wilson to obama

7/28/2019 Wilson to Obama

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From the desk of Craig B Hulet?

Wilson to Obama: March Forth!

Obamas Backers Seek Big Donors to Press Agenda

The White House Joins the Cash Grab

Different Recipient, but Same Beneficiary Why the threat on Bob Woodward matters

A Word Gone Wrong
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Wilson to Obama: March Forth!

David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Presidents Room in the Capitol, in 2001. As president,

Woodrow Wilson used the room regularly.

By A. SCOTT BERG

Published: March 1, 2013

THERE has been a change of government, declared Woodrow Wilson in his first sentence as

president of the United States, one hundred years ago this Monday. Until 1937, when the 20th

Amendment moved Inauguration Day to late January, chief executives took their oaths of office

on March Fourth, a date that sounds like a command.

Nobody heeded this implied imperative more than Wilson: the 28th president enjoyed the most

meteoric rise in American history, before or since. In 1910, Wilson was the president of a small

mens college in New Jersey his alma mater, Princeton. In 1912, he won the presidency. (He

made a brief stop in between as governor of New Jersey.) Over the next eight years, Wilson

advanced the most ambitious agenda of progressive legislation the country had ever seen, what

became known as The New Freedom. To this day, any president who wants to enact

transformative proposals can learn a few lessons from the nations scholar-president.

With his first important piece of legislation, Wilson showed that he was offering a sharp change

in governance. He began his crusade with a thorough revision of the tariff system, an issue that,

for decades, had only been discussed. Powerful legislators had long rigged tariffs to buttress

monopolies and to favor their own interests, if not their own fortunes.

Wilson, a Democrat, thought an economic overhaul this audacious demanded an equally bold

presentation. Not since John Adamss final State of the Union speech, in 1800, had a president

addressed a joint session of Congress in person. But Wilson, a former professor of constitutional

law (and still the nations only president with a Ph.D.), knew that he was empowered from time

to time to give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their

consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. And so, on April 8,

1913, five weeks after his inauguration, he appeared before the lawmakers. Even members of

Wilsons own party decried the maneuver as an arrogant throne speech.

The man many considered an aloof intellectual explained to Congress that the president of the

United States is simply a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a

common service. His presence alone, to say nothing of his eloquent appeal, affixed


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overwhelming importance to tariff reform. In less than 10 minutes, Wilson articulated his

argument and left the Capitol.

The next day, Wilson did something even more stunning: he returned. On the second floor of the

Capitolin the North Wing, steps from the Senate chamberis the most ornate room withinan already grand edifice. George Washington had suggested this Presidents Room, where he and

the Senate could conduct their joint business, but it was not built until the 1850s. Even then, the

Italianate salon, with its frescoed ceiling and richly colored tiled floor, was seldom used beyond

the third day of March every other year, when Congressional sessions ended and the president

arrived to sign 11th-hour legislation. Only during Wilsons tenure has the Presidents Room

served the purpose for which it was designed. He frequently worked there three times a week,

often with the door open.

Almost every visit Wilson made to the Capitol proved productive. (As president, he appearedbefore joint sessions of Congress more than two dozen times.) During Wilsons first term, when

the president was blessed with majorities in both the House and the Senate, the policies of the

New Freedom led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the

Clayton Antitrust Act, the eight-hour workday, child labor laws and workers compensation.

Wilson was also able to appoint the first Jew to the Supreme Court, Louis D. Brandeis.

Even when the president became besieged with troubles, both personal and politicalthe death

of his first wife; the outbreak of World War I; an increasingly Republican legislative branch;

agonizing depression until he married a widow named Edith Bolling GaltWilson hammeredaway at his progressive program. In 1916, he won re-election because, as his campaign slogan

put it, He kept us out of war! A month after his second inauguration, he appeared yet again

before Congress, this time, however, to convince the nation that the world must be made safe

for democracy. This credo became the foundation for the next century of American foreign

policy: an obligation to assist all peoples in pursuit of freedom and self-determination.

