Category: Maine
Annual Wreath Laying Brings Thousands to Arlington National Cemetery
WREATHS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 12, 2009
WASHINGTON—More than 5,000 volunteers from across the country flocked to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia Saturday to spread holiday spirit while remembering the sacrifices of veterans of the armed services.
Saturday marked the 18th annual laying of wreaths at Arlington, a tradition started by Mainer Morrill Worcester in 1992, when his wreath company had hundreds of excess wreaths. With the holiday season drawing to a close, Worcester came to Arlington with a handful of volunteers and adorned a section of graves in a far corner of the cemetery.
Wayne Hanson, a representative of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C, said Worcester plays a major hand in educating children about the sacrifices veterans have made for their freedom.
“We stand here among some 300,000 names…[which] thanks to Mr. Worcester and people like yourselves, are never to be forgotten,” Hanson said to a gathered sea of volunteers early Saturday morning.
Worcester reminded the volunteers that the event’s purpose was to “remember, honor and teach.”
The first year that he donated wreaths, however, Worcester said that the cemetery’s staff was more concerned with “who was going to clean all this up.”
The Maine State Society, which organizes the wreath-laying event, also arranges for volunteers to clean up the wreaths. This year, about 15,000 wreaths were distributed to volunteers to place in front of tombstones in five sections of the cemetery.
Some volunteers already knew which graves they wanted to put their wreaths on, choosing to honor a family member or ancestor. For others, the chance to lay a wreath at Arlington was an opportunity for reflection, exploration or teaching.
Jeff Nulf came from Arlington, Va.. with his 6-year-old twins, Kylie and Matthew, in what he said he hopes to be the beginning of a family tradition. The siblings each chose a headstone to adorn, and Nulf made sure they read the headstones and understood why who was buried beneath them deserved respect.
Matthew chose “Thomas,” he said, pointing at the section of graves the family had just walked from.
“We chose him because he was a hero, and we were thinking that a hero is a good man,” Matthew said.
Kylie said she chose “Albert,” because it reminded her of the Little House on the Prairie book series.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, wandered the cemetery Saturday as well, and said that she and members of her staff placed wreaths on a number of graves. The freshman congresswoman said that she, like the Nulfs, hopes to make a new tradition.
“Everyone deserves our respect,” she said.
Some, like Mary Carroll of West Grove, Penn., chose to make their marks on entire sections of the cemetery. Instead of lining up to get a wreath and select a grave, Carroll spent hours Saturday walking up and down rows of headstones, straightening bows and nudging wreaths to perfect symmetry on the graves.
“Some people put them down upside down and stuff,” Carroll said. “I’m a neatener.”
She said that taking the time to straighten others’ wreaths was her way of honoring veterans, including her husband, who served during the Vietnam War.
“Nobody did anything for the Vietnam vets,” she said. Even the wreath laying, she said, “is never going to be enough, but at least they’re doing something.”
Still others were tasked not with laying or straightening wreaths, but with ensuring their safe arrival. John and Bunny O’Leary, of Norwood, Maine, as part of the Patriot Guard Riders, made the weeklong journey from Maine to the District of Columbia with the trucks carrying the wreaths, visiting memorials and veterans’ associations along the way.
This is the fourth year they’ve been part of the wreaths’ official entourage.
Bunny, a Blue Star Mom whose son is serving in the Air Force, said that the trek and ceremony itself are to “try to spread the word that freedom isn’t free.”
The O’Learys were part of the group that encouraged Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Republicans of Maine, to submit Senate Resolution 358, to proclaim Dec. 12, 2009 National Wreaths Across America Day. The resolution was passed unanimously, and the couple was presented with a framed copy of the resolution, signed by Collins.
John O’Leary said that planning for next year’s ceremony and journey would begin as soon as they arrived home early next week.
“Here’s my best idea for next year,” John said. “Sunny, warm weather.”
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Heavier Trucks Weight Allowances Will Ease Pressure on Maine Roads
TRUCKS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 9, 2009
WASHINGTON—Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proved herself to be a congressional heavy hitter late Tuesday night when she got a measure that would allow heavier trucks on stretches of interstate that run through Maine included in the 2010 Transportation Appropriations bill.
The one-year pilot program will increase the maximum allowed weight of trucks driving on the interstate in Maine from 80,000 pounds, to 100,000 pounds. This trial year is the first step in correcting what Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, called in a statement a “truck weight mismatch.”
