How Abuse, Corruption and Silence at Penn State 

Perpetuate a Poisonous Culture 

Thursday, 26 July 2012 10:15 By Kristin Rawls, 

These days, it seems, the downfall of Penn State’s beloved football program makes national headlines every few days. Just as the news cycle exhausted the Sandusky conviction and the Freeh report, on Monday the NCAA announced harsh sanctions against Penn State that are likely to gut the football program for many years to come.

As an education journalist, I have watched Jerry Sandusky’s downfall with a mixture of horror and fascination. But as a graduate school alumna of Penn State, it has been difficult to separate my own experiences as a student and instructor from what I am seeing in the news. Based on my own observations of abuse and misconduct while at Penn State – none of them related to the football program – I have every reason to suspect that the allegations released last November, and the punishments leveled just this week, mark only the beginning of a long and painful fall from grace for the institution as a whole. After all, Sandusky is just one man, but it took a proverbial village to hide three decades of overt abuse.

Mainstream news sites like the Daily Beast have suggested that we need to start asking how the popularity and wealth of Penn State’s football program may have contributed to silence about Sandusky’s crimes. Others, like Jay Jennings at CNN, have asked whether America’s high-stakes sports culture is to blame. These seem like reasonable questions, given just how much money is attached to the game. Last year, Penn State’s football program was valued at $446.9 million, third highest among public schools in the NCAA.

But in focusing our ire and outrage on sports culture alone, it’s easy to lose sight of broader problems -- like school administration or local context. These elements, too, played a role in creating the culture of abuse, corruption and silence that allowed a man like Jerry Sandusky to operate untouched for so long. But his is not the only case of misused power or abuse at Penn State. In fact, many of these cases have nothing to do with the football team. Since I started writing about education, many former students and staff have contacted me to share details about the various kinds of abuse they say they experienced at Penn State, leading me to believe the problems I witnessed were not one-offs. They were, and remain, systemic.

The Place: Hate Culture

The main campus of Pennsylvania State University is located in State College, PA, a tiny exurb of the aptly named Centre County, the geographical center of Pennsylvania. When I first visited in 2007, I thought the university was nestled in a pleasant enough college town. A place of great natural beauty, State College sits deep in a valley just east of the Allegheny Mountains. It’s a town that seems lovely on the outside. It took some time for me to realize just how oppressive the environment could be.

Central Pennsylvania is often denigrated as “Alabama in Pennsylvania,” largely because of its extremely conservative political landscape. Sure, the residents of State College usually vote for Democrats, as towns that revolve around large universities often do. But Central Pennsylvania as a region is hate group central. It houses the national headquarters of both the Aryan Nation and the Association of Independent Klansmen Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The latter is located in Lemont, just a 10-minute drive from Penn State. Plus, smaller militia and/or neo-Confederate groups are sprinkled throughout the area, and continue sprouting up. People in the region commonly note that State College has the “highest per capita hate group membership” in the United States.

It’s hard to find reputable statistics about hate group numbers since many are inclined not to mention their membership when statisticians ask. But anyone who lives in the region – and pays attention – can attest to the open presence of hate group activity. This was particularly shocking to me, a product of suburban North Carolina, where racist institutions and stereotypes are far more common than actual hate groups campaigning on behalf of “white power.”

In North Carolina, the Confederate flag bumpersticker often suggests that the driver is an undereducated but nonviolent “heritage, not hate” type. But Civil War nostalgia is by no means a “heritage”-based element of white Pennsylvania culture. In Pennsylvania, it’s safe to bet anyone flying the Confederate flag is a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I spotted far more Confederate flags – dozens, at least – in and around “liberal” State College, PA than I had ever seen in my Southern-raised life.

The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 was particularly fraught in Central Pennsylvania. Though the Secret Service never confirmed that someone actually screamed, “Kill him!” at that Sarah Palin rally in Scranton, the Scranton Times-Tribune (which originally reported the incident) stands by the story today. In any case, the veracity of the report wouldn’t have been a shock to anyone who has lived in the region. I saw a skinhead contingent about a dozen strong waiting in line to be admitted into a Palin rally that year, white men unashamedly boasting white power and swastika tattoos. Acquaintances spoke about seeing open Klansmen and Aryan Nation members in the audience as well.

This was not a surprise to black students at Penn State, whose student associations received an onslaught of death threats in 2000 that culminated in the killing of a young black man. Long before this, in the 1980s, several black men were targeted in violent assaults in town. A former student told me of the university’s attempts to quiet the 2006 murder of a black male student named Langston D. Carraway. The Centre Daily Times reported at the time that, “A racial epithet was smeared across a wall of [a State College apartment complex], written with the blood of a black Penn State senior [Carraway] whose body was found nearby…in a pool of blood.” Ultimately, a Black man was convicted of the murder of Langston Carraway, but many in the community remain skeptical that he actually committed the crime. Whether or not their doubts are based in fact or rumor, they are nevertheless testament to the fraught racial divisions and ongoing fears in the area."

Students whispered to me of other disappearances in State College. Indeed, when the Sandusky allegations became public, former PSU professor of African American studies Robyn Spencer published part of her journal from 2001 in an attempt to expose the long history of violence at the university. She wrote:

My concerns were as basic as survival. Hate mail, death threats, and sit-ins thrust this school into the national spotlight before the ink on my job contract had time to dry. Unclaimed black corpses were found in surrounding areas, student leaders were assigned bodyguards and attendees of graduation had to pass through metal detectors.

The university’s students of color know this history well, up to and including the fact that students whose lives were threatened received precious little support from the university administration or Joe Paterno – whose black players were specifically targeted As student activist Assata Richards told one reporter last year, “We asked him to talk to the players because we were concerned about their safety…and he said in that meeting that he would never do anything to put the university in a bad light. So we said, ‘Then you are choosing the university over students’ lives.’”

In 2008, a graduate student in another program told me that a black student group, fearing for the safety of its members, had advised students of color to stay home the day after Obama’s win. One of my students shared these concerns. Through tears, she spoke of a friend who found notes attached to her front door reading, “N****r, leave.” Some friends, she said, became too exhausted and fearful to stay, so they did leave.

Not surprisingly, State College, the town, can feel oppressive in a visceral and suffocating way (quite literally, given the poor air quality). Though it is not nearly as well-documented as the race problem in the community, members of the LGBT campus community reported death threats as recently as 2010. LGBT students and graduate instructors had to consider whether being “out” in their classrooms might jeopardize their safety, and many of my own friends and acquaintances -- particularly those perceived as “gender non-conforming” -- were targets of harassment and ridicule.