Suddenly, the United States needed to transform itself from an isolationist nation into a war

machine, and Wilson persuaded Congress that dozens of crucial issues (including repressive

espionage and sedition acts) required that politics be adjourned. Wilson returned again and

again to the Presidents Room, eventually convincing Congress to pass the 19th Amendment: if

women could keep the home fires burning amid wartime privation, the president argued, they

should be entitled to vote. The journalist Frank I. Cobb called Wilsons control of Congress the

most impressive triumph of mind over matter known to American politics.


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IN the 1918 Congressional electionheld days before the armisticeWilson largely

abstained from politics, but he did issue a written plea for a Democratic majority. Those who had

followed his earlier advice and adjourned politics felt he was pulling a fast one. Republicans

captured both houses. With the war over, Wilson left for Paris to broker a peace treaty, one he

hoped would include the formation of a League of Nations, where countries could settle disputespeaceably and preemptively. The treaty required Senate approval, and Wilson, who had been

away from Washington for more than six months, returned to discover that Republicans had

actively, sometimes secretly, built opposition to itwithout even knowing what the treaty

stipulated.

Recognizing insurmountable resistance on Capitol Hill, even after hosting an unprecedented

working meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the White House, Wilson

attempted an end run around the Senate: he took his case directly to the people. During a 29-city

tour, he slowly captured public support. But then he collapsed on a train between Pueblo, Colo.,and Wichita, Kan., and had to be rushed back to the White House. Days later he suffered a

stroke, which his wife, his physician and a handful of co-conspirators concealed from the world,

leaving Mrs. Wilson to decide, in her words, what was important and what was not.

In March 1920, having recovered enough to wage a final battle against the Republicans, Wilson

could have garnered support for a League of Nations by surrendering minor concessions. But he

refused. The treaty failed the Senate by seven votes, and in 1921, the president hobbled out of the

White House as the lamest duck in American history, with his ideals intact but his grandest

ambition in tatters.

Two months ago, our current president, facing financial cliffs and sequestration and toting an

ambitious agenda filled with such incendiary issues as immigration reform and gun control,

spoke of the need to break the habit of negotiating through crisis. Wilson knew how to sidestep

that problem. He understood that conversation often holds the power to convert, that sustained

dialogue is the best means of finding common ground.

Today, President Obama and Congress agree that the national debt poses lethal threats to future

generations, and so they should declare war on that enemy and adjourn politics, at least until ithas been subdued. The two sides should convene in the Presidents Room, at the table beneath

the frescoes named Legislation and Executive Authority, each prepared to leave something

on it. And then they should return the next day, and maybe the day after that. Perhaps the senior

senator from Kentucky could offer a bottle of his states smoothest bourbon, and the president

could provide the branch water. All sides should remember Wilson and the single factor that

determines the countrys glorious successes or crushing failures: cooperation.


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March forth!

A. Scott Berg is a biographer and the author of the forthcoming book Wilson.

Obamas Backers Seek Big Donors to Press Agenda

ByNICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: February 22, 2013383 Comments

President Obamas political team is fanning out across the country in pursuit of an ambitious

goal: raising $50 million to convert his re-election campaign into a powerhouse national

advocacy network, a sum that would rank the new group as one of Washingtons biggest

lobbying operations.

But the rebooted campaign, known asOrganizing for Action, has plunged the president and his

aides into a campaign finance limbo with few clear rules, ample potential for influence-peddling,

and no real precedent in national politics.

Inprivate meetings and phone calls, Mr. Obamas aides have made clear that the new

organization will rely heavily on a small number of deep-pocketed donors, not unlike the super

PACs whose influence on political campaigns Mr. Obama once deplored.

At least half of the groups budget will come from a select group of donors who will each

contribute or raise $500,000 or more, according to donors and strategists involved in the effort.

Unlike a presidential campaign, Organizing for Action has been set up as a tax-exempt social

welfare group. That means it is not bound by federal contribution limits, laws that bar White

House officials from soliciting contributions, or the stringent reporting requirements for

campaigns. In their place, the new group will self-regulate.

Officials said it would voluntarily disclose the names of large donors every few months and

would not ask administration personnel to solicit money, though Obama aides will probably

appear at some events.

The money will pay for salaries, rent and advertising, and will also be used to maintain the

expensive voter database and technological infrastructure that knits together Mr. Obamas 2million volunteers, 17 million e-mail subscribers and 22 million Twitter followers.

