On a side note, as some one who works w/offenders all damn day, while kleptomania is IIRC a mental disease/condition (whatever the appropriate term is these days- hell, I still can’t get over calling the folks I work w/“customers” vs. “clients”, but I digress), the fact that some one with money does steal insignificant things isn’t necessarily, IME, only due to a mental disease. There are also thrill seekers, for whom the risk is a rush. So, unless you’re into calling folks who sky dive and so on (taking measured risks) as in some way automatically mentally ill, neither should you assume that this guy has a diagnosis. Although I absolutely guarentee that the defense will attempt to use that (I did have a client from way back who tried that defense as well. Didn’t work for her)
The White House claimed at the time of Mr. Allen’s resignation that he wanted to spend more time with his family. That in itself should set off the alarm bells in any good investigative reporter.
“Your Honor, I’m sure Exhibit A was here on the bench a minute ago. But now I can’t seem to find it.”
“Well, case dismissed then. If anyone wants me, I’ll be at Target returning this handgun.”
But it’s puzzling why you don’t think Allen (who you consider either an "out-an-out crook or a mentally ill person) is entitled to the same presumption of innocence you made such a point of emphasizing in the case of Tom DeLay. :dubious:
The scam allegedly netted him over $5000, by the way. cite. It’s still weird.
I still can’t figure out why this social policy guy (abstinence only education and other “issues” beloved by religious fundamentalists) was tapped to coordinate the White House’s Katrina Task Force.
Ok, but Claude Allen’s shoplifting has allegedly been going on for an extended time period. This wasn’t a single event: it was about 25 different occasions, according to police reports. Strange.
One of the things that sets that incident apart is that Svend is still active in public life and will, no doubt, return to parliament one day. This is partly because we love him and partly because he’s in tight with Jack Bauer and his mama.
Can’t find it now, but one story I read said that many of Allen’s frat brothers from Chapel Hill thought he had inflated his conservative views, figuring that a black wingnut would go a long way very quickly. (Looks like he was right.)
So the truth is probably a bit of both. He is most likely a space-filler who does nothing of value except spouting the appropriate right-wing nutjob response when asked a question, but that’s all Bush really wants for an advisor anyway.
My first thought when I saw this was that Allen failed mainly in the scale of his vision. Surely, even if he was a space-filler in the executive branch, he should have been able to find a project of greater scope than defrauding Target. I briefly shared an office with Jeb Magruder, and that experience at least gave me a sense of the large potential impact of petty, insignificant men .
Analysts gather and weigh conflicting evidence. Polemicists pretend that all of it points in a single direction. Fools and ideologues can’t tell the difference.
My own pet theory is that Allen needed some sort of moral shortcoming to fit in with the rest of the Administration, but all the sexy high-profile spots were already taken. “Well, I didn’t really want to be a Target shoplifter, but everyone else was already a ‘shameless corporate ho’ or a ‘hypocritical chickenhawk’…”