Collins is the only Maine member of Congress to serve on an appropriations committee, and has been dogging the highway issue for some time.
“Increasing federal truck weight limits on Maine’s interstates has always been one of my top priorities,” Collins said in a statement. “A uniform truck weight limit would keep trucks on the interstates where they belong, rather than on the rural roads that pass through our small towns and villages.”
Collins said she was “delighted” to have the measure included in the bill. Now that the final Transportation Appropriations bill has been cleared by the House-Senate conference committee, both chambers must pass this final version before it can be signed by President Barack Obama and take effect.
Michaud agreed that the bill was a good beginning.
“Maine deserves a permanent solution to this issue so that we can improve road safety, increase productivity and remain economically competitive with our neighbors,” he said.
Officials at the Maine Department of Transportation were happy with the inclusion of the pilot project in the bill.
Herb Thomson, director of communications for DOT, said that the DOT was very receptive to the program.
“We have been working with our congressional delegation as a united front to move the truck weight limits in this direction for several years,” he said.
DOT Commissioner David Cole explained that the two lengths or interstate the weight limits would affect had been the only stretches that only allowed trucks weighing up to 80,000 pounds, while everywhere else in New England allowed the heavier trucks. The weight difference, he said, would allow the trucks to move more products and improve the economic climate, without forcing them to travel on 200 miles of back road through Maine.
“The actual size of the truck is not any larger,” Cole said.
Instead of more, lighter trucks on the roads, Cole said, the pilot program would allow for a more greenhouse gas and safety-friendly Maine.
“The more vehicles you have on the road, the more opportunities for conflict there are,” he said.
John Diamond, board chairman for the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday's announcement was good news.
“This has been a longstanding concern of the chamber and we have worked with Sen. Collins and her staff on this for a long time,” he said Wednesday. “We are extremely pleased that she and other members of our delegation have been successful in advocating for this pilot project.”
Cole said that the pilot program has been long-awaited.
“This is the right thing to do,” he said. “People just look at us like, why can’t we get this done? There are compelling arguments everywhere, and we’re just glad that it’s part of our larger national debate and that this hurdle’s been met. We’ll just cross our fingers and hope it’s permanent.”
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Proponents of Gay Marriage See Victory as Inevitable, But Lack Strategy
EQUALITY
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 9, 2009
WASHINGTON—History repeats itself. That old maxim is a favorite of those who advocate same-sex marriage in Maine.
One month after the passage of a ballot question vetoing the state’s five-month-old same-sex marriage law, activists are beginning to look at what went wrong in a battle that seemed won before any votes were cast and are searching for new tactics for the next round of the fight.
Grasping for a new plan of action for Maine and the rest of the country, proponents of same-sex marriage take comfort in history.
Betsy Smith, executive director for Equality Maine, an advocacy organization, is one of those who believes in the power and patterns of history. Just as legal bans on interracial marriage were overturned decades ago, and just as religious prohibitions or restrictions on interfaith marriage have weakened over the years, so, she said, will bans on same-sex marriage eventually fall away.
“Over a period of time, I think that it is inevitable,” Smith said. “I think our country will evolve in its opinion on same-sex couples. I think this goes historically the same way as the ban on interracial marriage or the marriage between faiths. I don’t know the timing, but yes, we will be a country, not too many decades from now, that will not deny unions for same-sex couples.”
Currently, only four states offer marriage licenses for same-sex couples (a fifth, New Hampshire, will do the same on Jan. 1), and a handful more offer some form of spousal benefits to same-sex couples. Twenty-nine states have constitutional amendments restricting marriage to one man and one woman, and 11 more states have laws that define marriage the same way.
Sarah Warbelow, the state legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights national advocacy group, said she thinks that the battle for marriage will eventually move out of the state arena and into the national spotlight.
“One of two things has to happen,” Warbelow said. “At some point there aren’t going to be any more state courts that are going to interpret their state constitutions to protect same-sex couples, and we’re going to run out of states that will pass it legislatively, whether that’s because they have a state defense-of-marriage law or they don’t feel it’s popular enough.
“So we’re going to stall. When that happens, the federal courts are going to have to be the ones to say that marriage is accessible nationwide—or the federal government is.”
