Meet Fred Malek. Actually, pray you never have to. It isn't that this is the guy who once worked for CREEP (the Campaign to Re-Elect the President) to get Nixon re-elected that makes him so evil, though that certainly won't speak well for him at the Pearly Gates. It wasn't that he drew up a list of Jews working in the BLS, ordered FBI investigations of journalists, or was in charge of the illegal responsiveness program. No, all those things might cause a strip search and detainment at said Pearly Gates. Might even result in him being held as an enemy combatant in some undisclosed part of Limbo for an unknown amount of time. No, those things are all part and parcel with just being Republican. What is it that makes me think Fred Malek would get yanked right out of the line and tossed straight into the fiery pits of hell?
This is a guy who was arrested for his part in killing, skinning, gutting and barbecuing on a spit a DOG.
Cross Posted at Conceptual Guerilla's
I just don't think you can get much lower than that. Which is why, perhaps, he is considered a perfect choice for funding co-chair for John McCain. I mean, McCain can't sink much lower himself...can he?
On a Friday in August 1959, five men in their twenties were arrested about 2 a.m. and held in the county jail all day after sheriff's deputies found a blood-spattered, unoccupied car about 1:15 a.m. at the entrance to Vicary's Park on Kickapoo Creek Road near Peoria, Ill.
Joined by Sheriff Harry P. Backes, two deputies had found two men walking toward the park entrance; the two men told the deputies that they had struck a dog and were going to bury it.
Further investigation revealed three others hiding in some weeds, the sheriff said. Because the men's car was saturated with blood and they gave conflicting stories at the time of their arrest, Sheriff Backes thought there might have been a connection between the dog incident and a strong-arm robbery earlier in the evening.
After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it."
Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the evening at a West Bluff tavern.
One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill.
Charges of cruelty to animals were later dismissed against Malek and three other men after Andrew P. O'Meara testified that he had struck and killed the dog with a piece of 2-by-4, and that he alone had skinned the animal and tried to cook it. O'Meara said he was trying to show Malek and the others something about living off the land.
This account is based on two 1959 news articles, one on Aug. 8 and one on Aug. 11, in the Peoria Journal Star newspaper.
Before obtaining the articles from the Journal Star, I spoke with Malek by phone yesterday. He said he and O'Meara went to Peoria in the summer of '59 to visit friends at Bradley University. They got drunk out of their minds at the time. He said he didn't know why O'Meara had killed the dog, that he was not a participant and that he was in no position to stop it.
Five guys gathered around this dog that one guy wants to kill and they weren't in a position to stop it? Malek just went along with the crowd eh? No indignation? No attempt to put a stop to it? No. He just hid in the woods when the cops came.
Of course, one could say, and one WILL SAY if one is a right wing apologist - and they're ALL apologists for one another, the evil bastards that they are - that this happened when Malek was a young man. He's not that man anymore.
To which I ask, "Okay then, WHEN DID HE CHANGE?"
Was it in his 30's when he worked for CREEP? Was he less than wholly given over to evil when he wrote this memo to Richard Nixon:
All major grants and construction decisions for the next fiscal year were reviewed prior to the finalization of the budgets to ensure to the extent possible they impacted on politically beneficial areas.
Was he less than wholly given over to evil when he was Nixon's personal Jew Counter?
Late in 1971, Nixon had summoned the White House personnel chief, Fred Malek, to his office to discuss a "Jewish cabal" in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The "cabal," Nixon said, was tilting economic figures to make his Administration look bad. How many Jews were there in the bureau? he wanted to know. Malek reported back on the number, and told the President that the bureau's methods of weighing statistics were normal procedure that had been in use for years.
I guess Malek "wasn't in a position to stop it" once again eh? I guess "Just say NO" hadn't hit the American lexicon back in those days. Oh well, the Israelis have since forgiven you it seems.
Was he less than wholly given over to evil when he devised a scheme designed, organized and implemented...to politicize the federal government in support of Nixon's reelection.?
We garnered from reliable sources in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the Commission was preparing to sue the University of Texas for discrimination in the hiring of faculty. This could be disastrous for Texas. When queried, Bill Brown, Chairman of the EEOC, agreed not to pursue it. I will continue to follow this situation closely."
