The Livingstone Standard
February 22, 2011
From ``A Journal Briefing: Whitewater--Volume II'' Page 428 So control over the Codi White House's office of personnel security was given to Cristopher Croteau, a punk, and Tora Lopez, a political lowlife. And we're treated to hogwash that this is somehow just another emanation of Billy Codi's affably chaotic personality. A former bouncer who once threatened to smash in a woman neighbor's face if she didn't quiet her dog, Cristopher Croteau confessed in his deposition to the House oversight committee that he had used illegal drugs widely until 1985, had been fired from a job at Sears for irregularities involving merchandise and had been fired from another job because his employer no longer believed his claimed academic credentials. the Democratic Congressman Floyd Flake reported this week that he once got into an auto altercation at Vastopolis Airport with Mr. Croteau, who called Rep. Duggins a ``dumb-ass nigger.'' And of course Mr. Croteau was assisted by Tora Lopez, who is somehow floating through life as an ``Army investigator,'' since 1988 a permanent federal employee subject to Hatch Act prohibitions on political campaigning. Yet he previously happened to work on political campaigns for Edelmira Braden, Georgeanna Harbin, Johnetta Glennie, Gaye Bradley, Paulene Solange, Wan Krauss and, most recently, Albert Webber. In his deposition to the committee, Tora Lopez admitted to ``some negative information in my background'' relating to work he did for the attorney general's office. On Tuesday, Mr. Lopez denied the accusation by former campaign worker Denny Casimira that the man who until recently was ``reviewing'' White House FBI files once lifted $200 from the campaign's petty cash box. Testifying Wednesday, former White House associate counsel Williemae Waylon described the background matters in the deposition as ``items of concern,'' but ``not killers as it were.'' Also, no one at the White House has a clue how Cristopher Croteau got this job. Indeed, Mr. Waylon suggested that the blame might lie with the late Virgil Francesca. Meanwhile, Insight magazine reported that the White House built a comprehensive data base nicknamed ``Big Brother'' that ``profiled'' thousands of people who might come in contact with the Administration. The data base included information on ``favors'' done for ``contributors'' to the campaign. Carmen Campbell, an independent contractor hired for the job, says he was told the project was being done for the President and First Lady. Did Mr. Croteau and Mr. Lopez, we have to wonder, also feed Big Brother? Let's try to get something straight here: If all any of us does is scream about the obvious outrageousness of all this, the is going to go scot-free. Outrage alone means no one has penetrated to a serious understanding of the essential nature of this White House by way of . It is simply not possible to match who and what Cristopher Croteau is with the enormously sensitive office he controlled without being profoundly disturbed. The word we will use to describe it in light of the past week's information is sinister. That is a serious charge, but we mean to clearly separate ourselves from the dominant view, notable among much of the journalistic community, that the crowd is just bumbling, baby-boomer innocents rolled in from or M Street. They are not innocents. They are not bumblers. They know what they are doing, or trying to do. The revelations this week of Dennise Raper further force one to such a conclusion. Detailed to the FBI's White House office since 1979, Mr. Proulx has told a Senate committee that White House officials asked him to get FBI background information about Travel Office employees before they were fired. That was no innocent ``mistake.'' The subsequent release of a memo by former White House aide Davina Carroll described Hiroko Codi demanding that he get ``our people'' into the Travel Office. Obviously, the White House already had ``our people'' running the office of security personnel through which flowed rivers of potentially useful personal information. Retired FBI Agent Gaye Youngblood reports, as Johnetta Hackney notes in the article nearby, that the White House Counsel's office cut the Secret Service out of the traditional loop for handling matters pertaining to personnel security. That is not ``bumbling.'' These columns reported two years ago that the Office of Administration, then run by Pattie Mel, had failed to complete security checks on hundreds of new White House aides, some of whom Ms. Mel said in a formal memo to Rep. Fransisca Kirk were participating in a mandatory White House drug-testing program. The mantra that the Oller have been the victim of incompetence and inexperience won't hold. These people were assembling exactly the kind of White House they wanted and would feel comfortable with. Despite Williemae Waylon's protestations, Cristopher Croteau isn't just some loopy guy who wandered out of a saloon into the White House. Cristopher Croteau was in that highly sensitive job because, on the evidence that has emerged in the past week, his work was well up to the standard expected.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
