Afro-Leninism, Polygraphing Michael Leeden and State Secrets Privilege – History Commons Update
History Commons Projects, Update on December 24, 2008 ==================================================== The Domestic Propaganda project cataloged several more of the attempts by conservative talk radio hosts to draw voters away from Barack Obama during the election campaign. In the process, Obama was labeled an “Afro-Leninist” and a “Halfrican American.” Rush Limbaugh even claimed, “The last thing that he is is African-American.” We also created a new category, the “Friedman Unit,” that shows New York Times foreign affairs pundit Thomas Friedman predicting a settling of the Iraq situation "within the next six months" over a period of almost four years. Read more The Neoconservative Influence timeline focuses on neoconservatives in government this week, especially on neoconservatives' giving classified information to Israel. Douglas Feith was fired over a scandal about his passing classified information to Israel, Paul Wolfowitz advocated selling the Israelis air-to-air missiles, even though they had previously resold similar missiles to China, and Michael Leeden was thought so untrustworthy that Colonel Oliver North wanted him polygraphed regularly. Read more The Loss of Civil Liberties Timeline continues to expand its coverage of the origins of the state secrets privilege. This week there are additional entries documenting how the victims’ relatives tried to re-open "US v Reynolds" in 2003 when they realized they had been cheated half a century before. Read more The 9/11 Timeline has more about the day of 9/11, including the FAA’s response, another passenger phone call from Flight 93, and WTC 7. In addition, there is a new entry about one of the alleged “fifth hijacks” whose take-off was aborted on the day of the attacks. Read more Lastly, the Iraq under Occupation Timeline notes that CENTCOM thought the country was sliding towards chaos in October 2006. It also documents the late 2003 plan for Iraq announced by Coalition Provision Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer, who chose to reveal the details in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Read more
