Cross posted from Rational Resistance

Here’s the news. I saw it on TV tonight, but I just found it in the Times.

You’ve probably heard part of this story already. Cheney was over in Pakistan earlier this week, apparently to kick Musharraf’s ass about cooperating with us on tracking down terrorists. He then gave an interview–correction, “a senior administration official”–gave a group  interview talking about Cheney’s meeting with Musharraf. The senior administration official seemed pretty well informed about the private meeting between Cheney and Musharraf, and seemed very interested in pointing out inaccuracies in press reports of this meeting.

For instance, did Cheney have this meeting to beat up on Musharraf?

A: That’s not the way I work. I don’t know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn’t know what I’m doing, or isn’t involved in it. But the idea that I’d go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.

So whoever the senior administration official is, he is apparently in a position to use the first person singular when referring to Vice President Richard Cheney.

Okay, so far it’s just ridiculous, a story of a little charade Cheney and the press agreed to.

Now, here’s the good part. Cheney goes over to demand that Musharraf do a better job at rounding up terrorists, and the same day, what happens? Pakistani forces pick up a terrorist, a really big one.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 1 – The former Taliban defense minister was arrested in Pakistan on Monday, the day of Vice President Dick Cheney‘s visit, two government officials said Thursday. He is the most important Taliban member to be captured since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The man, Mullah Obaidullah, was a senior leader of the Afghan insurgency, which has battled American and NATO forces with increasing intensity over the last year.

He is one of the inner core around Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. The leadership is believed to operate from the relative safety of Quetta, Pakistan, where Mullah Obaidullah was arrested.

This is good news, right? After all, this is almost the top guy over there, bigger than anyone else we’ve picked up.

So what’s the problem? Well, to hear Bush tell it, the Pakistanis are our stalwart allies, standing side by side with us, fighting terrorists and building democracy (okay, that part may not be that important). But what happened on Monday? Cheney went over, demanded that they start handing over some terrorists, and that just happens to be the day they pick up one of the biggest targets of all.

I don’t think so. If they could pick him up Monday, they could pick him up Sunday. Isn’t it obvious that they have known where this guy was all along, but they weren’t sufficiently motivated until Vice President Senior went over and threw his weight around?

And if I’m right about that, doesn’t that also mean they’ve been protecting him?

And if they’re protecting this guy, what are the odds they aren’t protecting bin Laden?

Good thing we let al Qaeda out of Tora Bora so we could invade Iraq, isn’t it?

I feel a need to weigh in on the issue of whether Naylor and others associated with the Second Vermont Republic movement are tied to racists, racist movements and racism in general. 

In his book, The Vermont Manifesto, Naylor quotes one H. Newcomb Morse of Pepperdine Law School on why the confederate secession was legal.  For those unfamiliar with Pepperdine, the school is fundamentalist and the Dean of the Law School is Kenneth Starr —  yes that Ken Starr. 

“…Morse argues that the proper way for a state to leave the Union is through a state convention elected by the PEOPLE (emphasis ew) of the state to decide one and only one issue, namely the right of self-determination.  According to…Morse every Confederate State properly used the convention process.”

There it is folks – racism to the very core.  The clear and simple meaning of the above is that blacks and women are not people.  Only white men (and not all of them) could vote. 

In Morse’s list of reasons why secession was legal, he fails to mention the need to good faith negotiate assets and liabilities and also fails to provide for a period of time during which those who find themselves on the wrong side of the divide can change location.  As well, he fails to discuss the issue of secession from the seceding entities. 

There are separatist movement in many countries.  I find it interesting that Naylor doesn’t discuss the separatist movement in Quebec.  Separatist movements are all over the political map.  The only justification for separatism is that liberty and participation are not protected and respected in the current regime.  The notion of separation to protect tyranny, slavery, and oppression should be anathema.  And that’s what the Confederate States of America were all about.

Here’s a link to the controversy over the Second Vermont Republic and their ties to unsavory characters.

For once, Thomas Naylor said something I agree with:

“It’s a fight for who’s going to capture the moral high ground in Vermont politics,” says Thomas Naylor, co-chair of the breakaway formation.