The goal is to harness those resources in support of Mr. Obamas second-term policy priorities,

including efforts to curb gun violence andclimate changeand overhaulimmigrationprocedures.

Those efforts began Friday, when thousands of Obama supporters were deployed through more

than 80 Congressional districts around the country to rally outside lawmakers offices, hold
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vigils and bombard Congress with e-mails and phone calls urging members to support stricter

background checks for gun buyers.

There are wins we can have on guns and immigration, Jon Carson, the groups new executive

director, told prospective donors on a conference call on Wednesday, according to people whoparticipated. We have to change the conventional wisdom on those issues.

But those contributions will also translate into access, according to donors courted by the

presidents aides. Next month, Organizing for Action will hold a founders summit at a hotel

near the White House, where donors paying $50,000 each will mingle with Mr. Obamas former

campaign manager, Jim Messina, and Mr. Carson, who previously led the White House Office of

Public Engagement.

Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obamas

group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other

meetings at the White House. Moreover, the new cash demands on Mr. Obamas top donors and

bundlers come as many of them are angling for appointments to administration jobs or

ambassadorships.

It just smells, said Bob Edgar, thepresident of Common Cause, which advocates tighter

regulation of campaign money. The president is setting a very bad model setting up this

organization.

Mr. Obamas new organization has drawn rebukes in recent days from watchdog groups, which

view it as another step away from the tighter campaign regulation Mr. Obama once championed.

Over the past two years, he has reversed course on several campaign finance issues, by blessing a

super PAC created by former aides and accepting large corporate contributions for his second

inauguration.

Many traditional advocacy organizations, including the Sierra Club and the National Rifle

Association, are set up as social welfare groups, or501(c)(4)sin tax parlance. But unlike those

groups, Organizing for Action appears to be an extension of the administration, stocked with

alumni of Mr. Obamas White House and campaign teams and devoted solely to the presidents

second-term agenda.

Robert K. Kelner, a Republican election lawyer who works with other outside groups, said the

arrangement presents a rather simple loophole in the otherwise incredibly complex web of

government ethics regulations that are intended to insulate government officials from outside

influence.
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The closest precedents for Organizing for Action exist at the state level. In New Jersey, a

501(c)(4) called the Committee for Our Childrens Future, set up by friends of Gov. Chris

Christie, has run hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising praising Mr. Christies

proposals.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo encouraged the formation of a nonprofit group, the

Committee to Save New York, that is run by business leaders allied with him, and it has raised

millions of dollars from corporations, private sector unions, and individuals. The group

supported Mr. Cuomos agenda but it also thrust him into controversy when The New York

Timesrevealedthat gambling interests poured $2 million into the group as Mr. Cuomo was

developing a proposal to expand casino gambling.

Organizing for Action said it would accept unlimited personal and corporate contributions, but

no money from political action committees, lobbyists or foreign citizens. Officials said they

would focusfor nowon grass-roots organizing, amplified by Internet advertising. Fridays

day of action involved half a million dollars worth of targeted Internet ads and events in

Florida, Maine, Pennsylvania and California, among other states.

O.F.A.s first day of action was about bringing the issue of closing background-check loopholes

into communities across the country that feel very strongly about supporting the presidents plan

to reduce gun violence, said Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for the group.

Organizing for Action has also promised to steer clear of electoral politics, unlike the politically

active nonprofit groups like the right-leaning Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and

Americans for Prosperity. Such groups spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising

during the recent election campaign season, ostensibly for issue advocacy, spurring a wave of

lawsuits, ethics complaints from campaign watchdogs and criticism from Mr. Obama himself.

But the distinction between campaigning and issue advocacy may be hard for Organizing for

Action to maintain in the prelude to the 2014 elections, especially if it continues its emphasis on

pressing lawmakers on delicate issues like immigration and guns.

In Wednesdays conference call, Mr. Carson said the group hoped to form partnerships withother 501(c)(4) groups on the left, including America Votes, which was at the center of

Democratic efforts to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004 and now serves as a coordinator

for progressive advocacy organizations. He also said Organizing for Action wanted to be a

counterweight to grass-roots organizations on the right, like the N.R.A., according to people who

took part in the call.
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formerly the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Another longtime

presidential adviser, David Plouffe, is also involved with the group.