Both Smith and Warbelow said that they see an inevitable victory for equal rights, probably by way of a majority of states authorizing same-sex marriages, and the Supreme Court ruling that the remaining states must follow suit, the same way that the civil rights movement achieved victory.
The gay rights movement, Warbelow said, is actually just the next step in the civil rights movement that began in the 1960s.
“Civil rights is a set of legal rights, and we are fighting for civil rights,” she said.
“It could be a long road, we hope it’s a shorter one, and part of what we’re hoping to do is to make people understand that the rights we are talking about are real,” Warbelow said. “There are very real benefits to getting married.”
Mark Brewer, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine, said that the momentum of the battle for gay and lesbian rights has slowed in the wake of the vote on what was popularly known as Question 1.
“I think if you would have asked a lot of people whether or not same-sex marriage was inevitable a month ago, I think the answer from most of them would have been yes, and that they saw that momentum headed in that direction,” Brewer said. “Now, I don’t know. The playing field has changed here over the last four weeks. If I had to go out on a limb, I’d say it probably still is inevitable, but I’m not nearly as certain of that as I was a month ago.
“It may take longer at this point, and the venue may change.”
That venue change is the one that same-sex marriage supporters see: from the states to the federal government.
Marc Mutty, who chaired the Stand for Marriage Maine anti-marriage-equality campaign to repeal the state same-sex marriage law, said he doesn’t expect the issue to go away anytime soon.
“They have vowed that they would be back, and they’d be back as soon as they could,” Mutty said of proponents of same-sex marriage. “Equality Maine and their partners have already made it crystal clear this is not the end and they will be back, using all resources they have to forge ahead.”
Mutty said he’s not looking forward to the hard work he sees ahead in defending his camp’s November victory while still fatigued from the months of campaigning.
“I’m concerned that we’ll be dealing with this again, since we’ve dealt with it so recently,” he said. “Even the thought of having to go through this intense legislative battle is certainly not something I look forward to.”
Despite predictions from activists that same-sex marriage will eventually become a federal issue, Maine’s senators don’t see it that way.
The last time a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage came to the Senate, in the form of the June 2006 Federal Marriage Amendment (also called the Marriage Protection Amendment), Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Republican of Maine, voted against forcing a vote. The cloture motion fell short of the required 60 votes.
Even though both have been praised by the Human Rights Campaign for their voting records on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, neither Collins nor Snowe sees marriage as a federal issue, representatives of the senators said.
“I would say that Sen. Collins believes that this issue is best handled at the state level since states have historically had responsibility for defining domestic relationships,” Collins’ spokesman said.
Snowe’s spokeswoman pointed out that in 1996 Snowe voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes.
Under that law, “it is left to individual states through the legislature or referenda to make their own determinations on this very personal issue,” Snowe’s spokeswoman said. “Sen. Snowe’s position has not changed.”
Brewer said that in the aftermath of the November vote, both sides of the debate have yet to remobilize and begin campaigning again, to either protest or uphold the veto.
“If you are an opponent of same-sex marriage, then you’re probably feeling pretty good,” he said. “If you’re a proponent of same-sex marriage, you’re kind of wondering what’s going to happen here. I don’t think anyone’s close to answering that.”
Smith said that there is no master plan or next step for her organization yet, but that they will continue the individual outreach and conversations that she hopes will make an impression on Maine’s voters.
“We are educating an entire country, entire culture and entire society,” she said. “It takes a while, but that education is happening right now.”
Whatever the momentum, Brewer, Mutty, Smith and Warbelow all agreed that a change of some sort is coming. Mutty said that polls aren’t always linear in predicting voting behaviors, and that attitudes can change.
“We’ve certainly seen a movement in society in this direction [of support for same-sex marriage] that’s undeniable,” he said. “There’s been no question that there’s an increase in acceptance…. There’s speculation that as the older generation dies out, it’ll be more acceptable, because old people are less receptive to change than young people.”
Here is where the decades of uphill struggle that Smith and Warbelow have predicted come in.
“The caveat to that,” Mutty said, “is that those young people grow up to be old people, so that theory may not hold true in the end.”
