FBI whistleblower runs for Congress (as a Democrat, supported Cindy Sheehan's protest)

Arizona Daily Sun ^ | Nov. 12, 2005 | Patrick Condon

[FairOpinion]

MONTGOMERY, Minn. -- For better or worse, Coleen Rowley the candidate for Congress sounds a lot like Coleen Rowley the FBI whistleblower. The former FBI agent who scathingly exposed the bureau's failure to uncover the Sept. 11 plot is running for a House seat in Minnesota in 2006 as a Democrat, and she is employing her fearlessly blunt style on the campaign trail.

"This was a lied-into war that is a quagmire now," the 50-year-old Rowley recently told a group of rural Democrats in a garage in this small town south of the Twin Cities. "It could be worse than Vietnam. The truth is we can't win, and there's still an ongoing deception."

Whether that kind of talk is smart politics is another matter.

The Democrats nationally are struggling with how to oppose the war without looking weak on national security, and some of them see Rowley's head-on attacks -- as well as her trip to Texas in August to lend support to Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest at President Bush's ranch -- as especially risky in the Republican-leaning 2nd Congressional District.

"If you become known as a single-issue candidate against the war in a conservative district, I don't see how that gets you many votes," said Steven Schier, a political science professor at Northfield's Carleton College, in the 2nd District. "So far it seems like some of the moves she's made are counterproductive."

One Democratic state legislator in the district, Rep. Joe Atkins, said he gets calls every week urging him to run against Rowley for the party's nomination, but he said he has not given it serious thought.

"The key issues in our area are education, education and education," Atkins said. "I would hope and expect any congressional candidate would come to focus on those issues -- focus on the things your constituents are concerned about."

It is a bind for Rowley as a candidate, since it was her candor that brought her to national attention in the first place.

As the legal counsel in the FBI's Minneapolis office in 2001, she helped agents investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in Minnesota before Sept. 11 after he raised suspicions at a flight school.

Minneapolis agents felt that FBI bureaucrats in Washington impeded the investigation, prompting Rowley a few months later to write a blistering memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

In a second letter to Mueller a few months later, Rowley criticized the intelligence cited by the Bush administration in its decision to invade Iraq. Many of her colleagues were displeased, and Rowley was forced out as legal counsel a few months before she officially retired.

Her opponent in the House race is GOP Rep. John Kline, a former Marine officer who served as a military aide to Presidents Carter and Reagan and, for a time, was responsible for carrying the nuclear "football," the satchel containing the missile launch codes. He has been an outspoken supporter of the Iraq war and the administration's foreign policy.

Kline's camp has had little to say about Rowley so far. "We are not in campaign mode yet," said spokeswoman Angelyn Shapiro.

In the most recent fund-raising period, Rowley raised just $80,000 to Kline's $230,000. On the stump, Rowley sometimes strays off topic and takes her listeners on long detours, and her campaign so far has something of a homemade feel, as she lugs hand-printed yard signs to campaign events.

"We're still early here, but I think among Democrats it's fair to say they're disappointed that the campaign hasn't created more momentum," said Blois Olson, a Democratic consultant and co-publisher of the newsletter Politics in Minnesota. "I think there's some naivete about the process."

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On the Net: Rowley for Congress: http://www.coleenrowley.org

[FairOpinion]

No wonder we had "intelligence failures", with people like her working at the FBI, who have their agenda, which is opposite of the security needs of the US.

The Democrats nationally are struggling with how to oppose the war without looking weak on national security, and some of them see Rowley's head-on attacks -- as well as her trip to Texas in August to lend support to Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest at President Bush's ranch -- as especially risky in the Republican-leaning 2nd Congressional District.

Congressional candidate and former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley speaks at a house party in Lilydale, Minn., in a Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005 photo, where she made fund-raising contacts for her campaign. The former special agent who earned national renown in 2002 for scathing critiques of the bureau's pre-9/11 intelligence failures has brought the same blunt, gritty style to her fledgling run for Congress.(AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

[indianrightwinger]

I just simply hate the term Whistleblower. It is synonymous to "Bush Hating Leaker". And, these are media darlings.

She will be toast.

[ncountylee]

She has a stay at home husband raising their kids.

[JoanneSD]

She needs some new straight glasses,

[GloriaJane]

Message to Ms Coleen Rowley, this is for you and the media you're trying to ride in on......"Who's Foolin Who"

I'd say you're followers, if you have any, are the one's being fooled.

[Kimmers]

I was born and raised in Minnesota....what has been posted lately about this state I am so glad I escaped and saw the light of conservatism....

[kublia khan]

And the war between the administration and the intelligence community both past and present continues.

[Cicero]

Hot air is coming out of her whistle.

[L98Fiero]

"It could be worse than Vietnam."

Only if people like you are allowed to run things, Coleen.

[airborne]

"This was a lied-into war that is a quagmire now," the 50-year-old Rowley recently told a group of rural Democrats in a garage in this small town south of the Twin Cities. "It could be worse than Vietnam. The truth is we can't win, and there's still an ongoing deception."

Waiting for the "I still suport the troops" BS that accompanies the Democrap talking points.

[Hot Tabasco]

The former special agent

Has she been leaked? Obviously so, time for another 2 year multi-million dollar investigation into who leaked her. Look out Rove!

[p23185]

I was born and raised in Minnesota....what has been posted lately about this state I am so glad I escaped and saw the light of conservatism....

Same here having left in 1960 - but I was born and raised a Repub. Now my dad votes for Kerry - go figure..

[Lancer_N3502A]

I hope they gut this hag like a fish.

[alloysteel]

There seems to be a logical disconnect here. OK, by not listening to her warnings of dreadful consequenses following a failure of intelligence, Coleen Rowley is now telling us we should have done nothing in response the events of 9/11/2005. Or that it was really only a law enforcement problem, and Bush greatly overreacted. What alternatives has she offered, to get from where we are RIGHT NOW, to wherever it is she thinks we ought to be?

There are a number of things not subject to do-overs, and the events that have already transpired in Iraq are among them. We have two choices right now, to make the present situation work to our national advantage, by nurturing the nascent democracy already launched, or simply abandon everything and scram, much like what happened in Viet Nam. And we all know how well the subsequent events went for the Vietnamese who remained.

[Fruitbat]

That looks like Dana Carvey:

"Isn't that special!"

[TASMANIANRED]

I saw her interviewed, she is dumber than a bag of hammers.

[airborne]

There's no disconnect, IMHO. They just don't care.

The Dems are willing to endanger the safety of the nation and its' citizens in order to regain power.

In their bizarre sense of logic, they'll fix things once they get back in control.

The country will just have to wait till the Dems get what they want.

[Thunder90]

She probably works for, or gives information to, a hostile foreign government.