The FL-17 Congressional race the South Florida news media ignores

My comments follow this pointless Jan. 30th, 2010
Beth Reinhard column on Jeb Bush that didn't
need to be written and which, fortuitously, seems
to have been completely ignored by readers.

Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1454784.html
Jeb Bush is back, and some think he's looking presidential
Beth Reinhard
January 30, 2010

MIAMI — When Jeb Bush left office four years ago, his public appearances were as scarce as bi-partisan man hugs.

He didn't want to upstage his successor in the governor's mansion nor his brother in the White House. Instead, he quietly cashed in by joining corporate boards and an elite speakers bureau, penned policy essays and gave infrequent interviews to conservative media.

But in recent months, as the Republican Party of Florida has grappled with a leadership vacuum, Bush's political profile has grown as fast as the national deficit.

He headlined a fundraiser for Bill McCollum's gubernatorial campaign, starred in a YouTube video touting Jeff Atwater's campaign for state chief financial officer and helped install state Sen. John Thrasher as the state party's heir apparent -- all the while looming on the sidelines of the fierce Republican Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

The capper came Thursday when, at the top of the 7 o'clock hour, right after Vice President Joe Biden, Bush made a rare network television appearance on NBC's Today Show. The intensely private Bush's interview with the overly familiar Matt Lauer rattled Florida political circles.

Was this the beginning of a Jeb juggernaut that would culminate in a 2012 presidential bid?

"My wife called me immediately and said he looked presidential,'' said Thrasher, who as the former House speaker helped Bush lay down his agenda. "I said, `Who knows? We'll see.' I'm ready to go to Iowa any time he's ready.''

Bush's comments about Crist's support for President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan got the most attention, but his call for Democrats and Republicans to work together was the biggest clue to his national ambitions.

"I think that leaders on both sides of the aisle need to figure out where there is common ground and at least focus on that,'' he said. "It's one thing to give a good speech. The other thing is to invite people that don't agree exactly with your point of view to build consensus.''

This from the governor who presided over some of Florida's most hyper-partisan battles of the last decade? Who helped declare his brother the winner of the 2000 presidential recount, threw out affirmative action with the "One Florida'' program, made the FCAT the end-all be-all of the public schools and insisted on getting in between brain-damaged Terri Schiavo and her husband?

But Bush's front-page days are long gone. Lady Gaga could learn a thing or two from the ex-governor, who has stayed relevant without killing us with overexposure. He picks and chooses candidates to support and the causes that matter most to him. He recently made a rare appearance in the Capitol to promote education reforms and helped launch a national group to elect Republican state lawmakers.

Though he hasn't given an endorsement, Bush has been an undeniable presence in the Crist-Rubio race. Consider: His well-placed compliments for Rubio and subtle digs at Crist. The involvement of his family's longtime fundraiser, Ann Herberger, in the Rubio campaign. The reception co-hosted by sons George P. and Jeb Jr. that raised $100,000 for Rubio.

If the race goes down to the wire, or if Crist launches a full-scale attack against Rubio, some Republicans predict Bush will speak out.

"If Jeb is going to publicly support Marco, it's better to keep the suspense building and do it closer to the election when voters are paying attention,'' said Rubio supporter Ana Navarro.
"Jeb Bush stumping through Florida for a Republican candidate makes a difference. Jeb Bush knows that. Marco Rubio knows that. And I suspect Charlie Crist fears that.''


Presidential?
No sane, well-informed person thinks that

Above, a perfect example of the longstanding
problem at the Miami Herald: the non-story
that crowds out the more deserving.

It's been an epidemic over there since I first
returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C.
area in late 2003, after 15 years of reading
at least 5-6 newspapers most days,
plus countless journals and weekly magazines
covering all aspects of public policy.
Not bragging, mind you, just stating the facts
so you know where I'm coming from.

When I first started to write a few quick thoughts
about this particular Beth Reinhard column last
Wednesday night, February 3rd at about 9:35 p.m.,
more than three full days after it was published,
this column had elicited zero "recommends"
from readers and zero reader comments.
Like it was never seen... a ghost.
And like a ghost, lighter-than-air.

That's very amusing to me because when I first
saw it shortly after it was posted online, I was
initially tempted to leave a biting maybe even
snarky comment about what I thought this
column really shows -contempt for the
diminishing number of Herald readers.