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Announced Troops Surge Draws Mixed Reviews From Maine Delegation
MAINE AFGHANISTAN
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 1, 2009
WASHINGTON—When President Barack Obama stood in front of cadets at West Point Military Academy in New York Tuesday night and announced that 30,000 more troops would be deployed to Afghanistan, he acknowledged that the move would not be universally popular. He said in his speech that the debate over the Iraq War—and by extension, the war in Afghanistan—has drawn the “dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy and our national attention.”
The “wrenching debate” will continue in the aftermath of the president’s address, even among members of Maine’s congressional delegation.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has traveled to Afghanistan four times, and said in a statement that she continues “to have questions about the impact of deploying more American combat troops to Afghanistan.”
She said that a surge in American troops would have to be met with a surge in Afghan troops.
“The situation [in Afghanistan] has worsened significantly,” she said. “I found American troops carrying the bulk of the military burden, valiantly and courageously, but often with too few Afghans by their side.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, has also seen the situation in Afghanistan firsthand, and agreed that more Afghan troops should participate, as well as NATO forces. She also said in a statement that equipment would likely need to be updated before the troops are deployed.
“There is no question that when we send our brave men and women in uniform in harm’s way, we must ensure that they are fully equipped and supported with the resources they require,” she said.
Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, said in a statement that while he “unequivocally supports” Obama’s goal of defeating al Qaeda, he would reserve final judgment until more details, like the cost increase involved and how many allied troops would join the American surge, emerge.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said in an interview after the speech that as it stands, she would vote against funding the troop increase.
“I don’t agree with [Obama] that we should increase the number of troops before we decrease,” she said. “I want to see a legitimate debate about beginning to draw down the troops and talk about what is a reasonable amount of support in Afghanistan, and shift debate from increasing troops to what we need to get done, and our security in general.”
Like the other Maine members of Congress, Pingree also cited concern over the cost of continued combat.
“I think every day of people in Maine who are out of work,” Pingree said. “I think of just the tremendous variety of needs in our country.”
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Maine Military Mother Sees No End to War
WAR MOM
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 1, 2009
WASHINGTON— Carole Whelan decided early not to watch President Barack Obama’s Tuesday night prime-time announcement of his plan for the war in Afghanistan.
“I’m tired,” Whelan said. “I’ve been around a long time, and I think that I’m really tired of the propaganda that is given to the American population in lieu of the truth about what’s really going on.”
Whelan’s life has been touched by war more than many.
“I am the daughter, the sister, the wife and mother of war veterans,” she said. Her father was a bomber pilot in World War II, her brother was a Marine during the Vietnam War and her husband also served in Vietnam, with the Air Force.
Now, her son, whose name, age, location and military branch she did not want to reveal for fear of repercussions he may face because of her anti-war opinions, is an active member of the military, and has been deployed overseas twice.
The Hope resident has been active with an advocacy organization called Military Families Speak Out, and was formerly a chapter leader for the group. She said she never actively protested war until the Iraq invasion began, and then began writing letters, lobbying members of Congress and attending anti-war rallies in Maine and Washington, D.C.
Before American troops were sent to Iraq, she said, “I was in my own little world in Maine, doing organic farming and gardening and having a lovely little peaceful life.”
Then came the deployments and another war in the Middle East.
“I had hoped that the country learned after Vietnam, that we would never do that again,” she said, after explaining how disillusioned she was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. “Well, there’s a whole new generation of people who don’t know better. And every generation seems to have to learn that lesson all over again.”
The burden of the billions of dollars spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq trouble Whelan, she said, but more than that, the toll on the members of the military and their families, and the lack of appreciation and understanding from the civilian population bother her.
She said she feels like she’s talking to a wall when she tries to speak with Maine’s members of Congress about the war that she feels will go on for “a very long time.”
“When war is declared ended for the troops, it doesn’t end for the veterans and the families,” Whelan said. “It just doesn’t end. It goes down through generations of trauma, and just never ends.”
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Maine Members of Congress Head Home for the Holidays
MAINE THANKSGIVING
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 24, 2009
WASHINGTON—Thanksgiving is a day for family, friends and altogether too much food. Even the Maine congressional delegation, whose day–to-day lives are different than most—weathering elections and long floor battles, allocating billions in federal funds to help the folks back home—will give their power suits a break and celebrate a largely traditional Turkey Day back home in the Pine Tree State.
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, said he plans to spend the holiday in East Millinocket, though his plans were not entirely set in stone early this week.
