Some choices show a lack of integrity

Part of the Homeland Security plan is a little known unit called the Pentagon Information Awareness Office. This office has the authority to look into every facet of your life, from credit reports to library books. The man President Bush has appointed to head this intrusive office is Adm. John Poindexter who, if you recall, was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and was discovered trying to destroy 5,000 messages relating to the Iran/Contra scandal during the first Bush administration. In fact, the first President Bush pardoned Poindexter.

But he is not the only one in the current administration who holds a pardon from the first President Bush. Elliot Abrams, the man who lied to Congress for years about the Contras and was pardoned before he could be brought to testify, is an adviser on Central and South America.

Since these men broke the law and lied in defense of the first President Bush, their transgressions are forgiven and they are awarded important positions in the new Bush administration. Who’s the next hire, Oliver North? These men did not act in defense of our country, they acted to defend the Republican Party, so their lack of character is excused. If this is an example of the integrity we were promised by this White House, we are in for another round of the secretive “plumbers” from the Nixon debacle.

Snohomish