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Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

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Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Atchison


This blog entry is the first of a series of articles on John David Roy Atchison. Atchison, anAssistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola office, was arrested in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007. Arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Department of Justice in the Bush administration. The first articles, based largely on FBI material obtained under FOIA, will focus on the criminal acts and their context in 2007 in the Pensacola office.

 

Federal courthouse, Pensacola FL

This is not the story of a man who engaged in pedophilia for years or decades before being caught. It is the story of a man whipsawed by the strain of living up to a high-achieving family rooted in Birmingham, Ala., whose high-functioning connections assisted him for years in developing a career for which he turned out not to be suited. On Sept. 16, 2007, Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Florida, was arrested on credible charges of basically pedophilia. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison Oct. 5.

 

A dead pedophile might not sound like a tragedy. But Atchison was thought to be participating in a pedophile ring, and his death removed a useful informant from law enforcement resources. The question of how he was enabled to kill himself rather than being preserved for justice is one of the loose ends left hanging in his case. This article series will look at the case itself, at how Atchison attained his federal career, and at the easy prison suicide in 2007.

 

The legal case begins in August 2007, when an officer identified only as part of the Detroit Deputized Cyber Task Force, posing online as a divorced mother of two small children, was Instant Messengered by Yahoo! Member “fldaddy04.” As the Federal Bureau of Investigation notes, when the TFO [Task Force Officer, name redacted] added the user to her buddy list, the name “John Davidson” replaced “fldaddy04.” By Sept. 12, the FBI had determined that ‘Davidson” was actually Atchison, married since 1983, who lived with his wife, a high school teacher and cheerleading coach, in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and was president of the Gulf Breeze Sports Association as well as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

 

GBSA

‘Davidson’ identified himself in Internet chat as a male interested in “family fun,” chat room names fldaddy04 and aaronpottypants. According to the FBI, “Davidson stated in the chat session that he’s extremely interested in traveling to Detroit to have illicit sexual contact with [the TFO’s] fictitious five year old daughter.”

 

More specifically, “From August 31, 2007 until September 13, 2007, the subject [Atchison] chatted on a regular basis with the Detective and in these chats very graphically detailed his desire to engage in oral and vaginal intercourse, as well as sodomy, with the five year old ‘daughter’.” Moving from chat to action, “On September 4, 2007, the Detective had a chat with the subject and was informed the subject had reserved a flight to Detroit, Michigan, to arrive at 4:52 PM on September 16, 2007.” Atchison further told the FBI agent to tell her fictitious daughter that “you found her a sweet boyfriend who will bring her presents.”

 

“On September 12, 2007, the writer determined that the subject was flying from Pensacola to Houston, for a connecting flight to Detroit,” and Houston FBI was requested to keep an eye on Atchison when he debarked in Houston and boarded Continental flight #1088 to Detroit shortly after noon. He was arrested by waiting feds, Wayne County Airport Police, and deputies of the Macomb County, Michigan, Sheriff’s Office at Detroit Metropolitan International Airport about 5:00 that day, without incident according to the publicly released statement from Detroit FBI.

 

Atchison was indicted Sept. 17, charged with one count each of attempted enticement/coercion, aggravated abuse, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a five-year-old girl, all in violation of Title 18, U.S. Code. Search warrants covering his property and premises including the home on Shoreline Drive in Gulf Breeze were signed.

 

Items seized by the FBI include the evidence drearily predictable in such cases—“12 pair of girls panties w/ flower & cartoon print,” for example, “Found under dresser, under bottom drawer of dresser in closet.” Atchison’s children including his daughters were grown, and no minors lived in the house. Note: A daughter denied credibly, repeatedly and consistently to the FBI that Atchison had ever harmed her or touched her or her sister or friends inappropriately, joining the community in shocked surprise at the revelations. No indication of pedophile activity turned up among Atchison’s relatives, acquaintances or co-workers. However, Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney Dixie Morrow told investigators that Atchison “had at some point in the past year or two, made an electronic request through DOJ for authorization to attend a child molestation seminar,” the request “apparently denied as it did not fit with his assigned duties in working civil and forfeiture matters.” Atchison’s work for the DOJ was largely real estate—dealing with forfeited property–stemming from similar work he had done for the General Services Administration and as landlord of a modest property in Birmingham.