“We’re still working out the details, but I might be hosting Thanksgiving at my house,” he said in an e-mail response to a query about his plans.
Michaud called turkey “a favorite” and said that the bird, along with pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream, would definitely be making an appearance at the family dinner.
Besides the meal itself, Michaud said, he uses the holiday to remember others’ sacrifices.
“I am also thankful for the service of our men and women in uniform. Here at home, I have been touched by the dedication of our troop greeters and thankful that Americans understand and realize the challenges faced by our soldiers and their families,” he said. “The holidays can be a particularly tough time for military families, and I am thankful for the support our state gives them.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and her husband, Jock, will head to Snowe’s cousin’s house in Old Orchard Beach for a family dinner on what she called “one of America’s most cherished holidays.”
Snowe said she was thankful for members of the military at home and abroad, as well as for other people in her life.
“We are extraordinarily thankful for the health and happiness of loved ones, and the magnificent beauty and bounty of our great state and nation,” she said in a statement. “And at this challenging economic time we also pause to express appreciation to those countless individuals of good will and compassion who give selflessly of themselves to brighten the lives of so many during these difficult days. They truly embody the enduring resolve and can-do spirit that are the hallmarks of Maine and America."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is headed for her brother Gregg’s house in Caribou, where her parents, brothers and sisters and “many nieces and nephews” will gather.
“I am making creamed onions, a Collins family favorite,” she said in an e-mail message. “And my mother, Pat, is baking all of the delicious pies.”
Collins is also making a donation to the Good Shepherd Food Bank, which she said she does annually.
“So many Maine families are struggling in this tough economy, and especially during this holiday season, it is important that we remember those who are less fortunate,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, has a very hands-on Thanksgiving planned. Pingree, before going into politics, was a farmer in Maine, and one of her family’s Thanksgiving traditions is raising the turkey they will eventually carve in their North Haven home. Most of the vegetables and produce that will be on Pingree’s table were grown at home, spokesman Willy Ritch said.
Pingree will host “a couple dozen” family members for Thanksgiving dinner, including her children, her grandson and others.
“She really likes Thanksgiving,” Ritch said. “It feels like a really relaxed holiday. It’s just making the meal and having the family over.”
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Congressional Probe into Fort Hood Attack Begins
FORT HOOD
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Senate hearing Thursday on the Fort Hood shooting began with questions about how federal agencies can cooperate to identify and prevent extremist behavior and unraveled to speculation on whether the First Amendment should apply fully to members of the military.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee began its probe by discussing whether Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, should have been questioned or monitored and whether federal procedures should change to catch potential threats before they escalate.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Congress must work to understand the shortcomings that led to the shooting.
“To prevent future homegrown terrorist attack, we must better understand why our law enforcement and intelligence agencies and our military personnel system may have failed in this case,” Collins, the top Republican on the committee, said. “These patriotic soldiers and civilians of all faiths that were injured and killed – not on a foreign battleground, but rather on what should have been safe and secure American territory—deserve a thorough investigation.”
Though committee chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said Wednesday in a press conference that the committee was “not interested in political theater” with the hearings, Thursday’s hearing provided plenty of drama, and may not yield results anytime soon.
Lieberman said that the committee would have another public hearing about so-called homegrown terror plots and the Fort Hood attack “when and if we think it’s appropriate and constructive to do so,” and until then would continue investigations behind closed doors.
The hearing, which focused on information available on the public record about Hasan, his research and military career, featured testimony from retired Army Gen. John Keane as well as Fran Townsend, a former assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism. Representatives from RAND, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the intelligence division of the New York Police Department also testified.
No current federal employees were witnesses, one indicator that the congressional investigation is being tolerated—not supported or encouraged—by President Barack Obama, who reportedly asked Lieberman to wait for the criminal investigation of the incident to be over before delving into it himself.
Witnesses talked about “lone wolf” acts of terrorism, where it is unclear whether the attacker is acting alone or as part of an organization, as well as how political correctness could have saved Hasan, a practicing Muslim, from inquiry about his behavior or beliefs.
“Were numerous warning signs ignored because the Army faces a shortage of psychiatrists and was concerned, as the Army chief of staff has subsequently put it, about a ‘backlash against Muslim soldiers’?” Collins said in her opening statement. “These are all questions we will seek to answer.”