But since as we all know, the Herald's online
comment site allows readers less space to
comment than almost any Florida newspaper
or media site around, and I have an infinite
amount of space here at Home Sweet Blog,
once again I wrote myself a note about this,
and resolved to return to it a few days later.
In this case, I've waited to see how it all
turned-out.

(Someone finally wrote a comment last
Thursday afternoon on the Herald's site
for the Saturday morning column
-five long days of invisibility.)

That it was ignored for so long pleases me
to no end, since it only serves to confirm
once again what I've thought for a long time
about the Herald's downward spiral in
quality and sense of purpose.

To illustrate this, let me bring up something
that will be before us for months this year,

Consider the fact that though we've known
since last summer that South Florida's
FL-17 would have a new face come this
November, rather than take advantage
of that and show local readers and viewers
what's going on, the local media's abysmal
coverage of that congressional campaign
thus far has consisted largely of five
sentences from Beth Reinhard of the
Herald, one of which was a list of candidates
names.
Talk about underwhelming!

The story had all the electricity of a list
of Honorable Mention winners at the
County Youth Fair being read on a
scratchy elementary school PA system.

If you doubt me, here's the proof.
Read it for yourself and try to explain
it away.


Miami Herald
CONGRESS
11 seeking Meek's seat BETH REINHARD
December 2, 2010

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek's campaign for the Senate has unleashed a torrent of candidates vying for his Miami-Dade congressional seat in 2010.

Eleven candidates -- 10 of them Democrats -- are running in the predominantly black district.

Haitian businessman and civic activist Rudy Moise announced he was running in October, held a press conference Tuesday in Liberty City.

The other Democratic candidates are Leroy Adam, Marleine Bastien, former state Rep. Phillip Brutus, state Rep. James Bush III, Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, state Rep. Yolly Roberson, Roderick Vereen, Miami Gardens Councilman André Williams, and state Sen. Frederica Wilson.

The only Republican candidate is Corey Poitier.

-----

Satisfied?
More than two full months later, that's still
IT.
That's the sum of the Herald's coverage
of FL-17.



So, in a year full of dynamic and interesting
possibilities, where we've already seen the
unexpected occur in Massachusetts, despite
the D.C. and Boston political chattering class
poo-pooh Scott Brown's chances of being
elected to the U.S. Senate, pronouncements
which the people of Massachusetts promptly
and overwhelmingly ignored, rather than
getting pro-actively engaged and follow the
eleven announced candidates themselves
as they to forge coalitions locally and see
how their their opinions and ideas evolve
-or not-on a whole range of issues,
like health care, Cap & Trade, etc.,
what has the Herald and the rest of the
South Florida news media done?

They've chosen to ignore the one new
Congressperson that all of South Florida
knows we'll have, and instead, given much
more political attention to what, exactly?

To Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's phony
anti-democratic Tele-Town Halls, which had
all the excitement of day-old bagels served cold?

No, the Herald and Company completely
downplayed her inability to appear before any
crowd that wasn't pre-selected and staged.

In fact, the Herald's Editorial Board and
the local TV political reporters didn't even feel
the need to go after low-hanging fruit that was
positively begging for some mention.

Even when Town Halls were front page
news stories all over the country, and a small
reminder of what we were all taught was the
cornerstone of participatory democracy,
they resisted the urge to sagely mention that
DWS' aloof, robotic manner and lack of humility
and unwillingness to publicly meet her
constituents -and opponents- when she's
a certified gerrymandered shoo-in, makes it
much harder for labels like DEMAGOGUE
not to stick to her like glue -forever.

Despite all the media kisses and kid-glove
treatment she's received over the years locally,
as well as the likes of MSNBC's Chris Matthews,
and the silly talk of bigger office in store for her,
DEMAGOGUES like her rarely if ever rise in
Washington beyond a certain level.
I saw it on Capitol Hill for myself, year-after-year.

Regardless of how liberal or conservative someone
may be when they vote on Capitol Hill, personality
traits still count for a lot, and Members of Congress
do NOT usually vote for people to fill party leadership
posts who actually irritate or annoy them too much
to be trusted with power.
Nancy Pelosi is the exception to the rule.

It's also why if the GOP ever takes over in the next
few years, it's more likely than not that Mike Pence
of Indiana will be the Speaker of the House, not
current House Minority leader John Boehner,
from Ohio, who rubs a lot of Republican members
the wrong way, and whom many do not personally
find either savvy or trustworthy enough to be Speaker.
(You'll see.)