 

Further evidence in the house included “four cloth and 1 plastic diaper undergarments,” “found in blue plastic tub.” Authorities also took four guns, with permission, for safekeeping—a Smith & Wesson revolver, two 12-gauge shotguns, and a Chinese semi-automatic—and confiscated Atchison’s passport. Items seized from his person when he got off the flight included, along with the Dora the Explorer doll with accessories and one doll outfit, one (1) tiger stuffed animal, one (1) tube of CVS Petroleum Jelly, one (1) Cialis pill, and four (4) unknown pills.

 

Evidence at Atchison’s office was easy to find: “Upon entry to the office at approximately 1:22 PM, a shopping bag containing three sets of doll clothes was observed resting on the desk chair.” The Walmart bag “was determined to contain three boxes of “Dora the Explorer”. . . “Dress Up Adventure” clothes.” Bag and contents were seized as evidence.

 

Doll clothes purchased by a federal contractor

 

If investigators wondered why Atchison would have revealing objects in his office, the puzzle was quickly solved: The doll clothes had been purchased for Atchison by an employee in the same office. “[Name redacted, a co-worker] advised that the bag contained items purchased on Atchison’s behalf, by staffer [name redacted]. She had placed the bag on his chair upon first entering the office in morning of September 17.”

 

The unnamed employee was with contractor Forfeiture Support Associates, which provides asset-forfeiture services for various DOJ offices. “In this instance, [name redacted] worked for the Pensacola Office of the U.S. Attorney,” preparing documents for forfeiture proceedings, a specialty of Atchison’s. “She began working in this office on January 12, 2007. She primarily supported Civil Attorney J. D. Roy Atchison and had daily contact with him.”

 

According to the FBI, Atchison had in some ways a notably friendly workplace:

 

“On Friday, September 14, 2007, [name redacted] had occasion to enter Atchison’s office and ask if he had anything for her to work on while he was out of town. She understood that he was leaving town over the weekend to visit his brother . . . She could see that Atchison was on the internet looking at a shopping site. Atchison said that he was trying to find Dora doll outfits for his niece. He said she has the doll, but needs the outfits. He showed [name redacted] a red outfit that he had in the office, . . . “Holiday Dora”. [Redacted] and Atchison discussed locations around town where the outfits could be purchased . . . [Redacted] suggested some online sites which might have the outfits he was looking for. It was apparent that he was already looking for these on the internet and she believes this was on his work computer, a desk top.” [emphasis added]

 

One can only imagine the feelings of the FBI transcriber, taking down this friendly discussion about buying doll clothes between a pedophile AUSA and a contract employee. At a time when many U.S. office workers are lucky if a colleague is willing to swing by Starbucks on the way to the office,

 

“During the discussion, [redacted] told Atchison that she would keep an eye out for the outfits this weekend. He asked that if she saw some to let him know. She suggested that if she saw some, she would pick them up and he could just pay her back. He said ok, that would be great.

 

They then discussed what outfits were out there. [Redacted] thought there were about four. Atchison told her there were several different ones out there. He said he could use a couple if she saw any.”

 

[The press office for the Northern District of Florida, contacted by phone and email, has not yet answered questions about Atchison.] By policy and federal law, personnel matters are generally not discussed. The identity of the helpful contract employee has not been disclosed. The company, Forfeiture Support Associates, does extensive work for federal agencies. Contacted with questions and requests for comment, Vice President for Business Development Jack Hunt, sounding unsurprised, refers a journalist to COO Cal Dixon, also unflapped, who refers questions to HR Manager Nicky Rogers. A telephone recording indicates that Rogers is on vacation until Sept. 14.

 

Mission accomplished: “Over the previous weekend, [name redacted] was out doing some personal shopping and saw several Dora Doll outfits. She purchased three of them specifically for Atchison. On Monday morning she placed the bag in his office. She may have put the bag under his desk.”

