's penchant for stealing from stores with Democratic pedigrees, perhaps Kohl's Department Store should check its security videotapes for signs of Mr. Allen's tactic of returning stolen merchandise for credit. Kohl's is owned by Wisconsin Democratic Senator Herb Kohl.
Like a true Republican and Bushite, Claude Allen preferred ripping off merchandise from department stores with Democratic links. Target's heir, Democratic Senator Mark Dayton and Hecht's, once owned by FDR alternate delegate Samuel Hecht of Baltimore.