That's why I wrote years ago on my blog that unlike
was often the case with congressmen who have
represented me over the years, like Dante Fascell,
Frank McCloskey and Lee Hamilton,
two of whom I saw on a weekly basis for years
while I lived in the Washington area, no Member
of Congress would ever think to ask DWS what
she thinks in order to help them make up their
mind on a tough approaching vote.
DWS is a cog in a machine, like The Borg.

Free will does not compute with her.

Her use of pre-selected crowds at her Tele-Town
Halls, in a district where she is guaranteed
re-election, is but the latest and most obvious
proof of that.
I almost feel sorry for her, except for the fact
that she has consciously chosen to go the route
she's gone, so whatever happens to her,
it's her own fault.

Now, with an election to decide the FL-17 seat
in less than nine months, in a year when the
GOP could/may take back 40 House seats,
NONE of the announced candidates has publicly
campaigned in the Broward County portion
of this district, which as it happens, includes
my own part of Hallandale Beach.

Personally, I've never voted for someone
for Congress whom I have not met or
spoken to.
I'm not about to start.

So here's a question.
What would happen if an articulate, well-informed
moderate Anglo candidate were to jump into the
FL-17 congressional race against what is now an
all African-American, all Miami-Dade County group
that doesn't or won't campaign in Broward County?

Would it take something like that for the South Florida
news media to finally pay attention to the campaign
race?

Perhaps not, but at least then some real issues
would finally be raised and discussed publicly,
and the self-evident weaknesses of so many
of the announced candidates could be properly
exposed to voter's scrutiny, and a well-qualified
candidate could actually emerge who represents
the WHOLE congressional district, not just part
of it.

That is NOT happening now.

Something to think about.

In future posts here, I'll have some good
probing questions for you to ask FL-17
candidates, especially if they want to get
votes from the well-informed people I know
and speak to regularly.





Broward County Ethics Committee meets on
Wednesday mrning at County HQ on Andrews
Avenue, Room 430, 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

See my previous article on South Florida news
media ignoring the FL-17 race, here. from
Sunday, November 8, 2009
South Florida media blows easy lay-up on health care reform -what else is new?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/south-florida-media-blows-easy-lay-up.html

Watch Out CIA Officers: You'll Learn to Hate Leon Panetta, Too!

If we were living in more normal times, which is to say, one where the MSM wasn't both rolling out the red carpet AND keeping their natural curiosity in suspended animation for a president-to-be that, for the better part of two years, they treated more like a college classmate who succeeded than an actual candidate, I'd say you ought to expect to see and hear a lot of anti-Panetta stories and anecdotes bubbling up from Washington and California from former staffers of his.

Perhaps even some from friends of mine from my days in D.C., since I know about 6-8 people who worked on Capitol Hill in some capacity for him, none, by the end, happily.

When we'd get together to do things on weekends, whether going to movies, 'road trips' or heading up to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for Oriole games -I had a 13-game mini-season

ticket plan, plus bought 6-7 additional sets of other individual game bleacher tickets for a total of 20 games a year- when there was a pause in the conversation, some of them often liked to bring up anecdotes about Panetta.

They especially liked those featuring Panetta screwing other Members of the House over left

and right, yet others getting the blame when the deal/project/bill eventually soured or withered on the line, largely because of his image as a reasonable guy.

They never ever suspected it was Panetta.

(Sometimes, I was told, so that he could end up being the 'voice of reason' and be the person who got to bring everyone back together again, the sort of thing that a David Gergen or David Broder would wax rhapsodic about, unaware that he was the one who "blew it up."

This is an old tactic, of course, and Panetta hardly had a patent on it.

The purpose of this tactic, depending on your assumed pecking order in the group to begin with, was to prove how invaluable you are. That you can compromise, "reach across the aisles," etc.

The result often being that the people who originally thought there was a done deal to begin with, would accord you a favor in the future, or, actually listen to some idea/bill proposal of yours in the future about some matter or another that they'd generally not be so interested in, but they owed you now, so...)

When these friends of mine worked for him, they thought this was a positive trait and often hysterically funny -not so much afterwards!

Panetta's carefully-crafted "image" as the reasonable guy was belied by the fact that he always had among the highest staff turnovers on the Hill -even for a Democrat from California.

It would've been one thing if he were in a tough competitive district, and constantly had to re-adjust his staff composition in order to accomplish something for the folks back home in the district, whatever that was, strategy-wise or fundraising-wise, but he wasn't.