 

 

Tomorrow, Part 2: “The friendliest lil ole workplace in Florida.” Further context from the DOJ, 2007.

Why is the National Rifle Association helping the drug cartels?

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Amid all the fanfare and the genuine carnage in the increasingly violent war among and between Mexican drug cartels, there remains one dirty little secret.

While loudly trumpeting an unbridled right of citizens to bear arms north of the border, the National Rifle Association in this country is all but openly assisting the most violent of the violent Latin American drug cartels to get all the weapons they want.

The cartels use their high-powered weaponry to terrorize entire populations south of the border. But they also use their terror to keep their own membership and sub-contractors in line at all levels, with the result that while illegal narcotics operations within the United States are less openly bloody than across the Mexican border, they are all the more effective.

Meanwhile, the NRA uses its political muscle and its considerable largesse to oppose any effort to put a dent in domestic and international arms traffic through either law enforcement or regulation. Thus the Obama administration

Michael Steele partly wrong, partly right

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Michael Steele:
Partly wrong, partly right

 

Writers are saying
that

BP Litigation and Politics, House hearing today in Energy & Commerce

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BP Litigation and Politics

 

Today the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., holds a hearing on the BP oil spill. From the Committee:

“The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing on legislation to respond to the BP oil spill and prevent future oil well blowouts on Wednesday, June 30, 2010, in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.  The hearing will focus on the discussion draft entitled the “Blowout Preventer Act of 2010,” which was released on Friday, June 26, 2010.”

Witnesses are David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary of Interior; John Martinez, Consulting Production Engineer, Production Associates; and Elgie Holstein, Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund. The hearing, scheduled for 9:30 in 2322 Rayburn Building, will be webcast live.

 

Blowout preventer

The legislation named “Blowout Prevention Act of 2010,” “To protect public health and safety and the environment by requiring the use of safe well control technologies and practices for the drilling of high-risk oil and gas wells in the United States, and for other purposes,” was introduced June 29 by Waxman. The bill would require demonstrated ability to prevent and contain leaks before drilling; would institute blowout preventer requirements; would require regulations ensuring safe wells and cementing; and would require well control and blowout prevention inspectors.

 

Gusher in the water

Hearings are not the only action on the governmental and legal front, regarding the BP blowout. The company—already being sued by its own investors among others—is being sued by scuba divers. Another class action may unite shareholders around the world. In a move that could have consequences for companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher, the Senate voted June 16 to eliminate the federal tax deduction for companies paying punitive damages—a move previously called for by President Obama. There has been no visible or audible reaction to the oil gusher from the newly elected conservative government in Britain, yet, but many British pensioners of modest means stand to be affected by BP’s disastrous lack of foresight. Governmental action may have to be taken.

The gusher and its consequences have yet to chasten the corporate world into refraining from push-back. The Chamber of Commerce—which has blazoned an unprecedented war chest for the 2010 fall elections, to oppose candidates it does not want—has already pushed hard, unsuccessfully, against Rhode Island judge nominee Jack McConnell. Nothing like being prepared: After all, there is no guarantee that the oil from Deepwater Horizon will not eventually work its way up the East Coast. Not just the Gulf Coast, but every eastern shoreline in North America, and every sea bed near the shorelines, may ultimately be affected. It’s the trial lawyers who make the news, but law firms that do environmental defense work are quietly hiring bigtime, right now. Northern Virginia firm McGuireWoods, for example, recently picked up a former aide to GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina.

 

Like BP, Transocean has also been lawyering up, while lobbying intensively to prevent legislation that could increase its civil liability.

Halliburton, which has done the same, had to file amended disclosure reports June 4. Halliburton had reported less than half the actual amount it spent on lobbyists in 2010–$50,000 in the first quarter as opposed to the actual $120,000. The company’s lobbying expenditures include $320,000 paid to Jackson Lewis, the law firm known informally as the worst of the worst of union-busting (euphemized as ‘workplace law’) law firms.

On a side note, the Borders book store chain also hired Jackson Lewis several years ago to prevent highly-qualified Borders employees from organizing. The Borders chain, widely praised for its quality personnel, book selection and in-store atmosphere, is struggling to avoid bankruptcy.