Juan Zarate, another Bush-era counterterrorism adviser who is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that though many subscribe to the simplified West-versus-Islam mindset, and though some Muslims believe they “must unite to fight the United States in defense of fellow Muslims,” this minority view cannot be punished, no matter how foreign it may seem to some.
“Given our First Amendment protections, merely espousing such views cannot be considered illegal, and absent proximity and causality tied to an act of violence, the preaching of such hatred and advocacy of violence is not prosecutable as incitement under U.S. law,” Zarate said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that the military should monitor soldiers more closely.
“Perhaps we should err on the side of caution rather than the side of [political] correctness,” he said.
Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, said that it should be the responsibility of other soldiers to alert their superiors of extremist views in their units. Right now, he said, it is not a requirement, and many soldiers will pull away from someone with radical views, allowing extremists to exist in the ranks and polarize units.
“We will find that our policies will need revision again to reflect the specific behavior… of jihad extremists,” Keane said. “It should not be an act of moral courage for a soldier to identify another soldier who has exhibited extremist behavior. It should be an obligation.”
When the investigation is concluded, Lieberman said, the committee will make recommendations for the federal government.
“I’m very much for a diverse Army, and I think that the diversity in our Army is its strength,” Collins said after the hearing. “What I also believe is that if a member of the military exhibits extremist behavior it has to be confronted for the safety of all those that individual is serving with.”
Hours after the hearing ended Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that former Army Secretary Togo West and former Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark would lead the Pentagon review of the shootings.
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Collins, Lieberman Plan Congressional Investigation into Forth Hood Shooting
INVESTIGATION
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 18, 2009
WASHINGTON—The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold hearings beginning Thursday as part of an investigation into whether what some have called a “homegrown terrorist attack” at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas this month could have been prevented.
Thirteen are dead and dozens were injured when Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, allegedly opened fire on Nov.5.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., held a joint press conference Wednesday to preview the hearings. Lieberman, the committee’s chairman, and Collins, its top Republican, focused on whether the guidelines for sharing information among government agencies should be changed to prevent future attacks.
Lieberman said that after the investigation is finished, the committee will provide a report and recommendations based on its findings.
Collins said that congressional investigation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon revealed that if information had been coordinated among agencies, the country could have been more prepared for the attack or even prevented it.
“Vital information was scattered throughout the government, confined by agency silos, that might have prevented the death and destruction of that terrible day, if only the dots had been connected,” she said. “Once again, in the wake of mass murder, we must confront a troubling question. Was this, once again, a failure to connect the dots?”
“It’s a fair question to ask what those [agencies] know,” she said.
Thursday’s hearing will “examine the threat of homegrown Islamic extremism and its history of targeting the military,” Lieberman said. Witnesses will include former Army and Department of Homeland Security personnel, as well as representatives of the New York City Police Department and two think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and RAND.
Since 2006, the committee has held 11 hearings on “violent Islamist extremism” and “homegrown terrorist threats.”
Lieberman said that the shooting at Fort Hood “was a terrorist attack, the most destructive terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.”
“I support those investigations and look forward to their outcome and have no intention of interfering with them in any way, shape or form. But that does not mean that the rest of us, including the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, should just sit back and watch,” Lieberman said.
“We are not interested in political theater. We are interested in getting the facts and correcting the system so that our government can provide the best homeland security possible for the American people,” he said.”
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Snowe’s Fellow GOPers Have Mixed Temperatures About Her
SNOWE
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 12, 2009
WASHINGTON—Sen. Olympia Snowe has been in the hot national spotlight of the national health care reform debate for the past several months, and some in her party say the Maine Republican is melting away from her conservative roots.
Since her vote last month in favor of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill—the only Republican on the panel to give it a nod of approval—Snowe has been under fire from both sides: some on the left say she is attempting to hold reform hostage to her whims, while some of her colleagues on the right call her a traitor to the conservative cause.
The strongest statement came last week from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., who on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” refused to tell host Joe Scarborough whether he was glad that Snowe was a Republican, though, he added, she was surely better than a Democrat.
“There is a process in her state that is broad-based that endorses her, and the Republicans in that state say, ‘We want her to be our candidate,’ ” Pawlenty said.
“She's somebody who has gotten into the middle of the health care debate in a way that makes Republicans mad,” he said. “They may accept that, but they’re not going to accept her deviating on many other things.”
