Finally, somebody has been frog-marched out of the White House. And not just anybody:
"The man who up until Friday was overseeing contracting policy for the multi-billion dollar relief effort has now been charged with lying and obstructing a criminal investigation."
That would be the very special David Savafian. When he was appointed in December last year as the new administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, Washington Technology called it a "welcome turn of events."
And I quote: "Savafian will face many challenges, including difficult issues such as competitive sourcing, business ethics and the future of the General Services Administration's Schedules and Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts."
Challenging and difficult, aren't they, those business ethics. Especially the "competitive sourcing" bit. Now, it's important to stress that the alleged fraud in this case is not related to Iraq or New Orleans, and in fact dates from before Savafian's term at the White House. But there are interesting family values involved:
"His wife, Jennifer Savafian, is chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement and is, among other things, expected to conduct the Congressional investigation into missteps after Hurricane Katrina."
That would be the very special independent inquiry, which cynical Democrats have been complaining about. Not to worry: justice will be served. (It would be nice if she were served on the steps of the White House.)
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(If this kind of post annoys you, please visit Dysblog, where it only gets worse.)
Ed:NB
Article comments
1 - gonzo marx
thanks for getting this Story out here on BC
yer gonzo highly reccomends ya read the first link in the Post...educational for some, to say the least
interesting that Savafian resigns on Friday and is arrested on Monday...wonder if he got tipped off?
nah..no one in the WH would leak stuff, that would be unethical
more and more comes out, bit by bit...i guess this is the GOP definition of "Values" after all?
but i digress...
Excelsior!
2 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
My link is valid -- the server's down. www.dysblog.blogspot.com -- should be up soon.
Look, it doesn't "depend on what you read." There are a number of good biographies, and nobody disputes the facts. From the man himself:
"Lolita was finished at the beginning of 1954, in Ithaca, N.Y. My first attempts to have it published in the U.S. proved disheartening and irritating... (later) New hopes had arisen for publication in America."
Hopes, not fears.
(He was in fact appalled to find out that Maurice Girodias, who finally published it in France, dealt mostly in pornography.)
I shouldn't have been so snarky, but you chose *precisely the wrong writer* to write this kind of thing about. Nabokov was the most obsessive, detail-oriented reader the world has ever coughed up. When he read Don Quixote (which he didn't like much), he went to the trouble of counting every battle that the Don engaged in. The idea that someone would write about the emotional effects of Lolita, *without having read it*, would have given him a stroke.
You are, however, in good company. His friend, the great literary critic Edmund Wilson, dismissed Lolita without finishing it. Mind you, their friendship didn't last.
3 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
ha! sorry... that was meant to be posted in another thread...
carry on.
4 - Nancy
Hmmm...glad you said that. I know I can be very slow in the ayem before I've had my coffee, but that did have me wondering what I had missed.
Very interesting, this arrest. How amusing that every time Smirk must give a sigh of relief that some other disaster is rearing its head to divert attention away from the tenuous/non-existant ethics of his administration, yet another criminal embarrassment rears its inconvenient head. Just a pity it isn't Jr himself being frog-marched in manacles by federal marshals down the WH steps. Well...we have a few years yet, we'll see. With any luck, the GOP will lose its stranglehold in congress in 06 as a result of public dissatisfaction with 5 years of disastrous, stupid, & aimless (except for enriching the rich & further empowering Big Business, of course) political & economic chicanery & malfeasance, & the US citizenry will at last be able to demand & get satisfaction & accountability from those at the top who have been hiding behind Executive Privilege & a congressional GOP stonewalling for the past several years.
BTW, anyone seen any updates on the status of the Rove/Plame investigation? It seems to have dropped from sight (how convenient for Shrub) since the hurricane season started.
5 - Bill B
Good job.
You made me think of this that I read today by Maureen Dowd. After the Brown/patronage fiasco it's worth a look.