You just have to wonder what’s on the agenda when having document shredder on your resume helps you land a job at the Pentagon. The Los Angeles Times reported that Robert Earl has been hired as Chief of Staff to Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Gordon England. England has been nominated by Bush to replace Paul Wolfowitz, who has gone on to head the World Bank.
| In 1987, Robert L. Earl told a grand jury that he had destroyed and stolen national security documents while working for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North during the Iran-Contra scandal.
Now, he sits in one of the most coveted offices in the Pentagon as chief of staff to Gordon R. England, acting deputy secretary of Defense. Earl has clearance to review the kinds of classified documents he once destroyed. |
Earl was granted immunity in exchange for testifying so we can’t call him a felon. But his criminal behavior should disqualify him for any position in public service, particularly one that requires a security clearance. The audacity of this administration appointing someone with so little regard for the law or national security, is boundless. Imagine the reaction from the right if Democrats were to give a sensitive post to Sandy Berger, the former Clinton National Security Advisor who pled guilty to removing documents from the National Archives. Fox News alone would spend three days on it.
Earl, if confirmed would join his Iran-Contra co-conspirators Elliot Abrams and John Poindexter in an administration rife with corrupt power players. And serving as a role model for these evildoers, and all the young aspiring evildoers, is the master, Karl Rove, who is earning his own criminal stripes even now with his involvement in the Plame affair.
This is the time to call on the Limbaughs, O’Reilly’s, Hannitys, etc., and see if their ethics are functional; see if they’ll support a confessed document shredder who lied to the FBI; see if they would have any problem with a Berger appointment to the DNC or Democratic Senatorial staff; see if there are any limits to their hypocracy.
But who will ask them? The media? Yeah, right. Its up to us…again.
