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Comment from: Bart Dame [Visitor]
Virgil,
You list Harris, Heftel, and Bainum as victims of "smears" by "the old boy network." I am familiar with the popular understanding of the "Heftel smear", which I claim is largely an urban legend, but I am a bit puzzled by your assertions that Harris and Bainum were both smeared by the "OBN".
*snip*
The so-called "Heftel Smear" is the biggest of the bunch. I have Googled that phrase, "Heftel Smear" and read all the variants, but the usual telling essentially boils down to these few points.
According to the legend, Cec Heftel was mounting a serious challenge to John Waihee for the Democratic nomination for Governor. Heftel was ahead in the polls, when the Democratic machine, which backed Waihee, launched a "smear campaign" with a mass mailing that alleged Heftel's involvement with drug parties and underaged males. These rumors caused Heftel to lose the election.
The problem with this story is that most of its "facts" are plain wrong. Very few people ever heard about the "smear" until Heftel publicly denounced it right after he lost the election. The mailing had gone out to a very small group of influential people in the apparent hope that they would use their positions to publicize it further. None of them did so.
The best evidence as to who did the mailing points to the politically active, but secretive religious cult headed by Chris Butler, aka Jagad Guru. The most prominent public member at the time was Rick Reed, special assistant to prosecutor Charles Marsland. The FBI determined that photocopies of the document had been made in Marsland's office and a copy of the confidential informant's allegations was found in Reed's personal files, though he had no legal right to have the document. [b:a083bfb361]Reed's then wife, a co-worker named Carter Phillips Reed, told investigators that she had been present months before the smear became public when Rick Reed had discussed the allegations against Heftel with his guru, Chris Butler. (Butler and Reed both deny the charge.) All this info is available in the Advertiser's morgue.[/b:a083bfb361]
Why would Reed do such a thing? Let's look at two somewhat similar cases. As Marsland's assistant, Rick Reed got access to confidential investigative documents that alleged that Big Island rancher Larry Mehau was a major figure in organized crime. Rick felt a responsibility to warn the public and so he publicized the information in a public speech and in print, calling Mehau the "godfather of organzied crime." This resulted in a major lawsuit against Reed.
In a second case, Reed heard that a hairdresser who worked downtown was telling people that she had been sexually assaulted decades earlier by Senator Inouye. Reed provided a tape recorder to a campaign worker, another member of the cult who had lived in Butler's compound in California, but had come to Hawaii to work on Reed's political campaign. This woman, Umeko Walker, befriended the hairdresser and got her to repeat the story to her while secretly recording the woman's voice. Reed then used the woman's voice without her permission in a campaign ad attacking Inouye.
So I think it would be thoroughly consistent with his M.O. for Rick (along with the other devotees of Chris Butler) to have leaked the report against Heftel, IF he believed the allegations were true. This last point is a bit awkward to discuss. But nonetheless....
Which political figure in recent Hawaii history has been most active in opposing homosexuals? At the time of the "Heftel smear," the Chris Butler group was on record as being hostile to sexual behavior, but there was no special emphasis on their part against homosexual behavior in particular. That hostility became obvious later with the rise to prominence of Mike Gabbard, who was a legislative aide to Rick Reed when he served in the legislature and who, along with his wife, Carol, ran the Honolulu temple for Chris Butler's cult, the "Science of Identity Foundation."
The extreme hostility to homosexuality shown by Mike Gabbard exists throughout the group. Mike has just been the most public face. When you combine Rick Reed's pattern of releasing confidential information to the public when he felt it was necessary with the rabid anti-homosexual bias of the Butlerite group, plus the testimony of Reed's ex-wife and the FBI's analysis that traces the smear document to Rick Reed's files in Marsland's office, I think it becomes clear that the best evidence points in that direction. I am NOT accusing any specific member of the Butler cult of being actively involved in the smear, though Reed clearly was involved in at least discussing the matter if not carrying it out. Gabbard's vicious anti-homosexual loathing is presented as evidence of the group's attitudes. I am NOT accusing Mike of being personally involved. I don't think he was even in the islands at the time. But other core members of the group share the same beliefs.
I think I have built a much stronger case against the Butler group than I have ever seen laid out against any Democrat, whether old or young.
*snip*
09/09/06 @ 00:30
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