Note to Ed Shultz: PLEASE acknowledge that you also said ‘shakedown’

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Note to Ed Shultz: PLEASE acknowledge that you also said ‘shakedown’

This is getting slightly depressing. I am all for castigating Joe Barton, his oil donations, and the harmful policies he almost always espouses. But I’ve been listening–for the past few minutes–to Ed Schultz castigate Barton for calling the BP $20 billion escrow fund a ‘shakedown’. Regrettably, Schultz went on about Barton for several minutes without mentioning up front that he did the same (previous post).

Also regrettably, rightwing bloggers are picking this one up: See links here and here and here, for example.

To be fair, Schultz has previously defended his word choice, in a panel discussion elsewhere. But the buzzword is out there,and he seems to have helped legitimize it. This is no time to pretend that he didn’t say it, or to expect liberal audiences to suck it up and pretend the same.

The video clip of Schultz praising Obama for shaking down BP is linked here. MSNBC needs to do some homework here. Chris Matthews, on Nerfball, did a version of the same thing–going off about BP and Joe Barton, truly and applicably enough, without taking into account the cable-and-radio cross-transmissions that influenced this dialogue.

No wonder Rush Limbaugh is further demonstrating his eerie lack of shame by repeating and defending the ‘shakedown’ reference.

Rush Limbaugh: An Army of What?

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Rush Limbaugh: An Army of What?




Reading a book fast . . . 


Zev Chafets

Hearings on BP oil spill today; IG report faults Interior Dept

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Hearings on BP oil spill today; IG report faults Interior Dept

Congressional hearings begin today on the BP/Transocean/Halliburton oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Update: Side note here–BP is also being sued by its own investors, according to Natl Law Journal. The first lawsuit was filed in New Orleans on May 7. Plaintiffs allege that

“BP executives and its board of directors “recklessly disregarded accidents and safety warnings for years” related to the Deepwater
Horizon rig. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of breaching their fiduciary duties by, among other things, causing BP to violate safety and environmental laws, exposing the company to criminal and tort liability, and subjecting BP to adverse publicity and impaired earnings.”



Meanwhile, overwhelming evidence continues to mount that public policy, applied with feeling and thought, could have prevented this disaster. Even as many people labor to clean up the mess created by a combination of laissez-faire non-regulation and non-enforcement with corporate greed and unscientific wishful thinking, comes the release below.

It should be more than apparent by now that the brand of physics, chemistry and engineering applied by BP in our Gulf of Mexico was about on a level with curing warts by splitting them and burying them.

You heard it here first: The way to escape the fiscal burden of ‘foreign oil’ is not to ruin America’s shorelines. The way to escape the fiscal burden, and incidentally to escape the physical harms including state war and guerrilla war, is to use less oil. An intelligent public policy apparatus would have been supporting scientific research to that end for the past fifty years. From the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER):

“INTERIOR SCIENCE HAS INTEGRITY ISSUES, IG SAYS”
No Safeguards against Political Manipulation of Science despite Repeated Scandals

Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of Interior still lacks any policy to ensure the integrity of its scientific data, according to a new Inspector General report.  As a result, agency scientific findings remain susceptible to alteration or suppression in support of pre-determined political positions, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  .


The report by the Interior Office of Inspector General (IG), dated April 2010, was quietly posted without announcement on the IG website late last week.  In recent days, Interior has been reeling from reports that it ignored both internal and external scientific warnings about the risk of oil spills and the lack of response capacity before Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a major expansion of offshore drilling, just days before the disastrous BP explosion and spill.”

PEER lists the following examples:

 

  • Continued efforts inside the Minerals Management
    Service to stifle scientists who raise environmental concerns about
    offshore drilling, as documented in an April 2010 Government
    Accountability Office report;
  • Endangered Species Act positions taken by the U.S. that fly in the
    face of the overwhelming weight of agency science, on issues ranging
    from the Florida panther to the sage grouse.  As under Bush,
    conservation groups are able to prove in court that Obama agency stances
    are “arbitrary and capricious” for ignoring the best available science;
    and
  • Interior’s ongoing hostility toward whistleblowers and continued
    reliance on “gag orders” and other restrictions on specialists candidly
    discussing problems or sharing data.

