Ken Hanly wrote, > This ass sits on a freedom chair? > > Cheers Ken Hanly > > > New York Sun March 19, 2003 > > After Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh > > Michael A. Ledeen*
This ass, Ledeen, is a scary character. To some extent, it may be that his function is to run up trial baloons of how much the administration can get away with. He's "independent" but very, very well connected -- Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, et.al. He was the consultant sent by McFarlane during Iran-Contra to meet with Peres to coordinate intelligence cooperation between Israel and U.S. on making back channel overtures to Iran. "In early May of 1985, Michael Ledeen, a part-time consultant to the NSC, obtained National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane's approval to meet in Israel with Prime Minister Shimon Peres to explore whether Israel would share information on Iran with the United States. "According to Ledeen, Peres expressed displeasure with Israel's intelligence on Iran and suggested that the United States and Israel should work together to improve their information about and policies toward Iran. He also mentioned a recent Iranian request to buy artillery shells from Israel. Israel would grant the request, Peres said, only if the United States had no objection. Ledeen agreed to relay the question of the proposed weapons sale to McFarlane. (Footnote: For a more detailed discussion of these events, see McFarlane chapter.)" Ledeen's wife Barbara was a key player in the astro-turf battle to win confirmation for Clarence Thomas, her organazation subsequently morphed into the "Independent Women's Forum" and reportedly played a major role in promoting the Clinton impeachment thingy that Hillary referred to as a "right-wing conspiracy". There are a number of reports on Ledeen's exploits that I won't repeat because I have no idea about the reliability of some of the sources and others are ones I wouldn't be caught dead citing, Anyone who's interested can satisfy themselves with Google searches on Ledeen and P2 or Billy Carter or Achille Lauro. Ledeen studied fascism and wrote several books on it in the 1970s. One that I'm reading, The First Duce: D'Annunzio at Fiume, seems almost adulatory of the poet-warrior. I would go out on a limb and say that Ledeen's "politico-aesthetic vision" as reflected in his study of D'Annunzio is the most coherent, if blood curdling, rationale I've seen for current Bush policy. It doesn't reduce down to "war is beautiful", but that's probably close enough. Ledeen is a contributing editor to National Review. A guest contribution to NRO is Gabriel Ledeen, who I would hazard a guess is his son and would speculate is named after Gabrielle D'Annunzio. I suppose when the AEI endows a freedom chair, they have in might a certain kind of aesthetic freedom exemplified by the phrase, Fiat ars -- pereat mundus. Tom Walker