Thanks to the dastardly genius gerrymandering of Congressman Phil Burton, which made the largest state in the country the least competitive for elections, see 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n6_v41/ai_7483113/pg_1 , Panetta was in a snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug Democratic Congressional District (CD), while lots of other House Democrats I knew or dealt with regularly, who, in my opinion were smarter, more hard-working, more geared towards realistically confronting difficult issues -and a lot more pleasant to work with- had to actually worry about getting re-elected in their competitive districts, like two people I was very well-acquainted with.

Sam Gejdenson from Connecticut, who served on the House committee I closely followed

the entire time I was in Washington, where I knew the Members and was friends with many of the the staffers, the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

This was under both Chairman Dante Fascell and Lee Hamilton, both of whose CDs I lived in during the 1980's, which some of you reading this may've already thought of, if you've thought about what I've written here over the past two years and where I've lived: greater Miami and Bloomington.

Or former Bloomington mayor and congressman Frank McCloskey, whose southern Indiana, Evansville-based CD was one of the most bitterly fought congressional districts in the country, over and over for a decade. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/fxmccloskey.htm

Frank McCloskey was mayor of Bloomington when I moved from Miami to Hoosierville in the Fall of 1979, and then as well as later when he was on Capitol Hill, when I'd swing by his friendly office every so often to say hi to him and some of his staffers, he was a personable and stand-up guy who continually stood up to bullies, no matter how powerful and no matter where they were.

He personally caused President Clinton and the White House lots of grief when he would not go quietly and follow the Dem leadership and abandon Bosnia to the nonsensical whims of Warren Christopher's State Dept, who were opposed to lifting the arms embargo, even as Serbian troops committed genocide.

McCloskey may've lost his congressional seat, but he never ever lost his dignity or willingness to fight the good fight for the underdog.

Leon Panetta? Um... not so much while he was in the Congress.   

Weeks, months or even years later, when I'd discreetly mention the Panetta anecdotes to others, in Washington-area places as varied as suburban Chevy Chase or at Joe Theisman's very popular restaurant in Old Town (Alexandria) opposite the Old Town Metro station, people would invariably say in response, "Oh Dave, you think THAT'S bad, do you know about the time Panetta..."

In fact, once on a date with my then-girlfriend up at Red Sea, the fabulous Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan -a restaurant I fell in love with after one of my Arlington housemates, who was from Ethiopia, took me to- after I related an anecdote about Panetta that had been recently told to me by a friend and former staffer, a person seated at the next table to us turned around and said completely out of the blue, "Are you talking about Leon Panetta?"

I nodded, sort of unsure of what I'd let myself in for, having thought my voice had been low enough not to be overheard outside of our table.

This nattily-dressed stranger leaned towards us, cupped his hand and said: "Panetta is a real prick to work for and to be around.  Period!"

I just sorta laughed, relieved that it hadn't turned into an embarrassing social situation, and fortunately, my girlfriend laughed, too.

I suspect that someone as politically savvy as Dianne Feinstein, who has had to deal with Panetta for a LONG time, knows FAR BETTER than anyone else in D.C. how likely him at Langley will be an albatross around our nation's neck from an intelligence and security point-of-view.  I know that I certainly will see him as such if he somehow manages to gets confirmed as Director there.

Not that it's really been mentioned anywhere yet, but I'd love to see someone with resources really go over the list of corporate contributors to the Panetta Institute with a fine tooth comb.

No doubt, lots of well-heeled folks he met while he was on the Board of Directors at the New York Stock Exchange!

I guess he was qualified for that sort of position from having been OMB Director, huh?

In a related matter, I also wanted to share with you this excerpt of a New York Times dispatch 

from late Monday night, written by Mark Mazzetti and Carl Hulse:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/politics/06cia.html

Mr. Deutch, now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there would have been good reasons for Mr. Obama to select a C.I.A. veteran to lead the agency. But Mr. Deutch also cited the examples of John McCone in the Kennedy administration and George Bush in the Nixon administration as cases in which outsiders became "two of the agency's most successful directors."

While I wouldn't say that Carl and I were "friends" per se, he and I probably had a few hundred conversations over the 15 years I was in D.C., and he and I were on pretty good terms while he was in a management position -not a reporting role- at the Times' D.C. bureau at 1627 Eye Street, where as I've mentioned here before, I spent LOTS of time.