“In March 2009, President Obama promised new policies that would both protect agency science from
political tampering and scientists from retaliation for doing their jobs but those policies never were promulgated,” Ruch added.  “Compromised
scientific integrity is not just a problem inside Interior; it is a government-wide phenomenon whenever technical data carries heavy policy implications.”

Contrary to the IG report, Interior claimed that it did adopt a scientific code of conduct back in 2002, but the agency did so via a press release and never put it into its official manual.  That code applied only to the scientists and not to managers and political
appointees who remain free to alter technical documents for non-scientific reasons.”

Main charge against fired Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers thrown out

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Main charge against fired Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers thrown out

In another setback for officials trying to justify the removal of former U.S. Park Police Teresa Chambers retroactively, a federal appeals court threw out the main charge against Chambers yesterday.



This message, summarizing the background in the case, passed along from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

“Chambers, who had been the police chief in Durham, NC, was selected by
the Bush administration following a nationwide search in 2002 as first
female leader of the oldest uniformed force in federal service.  In late
2003, Chief Chambers gave an interview to the Washington Post in which
she confirmed dangerously low staffing levels.  Three days after her
interview was published, she was ordered to surrender her gun and badge,
placed her on administrative leave and ordered her not to speak any
further with the media.  After leaving her on administrative leave for 7
months, the Interior Department act to terminate her, citing her
interview as disclosing “law enforcement sensitive” information.”

In yesterday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (D.C.) said that Chambers’ statements are protected under federal whistleblower law.

The remaining lesser charges in the case are remanded to lower court.

From PEER:

“”The Interior Department threw a kitchen sink of bogus charges against
Chief Chambers and one by one they are falling away,” stated PEER Senior
Counsel Paula Dinerstein, who argued Chambers’ winning appeal.  “This
ruling will help keep us safer as a nation by creating a legal shield
enabling other Paul Reveres to alert the public to hidden dangers.””

The CIA and the $3 million coffee table

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The CIA and the $3 million coffee table

Amidst other events in a week of losses, pain and gains, some good news on legal/security matters.

First, a remarkable case involving secret electronic surveillance and fraud against the court has been settled in DC.

When the CIA replaces your coffee table without your consent or knowledge, and you are a loyal employee of the U.S. government, sometimes the Agency has to pay. Plaintiff Richard A. Horn, a former Drug Enforcement Agency officer, sued the CIA and others for secretly bugging his home when he was stationed in Rangoon, Burma, in the 1990s. On March 30, plaintiff and CIA finally settled the lawsuit, Horn v. Huddle, for $3 million.

 

Richard A. Horn

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of D.C. District Court issued the final order. The case has dragged since its 1994 filing by plaintiff Horn, alleging that CIA and State Department personnel illegally wiretapped him.

One colorful detail from Horn’s lawsuit was the following:

“As evidence of his claim, Horn points to a cable transmitted by Huddle, which contains quotation marks and which Horn claims quotes him verbatim, as well as a suspicious entry into his apartment when, unsolicited, his government-issued rectangular coffee table was swapped for an oval replacement while he was out of town.”

 

The lawsuit was delayed under two administrations, terminated and revived, placed under seal but unsealed after convincing signs of fraud against the court, i.e. intentional misleading statements to the judge by government lawyers.

Rather than just deny swapping out Horn’s coffee table and other activities, CIA argued that the state secrets privilege protected it from having to come clean. Regrettably, the Agency also falsely told both the District court and the appeals court that the defendant CIA officer was covert. He was not. Both courts were jarred when this claim was retracted; as Lamberth noted in 2009,

“The new Department of Justice attorney in the case filed a notice with the Court that Defendant II’s identity was not actually covert—the declaration stated that Defendant II (Arthur Brown) had his covert status lifted and rolled back in 2002. Of course, no one from the Office of General Counsel for the CIA (which was actively working on this case) nor the defendant himself informed this Court or the Court of Appeals of that fact.”

