Common Sense Political Thought

It was just a week ago that I wrote Curt Weldon: Beware the Ides of March, in which I said:

I’ve noted previously that The Philadelphia Inquirer has had every reason to take Rep. Curt Weldon’s charges on the Able Danger story seriously, whether Mr. Weldon was on the right track, or on a wild-goose chase. Now, half a year after the story first broke, the Inquirer has struck back.

And it’s happening again. Tom Ferrick, Jr., is a Philadelphia Inquirer metro columnist. The Inquirer describes him as:

A Philadelphia native, he’s spent nearly 30 years as a reporter, specializing in government, politics and other human foibles. He has written a column since 1998.

Well, Mr. Ferrick has jumped on the late-in-coming attempt by the Inquirer to trash Mr. Weldon:

Weldon’s interests must return home

Sometimes I wonder about Curt Weldon, the Republican congressman who represents Delaware County’s Seventh District.

Sometimes Weldon is serious. Sometimes he’s substantive. Sometimes he’s a bit wacky.

An example of the wacko side: Weldon’s presence at a Washington ceremony at which the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was crowned as “humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of the Unification Church, which sponsored the 2004 event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Weldon, at first, denied he was present. Later, when a videotape was produced showing him there, he said he had left before the Rev. Moon was, well, deified.

My name is Rev. Moon, but you can call me God.

That Sun Myung Moon has a somewhat exalted opinion of himself is hardly news; he’s been preaching that for decades now, and has attracted a sizable number of followers. What Mr. Ferrick didn’t tell you is that the Rev. Moon has been paying for these types of events, and trying to get American politicians to stand by his side, for decades as well. The event was held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, of all places, which tells anyone who cares to think about things (not that the Inquirer particularly wants its readers to think) that the Unification Church paid for the privilege of having an event there.

Mr. Ferrick continued:

(Mr. Weldon) acts less like a congressman and more like a shadow secretary of state or head of the CIA.

Among Weldon’s notable forays into the world of spies is the Able Danger speech he made on the House floor last year.

In that speech, Weldon asserted that a secret intelligence program called Able Danger had fingered three of the 9/11 hijackers before the deed, but that the government failed to act on the information – thus losing a chance to prevent the attacks.

As my colleagues Chris Mondics and Steve Goldstein reported in these pages last week, no credible evidence has been found to verify Weldon’s Able Danger theory.

Well, I guess not, because, as Mike at the Able Danger Blog reported last week, Messrs. Mondics and Goldstein never bothered to look for the truth!

No documentation to support “Weldon’s story”? What kind of false generalization is that? How about sworn congressional testimony from Stephen Cambone that supports “Weldon’s story”?

The fact is that the Inquirer never attempted to report on Able Danger; they were scopped by the Norristown Times-Herald, last July, and then again, in a larger scope, by The New York Times, after the Inquirer declined the story when Mr. Weldon tried to give it to them!

And the Able Danger blog picked up on today’s story in the Inquirer as well, Mike saying:

So Tony Shaffer, JD Smith, Scott Phillpott, and Eileen Preisser have no credibility?

A theory is merely speculation. Facts are details of real events. Facts can either be proven or disproven. None of these four individuals are speculating or proposing theories. They have all testified to the facts as they know them from personal, first hand experience. If someone can show they are all either lying or delusional, then they can all start calling Weldon “wacky”. Until then, they have no damn right.

I don’t think that Mike, who does not live in the Philadelphia area, really appreciates something here; he entitled the story above Now this is getting personal. Yup, it sure is! That’s Philadelphia politics for you, and the politics of the situation are that the editors of the Inquirer are strongly liberal and Democratic in their political outlook, and Mr. Ferrick’s column was the first shot in what is almost certain to be an eventual Inquirer endorsement of Joe Sestak, Jr., the Democrat who will be challenging Mr. Weldon for the Pennsylvania Seventh Congressional District seat. Mr. Ferrick’s glowing description of Mr. Sestak was:

This year, Weldon is facing a Democratic opponent with a five-star resume. Joe Sestak Jr. is a Delco (Delaware county) native and a graduate of Cardinal O’Hara High School, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Harvard University, where he got his master’s and Ph.D.

He was a career Navy man, retiring early this year with the rank of vice admiral. During his stint, he worked as a top official in the Pentagon and the White House.

He is smart, articulate, and primed to take a serious lunge at Weldon.

I’ve noted many times before that the editors are highly partisan Democrats, and you can count on them to do whatever they can to support a party control change in Congress in the November elections. Right now, they’d endorse Mumia abu Jamal if he were running as a Democrat against an incumbent Republican. Mr. Ferrick has simply given us a preview of what the Inquirer will be saying this Fall.

The editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer have every reason not to investigate Able Danger seriously (meaning: more seriously than the hack job they did last Wednesday), and they have all sorts of reasons not to like Curt Weldon. There will be more of this, a lot more, between now and next November.