Free Republic

February 04, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Leaker for Langley?Leon Panetta’s upcoming hearing is a chance to solve a 39-year-old mystery. By Tevi Troy Before he was a Democratic congressman, before he was director of the Office of Management and Budget, before he was White House chief of staff, and certainly before he was President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, Leon Panetta was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—the precursor to today’s Department of Health and Human Services. He was also a Republican. Around the time he left HEW in 1970, Panetta...

So the breakdown of society in New Orleans was a one-off? Think again: it could happen in many US cities YOU CANNOT SAY the city of New Orleans was unprepared for tragedy. Only last year, when Hurricane Ivan threatened to strike, a Louisiana official admitted the state had prepared in advance: 10,000 body bags were stored and ready to go. Benign neglect is the political term for this pragmatism, coined by Pat Moynihan, the New York Democrat senator. With no idea how to improve a situation, government, instead of assuming responsibility for resolving it, turns a blind eye. In Moynihan’s...