It is understandable that the White House might want to make use of its campaign voter list,

mobilizing supporters when it needs help getting bills through Congress. The groups leaders saythey will be holding rallies on important topics ranging from immigration to climate change, and

note that this kind of organizing is expensive. But the frantic pursuit of big money makes it

impossible to call this a grass-roots effort.

Any corporation with a matter pending before the administration can give lavishly to Organizing

for Action as a way of currying favor, knowing that the West Wing will take note. (The group

does not have to disclose its donors but says it will, and also plans to reject money from

registered lobbyists and PACs.) It is also a way for donors to bypass the limits on giving to the

Democratic Party: the new group does similar work, but without the restrictions on donations.

When conservative groups first began using social welfare groups as vehicles for fund-raising

and advocacy, Mr. Obama denounced the practice. You cant stand by and let the special

interests drown out the voices of the American people,he said in 2010.A year later, though, he

allowed his supporters to set up a super PAC called Priorities USA Action, and the new group

is built onthe same defeatist philosophyof if you cant beat them, join them.

If Organizing for Action wants to restore the bracing political spirit that carried Mr. Obama into

office in 2008, it can refuse all corporate contributions and limit donations to a few hundred

dollars. Otherwise, it will be playing the same sleazy game that its opponents do, made even

worse by the assent of the president.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 2, 2013

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that David Axelrod, a former adviser to

President Obama, is involved with Organizing for Action.

Different Recipient, but Same Beneficiary

By ROSS RAMSEY


It is legal during legislative sessions for state officeholders to raise money for their favorite

charities from the same people who are prohibited from donating to their political campaigns in

that same time period.
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The charities are perfectly worthwhilecauses that range from heartwarming to life-changing.

And prominent people lend their names to such causes all the time. There is, of course, nothing

wrong with raising money for the charities, and no campaign laws are being broken.

But the juxtaposition is thorny.

During a legislative session, state officeholders are prohibited from raising money for their state

political accountsunless they are involved in an election.

The reasoning is simple. The authors of that particular law wanted to separate the donations of

political supplicants from the deeds of political actors. They wanted to protect everybody

involved in those transactions from even the appearance that money from contributors was

connected to actions by lawmakers.

There were famous cases, like the time the chicken magnate Lonnie Pilgrim, known as Bo,passed out campaign donations on the Texas Senate floor during a break in the debate on

workers compensation laws, which were of interest to his business.

That was legal when he did it in 1989, but not anymore.

The campaign laws include an intentional loophole for lawmakers like Representative Carol

Alvarado, Democrat of Houston, who is in a special election for an open Senate seat. Like the

other candidates in that race, she was allowed to raise money for the campaign in spite of the

Legislatures calendar.

The candidates in the District 6 Senate race are not the only people dialing for dollars while

lawmakers are in town. Monday is Gov. Rick Perrys birthday, which will be celebrated with a

dinner at the Governors Mansion benefiting Carry the Load, a group formed to honor military

veterans. Suggested donations go as high as $100,000, which buy the donor V.I.P. seating for

eight and priority seating for another eight guests at the governors birthday dinner, along with

a private tour of the restored mansion. Last month, the Texas Senate Hispanic Research Council

held a gala for the Luna scholars program, which gives students civic experience by allowing

them to work as legislative staff members during the session. Diamond sponsorships for the galaat the downtown Austin Hilton went for $20,000, and individual tickets were $1,000; Lt. Gov.

David Dewhurst gave the keynote address.

A similar group, the Texas Legislative Internship Program, has a fund-raising gala in April at

Austins Four Seasons Hotel, with the top sponsors donating $25,000. That one is affiliated with


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Texas Southern University, and the attraction is a roast of Representative Sylvester Turner,

Democrat of Houston.

The legislative luncheon for the Governors Commission for Women the first lady of Texas,

Anita Perry, is the headline speakeris on the March calendar. The top-level sponsorship forthat one is $10,000, with the money going to the commissions work.

Worthy causes, across the board. It is hard to fault the officeholders for using their prominence to

raise money for such programs, the donors for contributing or the charities for accepting the

money.