I think we’ve already seen who has surrendered the moral high ground in this battle.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

The Montpelier Democratic Committee will be meeting on Thursday, March 8, at 6:00 P.M. The purpose of the meeting is to nominate candidates to replace Rep. Francis Brooks, who has retired from the House of Representatives after more than two decades of service to the people of Montpelier and the state.

The meeting will be held at the East Montpelier Room of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.

Did you know that state Senator Bill Doyle had a blog? (if not, me neither; had only just came across the Web address for it on his annual town meeting survey form for this year)

His blog is at billdoylevt.com: Senator Bill Doyle’s Official Website.

Read an article about Senator Doyle’s annual Town Meeting Day survey, here [via Barre – Montpelier Times Argus (Wednesday, February 28, 2007)].

fyi: Town Meeting Day

[cross-posted at Norsehorse’s Home Turf, here]

As Jack mentioned below, Steve West, co-host of Live & Local on WKVT 1490, wrote this reaction to the attack on John Odum…

…I’m reading a vitriolic screed by a man defending his own anti-racism credentials (which have not been questioned), slamming the character of Mr. Odum (who he does not know), and implying that Mr. Odum’s employer should put a tighter leash on him.

No matter what the details of this discussion……….that’s just not cool.

Any hope of keeping the “moral high ground” that SVR and Mr. Naylor had prior to this phenomenon is gone. He has displayed some fairly childish “schoolyard bully” behaviors, and has entirely alienated at least one potential comrade to the SVR cause……….meaning me.

Even if Odum’s posting was wildly off base and without merit……………the response was, dare I say, nasty and personal, and only tangentially addressed the issue. At this point, frankly, I’m pretty tired of the whole thing already. But now, today, John Odum says that, in order to keep the peace at his workplace, he is stepping down from GMD, where he has helped to add intelligence, humor, and energy to the political dialogue in Vermont.

And that’s just not right.

And to Professor Naylor and others of like mind at SVR, I say……….right or wrong, I’ll stick by John Odum on this one. He has shown himself to be, in my experience, intellectually honest and well-intended. I cannot say the same of the responses I’ve read from SVR.

And now I, for one, will redirect my attention to more immediate and measurable threats, while hoping that Odum reconsiders.

Well said, Steve. And thanks for saying it.

Cathy Resmer covers the VNRC purge of GMD founder and former blogger John Odum here.

Cathy says: I’m sorry to see him go, especially in this way. He says GMD will continue without him.

Exactly right, Cathy. We feel the loss here, but we’re going to keep it up.

From the extreme right (I hope she doesn’t object to that description), She’s Right blogger Charity Tensel also covers this story, describing the loss this way: This is a great loss for political blogging. Odum’s thoughtful posts and comments kept GMD in the realm of sensible discussion. He was an anchor, a rock, keeping the blog focused on remaining relevant and holding it back from slipping into the realm of radicalism.

Philip Baruth has the same story, along with a photo of John (I’m not sure we’ve ever posted photos of him here.)

Philip: The Vermont blogosphere is still very much in its infancy, and it depends on a handful of sites for its signature feel. Green Mountain Daily has been, and will remain, one of those deep-anchor sites. And although others have contributed greatly, GMD is John Odum’s brain child, and his love child, and its success is in large part his success.

We also have this link from Reason and Brimstone.

… And this just in.

Steve West of WKVT’s “Live & Local” has now weighed in with his take on the story. Check out his latest – and very funny – blog entry, Odum Addendum and dem Demagogues.

Haik also covers the story, with a different angle. We know that this wasn’t about Snarky, but he couldn’t restrain himself from chiming in. You kind of have to wonder what would motivate someone like that, don’t you?

If you’re a regular reader of these pages you know about this story, but it’s obvious now that this decision is going beyond the world of Green Mountain Daily.

When you read about attacks on journalism, and particular citizen journalism of the kind we practice here, you don’t necessarily think about relatively enlightened places like Vermont.  Now we know that we cannot afford to be complacent.

Thank you all for your support.

from JD – article in Seven Days here.