Thus “defendant Brown and at least one attorney committed fraud on this Court and the Court of Appeals,” and the CIA officer was reinstated as a defendant.

 

Fraud against the court, or fraud on the court, is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as “A lawyer’s or party’s misconduct in a judicial proceeding so serious that it undermines or is intended to undermine the integrity of the proceeding.” Examples include bribing a juror and introducing fabricated evidence.

Like other crime, fraud on the court does not pay. In January 2009 the judge referred the CIA attorney to the Court’s Committee on Grievances. Contempt motions were filed by plaintiff against others including former CIA Director George Tenet. Plaintiff also filed motions for attorneys’ fees. CIA threw in the table, and on the Pottery Barn principle—You replace it, you buy it—the two parties have settled, pursuant to court directions regarding any future filings, for $3 million to the plaintiff for damages, fees and other litigation costs.

In the process, the state secrets privilege also went over the side:

“This development demonstrated that Director Tenet’s assertion of the state secrets privilege was no longer accurate as to at least one material fact (the secrecy of Brown’s identity), and led the plaintiff and the Court to question what portions of Director Tenet’s assertion still were accurate and what information the government still believed was privileged.”

The judge rejected assertions of state secrets privilege in this CIA-related matter and also granted permission to file an amicus brief is to attorneys in a wiretapping lawsuit on the West Coast. The amici curiae brief by Al Haramain Foundation should be informative. The Al Haramain case is the last case still alive with evidence provided by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein that the telephone company participated with the NSA in extensive wiretapping.

 

(In an otherwise unrelated development, Norman Leboon, the off-balance Philadelphia man who made death threats against Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., and his family, also attempted to sue his phone company over alleged wiretapping.)

 

More transparency would be a break in the case, from a public policy perspective.

As reported in law.com, in dismissing the case, the judge “ordered the Justice Department to notify him whether it will refer allegations of government misconduct to the Office of the Inspector General and to appropriate oversight committees in Congress . . .”


The judge said there is “disturbing” evidence in a sealed motion that “demonstrates the benefit” of notifying the oversight committees of Congress.”

Disturbing, indeed: Lamberth says that the sealed motion suggests that “misconduct occurred in the Inspector General’s Office both in the State Department and in the Central Intelligence Agency.” It would be illuminating to have the sealed evidence disclosed by the current Justice Department.

The watchword to go with transparency is accountability. In approving the settlement between the parties, the judge added that “it is not without some misgiving that the Court reaches this decision.” Despite the undeniable benefit of having a contentious 15-year case settled and out of the courts, Lamberth notes that another $6 million was awarded to an individual in the anthrax investigation. That would be Steven Hatfill, whose life was made miserable by berserk accusations about the anthrax mailings, and who was later exonerated. A defendant in the Hatfill case was Bush’s third Attorney General, Michael Mukasey.

As Lamberth writes, “It does not appear that any government official was ever held accountable for this huge loss to the taxpayer.” “Now,” the judge writes, “this Court is called upon to approve a $3 million payment to an individual plaintiff by the United States, and again it does not appear that any government officials have been held accountable for this loss to the taxpayer. This is troubling to the Court.”

Health care reform according to the Washington Post

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Health care reform impossible, according to the Post

–I’ve said it before: ‘Smart people’ living in places like Massachusetts–those would be the ones who did not vote in the special election–have no idea what President Obama is up against in Washington.

Quick fact:

Over the previous year, the Washington Post has run 1,642 articles, columns or editorials mentioning health care reform or health insurance reform. From March 22, 2009, to today, writers working for the Washington Post Company, or guest writers or columnists, have published articles on the legislative effort to reform health care over 1600 times.

Of these articles, at a conservative estimate over 90 percent have been negative.

Actually, only 73 of these hits according to the LexisNexis database pertained to “health insurance reform.” Something about the proportion of 73 to 1,642 indicates how dangerous a topic ‘insurance reform’ is for the WashPost. Not that the Post has made that transparent through its reporting, you understand, but it is conspicuous by its omission.

