Poor Mojo's Newswire

I am going to weave you one--connecting Spitzer's recent confession as Client Number 9 in the Emperor's Club and his February announcement that the Bush administration through the OCC (Office of the Controller of the Currency) has been complicit in allowing predatory lending practices among national banks and thrifts. Spitzer was a rising hero in the Democratic Party, obviously scheduled for callings higher than that as governor of New York State. The long and short of this conspiracy theory is: "They" got him. Spitzer, like Bill Clinton, has a big weakness: His desire for illicit sex.... On February 28, 2008, Spitzer wrote an article in the Washington Post, one that received little attention, yet one that strikes at the heart of the subprime mess that is now threatening each and every one of us.The OCC is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Charted in 1863, its purpose is to organize and to administer a system of national banks and a uniform currency.... In his 2003 annual report, J. D. Hawke, Jr., then Comptroller of the Currency, said:A storm was brewing. Many state examiners were concerned that predatory lending practices were on the rise. In 2003, the seeds of the now subprime disaster had been planted.... So there you have it, a brand new conspiracy theory. Spitzer was the visible leader, spearheading the attempt to hold responsible those who have created what Nouriel Roubini calls a "financial meltdown." His voice was a national voice, not some out-of-the way examiner. Was there an attempt to find the messenger's weakness, to sully him so that his message would not be heard?

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.