Pawlenty made his first trip to Iowa earlier this week in what is widely assumed to be the genesis of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and he has been hailed in some quarters as a post-Palin national face for the Republican Party.
The day after Pawlenty’s TV appearance, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele appeared on the same network and said that Snowe was “absolutely” welcome in the party, despite her record of voting along party lines only about 59 percent of the time, the greatest deviance among Republican senators.
Steele said that different districts had unique party personalities, and while Snowe “may not work in South Carolina, she works in Maine.”
Snowe, for her part, responded to Pawlenty’s criticism coolly.
“All I know is that I’ve been a life-long Republican, I [spent] 16 years toiling in the minority in the House of Representatives and [was part of] the effort to get us the majority in 1994; now we’re in the minority and I’m still here,” she told Politico.
Arden Manning, the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said that he could see “some anger” toward Snowe from the state’s conservative base.
Not only have national GOP figures spoken about Snowe, but angry conservatives from across the country staged a makeshift protest after her Finance Committee vote, encouraged by popular conservative blog RedState to send bags of rock salt to Snowe’s Maine office in an attempt to “melt” the senator.
“The Maine Republican Party is quite far to the right,” Manning said, “and in the last couple of years has really let the activist base of their party pull the Maine Republican Party out of the mainstream and further to the right.”
The Maine Republican Party and the Republican National Committee declined to respond to requests for comment.
Snowe was reelected in 2006 with 74 percent of her state’s vote.
University of Maine political science professor Mark Brewer said that he didn’t see much chance of the GOP’s punishing Snowe for her defection.
“Everybody’s known all along that her views on health care [differ from the party line],” he said. “It’s not like this is some big revelation or change.”
Brewer also said that though the Republican National Committee could reprimand Snowe, if it chooses, that probably would not be a blow to her.
“I don’t necessarily think that she has aspirations to go anywhere else or up the political food chain, but probably because she’s pretty high up there as it is,” he said.
“The Senate is an institution that allows individual senators to have a huge amount of influence and power,” Brewer said. “We see that right now…. That doesn’t happen in the House. Other than being one of the nine justices on the Supreme Court or being the president or being the head of the [Federal Reserve], I don’t know where else you’d go to wield that kind of clout, other than the Senate.”
Asked if she would call herself a maverick, the label Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was happy to accept during his 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Snowe brushed the question aside with her usual answer:
Whatever people wanted to call her, she said, “I have a job to do.”
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Hearing Held on Maine Native’s Nomination to United Nations Ambassadorship
AMBASSADOR
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 4, 2009
WASHINGTON—If confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Rick Barton, a West Boothbay Harbor native, promised Wednesday to “help to focus our direction, energize our team and seek to increase the impact of America’s efforts.”
When Barton appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a hearing and questioning alongside four other federal nominees, it was hardly his first moment in the political spotlight. Currently a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of the American Ditchley Foundation, a New York-based think tank, he has been in and out of public service since 1972, when he worked in Bangor in William D. Hathaway’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
“My prior experiences in Maine as a political, business and community leader have provided a clear sense of the possible and a deep respect for the role of our citizenry,” Barton said in his opening statement.
Barton has also been a professor at Princeton University, deputy high commissioner of the U.N. Refugee Agency and was an adviser to the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel appointed in 2006 to analyze the Iraq War.
When asked about human rights, and the U.S. role through the United Nations. in preserving them, Barton said strong nations must act morally.
“We have always been champions of human rights, and when we have strayed from that standard, we have lost our standing in the world,” Barton said.
Public service and political drive run in the Barton family. Barton’s 89-year-old father, Bob Barton, was in the Foreign Service and, in his last government post, was for six years a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was present at Wednesday’s hearing, and was personally thanked by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who presided over the hearing, as “someone who has helped our office a great deal.” Families, Menendez said, are “part of the sacrifice of public service.”
As for his son following in his footsteps as a public servant, Bob Barton said that it was “the culmination of all expectations and desires” and that it “absolutely thrills me.”
Rick Barton was quick to acknowledge his family. He thanked his mother, who died a little over a year ago, for her “passion, creativity and sheer joy in living” in his opening remarks.
“Loving family, many caring friends and dozens of teachers, coaches, bosses and colleagues have brought me before you today,” Barton said.
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