But the timing of the events is wince-inducing.

Ethics laws and practices have a lot to do with intent and with appearances. Leave intent to the

lawyers, but appearances belong to politics.

The political fund-raising prohibition is aimed at the appearance that lawmakers are taking

money from donors while casting votes that benefit those donors.

So if donors cannot show their love for officeholders by giving money directly, indirect giving

becomes the next best thing. A donor at a charity event sponsored by a politician for purely

charitable purposes appears to be doing the same thing as a donor who is there purely to curry

favor with the politician at the head table.

An officeholder raising money for a good cause looks the same as a lawmaker using a powerful

position to make donors do something they might not otherwise do. If voters are willing to

believe in the pure motives of everyone involved, they neednt worry about influence peddling.

But it is awkward. As Joe Straus, the House speaker, said last week at a dinner honoring him and

benefiting the Annette Strauss Institute, People say the nicest things about you when the

budgets being written.


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Why the threat on Bob Woodward matters

ByKathleen Parker,Mar 02, 2013

To the world beyond the Beltway, it might not mean much that Bob Woodward of the famedWatergate duo went public with his recent White House run-in.

This would be an oversight.

Th Washington Post's Bob Woodward explains his public back-and-forth with the White House

over a story he wrote about the sequester.

It also may not mean much that the White House press corps got teed off when they werentallowed access to President Obama as he played golf with Tiger Woods. This, too, would be anoversight.

Though not comparableone appeared to be a veiled threat aimed at one of the nations mostrespected journalists and the other a minor blip in the scheme of thingsboth are part of apattern of behavior by the Obama administration that suggests not just thin skin but a disregardfor the role of the press and a gradual slide toward a state media.

This is where oversight can become dangerous.

Understandably, everyday Americans may find this discussion too inside baseball to pay muchmind. Why cant the president play a little golf without a press gaggle watching? As forWoodward, its not as though the White House was threatening to bust his kneecaps.

Add to these likely sentiments the fact that Americans increasingly dislike the so-calledmainstream media, sometimes for good reason. Distrust of media, encouraged by alternativemedia seeking to enhance their own standing, has become a tool useful to the very powers theFourth Estate was constitutionally endowed to monitor. When the president can bypass reporters
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to reach the public, it is not far-fetched to imagine a timeperhaps now?when the statecontrols the message.

To recap:Woodward recently wrote a commentaryfor The Post that placed the sequester debacleon Obamas desk and accused the president of moving the goal postsby asking for more tax

increases.

Before his piece was published, Woodward called the White House to tell officials it wascoming. A shouting match ensued between Woodward and Gene Sperling, Obamas economicadviser, followed by an e-mail in which Sperling said that Woodward will regret staking outthat claim.

Though the tone was conciliatory and Sperling apologized for raising his voice, the messagenonetheless caused Woodward to bristle.

Again, Woodwards kneecaps are probably safe, but the challenge to his facts, and therefore to

his character, was unusual, given Woodwards stature. And, how, by the way, might Woodwardcome to regret it? Sperlings words, though measured, could be read as: Youll never set foot inthis White House again.

When reporters lose access to the White House, it isnt about being invited to the annual holidayparty. Its about having access to the most powerful people on the planet as they execute thenations business.

Inarguably, Woodward has had greater access to the White House than any other journalist intown. Also inarguably, he would survive without it. He has filled a library shelf with books aboutthe inner workings of this and other administrations, the fact of which makes current events so

remarkable.

Woodward, almost 70, is Washingtons Reporter Emeritus. His facts stand up to scrutiny. Hismotivations withstand the test of objectivity. Sperling obviously assumed that Woodwardwouldnt take offense at the suggestion that he not only was wrong but was also endangering hisvaluable proximity to power.

He assumed, in other words, that Woodward would not do his job. This was an oversight.

This is no tempest in a teapot but rather the leak in the dike. Drip by drip, the Obamaadministration has demonstrated its intolerance for dissent and its contempt for any who stray

from the White House script. Yes, all administrations are sensitive to criticism, and all push backwhen such criticism is deemed unfair or inaccurate. But no president since Richard Nixon hasdemonstrated such overt contempt for the messenger. And, thanks to technological advances insocial media, Obama has been able to bypass traditional watchdogs as no other president has.