In my experience, many people associated with the university who do not belong to minority groups often look the other way when incidents like these occur. When a majority of students in my 2009 class suggested that racism is no longer a problem for the US because of Obama’s election, I received no support from faculty in trying to organize anti-racism training or education for my class. Many of my white students, despite the open hate group presence in the town they lived in, insisted without irony that “racism is really just a Southern problem.”

“It’s just a tough egg to crack here,” one professor told me, resigned to the state of things and unwilling to take action to change them.

The University: Rape Culture

Just as racism and, to some extent, homophobia, are omnipresent in State College in ways that seep into everyday life, the university culture itself is also particularly dismissive of sexual harassment, assault and rape allegations.

For decades universities across the country have been plagued by what many have termed a “rape epidemic,” in which about one in five college women is raped. (A 2009 study suggests that the real incident rate actually far exceeds this ratio, because so many survivors fail to report.) As someone who has had more than a bit of experience on different college campuses -- I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2002, completed my first master’s degree at American University in 2006 and then spent a year in Montréal, Québec at McGill University -- I can tell you that I saw plenty of rape culture at all three. At UNC, in fact, I once opted to leave a class when faced with an ongoing sexual harassment problem.

I was, in other words, no stranger to these problems when I entered Penn State. But neither had I ever seen a university close ranks with such precision against students who decided to go public about assault or rape. At PSU, it soon became clear, you simply cannot take any abuse public without suffering severe consequences. Maybe that’s what makes Penn State culture so unusual.

When I first arrived on campus in fall 2007, I was required, along with all new instructors, to take what I thought was a routine training seminar on sexual harassment. Looking back, I clearly should have seen what transpired as a red flag. At this particular seminar, we were taught that it’s perfectly fine for instructors to have sex with their own students. It was considered “unwise” to engage in these sexual relationships during the course of the semester, but it wasn’t exactly prohibited. We’d simply need to alert the proper administrative authorities, and make certain the sex didn’t affect our grading.

It didn’t end there. About half an hour of this training was spent fielding one participant’s complaint that provocatively dressed women were in fact sexually harassing him. This was treated by the seminar facilitator as a legitimate concern. Never did the facilitator mention that the “problem” of revealing dress is frequently (and erroneously) used as a justification for sexual assault and rape.

In retrospect, I should have been prepared for the kind of abuses this type of “training” enabled. Some graduate students whispered about colleagues in my department having sex with their 18-year-old students. Several acquaintances saw one colleague escort two drunken 18-year-old female students back to his apartment one night. Another colleague spoke of finding a graduate student in a compromising position with an undergraduate in our student lounge.

It isn’t clear whether or not any of these young women, particularly those seen at the bar, were intoxicated past the point of meaningful consent. In other words, I can’t be sure whether or not either of my colleagues committed a criminal offense or was just culpable of a despicable misuse of power. I’m not terribly comforted either way.

A graduate student from another department told me of being sexually assaulted by a drunken colleague from her department. She was never quite sure whether or not the perpetrator, known to experience alcohol-related blackouts, remembered what he’d done. She said he pushed her down on a bed one day and tried to have sex with her without her consent. She didn’t dare tell any faculty members or administrators what had happened; she’d known too many other graduate students in other departments who were forced out of the university for revealing less. In another department, a faculty member hadn’t been punished for assaulting a student at all. His one sanction? He had to keep the door open while working in his office.

In 2009, the Princeton Review famously ranked Penn State the number-one party school in America, prompting NPR’s This American Life to report on the drinking culture organized around the football team at Penn State. Then in 2011, after the Sandusky allegations came out, the radio program revisited that broadcast to consider whether or not something specific to that culture had allowed the abuse to happen so openly for three decades.

It’s something that many have scratched their heads over since the allegations first came out: Did the football culture cause it? Did some kind of lawlessness aided by out-of-control alcohol consumption play a part? Was it the corrupting influences of high-powered college athletics? Was it a university adept at covering up scandal and crime?

I can’t answer these questions. All I know is that I found the place poisonous from the outset, as did many – perhaps most – of my acquaintances and friends. I saw the university respond to serious allegations with impotent coverups. And I know graduate students who were excised from the university because they chose to speak out about the abuses they saw. I happen to be one of them.

Business as Usual

I have always been a person who speaks out. But no academic institution before Penn State ever marginalized me for it. Back in 2005, I was part of a group of activists at American University who protested the far-too-gentle treatment of then-president Benjamin Ladner, who had used university funds for personal expenses. One day, we rented a U-Haul and drove it around campus with a billboard that said, “No golden parachute. We’ll help Ladner move.”

This protest was featured in The Washingtonian magazine, and I cowrote a letter urging no mercy for Ladner that was published in the Washington Post. Yet in spite of all this, I always felt safe at American; and despite all my rabblerousing, I was awarded the top prize for academic achievement in the School of International Service.

Such a thing never would have happened at Penn State. You can’t get away with “treasonous” behavior there and survive.

Since I have never been good at keeping my mouth shut for political reasons, it’s probably not surprising that I was systematically pushed out of the Penn State system after I raised private concerns with administrators about the sexist and racist behavior I observed in a class. That was never forgotten; indeed, I was marked as a troublemaker out of the gate. The department escalated its abuses for the remainder of my three semesters at Penn State. In the end, they waited until I was vulnerable to make their final move.

Ultimately, I was more or less denied a one-semester medical leave of absence after I was diagnosed with lupus in 2008. On the one hand, I was told that I could leave for a semester, but I was also told I would not receive health insurance while I was gone, nor would I be guaranteed funding on my return. Faculty half-heartedly suggested that this wasn’t actually termination, but of course it was termination, as later meetings with administrators made plain.

When the university finally moved to push me out of my department in 2009, I felt so beaten down by the two years of struggle I’d undergone that I lost the resolve to stay and fight. By then, I just wanted out. I had been the subject of a targeted bullying campaign that culminated in a letter written by the department’s then-graduate director to the administrators handling my case. Through them, I learned that the very graduate director who had continuously assured me he was trying to be my advocate, had written a letter filled with trumped-up charges and outright lies about me.

The day I found out about that letter, one officer dealing with my case noted to me that I was “unwittingly getting caught up in dysfunction that started long before you even got here. I don’t even understand why you want to work with them.” Indeed, just before my arrival, my department (philosophy) had been embroiled in lawsuits and was placed in receivership. Due to swirling allegations of sexual harassment and faculty infighting, the department was not permitted to govern itself or admit new graduate students for a few years. During this time, many students were pushed out of the university for political allegiances seen as disloyal to the department. Several faculty members left, some of whom later sued as a result of what they viewed as campaigns to remove them from the university.