(Carl was also the first and only serious person to ever tell me he'd never go back to a MLB game after the '94 baseball strike wiped out the World Series. I thought he was joking at first since he knew how often I went up to Camden Yards, and knew how much I despised Peter Angelos, the Orioles majority owner, but Carl was serious in a way about refusing to shell out money for tickets in a way that dopey guys interviewed in sports bars by dim-witted local TV sports reporters, aren't. 

Carl kept his promise and didn't go to a ballgame again, even after the strike ended and play returned in the 1995 season, almost 14 years ago.

Don't know whether he's since gone to a Washington Nationals game, since they moved into town from Montreal after I left the Washington area.)

Since I subscribed to the New York Observer before they had an online operation and the Times didn't have a subscription at 1627, I used to make a copy of the funny and often snarky Media columns in the Observer, or an especially great piece by Ron Rosenbaum -now at popular website, pajamasmedia.com and http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/- of which there were so many, and then give them to Carl when I saw him, or slipped them under his office door when I'd stop by to see a friend who worked there in the building, or to pick up my issue of Daily Variety.

Because the area I worked at in D.C. was a few blocks outside their tiny next-day delivery zone in D.C., a friend at 1627 let me use them as a mailing address for the courier to drop them off in the morning at the concierge's desk, just a few hundred feet away from Jack Valenti's office down at the MPAA., 

That was the place where I always wanted to work, since it would've combined so many interests of mine in one job, plus, I know I'd have done a great job there. 

(If you never met him, Mr. Valenti was someone whom everyone along that street had a kind word for, as he was extremely friendly in the Texas way he'd been raised -like my older relatives

in Bandera I imagine- and would say hello to seemingly everyone he passed as he walked over

to the CVS on 17th Street, and people would do double-takes coming out of the Farragut West Metro station there as he passed by wearing those sharp suits and his trademark deep tan.

The regular folks he'd see day-after-day, month-after-month in the neighborhood, at the hot dog stand on Conn. & Eye St., or the folks waiting for their suburban commuter bus to Virginia, always waved at him, even from across the street, something folks in D.C. rarely ever did.  I must've seen that happen at least two hundred times, if I saw it happen once.)

Maureen Dowd and I both had subscriptions to the Gotham edition of Daily Variety that were delivered to the building first thing in the morning, so sometimes, if I didn't swing by there after getting off the Farragut West Metro before she got in, she'd pick up my copy by mistake if she didn't look carefully at the mailing labels, and I'd then have to take hers.

(This was back around the time when Mike Kinsley used to come by 1627 a lot more, and we'd sometimes talk about her enigmatic personality down in the lobby, while she kept him waiting!

I'm pretty sure that was more or less after Michael quit co-hosting the popular CNN public events show Crossfire.

Maureen could be so frustrating and confounding, seemingly treating people who genuinely cared about her, worse than strangers.

My sense of things, from seeing her up-close in person a few times a week for years at a time, and speaking to her every so often, even doing her a favor or two, was that she, like many successful women, really doesn't handle compliments well, in her case, ones that are in print. And I wasn't alone in that sentiment in that building.  At least pre-2003.)

I have a read hard time understanding why Carl and his colleague would choose to quote someone the likes of John Deutsch on national security and the CIA, since he is someone

who had his own top secret government clearance removed by George Tenet (when he

headed the CIA) because of Deutsch's disgraceful inability to follow common sense security

rules -and the rumors his son accessed porn sites on Deutsch's take-home laptop- well, let's just say that a very curious choice for an expert, given what we actually know about him.

It's a choice I wouldn't have made, given the choice of all the people in the world who would and could speak on the topic.

________________________________________

U.S. Probe Of Former CIA Chief Expands

By David A. Vise and Vernon Loeb

Washington Post Staff Writers September 16, 2000

John M. Deutch, who has admitted mishandling classified information while serving as

director of the CIA, is now under investigation for similar security violations when he

previously held high-level posts in the Defense Department, according to confidential

documents and officials familiar with the case.

Deutch allegedly used unsecured computers at home and his America Online account

to access classified defense information in the early to mid-1990s, the documents,

compiled as part of a Pentagon probe, show. The alleged violations occurred before

and after Deutch issued a February 1995 memo reminding Defense Department

employees that only "properly reviewed and cleared" information should be placed

on computer systems accessible to the public.

