Marble Composition

Crazy Curt and PA's 7th

Because my family originally settled in this country in Pennsylvania in the 1600's, I have a natural affinity for the state. I wasn't born there, nor have I ever lived there, but I've visited many times, and the amount of rural space in the state tends to warm the cockles of this old shitkicker's heart. Hell, one of my favorite bands is from York, PA. It's the quintesential American state; a thing of enormous beauty. And if you've never visited Gettysburg and the national park there, then you'll have to answer this question: Why do you hate America?

That said, the modern elected Republican politicians from PA. are fucking nuts. Rubber room, certifiable, man-humps-dog, crazy people. The 7th Congressional district is represented by Curt Weldon, whom I've written about before. Thankfully, just in time for the electoral mid-term shenanigans for '06, The American Prospect has published this little ditty from Laura Rosen:

Probably Weldon’s most notorious venture into the dark side is something known to insiders as “Able Danger,” an obscure and now defunct Pentagon data-mining program. Weldon claims the program identified the chief September 11 hijacker months before the attacks. The villains in his theory are civil-liberties-minded Pentagon lawyers who supposedly blocked analysts from sharing their findings with the FBI. He has even alleged that the 9-11 Commission conspired in a cover-up of the Able Danger findings. (Both the Pentagon and the 9-11 Commission vigorously dispute his accusations.) [Update: The Pentagon, in a report released today, told Curt he was full of shit.]

Iran is another area in which Weldon has consistently pushed a black-helicopter narrative. He published a tabloidish book on Iran, titled Countdown to Terror, and went on Meet the Press to denounce the CIA for failing to hire his secret Iranian intelligence source. The source turned out to be a business associate of a discredited former Iran-Contra arms dealer and intelligence peddler Manucher Ghorbanifar, who has been deemed a fabricator by the CIA and was looking to get on the U.S. payroll once again.

In his latest headline-grabbing tirade, Weldon has insisted that the Bush administration actually suppressed evidence of weapons of mass destruction being found in Iraq. At one point he even planned to fly to Iraq secretly and commandeer Army equipment to go dig the hidden arsenal up himself, according to Dave Gaubatz, who had planned to accompany him. (The trip was called off when Gaubatz backed out, alarmed that Weldon was trying to politicize the project.)

Curt wanted to dig up some 500 '80's-era mustard gas shells burried in the desert, keep the military in the dark about his little find, and then invite the media out so he could proclaim, "we've found the weapons of mass destruction!".

Here's a few choice quotes from Republican staffers (keep in mind, they're GOP toady suck-ups):
- “Weldon is erratic,”
- “The intelligence community does not take him seriously,”
- “Anything connected to him has the same treatment. The opinion of Weldon is that he is on a crusade.”

Laura provides a nice roundup. Go check it out.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 9/21/2006 07:54:00 PM