Looking back at the timeline I ultimately prepared for legal counsel, I am once again shocked by how meticulously calculated my expulsion from the university was. Nevertheless, the graduate director who purged me (and another student in similar circumstances the year after) has since been promoted to a deanship. For a long time, I have stayed quiet about what happened to me and others at Penn State. Then Sandusky happened, and it seemed wrong to keep quiet any longer.

At the end of the day, this is what I have concluded: University culture in general runs on a certain degree of dysfunction. As a result, many who go public with their experiences of abuse are told, “Oh, that’s just academic politics.” A graduate of my former program at Penn State -- from long before my time -- recently found me via Twitter. He said it’s sometimes difficult to communicate just how bad his experience was to people without direct knowledge of the culture. “Sometimes I think they may not even believe me,” he said.

When I entered Penn State, I thought I was already cynical about politics in higher education. In the course of those years, I began to learn that this university’s dysfunction could be far more treacherous than what I would call the "normal" university dysfunction of my previous institutions. In some ways, I was lucky that the experience only ruined my academic career and personal finances. Compared to many others, I am largely unscathed.

Ultimately, I hope that the Sandusky case will have an important public impact, empowering others like me to speak out and motivating the public to demand answers about just what goes on in State College – even beyond the football stadium. The ongoing criminal investigations and NCAA sanctions are a good start, and will likely have wide-ranging consequences for the university. But the public has yet to truly understand how deep and wide this culture of abuse runs within the university as a whole.

It will be crucial for the public to watch carefully as Penn State tries to redeem its image. Right now, it would be very easy for the administration to use Sandusky and Paterno as sacrificial lambs, and the university’s acceptance of the NCAA penalties as “proof” that the place is changing -- while continuing to operate, off the athletic fields, much as it always has. Citizens and taxpayers should demand more. If the state of Pennsylvania cannot or will not hold Penn State accountable as an institution, we have a responsibility to do it ourselves.

"It's cheaper to get it from China."

Mitt Romney, as head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Committee

Made in China: Olympic Pin Shaped Like Mitt Romney’s Face

After controversy arose over Ralph Lauren’s 2012 U.S. Olympic uniforms’ Chinese origins, Mitt Romney told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that the issue is “extraneous” to the focus of the games.

“The Olympic games are about the athletes and we’re going to watch the athlete perform and these other matters are extraneous I think to the heart of the matter, which is how well will our athletes do?” Romney said. “I’m not going to get into the uniform issue.”

Like the uniforms in 2012 and in 2002, when Mitt Romney ran the Salt Lake Olympics much of its official memorabilia was manufactured overseas, including a 9/11 commemorative pin and another fashioned in the shape of Romney’s head.

Salt Lake 2002 Olympics paraphernalia obtained by ABC bears “Made in China” and “Made in Bangladesh” stamps.

Two hats, made by Illinois-based American Needle, were manufactured in Bangladesh. A collectible tin and several pins, including a cartoonish Romney likeness and a 9/11 pin bearing the words “United We Stand,” were manufactured in China by Aminco, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s sole licensee for lapel pins, according to the company’s website. A stuffed animal was made in China by Fischer Price, and a Salt Lake 2002 tote bag was made in Taiwan.

While Aminco, the pin-maker, produced licensed memorabilia for the U.S. Olympic Committee, Romney did not work for that organization. He served as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, which planned the games.

We’ve found no mention of the memorabilia by Romney, a businessman brought in to save the Olympics from scandal and fiscal peril, but he did address the notion of cutting costs by buying from China in another area of Olympic organizing.

When Romney’s Salt Lake Organizing Committee developed the Gateway plaza in Salt Lake City, offering patrons and residents the chance to buy bricks for $100 and have their names inscribed, the committee used granite bricks from China, despite an abundance of granite in the nearby Wasatch mountains, the Salt Lake Tribune reported at the time. 

“It’s extraordinary,” Romney told the paper, “but it’s cheaper to get it from China.”

..

Top Republicans denounce attack on Clinton aide

Michelle Bachmann

By Thomas Ferraro | Reuters – Thu, Jul 19, 2012.. ..

(Reuters) - The top Republican in the Congress on Thursday criticized Representative Michele Bachmann and four other fellow House Republicans for making "pretty dangerous" accusations when they questioned the security clearance of a Muslim aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The comments of House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner came after Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, blasted the five lawmakers for seeking an investigation into whether Huma Abedin, Clinton's deputy chief of staff, had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization.

Boehner, speaking at a regular news briefing, said "accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous." He said he did not know Abedin, but "from everything I know of her, she has a sterling character."

McCain took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to accuse the lawmakers of making a "sinister" attack on Abedin. Following the custom in Congress, he did not name them but left no doubt he was talking about Bachmann, as well as Representatives Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Thomas Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland.

They sent a letter in June to the State Department's inspector general suggesting members of Abedin's family may have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the writers said may be seeking access to high levels of the U.S. government.

Most attention has focused on Bachmann, who earlier this year failed in her bid for the Republican presidential nomination. She has long been criticized by fellow Republicans, among others, for controversial comments and factual errors.

Bachmann defended her actions Thursday on the talk show of conservative host Glenn Beck. "If my family members were associated with Hamas, a terrorist organization, that alone could be sufficient to disqualify me from getting a security clearance," Bachmann said, according to a transcript of her remarks. "So all we did is ask, did the federal government look into her family associations before she got a high level security clearance."

There is no evidence connecting Abedin or her family to any terrorist organization, McCain stressed in his Senate speech.

"Rarely do I come to the floor of this institution to discuss particular individuals," McCain said. "But I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person's character, reputation, and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness."

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He called Abedin "an intelligent, upstanding, hard-working, and loyal servant of our country and our government, who has devoted countless days of her life to advancing the ideals of the nation she loves and looking after its most precious interests."

 

A State Department spokesman said Clinton "very much values" Abedin's "wise counsel and support" and called the allegations preposterous.

McCain was supported on Wednesday by Edward Rollins, a prominent Republican strategist who worked on Bachmann's primary campaign.

On the Fox News website, Rollins wrote that he was "fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts," but said "this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level," a reference to the U.S. senator from Wisconsin who rose and then fell accusing government officials and others of being communists in the 1950s.

"....Shame on you, Michele!" Rollins wrote, adding that she should apologize to Abedin, Clinton and "to the millions of hard working, loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges."