"We find his conduct in this regard particularly egregious in light of existing DOD policy

directives addressing the safeguarding of classified information," an internal Pentagon

memo said. "This situation was exacerbated because Dr. Deutch, while serving as the

[deputy secretary of defense], declined departmental requests that he allow security

systems to be installed in his residence.

"The evidence we obtained clearly establishes that Dr. Deutch failed to follow even the

most basic security precautions," the memo added.

Deutch's attorney, Terrence O'Donnell, did not return a telephone call for comment

yesterday.

Deutch served as defense undersecretary for acquisitions and technology from April 1993

to March 1994, when he became deputy defense secretary, a job he held until he was

appointed CIA director in 1995. He left the CIA in December of the following year.

Two days after Deutch retired from the CIA, agency computer personnel discovered

classified information stored on government computers at Deutch's home. After a

series of investigations, Deutch admitted the security breach, apologized for violating

CIA policy and was stripped of his security clearances.

Initially, the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Deutch. But earlier this year,

Attorney General Janet Reno decided to review the matter after criticism that Deutch

had received much more favorable treatment than former Los Alamos nuclear scientist

Wen Ho Lee.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Judiciary Committee, confirmed

that the probe had been widened and challenged the Justice Department to take a

hard look at Deutch's alleged repeat violations.

"This is now a pattern," Grassley said. "Evidently, Mr. Deutch is a congenital downloader

of classified information. It will be interesting to see how the Justice Department deals

with this case, especially in light of the Wen Ho Lee case."

Paul E. Coffey, the retired prosecutor tapped by Reno earlier this year to review the

matter, has been briefed on Deutch's alleged use of computers at home, and has

expanded his investigation to include Deutch's years at the Pentagon.

Coffey has told Justice Department officials that he believes charges should be brought

against Deutch for improperly handling classified documents on unsecure computers

that were linked to the Internet, sources said.

Coffey's recommendation has not made its way from the Criminal Division to Reno,

who will make the decision on how to handle the case, sources said.

Generally, cases similar to Deutch's have not led to criminal charges but have been

handled through administrative sanctions. Reno recently declined to comment specifically

on Deutch's case.

There is no evidence that computer hackers or spies obtained classified information as a

result of Deutch's actions. It is not clear from the documents precisely what kinds of

information Deutch was working with. But among the computer files were Deutch's daily

journal, which included information on the range of military operations for which he was

responsible.

Some of the computers Deutch used were given away or sold by the Defense Department

as surplus property and ended up in various places, including a scrap metal dealer in

Baltimore and a university in Florida.

Senior advisers to Reno have expressed concern about the appearance of a double standard

when the Deutch case is compared with Lee's. The former Los Alamos National Laboratory

scientist, accused of 59 felony counts of downloading nuclear secrets to unsecured computers

and portable tapes, was released from jail earlier this week after receiving an apology from

a federal judge, who said the Justice Department's handling of the case had "embarrassed

our entire nation."

Lee pleaded guilty to a single felony count of mishandling classified information and agreed

to cooperate with investigators by answering questions about what happened to the tapes.

Deutch developed regular work habits at the Defense Department and the CIA that led him

to use a variety of unsecured computers at home while carrying computer memory cards

and disks in his shirt pocket, government documents show.

One unanswered question is the whereabouts of some floppy disks he used to store classified

military and intelligence data until he determined he needed more memory space and

transferred the information to larger personal computer memory cards.

A probe by the CIA inspector general determined that Deutch had four of these cards

containing nearly 100,000 pages of information, including the daily journal he kept.

Deutch used numerous government-owned Macintosh computers at his home in Bethesda

while serving in the high-level Defense Department posts, and several of those recovered

by investigators contained a "significant amount" of military information, according to the

documents. "Several witnesses told us that none of the computers . . . were designated to

store classified data," an internal Defense Department memo said.

Deutch and his family members used government-owned computers at his home to access

his America Online account, according to government documents.

Deutch acknowledged to investigators that before becoming CIA director, he was aware of

the principle requiring physical separation of classified and unclassified computers. However,

Deutch said he believed that when he deleted a document, the information was no longer

recoverable and that his general practice was to copy documents onto floppy disks and delete

the initial file.

But computer experts told investigators that each time Deutch updated his journal, his

computer automatically created a temporary file that was stored on the hard drive of the

computer and would have been available to hackers when he accessed the Internet via

America Online.