You Don't Know Dick -- Utah

The good art is towards the end...

Joe Cannon and Ethics

I work in politics. I am also writer, editor, and, well, everything else on this blog. I keep those two roles separate. When I was hired a month ago I made it clear that I was still going to be keeping this blog. I also made it clear that nobody was going to tell me what to write, and what not to write. I have chosen not to write about what happens at work, but I still have the right to if there is anything worthwhile.

That being said, I am not a journalist. I'm a commentator. I'm more a Robert Kirby or Brad Rock than a Thomas Burr. I have my biases, and I have the ability to report or not report on anything I want.

However, the Deseret Morning News is expected to be fair and balanced. They are expected to report the news. That's what newspapers do.

All media organizations would have given their left legs AND their right arms to have gotten access to the Super Adventure Club meeting last weekend. Getting anyone in the room would have been good. Heck, even if they could have gotten a night custodian with a third-grade education in there with a notebook and camera phone, they would have taken it. Heck, they probably would have sent their third grader.

Yet, the Deseret News got someone to infiltrate the SUper Adventure Club. And, it wasn't some cub reporter.

It was Joe Cannon, their editor. However, he had to sign a no-reporting confidentiality agreement before he was taught the secret handshake.

This would be akin to my signing a no-flirting contract before attending a singles ward. It just doesn't make sense.

Maybe if Joe was going as the former State Party Chair, especially if he had been invited a year ago, before he had his current job.

However, that's not the case.

From Saturday's Tribune: "Cannon says he will be explaining to the group how newspapers operate and describing the local media scene. "These people don't know a lot about how newspapers work." "

And Joe Cannon, who has worked in the newspaper industry for a whopping 10 months, is an expert in the field.

For more on this, visit j-man.

Cheney, Speaking to the Super Adventure Club

Mitt Romney lines up with General Conference Protestors (with Dick Cheney and Chris Cannon, too!)

Sharing the program with Dick Cheney at tomorrow's meeting of the Super Adventure Club is Mitt Romney. SOme of the prominant members of the Super Adventure CLub and what they have had to say about the religion Mitt and I happen to share:

Pat Robertson (Through CBN):

"In summary, the Mormon church is a prosperous, growing organization that has produced many people of exemplary character. But when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are far from the truth. "

Bob Jones III (On Larry King Live):

"KING: The argument against the Mormons is what?

JONES: Mormonism is pantheistic -- it is a religion of -- well, it doesn't teach the same thing about Jesus Christ that we teach. Mormonism teaches that Jesus Christ...

KING: Came back,

JONES: ... were brothers, that they were spirit children that God and his wife fathered in heaven, and that when there's a Mormon marriage in the temple and so forth and so on, that that couple when they die go to a planet and people it with spirit children, just like God and his wife people heaven, and that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, and that Lucifer rebelled, and Jesus sided with the father. Therefore, he had -- the Bible teaches very clearly that Jesus Christ is God. He is not a created being, he is God. He is in essence -- he is very God of very God."

Phyllis Schlafly (not about mormonism, but interesting given the Warren Jeffs thing):

“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape,” she said.

And, while I'm qoting things, here's a quote about the Super Adventure Club from Utah Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Holland:

“We welcome members of CNP to Utah,” said Wayne Holland, chair of the Democratic Party of Utah. “Utahns have a rare opportunity to see – or more accurately not see – what Republicans are all about. And that is policy making by the few, by the privileged, in secret.”

-Bob

P.S. Super Adventure Club is a South Park reference.

Cheney, Romney, Cannon to share podium at secret (combination) meeting

Tommy BUrr in Out of COntext:

Vice President Dick Cheney will drop into Salt Lake City on Friday to speak to the Council for National Policy, a group so private even its members are encouraged not to mention the name.

Ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will also address the group as will the Czech Republic president and Congressman Chris Cannon.

But don't expect to see any coverage of the event as the meeting of hundreds of the nation's most powerful conservative activists is confidential.

The council is a "private membership group whose meetings are closed to the media," director Steve Baldwin informed me this morning.

Who is the Council for National Policy? From Source Watch:

The Council for National Policy is a secretive forum that was formed in 1981 by Tim LaHaye as a networking tool for leading US conservative political leaders, financiers and religious right activist leaders. The group, which meets three times a year, promotes "Educational conferences for national leaders in the fields of business, government, religion and academia to explore national policy alternatives. Weekly newsletters are distributed to all members to keep them apprised of member activities and public policy issues. A semi-annual journal is produced from membership meeting speeches,"[1]

According to ABC News, "The CNP describes itself as a counterweight against liberal domination of the American agenda." [2] The "far right's answer to the Council on Foreign Relations" (Washington Babylon)

Others are not so kind to the organization and its motives. Mark Crispin Miller states that the CNP is a "highly secretive... a theocratic organization -- what they want is basically religious rule" (A Patriot Act). Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told the New York Times about the CNP meeting ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention, "The real crux of this is that these are the genuine leaders of the Republican Party, but they certainly aren't going to be visible on television next week." [3]

The founder wrote the Left Behind series of books that deal with the second coming (and does a bad job of it).

But, even though we won't be able to see what they say live (anyone know the secret handshake to get in?), we'll be able to read some of their words when they get published on the website.