Previously taboo topic: Health insurance reform

A quick run-through gives a representative sampling. Long-time WP columnist David Broder has authored 32 pieces on health care reform over the previous year, all casting doubt on the legislation itself or on its chances of passing, or both.

A typical example: June 7, 2009, in “Obama’s Biggest Battle,” Broder wrote,

“Obama will have to carry much of the burden of advocacy himself–if outside events don’t intrude, as they did on Bill Clinton. The president has shown his willingness to bargain, signaling, for example, that he would now consider taxing some employer-provided benefits, an approach he denounced when John McCain endorsed it during the campaign.
But it will take much more than that to win what promises to be an epic struggle.”

Another typical example from Broder, Mar. 1, 2010; “Obama, Dems at crossroads on health care reform”:

“Nobody really expected much from President Barack Obama’s health care summit, and those expectations were fully realized.”

Be it noted that the last time Broder employed the term “insurance reform” in a piece was 1994. That was an article about the Clinton administration, jointly authored with Ann Devroy, no longer at WP.

Then there is George F. Will, as in a Jan. 20, 2010, piece titled “Massachusetts mandate shoves liberals off the cliff”:

“If the Democrats” congressional leaders are determined to continue their kamikaze flight to incineration, they will ignore Massachusetts’ redundant evidence of public disgust. They will leaven their strategy of briberies with procedural cynicism—delaying certification of Massachusetts’ Senate choice, or misusing “reconciliation” to evade Senate rules, or forcing the House to swallow its last shred of pride in order to rush the Senate bill to the president’s desk. Surely any such trickery would be one brick over a load for some hitherto servile members of the Democratic House and Senate caucuses, giving them an excuse to halt their party’s Gadarene rush toward the precipice.”

Like Broder, Will does not mention ‘insurance reform’ in print, although he has done so on air at ABC Television’s This Week, formerly with George Stephanopoulos.

Over the past year, Will has run nine pieces mentioning health care reform—including one calling Obama a modern-day ‘Huey Long,’—all opposed.

Unsurprisingly, he and Broder are joined by WP columnist Robert Samuelson, with seven pieces mentioning health care reform over the previous year, all opposed; Samuelson actually mentioned “health insurance reform” once (July 27, 2009) but only in quoting from a speech by the president.

Needless to say, the WP also offers up the wisdom of ultra-rightwing neocon and PNAC signatory Charles Krauthammer, as in this July 24, 2009, piece titled “Why Obamacare is sinking”:

“What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality.”

Krauthammer has run 18 pieces opposing current health-care reform proposals over the past year. This passage comes from Aug. 7, 2009, “Health-care reform: A better plan”:

“The administration’s defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn’t even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.”

‘Tort reform’ for Krauthammer means limiting plaintiffs’ ability to litigate. According to “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade,” in Parade Magazine, Krauthammer himself successfully sued a swimming pool manufacturer, after the swimming accident that sadly left the young Krauthammer injured.

For the past year, Krauthammer has been running columns with titles such as “Kill the bills: Do health-care reform right,” etc. Krauthammer has actually mentioned “insurance reform” four times, always to oppose the concept and to attack Obama.

There is no need to belabor the basic point here. For the past year, a time of extensive public discourse on health insurance reform, the Washington Post has mentioned “insurance reform” somewhat over 100 times in a crop of 1,600+ articles on health care. Most of those mentions occur either in the context of vote-counting, the politics horse race, in political reporting; or in hostile opinion columns by the right-wingers and corporatists above, joined by Michael Gerson, Fred Hiatt, and equally hostile guest columnists. As written previously, many of the horse-race pieces in the A section, purportedly objective and neutral, are actually spun to cast doubt on the legislation and on its chance of passing.

Note: None of the information contained in this post can be gleaned from today’s piece by Howard Kurtz, the Post’s ‘media critic,’ titled “Journalism’s slide into health-debate weariness.” Kurtz has not mentioned the Post’s opposition and hostility to insurance reforms.

 

[This article, deleted by the system among hundreds of articles and blog posts in summer 2011, is re-posted using archives and Word files.]