The lawmakers' June 13 letter, which they released publicly, asserted that the State Department had recently taken action "enormously favorable" to the Muslim Brotherhood and that its interests could pose a security risk for the United States.

The letter cited a security study by an outside group alleging that three members' of Abedin's family, including her father who died two decades ago, and her mother and brother were linked to operatives or organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abedin is married to former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner of New York, a Jew.

(Additional reporting by John Crawley; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)

CDC: Whooping cough rising at alarming rate in US

Associated PressBy MIKE STOBBE | Associated Press – 16 hrs ago


ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. appears headed for its worst year for whooping cough in more than five decades, with the number of cases rising at an epidemic rate that experts say may reflect a problem with the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Nearly 18,000 cases have been reported so far — more than twice the number seen at this point last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. At this pace, the number for the entire year will be the highest since 1959, when 40,000 illnesses were reported.

Nine children have died, and health officials called on adults — especially pregnant women and those who spend time around children — to get a booster shot as soon as possible.

"My biggest concern is for the babies. They're the ones who get hit the hardest," said Mary Selecky, chief of the health department in Washington, one of the states with the biggest outbreaks. Washington and Wisconsin have reported more than 3,000 cases each, and high numbers have been seen in a number of other states, including New York, Minnesota and Arizona.

Whooping cough has generally been increasing for years, but this year's spike is startling. Health investigators are trying to figure out what's going on, and theories include better detection and reporting of cases, some sort of evolution in the bacteria that cause the illness, or shortcomings in the vaccine.

The vaccine that had been given to young children for decades was replaced in the late 1990s following concerns about rashes, fevers and other side effects. While the new version is considered safer, it is possible it isn't as effective long term, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who oversees the CDC's immunization and respiratory disease programs.

Some parents in California and other states have rebelled against vaccinations and gotten their children exempted from rules that require them to get their shots to enroll in school. Washington state has one of the highest exemption rates in the nation. But the CDC said that does not appear to be a major factor in the outbreak, since most of the youngsters who got sick had been vaccinated.

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. Its name comes from the sound children make as they gasp for breath.

It used to be a common threat, with hundreds of thousands of cases annually. Cases gradually dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s, and the disease came to be thought of as a relic of another age. For about 25 years, fewer than 5,000 cases were reported annually in the U.S. The numbers started to climb again in the 1990s.

In both 2004 and 2005, cases surpassed 25,000. The numbers dipped for a few years but jumped to more than 27,000 in 2010, the year California saw an especially bad epidemic.

Experts believe whooping cough occurs in cycles and peaks every three to five years. But they have been startled to see peaks this high. Vaccinations are supposed to tamp down the amount of infection in the population and make the valleys in the cycles longer, said Pejman Rohani, a University of Michigan researcher who is co-leader of a federally funded study of whooping cough trends.

The government recommends that children get vaccinated in five doses, with the first shot at age 2 months and the final one between 4 and 6 years. A booster shot is recommended around 11 or 12.

Vaccination rates for young children are good — about 84 percent of 3-year-olds have gotten the recommended number of shots. But fewer than 70 percent of adolescents have gotten all their shots. Most states require pertussis vaccinations for school attendance.

In a possible indicator of a problem with the vaccine, investigators in Washington state were alarmed to see high rates of whooping cough in youngsters around 13 and 14.

Whooping cough typically starts with cold-like symptoms that can include a runny nose, congestion, fever and a mild cough. The CDC advises parents to see a doctor if they or their children develop a prolonged or severe cough. Whooping cough is treated with antibiotics, the earlier the better.

Health authorities are girding for what may be a bad couple of years.

"There is a lot of pertussis out there, and there may be more coming to a place near you," Schuchat said.

___

Online:

CDC information on whooping cough: http://www.cdc.gov/features/pertussis/
CDC-recommended video of child with whooping cough: http://www.whoopingcough.net/video%20whooping%20cough.htm

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

By Matt Schudel, Published: July 17 

William Raspberry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post whose fiercely independent views illuminated conflicts concerning education, poverty, crime and race, and who was one of the first black journalists to gain a wide following in the mainstream press, died July 17 at his home in Washington. He was 76.

He had prostate cancer, said his wife, Sondra Raspberry.

Mr. Raspberry wrote an opinion column for The Washington Post for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2005. More than 200 newspapers carried his syndicated columns, which were filtered through the prism of his experience growing up in the segregated South.

His writings were often provocative but seldom predictable. Although he considered himself a liberal, Mr. Raspberry often bucked many of the prevailing pieties of liberal orthodoxy. He favored integration but opposed busing children to achieve racial balance. He supported gun control but — during a time when the District seemed to be a free-fire zone for drug sellers — he could understand the impulse to shoot back.

When strident voices were shouting for attention, Mr. Raspberry often favored a moderate tone. He did not consider himself a political partisan and even stopped appearing on argumentative news-talk shows because, as he said in 2006, “they force you to pretend to be mad even when you’re not.”

Instead of following other pundits to Capitol Hill, Mr. Raspberry looked at another side of Washington: the problems facing ordinary people, sometimes voiced through an imaginary D.C. cabdriver — simply called “the cabbie” — who was a recurring figure in his columns.

“From the day Bill Raspberry wrote his first Post column, his advice was as wise and his voice as clear as anyone’s in Washington,” Donald E. Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co., said in an interview. “To the city, Bill’s columns brought 40 years of smart, independent judgment.”

Mr. Raspberry stood slightly apart from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which he viewed not as a participant but from the detached perspective of a reporter. Because his views did not always conform to his readers’ expectations, he received pointed criticism from the right and the left.

“He was viewed as a truth-teller,” Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a lawyer, civil rights advocate and political adviser, said in an interview. “I am sure that I disagreed with him on a number of things. He had a way of telling you to go to hell and making you look forward to the trip.”

Self-reliance and education

Mr. Raspberry derived some of his core principles from a bedrock belief in self-reliance and the importance of education. He often cited the example of his parents, both of whom were teachers. He challenged prominent civil rights figures to put their words into action to help build a better world for the poor and disenfranchised.

“Education is the one best hope black Americans have for a decent future,” Mr. Raspberry wrote in a 1982 column. “The civil rights leadership, for all its emphasis on desegregating schools, has done very little to improve them.”

Anger at the forces that caused racism was fine, Mr. Raspberry argued, but anger in itself did not solve problems. Recalling his own childhood in Mississippi, he recognized that children could thrive even when poverty was just beyond the window.

“It’s not racism that’s keeping our children from learning, it’s something much nearer home than that,” he told Washingtonian magazine in 2003. “We need to remember that the most influential resource a child can have is a parent who cares. And we need to admit that sometimes parents are the missing ingredient.”

