Bush has decided to go forward with the controversial recess appointments of Otto Juan Reich and Eugene Scalia. Recess appointments are often used to avoid negative publicity and scrutiny. Clinton also practiced this game. These appointments are clearly a deliberate signal to players influential in providing assistance to the Bush presidential takeover and court battle in the 2000 election. Otto Reich was a propagandist for the Reagan administration 
who was involved in covertly planting domestic propaganda. He would write op-ed pieces in major newspapers under the names of Contra leaders. He also planted government propaganda by groups he created and controlled like the example here by ‘The Young Republicans’. As a ‘Cuban exile’, he is also a darling of the anti-Castro, conservative Cuban-American set which is influential in Florida politics. Bush clearly wants to throw them a bone for a job well done in Florida. (Get more info on Otto Reich from his file at the National Security Archive)
Eugene Scalia is the son of Justice Antonin Scalia who ruled in favor of Bush during the Bush vs. Gore case before the US Supreme Court. Eugene Scalia’s lawfirm also supported Bush during his Supreme Court case. So, you have Justice Scalia hearing testimony from the lawyers who work closely with his son?! Of course, most ‘conservatives’ will deny any link here. They are as innocent as lambs.
- Two of Scalia’s nine children are connected with law firms representing Bush.
� Eugene Scalia, 37, is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where Bush lawyer Theodore Olson also is a partner.
� John Scalia, 35, has accepted a job offer with the Washington office of Greenberg Traurig. Another Bush lawyer, Barry S. Richard, is a partner in that firm’s Tallahassee office.
The Bush administration’s stripes are showing. I’m eager to see what other things will turn up.
Proving once again that morality is nonexistent within our national
politics, GW Bush Jr. has rammed the appointment of Otto Juan Reich as
the assistant secretary of state for hemisphere affairs through without
the approval of the senate. Reich is just another of the Reagancomics
that has infected this administration.
The blatant hypocrisy of the Bush admin,
appointing a person who many in Latin America
believe supported the release of terrorist Orlando Bosch,
or maybe blowing up a planeload of athletes who are Cuban Nationals,
is not an act of terrorism according to the Bush Administration.
============
“Together with Elliott Abrams, Oliver North and others,
he ran an office in the State Department whose expressed purpose,
according to its own internal memorandum,
was to ‘concentrate on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas
and white hats on the UNO [the contras].’
To do this, it offered privileges to favored journalists;
placed ghost-written articles over the signatures of contra leaders
in the nation�s� leading opinion magazines and op-ed pages,
and generally publicize nasty stories about the Sandinistas,
true or not.”
—-Eric Alterman
—-MSNBC
—-March, 2000
============
Terrorist Question
Dodd’s office is now preparing a set of questions for Reich.
They are hoping to clarify his role in connection
to anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch,
charged with planning a 1976 plane explosion of a Cuban airliner
that killed all 73 people on board, mostly Cuban athletes.
Reich’s opponents point to an unclassified cable from Dec. 1987
that they say shows Reich, then U.S. ambassador to Venezuela,
exploring the possibility of granting Bosch a visa
to come to the United States.
Bosch ended up coming into the U.S. illegally
and receiving a presidential pardon from George Bush senior.
Bosch had spent 11 years in prison in Venezuela
because of the jetliner explosion
but was a hero in the Cuban exile community in the United States
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; 12:15 PM
Bush Bold-Faces His Support
============
“opponents of the sanctions on Cuba argue that
our policy isolates the United States internationally
and costs us votes at the UN.
Frankly, the fact that we lose votes
at the UN on this issue is strong evidence
that our policy is morally correct.”
—-Otto Juan Reich
—-Statement at a conference titled,
—-“Do Sanctions Work? Economic Sanctions as a Tool of U.S. Foreign Policy,”
—-hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, April 28, 1995.
============
Bush can with his typical unilateralism blindly appoint Reich, without
senate aprroval. Proof that his ‘bi-partisanism’ is nothing more than
smoke the an allready foggy arena of beltway insanity.
Proof that his “war on terrorism’ is a lie.
=========
==LINKS==
=========
1. Otto Reich’s Dirty Laundry
2. National Security Archive
3. Who is Otto Reich?
4. The Nomination of Otto Reich: Bad Omen for Latin America Policy
5. “Lie to the Media, Get a Job”–Eric Alterman
The Nation–May 7, 2001
6. “Yikes it’s Otto Reich,” –Joel Bleifus
In These Times–April 16, 2001
7. Stop Otto Reich
8. AfroCubaWeb–Anti-Reich Page
9. Public Information Research’s Reich links
10. The American Prospect
“Our Man in Little Havana:”
11. Foreign Policy in Focus
“Otto Reich’s Dirty Laundry”
12. LA Times
“Anti-Communist Reich Given State Dept. Post”