-- June 7, 1972, memorandum from Fred Malek, special assistant to President Richard Nixon, to H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff.
Malek's responsiveness program was extensively investigated by the Senate Watergate committee. The panel found that the program was aimed at influencing decisions concerning government "grants, contracts, loans, subsidies, procurement and construction projects," decisions regarding "legal and regulatory actions," and even personnel decisions that affected protected "career positions" -- all to advance Nixon's reelection.
Malek, the committee determined, also called for channeling federal grants and loan money to blacks who would support Nixon's reelection efforts and, conversely, away from minorities who were considered administration foes. Equally striking, Malek wanted the program to be falsely structured so that Nixon and the White House would be dissociated from it in the event of a leak.
" No written communications from the White House to the Departments -- all information about the program would be transmitted verbally . . . documents prepared would not indicate White House involvement in any way."
-- March 17, 1972, Malek memo to Haldeman.
Sound familiar? It's better known as Standard Republican Operating Procedure. Which might explain how he got to run the 1988 Republican Convention and in 1992 became Bush Sr's. campaign manager.
So maybe he hadn't changed yet back in the 70's. Could it have been the 80's when he became a changed, better man? Well, he spent most of that time as Vice-President and then President of Marriott Hotels and Resorts. But in 1988 a business partner with George W. Bush and bought the Texas Rangers. Since I'm not much into Death By Association, I'll let that one pass, but let's face it, that isn't exactly a shining endorsement for Changed Man of the Year either. But nothing seems to have happened that was Really Sinister in the 80's and 90's....that I can find.
So is he a changed man today? Then what was he doing on the Libby Defense Fund Advisory Committee?
Why does Scooter Libby want the support of a political hatchetman from the Nixon administration who not only engaged in extremely unsavory activities, but then was caught trying to cover them up?
Is it because Fred Malek has completely changed since 1972, and Libby's completely innocent, so they can have long discussions about the importance of ethics in governmental service?
Or...is Libby hoping for advice from Malek on how to avoid the mistakes he made?
In any case, the hubris of the Republican machine is flabbergasting. Again, Malek was Special Assistant to the President...while Libby, in addition to being Cheney's Chief of Staff, held the title of "Assistant to the President."
...It takes a special kind of man to write a memo saying "be sure not to write anything down."
Still not wholly given over to evil?
Was he no longer wholly given over to evil when he was involved in an SEC case regarding racketeering and conspiracy to launder money just two short years ago?
The SEC instituted administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against Malek, his company, Thayer Capital Partners, and two Thayer affiliates, TS Equity Partners IV L.L.C, and TC Management Partners IV L.L.C. The SEC charged that in 1998 the Connecticut treasurer, Paul J. Silvester, used state pension investments in Malek's company to reward a friend and political supporter, William DiBella, former majority leader of the Connecticut Senate.
The SEC charged that Malek, who was seeking state money for investment in one of Thayer's funds, hired DiBella and paid him a percentage of the state pension fund's total investment with Malek's company, "even though DiBella had no prior involvement with the transaction and ultimately performed no meaningful work related to the investment." DiBella understood from Silvester that he didn't have to do any work for Malek or his company and that Silvester even increased the amount of the pension fund's investment with Malek "by at least $25 million (to a total of $75 million) solely to secure a larger fee for DiBella," according to the SEC News Digest.
Silvester was later sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to federal charges that included racketeering and conspiracy to launder money, according to the Hartford Courant. Silvester was also working on deals with other investment companies.
Fred Malek and his company, for their failure to disclose to the pension fund (and pensioners) the side deal to retain and pay DiBella nearly $375,000 -- and without admitting or denying the SEC's findings -- consented to the issuance of a cease-and-desist order censuring him and his company. Malek's company was ordered to pay a civil penalty of $150,000, and he was personally made to pay a civil penalty of $100,000.
What does it say about John McCain that he turns to a man like this to help him find people willing to fund his campaign? What kind of people would those funds be coming from? What kind of favors would McCain owe the kinds of men that a man like Malek would have connections with?
And will McCain be serving barbequed dog at his fundraising events?