When Mr. Raspberry began writing a column on local matters for The Post in 1966, the only nationally syndicated black columnist in the general press was Carl T. Rowan. In 1970, Mr. Raspberry’s column moved to the paper’s op-ed page.

“Bill Raspberry inspired a rising generation of African American columnists and commentators who followed in his path, including me,” Clarence Page, a Pulitzer-winning columnist with the Chicago Tribune, told The Post. He added that Mr. Raspberry and Rowan “blazed a trail for the rest of us, not only as journalists but as voices of courage against the narrow ideologies of the left or right.”

As a columnist, Mr. Raspberry disagreed with the journalistic credo of “cynical coldheartedness masquerading as objectivity,” he told Editor & Publisher magazine in 1994. Instead, he believed members of the press could “care about the people they report on and still retain the capacity to tell the story straight.”

When Mr. Raspberry won the Pulitzer for commentary in 1994, he was the second African American columnist to achieve the honor. (Page was the first, in 1989.) Mr. Raspberry’s Pulitzer-winning columns covered a range of topics, from female genital mutilation in Africa to urban violence, to musings on the legacies of civil rights leaders.

Mr. Raspberry drew analogies between Somalia, where U.S. troops were deployed at the time, and violent sections of the District, where — as in Mogadishu — heavily armed young men in fast vehicles controlled vast stretches of the city.

“How different are parts of Somalia from parts of the United States?” he wrote. “And how much more like Somalia would the United States become if the gun-rights people have their way?”

In another column, Mr. Raspberry appeared, at first glance, to deliver a rant about hip-hop music. But he made an unexpected turn, showing how tastes in music reflected the changing realities of young people’s lives.

“My children . . . easily tick off four, five, six friends who have died in the past few years,” he wrote. “Three were homicides — shot down either over drugs or over some offense that would have cost a member of my generation a bloody nose at most.

“ . . . And we worry about song lyrics?”

‘I grew up in apartheid’

William James Raspberry was born Oct. 12, 1935, in the northeastern Mississippi town of Okolona. He was one of five children of James and Willie Mae Raspberry. His father taught shop and his mother taught English at a high school and a two-year college for African American students. He often cited his parents and the small academy in Okolona as crucial influences on his life.

“I grew up in apartheid,” he told the News & Record of Greensboro, N.C., in 1996. “And yet it never induced my parents to teach us anything else than that we were responsible for our own behavior, for our own minds.”

Mr. Raspberry left Mississippi to attend Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis). In college, he worked at the Indianapolis Recorder, a weekly newspaper geared toward black audiences.

After graduating in 1958, he served as a public information officer with the Army. In 1962, Mr. Raspberry was hired as a Teletype operator by The Post. Within months, he began working as one of the first black reporters for the newspaper’s Metro desk.

Seeking a way to stand out, he recalled in a 2005 interview with NPR, “I started asking myself, ‘What is it I know that the other guys don’t know? What am I better at?’ And my thought was that I’ve had a couple decades being black, and they haven’t.”

Mr. Raspberry made a name for himself in 1965, when The Post dispatched him to cover riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles. A year later, he was a columnist.

After the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, Mr. Raspberry wrote a series of dispatches from the strife-torn streets of Washington, chronicling a city on fire.

Mr. Raspberry was known as a careful monitor of racial politics, but some readers were incensed in 1990, when he appeared to voice grudging respect for the polarizing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. A year earlier, Mr. Raspberry had excoriated what he called the “gratuitous antisemitism” of Farrakhan and some of his supporters.

“Blacks in particular are at pains to force America to face up to racism, blatant and subtle, and to demand that others be sensitive to our special concerns,” Mr. Raspberry wrote. “Is it too much to suggest that those who demand sensitivity have a duty to practice it?”

Survivors include Mr. Raspberry’s wife of 45 years, Sondra Dodson Raspberry of Washington; three children, Patricia D. Raspberry and Mark J. Raspberry, both of Washington, and Angela Raspberry Jackson of Detroit; a foster son, Reginald Harrison of Manassas; his 106-year-old mother, Willie Mae Tucker Raspberry of Indianapolis; a sister; and a brother.

Mr. Raspberry taught journalism for more than 10 years at Duke University and received more than 15 honorary doctorates. A collection of his columns, “Looking Backward at Us,” was published in 1991, and he received awards from the National Press Club and the National Association of Black Journalists.

In retirement, Mr. Raspberry devoted much of his time to an educational foundation, Baby Steps, that he organized in his hometown in Mississippi. He funded the project for low-income parents and children from his own pocket.

After writing more than 5,000 opinion columns, Mr. Raspberry said in a speech at the University of Virginia in 2006, he had learned two important lessons.

The first, he said, “is that in virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides.”

“The second, which has kept my confidence from turning into arrogance, is that it is entirely possible for you to disagree with me without being, on that account, either a scoundrel or a fool.”

Blogger's Note:  We loved him.

(Reuters) - The fall from grace of the late legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno turned into a plunge on Tuesday.

Days after a blistering report accused Paterno of covering up the child sex abuse of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky to shield Penn State's reputation, Paterno's alma mater, Brown University in Providence, R.I., said it stripped his name from an annual athletic award.

On Penn State's campus, members of a student group that manages a rallying spot for the Nittany Lions' football games changed the spot's name from "Paternoville" to "Nittanyville," according to a statement by the Nittanyville Coordinating Committee.

And debate reached a fever pitch over whether to remove a 7-foot (2.1-meter) statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium at Penn State that hails him as the winner of more games than any other coach in the history of major-college football.

"Take the statue down or we will," read a banner trailed by a small plane buzzing over State College, Pa., home of Penn State, a photograph posted on Twitter showed.

A report released last week by former FBI Director Louis Freeh accused Paterno and other Pennsylvania State University officials of failing for 14 years to protect children victimized by Sandusky.

Sandusky, 68, was arrested in November and convicted last month of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. He faces up to 373 years in prison.


Brown eliminated a football coaching chair named after Paterno earlier this year "due to issues that predated the Penn State matter," the university said in a statement.

It said his name was removed this spring from an award that has been given annually since 1991 to an outstanding male freshman athlete. The yearly honor had been named for Paterno, who graduated from the Ivy League school in 1950 and was inducted into the Brown Hall of Fame.

The change was made permanent on Tuesday.

"The director of athletics has now recommended and the university has approved the decision to remove permanently the Paterno name from the award," the university said in a statement.