More to the point, the Obama White House is, to put it politely, fudging as it tries to place theonus of the sequester on Congress. And, as has become customary, officials are using the
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html


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Woodward spat to distract attention. As Woodward put it: This is the old trick ... of making thepress ... the issue, rather than what the White House has done here.

Killing the messenger is a time-honored method of controlling the message, but we have alreadyspilled that blood. And the First Amendments protection of a free press, the purpose of which is

to check power and constrain governments ability to dictate the lives of private citizens, was noaccident.

A Word Gone Wrong

Jordan Awan

By LAWRENCE DOWNES


This Wednesday is the fifth annual day of awareness in a national campaign to stop the use of

the word retarded and its variants. As a medical label for people with intellectual and

developmental disabilities, the R-word used to be neutral, clinical, incapable of giving offense.

But words are mere vessels for meaning, and this one has long since been put to other uses.


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Retarded and retard today are variations on a slur. Young people especially like it: as a

weapon of derision, it does the job. Its sharp, with an assaultive potency that words like

moron and idiot lost sometime in the days of black-and-white TV.

The campaign against it, called Spread the Word to End the Word, is heartfelt and earnest in away that makes it vulnerable to ridicule. I know people who care about language who do not see

themselves as heartless and who do not see retardation as anything to get worked up about. To

them, banishing the R-word for another clinical-sounding term is like linguistic Febreze:

masking unpleasantries with cloying euphemisms.

In this, as in other cases of discrimination, its probably best to let those affected speak for

themselves.

Here is John Franklin Stephens, a man from Virginia with Down syndrome who serves as a

global messenger for the Special Olympics. He has written op-ed articles giving lucid voice to

thoughts you may never have heard before:

Thehardest thing about having an intellectual disability is the loneliness, he once wrote in The

Denver Post. We are aware when all the rest of you stop and just look at us. We are aware when

you look at us and just say, unh huh, and then move on, talking to each other. You mean no

harm, but you have no idea how alone we feel even when we are with you.

So, whats wrong with retard?, he asked. I can only tell you what it means to me and people

like me when we hear it. It means that the rest of you are excluding us from your group. We are

something that is not like you and something that none of you would ever want to be. We are

something outside the in group. We are someone that is not your kind.

Last year, after the right-wing personality Ann Coulter sent a Twitter message about Mitt

Romney and President ObamaI highly approve of Romneys decision to be kind and gentle

to the retard Mr. Stephenswrote her a letter.No one overcomes more than we do and still

loves life so much, he said, with such persuasive graciousness as to put other writers to shame.

As Mr. Stephens makes clear, people can be thoughtless and cruel, or well-meaning, and neverknow the damage their words can do. The campaign is about inclusion. History is full of stories

of people from outside who fought their way in. To those with intellectual disabilities, it

sometimes seems the battle is just at the beginning, when little victorieslike an end to insults

are hugely important.
http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/


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Craig B Hulet was both speech writer and Special AssistantforSpecial Projects to Congressman

Jack Metcalf (Retired); he has been a consultant to federal law enforcement DEA, ATF&E of

Justice/Homeland Security for over 25 years; he has written four books on international relations

and philosophy, his latest is The Hydra of Carnage: Bushs Imperial War-making and the Rule of

Law - An Analysis of the Objectives and Delusions of Empire. He has appeared on over 12,000

hours of TV and Radio:The History ChannelDe-Coded; He is a regular on Coast to Coast

AM w/ George Noory and Coffee Talk KBKW; CNN, C-Span ; European Television "AmericanDream" and The Arsenio Hall Show; he has written for Soldier of Fortune Magazine,

International Combat Arms, Financial Security Digest, etc.; Hulet served in Vietnam 1969-70,

101st Airborne, C Troop 2/17th Air Cav and graduated 3rd in his class atAberdeen Proving

Grounds Ordnance SchoolMOS 45J20 Weapons. He remains a paid analyst and consultant in

various areas of geopolitical, business and security issues: terrorism and military affairs. Hulet

lives in the ancient old growth Quinault Rain Forest.

wilson to obama

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