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Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Name That SAO
Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out who the “Senior Administration Official” is when the Bush administration says that’s the only way a senior administration official can be identified in print.
Sometimes it’s not so difficult.
See if the quotes below, gleaned from a transcript released this evening by the White House, help you identify the SAO in a document entitled “Interview of a Senior Administration Official by the Traveling Press.”
Hint: The transcript notes the interview took place en route to Oman aboard Air Force Two, which is the vice president’s plane. (FYI, the photo above is not a hint. It merely shows a Senior Administration Official):
“Let me just make one editorial comment here. I’ve seen some press reporting says, ‘Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.’ 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.”
Hmmm…
And then this:
“I would describe my sessions both in Pakistan and Afghanistan as very productive. We’ve had notable successes in both places.”
Let the record show that Vice President Cheney just had sessions both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But on the record, the comments came only from a Senior Administration Official.
Political Heat
A little bit of politics got mixed in with basketball at the White House today when President Bush honored the NBA champion Miami Heat.
During the East Room ceremony Heat Coach Pat Riley told Bush he had voted for him.
Later, meeting with reporters on the White House driveway, Riley declared himself “pro-American” and “pro-democracy” and “pro-government.”
“I follow my boss. He is my boss,” Riley said of Bush.
Of Iraq, Riley said, “If he asked me to go today I’d go. That’s what I would do.”
Heat center Shaquille O’Neal, shown above handing Bush an autographed ball, told reporters after the ceremony that he has great respect for all military personnel.
O’Neal, son of a career military man, recalled a trip to Walter Read Army Hospital.
“We met an amputee who had no arms and no legs and wanted to go back to the war and fight,” O’Neal said. “That guy there was my real hero and I told coach I would never complain about my little sore toes or my sore knees or my sore fingers ever again. My hat goes off to all military personnel.”
Shaq said he’s yet to pick a favorite presidential candidate for 2008.
“I like Mrs. Clinton. I like Barack. I just have to sit down and just see. I’ll actually have to just like meet them again and shake their hand and look in their eyes so I can really tell who is for the people and who is not for the people,” he said.
And he offered this message for black Americans:
“I would just tell them to take it seriously because the voting process is a process that is very important, especially if you want to get certain things changed, like in our community.”
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Rear Admiral Becomes Chief Usher
In his most recent government gig, Rear Adm. Stephen W. Rochon (above) was responsible for the Coast Guard’s naval and civil engineering, financial management, personnel, legal, civil rights matters, electronic system support and contingency planning for 40 states, Puerto Rico, Europe and the Middle East.
In his next government gig, the soon-to-be-retired admiral will be responsible for the president’s house.
The Bush Administration today announced that Rochon will be the eighth chief usher of the White House, a post that will put him in charge of overseeing what’s officially known as the Executive Residence at the White House. The chief usher supervises the staff that handles the official and ceremonial activities of the president.
Rochon, the first African-American to hold the post, replaces Gary Walters, who retired this year after holding the post since 1986.
Group Sues over Secret Surveillance
The Justice Department has repeatedly refused to turn over records requested under the Freedom of Information Act about the oversight of the president’s domestic eavesdropping program.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation refuses to take no for an answer.
The California-based civil liberties group with ties to the high tech world, filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain the records.
The lawsuit seeks disclosure of all records connected to the oversight conducted by the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. For the FOIA complaint filed against the Justice Department: http://www.eff.org/flag/oipr/oipr_complaint.pdf
The foundation believes the records will show how the surveillance program “intercepts and analyzes millions of Americans’ communications under court order.”
“While national security and law enforcement demand a limited amount of secrecy, Americans have the right to know the government’s basic guidelines for this kind of invasive electronic surveillance of their personal communications,” said David Sobel, senior counsel of the foundation’s project on government surveillance.
The burden rests with the Justice Department to explain why this information should not be revealed to the public. The Justice Department did not return a call seeking a response.
The FOIA request was spurred by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ announcement in January that the controversial surveillance program run by the National Security Agency would be monitored by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
In a press conference to discuss the court oversight of the program, White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that the FISA court had published rules to govern the surveillance program.
The foundation wants those rules.
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