Paterno was fired by Penn State's board in November shortly after Sandusky's arrest. He died in January of lung cancer at age 85. His family, angered by the Freeh report, has said it will conduct its own probe of the scandal.

(Additional reporting by Joseph O'Leary; Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Cynthia Osterman and Ciro Scotti)

Death at the Dentist's Office

American children are being put at risk by inadequately trained dentists who often seek to enhance profits by sedating their young patients for even routine tooth cleaning and cavity treatments, an ABC News investigation has found.

In many cases, even well-trained dentists have been unable or ill-equipped to handle emergencies with young patients.

More than a dozen children have died after being sedated by dentists, according to the Raven Maria Blanco Foundation, which seeks to alert parents to the potential dangers of the increasingly widespread use of oral sedatives on patients as young as 18-months old.

There is no national registry of dental deaths, and some experts say many deaths go unreported or are never officially tied to dental sedation.

Eight-year old Raven Blanco died after her dentist, Dr. Michael Hechtkopf, gave her "three times the average range" of sedatives, according to the Virginia Board of Dentistry.

The dentist had his license restricted for three months and was ordered to complete seven hours of continuing education in record keeping and risk management. He has since retired.

A lawyer for Dr. Hechtkopf said the dentist "regretted" what happened.

Raven's parents, Robin and Mario Blanco, set up a foundation in their daughter's name to urge dentists to be better prepared for emergencies and to warn parents that what happened to their daughter could happen to others.

They told ABC News, in an interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline," that parents assume that a dentists "should know what he's doing and that's not always the case."

The ABC News investigation found a patchwork of state regulations with some states requiring only a weekend-long course for dentists to be certified in the administration of oral sedatives.

"Who thinks that they're gonna take their daughter to the dentist and never bring her home?" said Ommettress Travis of Chicago, whose five-year-old daughter Diamond died after being sedated prior to have cavities filled and teeth capped.

The Illinois Board of Dentistry found that Diamond's dentist, Dr. Hicham Riba, administered an excessive dose of sedatives to the kindergarten-aged girl and "demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of conscious sedation" despite having performed thousands of procedures over nine years.

Leading dental professionals say sedation for routine procedures can make it safer to work on young patients whose anxiety can make it difficult or dangerous to use high speed drills and other equipment.

But, they say, it takes extensive training to learn how to administer sedation safely and be prepared to deal with emergencies.

"This is something that is being presented to the practitioners, the dental community, as a very easy thing to do, and nothing could be further from the truth," said Dr. Norbert Kaminski, a dental anesthesiologist in suburban Detroit, who has sought tougher standards for dentists who use sedation on patients.

In the last five years, more than 18,000 dentists across the country have signed-up for weekend-long courses in oral sedation that are set up in local hotel ballrooms and promise to add tens of thousands of dollars to the bottom line.

"Pain-free dentistry can means tens of thousands of dollars of extra income in your pocket annually, and as much as half a million extra in your pocket at retirement," wrote Dr. Michael Silverman, a dentist who runs a company that offers weekend-long training sessions for dentists in the use of oral sedation.

A national spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Dr. Indru Punwani of the University of Illinois, said a weekend course is "inadequate" for preparing dentists to deal with emergencies that can arise through the use of oral sedatives.

"I don't believe it can be done," said Dr. Punwani of the promise of the popular weekend courses to train dentists. Dentists following the sedation guidelines of the AAPD have never been tied to a death, said Dr. Punwani.

Dr. Silverman declined to be interviewed by ABC News, but in a written response said, "Everyone who has attended and completed any of our DOCS Education courses knows that safety is by far our top concern and emphasis."

The program brochure says of its single dose sedation course: "Give us three days, and we'll teach you both adult and pediatric protocols -- serving patients from ages 5 to 95 -- that you can take home and implement immediately."

In its brochure, the program also recommends but does not require dentists to also enroll in a separate "pediatric advanced life support" course.

Blogger's Note:  My friend John's son was two years old when he died.  He was over anesthetized in the dentist's chair.

Black women have been the most mistreated and scandalized in U.S. society and culture.

By Theola Labbé-DeBose, Published: July 6

Georgetown law student Melanie Habwe Dickson stood nervously outside a District courtroom, waiting for the chance to argue for her client, a domestic-abuse survivor.

It was Dickson’s first time in front of a judge, and she needed something to help her relax. She pulled out her smartphone to find an inspirational verse and then remembered that she still carried an excerpt from a text she had read during her weekly Bible study group.

As soon as she looked at the page, her eyes fell on a quotation from “Counsels to Parents, Teachers and Students,” a 1913 book written by Ellen G. White, a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

 

“For what purpose are you seeking an education? Is it not that you may relieve the suffering of humanity?”

Finding that verse at that moment was no coincidence, thought Dickson, 25. God had spoken. Instantly, a sense of calm and confidence enveloped her. In times like these, when she feels anxious, afraid or unsure, Dickson relies on her faith.


So, too, do nearly nine in 10 African American women, according to a nationwide survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser F amily Foundation. The poll, the most extensive look at black women’s lives in decades, reveals that as a group, black women are among the most religious people in the nation. Although black men are almost as religious as their female counterparts, there is a more stark divide along racial lines.


The survey found that 74 percent of black women and 70 percent of black men said that “living a religious life” is very important. On that same question, the number falls to 57 percent of white women and 43 percent of white men.


But in times of turmoil, about 87 percent of black women — much more than any other group — say they turn to their faith to get through. Black women, across education and income levels, say living a religious life is a greater priority than being married or having children, and this call to faith either surpasses or pulls even with having a career as a life goal, the survey shows.


“I can’t separate my faith from who I am. It’s like being black or being a woman,” said Dickson, who grew up Catholic, drifted away from religion as a teenager but found her way back through a Bible study at a Baptist church while she was an undergraduate at Columbia University.


Cultural influences


Clearly, according to the poll, the majority of white women are also believers. But cultural influences probably account for the racial gap, said Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, a professor of sociology and African American studies at Colby College in Maine.


Gilkes, an African American ordained minister and assistant pastor at a Baptist church in Massachusetts, said she has even heard as much from her white academic colleagues. “They say, ‘If my parents had taken me to a church that had music like yours, I might still be religious,’ ” Gilkes said.


African Americans are more likely to have grown up with gospel music in the background of their lives, as well as with a mother or grandmother who insisted on all-day church on Sundays and Bible school in the summers


Inextricably woven into black culture has been the sense that devotion and faith in God more strongly connect black men and women to their slave ancestors, who leaned on religious faith to help maintain their dignity in the face of discrimination and harsh and unjust treatment.


