Back? Good.
I would like to direct your attention to this fetchingly odd tale. (It has been making the rounds of blogworld for a while now, so you may already know about it, but it came to my attention only just now.) A fellow named Tom Potter, of Ohio, claims to have found Osama Bin Laden in the United States -- and now Potter wants the $25 million reward.
How did Potter catch him? Simple. He tried the same trick I used recently (scroll down) to discover that Mohamed Atta is alive and well and living in New Jersey. Potter went to an online address search engine and typed in the name of the world's most notorious leader of a terrorist organization.
Here's where it gets really weird:
The first listing put the al Qaeda leader at the California headquarters of media giant FOX Entertainment Group. The second placed bin Laden in the office of a Bethesda, Md., Internet firm owned by the son of a former Defense Department official. And the third pinpointed bin Laden's secret hideout as an unidentified location in Hermitage, Tenn.FOX insists that they have not asked Osama Bin Laden to join its staff of maniacs out to ruin the country. FOX has professionals for that sort of thing.
The former DOD official was -- get this -- the Inspector General, Joseph P. Schmitz:
"Unfortunately, I don't have Osama bin Laden on the payroll, Phil Schmitz of Bethesda Interactive Solutions told ABCNews.com. "I'm sure you wouldn't be the first person to call me if I did."[Emphasis added.] You know, if it were any other family, I'd take this denial at face value.
Schmitz confirmed his father, Joseph, was the top Pentagon watchdog from 2002 to 2005. Joseph Schmitz then joined the Prince Group, which owns the private security contractor Blackwater USA.
"I promise you this has no relation to that," Schmitz said of his father's activities.
I've been watching the bizarre Schmitz clan since the mid 1970s, when paterfamilias John G. Schmitz -- a man so far to the right he got kicked out of the John Birch Society -- ran for President under the American Independent Party banner. (Slogan: "When you're out of Schmitz, you're out of gear!") We later learned that Schmitz kept a mistress and a second family, including an infant son with a mutilated penis.
Schmitz’s daughter, school teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau, made national headlines when it was discovered that the father of her children was a thirteen year old student. Her brother John P. Schmitz was an Iran Contra player and Deputy Counsel for Bush the elder, a man despised by father John G. John P's brother, Joseph -- a member of the Knights of Malta and the Federalist Society -- was Haliburton's greatest enabler when the company was stea...er, misplacing Iraq reconstruction money.
Believe it or not, there is more. The Schmitz clan has such a strange history that one hesitates to dismiss even the loopiest accusation against them.
Think about it. What are the chances that the Bin Laden listings should lead anyone to both FOX and the son of a Blackwater big-wig? I have no idea how to calculate the odds, but I would imagine that a very large number would be involved. Phil's "internet firm" sounds kind of spooky to me, but maybe I'm just being paranoid.
By the way, an interesting interview with John G. can be found here. He gives the inside dope on how the far right did things back in the day, and his observations about Nixon are fascinating.
7 comments:
Made Brani made funny over at WUFYS: "If Osama has really been assimilated into the American society, it is very likely that he is working three jobs in order to make ends meet. So all three hits may be correct."
Joseph, I've been reading your blog for over two years now and this post is the kind that keeps me coming back. Thank you for highlighting the bizarre ultra-right Schmitz family. For this group of blood relations to be so high up the republican administration ladder smells a bunch. I have wondered just how they have kept out of the MSM for such a time. The daughter is never mentioned as part of the political family, nor is the ultra-weird situation with papa Schmitz's youngest's organ mutilation. Thanks for your blog. Stay well and keep writing.
well, the schmitz insanity strikes again.
yet again, i refer to my friend CD, who is all over their disturbingly tangled stories. just about the sickest bunch o' creeps you'd ever wanna hear about. there is a son (john p's?) who is clearly being groomed for stardom, reagan style. he's currently in/just out of west point or the like, and is the wet dream of every rovian repug dead or alive - handsome, brilliant, charismatic, good soldier, christian, and of course leadership personified.
wish i had the details straight, but CD will share when she's returned from obligations early next week. never has there been so much dirt to dish!
The only thing odder than the Schmitz family's comings and goings would be if, somehow, they also involved one Leola McConnell. At this point, nothing would surprise me.
Why would a listing for Osama bin Laden point to these people? Someone's idea of a joke? Or something else?
Another one of those things that makes you say, "Hmmmmmmmm."
I tried doing it on whitepages.com and I can't find any Usama Ben Laden (tried a lot of iterations)
they either have been removed by the NSA/CIA/Grey Aliens or I'm too tired to figure their search interface....
I haven't had any luck finding any Usama Bin Ladens (or any variations on that name) using the Lycos search engine, although there are other Binladens out there.
The Schmitz story is disturbing for any number of reasons, not least because the family seems poised to ascend to those realms where the real power is wielded.
Back in the 1970s, Papa John would appear fairly regularly on Southern CA teevee because he could always be counted on to say something outrageous. When he told a group of reporters "Hello, commies!" I don't think any of his listeners got angry. In fact, I think the newsmen in attendance considered his insult oddly endearing.
Schmitz lived in a fugue state, a dream world of hyper-macho horsecrap; he was a parody of himself.
And that's what made him kind of charming. He was a local eccentric. The Boss character in "Nine to Five" was based in part on Schmitz' public persona, or so I was once told.
Back then, everyone knew that he was -- and would always be -- a fringe character. We knew that he would never get anywhere near actual power. His impotence (figurative, not literal!) made him amusing.
Then the revelations came out about he second family and the nearly-severed penis. That stuff placed Schmitz beyond the pale.
He wasn't amusing anymore.
And now...?
Now we have a LOT of people like Schmitz, and they aren't really dwellers on the fringe. Michael Savage is worse. Ann Coulter is worse. Papa John was almost civilized when compared with those two clowns.
Papa John also had one really admirable quality: He truly abhorred most of the GOP leadership. He was an ornery, weird, sick bastard, but at least he had the virtue of independence.
The latest generation of Schmitzes has given up that independent stance. The Schmitzes have been brown-nosing the Bushes.
And that's how the fringe-dwellers attain power.
A disturbing story, no?
Maybe Ann Coulter is also a secret son of Papa John... Only in her case, the penis mutilation worked.
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