Plenty of big time Dems running us down the same road as the Republicans.

Agree completely. But I still think Ungar’s point is worth keeping in mind, because it categorizes things in ways that make certain incidents and statements ‘make sense’.

As for the opportunism, it’s certainly possible. Maybe I’ve taken too much to heart the depth of disgust in some conversations with ‘moderate’ Repubs who loathe Bush, Cheney, Rove… and who really need to get a little more (ahem) ‘clarity’ about McCain.

I still hope JohnJ, marksb, you, and LD are prescient here.
(Fingers crossed.)

Craig Unger’s latest book “Fall of the House of Bush” makes an interesting surmise that at this point so many ideologues and extremists have taken the reins of government (not just in US, but in many places) that we’re at a point where the critical techtonics are really ‘the extremists versus the rest of us’. And ‘the rest of us’ is not as aligned with Dem/Rep as we are coalescing in opposition to the perceived risks and errors of ideologues (by definition, ‘blind’ to reality).

Looks like Davis may be in this situation to a degree — fed up with what the GOP has become, and realistically assessing his chances of being elected by them as nil.

Isn’t it Kansas where a lot of Republicans got fed up with the ideologues, gave up their “R” designations, and are running as Dems. This is essentially what Jim Webb did two years ago (in VA).

Interesting tea leaves.

“January 30, 2008 -
U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said today he will retire from Congress at the end of the year, bringing to a close a 14-year stint in the House of Representatives during which he rose rapidly through the ranks of Republican leadership and championed such issues as D.C. voting rights and a vibrant defense-contracting industry.
…
Davis didn’t count on the vehemence with which the GOP’s conservative wing would resist his efforts to move the party to the middle. His opt-out of a Senate bid was spurred in part by an ugly battle within the Republican Party of Virginia, which decided to have a convention instead of a primary to choose its nominee. The decision favored former governor James S. Gilmore III, a more conservative candidate viewed as likelier to win over the party faithful who typically attend conventions. “
http://belowthebeltway.com/200…..-congress/

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/36329.html

Thank you Jim White!

With billions/year in gov’t contracts, could GSA be the tunnel into a new phase of the whole Duke Cunningham/gov’t contracts mess? Has Abramoff been spilling one too many beans…?

(All the more reason for Bush, Cheney, Rove, AIPAC, and corrupt members of Congress to secure hard drives and documents for storage in their man-sized safes, and underscores the point that paranoid people may feel Bloch isn’t covering their asses well enough?)

If the POGO document is bogus, the white hats have a steeper slope. But if it’s legit, then it underscores JThompson’s point that the media silence is eerie.

I’m still with marksb and JohnJ; the subtle movements in the dark are quite possibly shark fins.

There is this from a POGO letter in 05:

On Thursday, January 6, 2004, without notice or warning, Mr. Bloch directed the involuntary geographic reassignment of twelve career OSC employees (approximately 20 percent of the legal and investigative team at headquarters, including two of the four career senior executives at OSC). Seven employees, including one of the two career senior executives, as well as the Director of OSC’s alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program, have been directed to report to a newly created field office in Detroit, Michigan. Four others are being told that they are being transferred to fill vacancies in OSC’s existing Dallas field office. The twelfth employee, a career senior executive who has been with OSC since 1983, has been reassigned to head the existing Oakland field office. Among other duties he has discharged over the last twenty years, with consistently outstanding performance appraisals, this career executive has served as Acting Special Counsel for extended periods of time during vacancies in that position. He has also been in charge of enforcement of the Hatch Act for many years, through the terms of several Special Counsels. The Oakland field office has a staff of only approximately six employees. Further, like the Dallas field, the Oakland field office has been headed successfully for many years by an experienced grade 15 manager.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q…../osc/joint

NPR today references this letter too:

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…..d=90245837

“The e-mails were essential in determining whether Mr. Bloch had used his computer for inappropriate purposes,” Davis wrote in a letter Tuesday to House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Tuesday’s raids were done in connection to a criminal investigation of whether Bloch obstructed justice and, potentially, lied to Congress, according to the law enforcement officials.

After watching Bill Moyers this past Feb:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..atch2.html

BILL MOYERS: We turn now from the rhetoric of the race to the reality of governance. Congress has begun a new round of hearings to get answers to questions the Bush administration refused to answer last year — questions about accountability. The heart of the matter is how do we know what the people in power are doing with the public’s trust and the taxpayer’s money if we are kept in the dark? Here’s the first of reports we’ll be bringing you over the coming months on some of the key hearings on Capitol Hill.

You are looking at some of the least known but most powerful people in Congress. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee is the main investigative body in the House of Representatives, it’s charged with making sure the government is doing its job and holding the executive accountable. That means searching for waste fraud and abuse of power in any federal program. Henry Waxman, who has been in congress 33 years, has been ranking member of the committee since 1997.

The show focused on Doan and Rice.

Then this Waxman – Davis exchange upon Doan’s resignation”

Update – Waxman issued this statement in reaction to Doan’s resignation: “I know this decision was difficult for the White House and Lurita Doan, but it was the right thing to do. GSA should now be able to return to its nonpartisan tradition and its work as our government’s premier contracting agency.”

Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), ranking member on Oversight and Government Reform, offered praise for Doan’s tenure at GSA, although he noted that Doan’s “management style was not everyone’s cup of tea,” and admitted that Doan suffered from “personality conflicts” at the agency.

Davis also criticized Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who found last year that Doan had violated the Hatch Act and urged President Bush to remove her from office. That law prohibits federal employees for using their offices for political activities.

“It would be a shame if this decision had anything to do with the hyperbolic and unfounded allegations of Scott Bloch and others who were after her just to claim another administration scalp,” Davis said in a statement released by his office. “There’s no doubt personality conflicts played a role. Certainly, her management style was not everyone’s cup of tea.

Davis added:“But the administrator appears to have fallen victim to a bureaucratic culture that fears, rather than rewards, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and bold leadership.

Lurita Doan’s legacy at GSA should be viewed as a positive one, and her attempts to bring private sector best practices to the agency should be applauded.”

and this posted today:

http://www.ombwatch.org/articl…..ry/4961/49

And the spin begins here with interesting twists regarding the raid:

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0508/050708e1.htm

People involved in the case said the possibility of perjury was most likely the reason prosecutors sought material related to the Doan investigation. Katz, in an April 29 letter, accused Bloch of lying about the transfer of agency employees in a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Management Subcommittee hearing on May 24, 2005.

The request for Rice documents is likely aimed at evaluating whistleblower charges that Bloch improperly bypassed career investigators during the probe, people familiar with the case said. Bloch’s lawyer, Roscoe Howard of Troutman Sanders LLP, did not return calls for comment.

and this:

The FBI on Tuesday executed search warrants on OSC headquarters and the Dallas field office, as well as Bloch’s home. The agents collected documents and laptop computers and issued 17 subpoenas in an operation lasting more than seven hours. Debra Katz, who is representing OSC employees who have filed complaints against Bloch alleging whistleblower retaliation, said five or six current employees and numerous former employees were issued subpoenas to appear before a grand jury next week.

“OSC employees were told before the search warrants were executed yesterday that the special counsel was the target of the probe, not the people in the office,” Katz said.

The investigation into Bloch appears to be focused not only on potential obstruction of justice charges against him, but also on the possibility he lied to Congress last year and manipulated OSC investigations, according to sources.

(my bold)

OSC employees are stating that the raid took far more information than would be needed for the scope of the investigation they were told was underway.

Okay, I get it now. No good guys to be found backing this raid.