Some theologians argue that women in general and black women in particular are more religious than men because of their experience with oppression.


Black women have been the most mistreated and scandalized in U.S. society and culture as they wrestle both individually and collectively with the triple jeopardy of racism, sexism and classism,” said Stacey Floyd-Thomas, an associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. “If that is the case — and I believe it is — it is no wonder that black women, due to their experience of sexism, would seek out their faith as a way of finding relief, reprieve, resolution and redemption.”

But even in the church, black women often find themselves in male-dominated institutions that are not always open to sharing power, said Anthony B. Pinn, a professor of humanities and religious studies at Rice University.

“Black women provide most of the labor and a significant amount of the financial resources but don’t hold an equivalent degree of authority in these (religious)organizations,” he said.


For roughly a quarter of black women who responded to the survey, religion plays a less-than-primary role in their lives; a scant 2 percent of them said it is “not at all” important. They are women such as Sikivu Hutchinson, the author of “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars,” who describes herself as an atheist.

“What has religiosity and belief in supernatural beings really achieved for African Americans in the 21st century — and in particular African American women, given our low socioeconomic position?” she asked.

Hutchinson said she grew up in a household where history books and great works of literature dominated the shelves. “The Bible was something I was only cursorily familiar with,” she said. But when a schoolmate, a preacher’s daughter, once urged her to check in with God and read the Bible, Hutchinson gave it a try. Still, she said, her questions about religion remained.

Looking back on her childhood, Hutchinson wonders: “Why would children be compelled to profess belief, especially when they look around them and see that the world is overpopulated with adult believers flaunting their immorality?”


Hutchinson contends that perhaps there aren’t more black women grappling with that answer because there is little in their communities that supports a different perspective.

For most African American women, absolute trust in a higher power has been a truism for centuries. In follow-up interviews with some of the black women surveyed, there seemed to be little or no angst about their religious beliefs or their role in the church. The women said their focus is on one thing: their personal relationship with God.


He may belong to everyone, the women said, but He knows them individually, and guides them, cares for them — even chastises them. He is a God they can talk to about anything, and He talks back, not in the booming Charlton Heston-like voice of the movies, but through the seeming coincidences that occur at just the right time. It’s when that good idea or answer to something they have been struggling with just appears to come out of nowhere, the women said. And it is that deeply felt, inexplicable sense about what is right or wrong.

When life is harsh and doesn’t turn out as they expect, they say, they rely even more strongly on God.

Peace in the storm

For Loleata Griffin, her faith is literally a lifeline.

One Saturday night in May 2009, her oldest child, Michael, 18, asked whether he could go out with some friends in Adams Morgan to celebrate a new job. Griffin said yes. It was the last time she saw him alive.

Hours later, her son was on the news. According to D.C. police, Michael Griffin was killed in an exchange of gunfire with two officers, who were wounded after Griffin fired at them and refused to drop his weapon.

When her son was buried, something in Griffin died, too. “I wanted to jump in the dirt with him,” she said.

She spent months in her bedroom with the curtains drawn. Despair replaced her normally zealous motherly concern for her two school-age daughters, Priana and Paige. Griffin’s mother moved into her Columbia Heights apartment to take care of the girls.

“Just the sound of their voices calling for me, it literally made me feel sick to my stomach,” Griffin recalled.

She told her mother that she wanted to die. She saw a psychiatrist. She tried medication. She broke things. She cursed at God. Nothing worked. The anger seethed.

“I had started going to church again right before Michael passed,” Griffin said. “I asked God, ‘Why? Why did you do this?’ ”

The depression started to lift after a phone call from the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative. It was putting together a support group, Crossing the Lines, for mothers who had lost their children and asked her to join.

Many of the African American mothers were already religious, so as they came together, they found themselves opening and closing their gatherings in prayer. They invited a pastor to one of their meetings. It wasn’t intentional, but faith became the bedrock of the group.

Griffin is now its president. “Prayer is the only medication for our pain, and our therapy is faith in Jesus Christ,” she said.

Griffin also found a prayer book amid the condolence gifts from friends and family. Titled simply “Prayers,” the book taught her how to find the words to speak to God when she needed support and guidance, she sid. Eventually, she let go of the empty quest to find out how and why her son died. Her plaintive prayers of “Why, God?” were transformed into expressions of gratitude for her life and her daughters.

“I love being a mommy again. I absolutely love it, and my girls are a blessing from God,” Griffin said.


“I tried everything,” Griffin said of her quest for healing. “This is the only thing that is making me feel better — having a personal relationship with God. I talk to Him every day.”

And God has shaped the lives of her children, too. Paige, the older one, loves to listen to gospel music.


“I never knew what it was like to lose someone you see every day until my brother died,” Paige said. “Gospel music helps you to get closer to your loved ones.”

Some black women, including Tricia Elam, a 58-year-old Buddhist, have found peace in non-Christian faiths.

Elam grew up attending a Protestant church and was drawn to Buddhism in her adult years. She has been practicing the faith for 25 years, starting when she was an administrative law judge and was envious of a co-worker’s resolute calm. When she asked him his secret and he revealed that he was a practicing Buddhist, Elam went to check out a Buddhist center.

She was captivated by the sound of the repetitive, songlike chant, performed collectively by members in a group. At the time, her newfound faith was the main thing that helped her survive an acrimonious divorce, she said. “It just seemed to be something I was hungry for.”

Beyond church walls

Regardless of their brand of faith, many black women are taking their religion out of the institutional halls of worship and into living rooms and basements, where they gather to socialize, pray and share their issues with like-minded sisters. They are also using technology to host weekly prayer conference calls, in which they discuss their problems concerning money, relationships and family.

Kametra Matthews, 33, of Largo hosts a weekly 6 a.m. prayer call — billed as “Divine Divas” — with about 40 women from across the Washington region and beyond.

On Monday nights, she works to prepare the lesson, or devotion, for that week’s call, and by Tuesday afternoon she sends an e-mail that includes the Scripture passages. Matthews leads the call, which features discussion on the Biblical selection. Group members also share praise reports — everyday moments in their lives that they believe are God-inspired — and offer prayer requests, such as healing for the sick or relief from financial difficulties. And they pray together.

“I can cast all my cares on Him,” Matthews said. “Having that personal relationship with Him allows me to do what He created me to do and fulfill His purpose for my life.”

Dawn Carter, 33, of Southeast Washington also said her faith is about having an intimate relationship with God. “It’s not about getting up and going to church or a house of worship once a week,” she said. “It’s about a personal devotion and making those beliefs and practices that the Scriptures teach us a part of your everyday life.”

Carter, a third-year seminary student who also works full time in the admissions office at Coppin State University in Baltimore, said she often prays in private over the problems students confide to her. When she hears back from them that the issue has been resolved, she is not surprised. “I’ll just smile,” she said.

She is sure of the source.


Peyton Craighill contributed to this report.

 Now That's Real (GOP) Patriotism

Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh, who has earned a reputation for caustic remarks and spontaneous tirades, this week accused opponent Tammy Duckworth--a double-amputee who lost her legs while serving as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq--of using her military service to score political points.

The Illinois Republican-- who has not served in the military-- on Wednesday chose not to back down from comments he made accusing his Democratic opponent of talking too much about her time in the Army.

"She is a hero, and that demands our respect, but it doesn't demand our vote," Walsh said Wednesday on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. "All she does, guys, is talk about her service."

On Thursday, Walsh stood by his comments, telling CNN host Ashleigh Banfield: "This wasn't a slip up. I don't regret anything I said." Walsh added that he honors every man or woman who served in the military and accused Duckworth's campaign and his opponents of "manufacturing" an issue and of conducting opposition research against him.

Walsh's comments Wednesday and Thursday followed a speech Walsh made at a campaign event Sunday at which Walsh lauded Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, for his humility and refusal to talk candidly about his service.

"Now I'm running against a woman who, I mean-- my God-- that's all she talks about," Walsh told an audience in Elk Grove, Ill. "Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it's the last thing in the world they talk about." Progressive site ThinkProgress captured video of Sunday's criticism:

Apparently, there is no honor among thieves

The Wall Street Journal opinion page offered up a blistering rebuke of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign on Thursday, suggesting it is "slowly squandering a historic opportunity" to defeat President Barack Obama this fall.

"Mr. Obama is being hurt by an economic recovery that is weakening for the third time in three years," the Journal's editorial board wrote in a scathing op-ed. "But Mr. Romney hasn't been able to take advantage, and if anything he is losing ground."

Giving voice to hand-wringing conservatives critical of the Romney campaign, the Journal questioned the Republican nominee's overall game plan, trashing an "insular staff and strategy" that is too short on specifics.

"The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault," the paper wrote. "Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is assailing Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch rich man, and the rich man obliged by vacationing this week at his lake-side home with a jet-ski cameo."

The paper accused the Romney campaign of being "too slow to respond" to the Obama campaign's attacks on Bain Capital.

"Team Obama is now opening up a new assault on Mr. Romney as a job outsourcer with foreign bank accounts, and if the Boston boys let that one go unanswered, they ought to be fired for malpractice," the paper wrote.

The Romney campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but the editorial comes just days after Rupert Murdoch, the paper's owner, posted a message on Twitter calling for Romney to fire his campaign team. He later wrote that the Romney team was "upset" with him for the message, but insisted they should listen to "good advice."

In an interview on MSNBC on Monday, Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney senior adviser, politely rejected Murdoch's suggestion, insisting the candidate is "happy" with his team as is.

It's the second time the Journal's editorial page has taken aim at Romney. Last year, the paper called him a "compromised and not credible candidate" because of the health care mandate he helped pass as governor of Massachusetts. At the time, the paper described Romney as "Obama's running mate."

..

 Countrywide offered mortgage discounts to lawmakers, staff

By Russell Berman and Peter Schroeder - 07/05/12 01:18 PM ET THE HILL

The mortgage company Countrywide Financial used a VIP program to give preferential treatment to members of Congress, Capitol Hill staffers and senior government officials, according to a report released Thursday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The committee, chaired by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), issued a 114-page report finding that the Washington lobbyist for the failed mortgage company routinely referred high-profile D.C. clients to a VIP office within the firm, which gave them, in some instances, thousands of dollars in discounts off their mortgages.

Countrywide had an exclusive agreement to sell mortgages to Fannie Mae at a discounted rate, and the preferential treatment for lawmakers and government officials came at a time when the company was lobbying against legislation that would have reformed government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the report found.

Among the lawmakers receiving VIP loans were Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and a senior staffer for former Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah). Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) also had a loan processed by Countrywide's VIP team, but did not receive a discount at his request.

The report noted that its finding contradicted claims made by Dodd that he was not aware he was part of the VIP programs, while it confirmed an assertion by Sessions, the chairman of the House GOP’s campaign arm, that he specifically requested not to receive a discounted rate from the firm.

The report found that in total, the Countrywide VIP unit made 29 loans to 12 different members of Congress and staff.

Current and former members reportedly tied to the VIP program have repeatedly aired their innocence, saying they were not aware of receiving any special treatment from Countrywide.

But Issa's report details multiple examples when members or their spouses received paperwork from Countrywide that specifically stated they were participating in a VIP program.

For example, a spokesman for House Armed Services Chairman McKeon reportedly said in February the congressman was unaware of any special program, but Issa’s report found documents sent to McKeon’s home thanking him for participating in the VIP program.

Dodd has maintained he never sought out special treatment form Countrywide. Issa’s report found Dodd received discounts on two home loans, and that Dodd’s wife was notified they were receiving service through a VIP program.

The report also found that Sessions specifically worked to ensure he did not receive special treatment from Countrywide when he went to them for a home loan in 2007.

Emails sent by Countrywide officials show that Sessions did not receive a discount “due to the fact that [he] is an elected official.”

Beyond lawmakers, the report found Countrywide doled out VIP treatment to other influential Washington figures, including two former secretaries of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It also found that the lender actually took a loss on a loan made to the former head of Fannie Mae, Daniel Mudd, who is now facing charges of securities fraud along with other former GSE officials for downplaying to investors their exposure to risky subprime loans in the build-up to the housing crisis.

Issa wrapped up the report by saying Congress should consider making it illegal for companies to offer discounts or other types of preferential treatment to members of Congress or their staff, adding that such a ban should apply not just to mortgage lenders, but car dealers, jewelry stores and any other company that offers financing opportunities.

He added that when members of Congress or their staff enter into any complex financial transaction they should follow Session's lead, saying up front that they should not receive discounts.

Bank of America purchased the troubled mortgage lender in 2008 for $2.5 billion. Through a combination of losses on real estate holdings, legal expenses, and settlements with state and federal regulators, the acquisition has cost the bank over $40 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Countrywide's former CEO, Angelo Mozilo, who helmed the lender's “Friends of Angelo” program, has also faced tough times. In 2010, he paid a record $22.5 million penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle charges he and other ex-Countrywide officials misled investors and the subprime mortgage crisis developed. He is also barred from ever again serving as an officer or director of a public company.