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(Ted Sorensen - before boats became swift and innuendos became large)

One of the first appointments to the Carter White House was Theodore Sorensen to head the CIA. Sorensen seemed like a good choice. He was White House Chief of Staff under Kennedy and served in the LBJ White House and overall had a distinguished career in Washington.

At least it seemed so. But no sooner was the appointment announced than the rumor mill began working overtime to discredit and trash his chances of confirmation. Rumors spread of his unauthorized taking of secret documents connected with the Kennedy White House, his support of Daniel Ellsberg during the Pentagon papers trial and everything from his being "too liberal" to allegations of being a draft dodger during the Korean War. It was a grab bag of smears.

The rumors and the accusations were persistent as well as unfounded. But they were enough to force Sorenesen to abandon the appointment and notify the President-elect two minutes before he was scheduled to appear at the confirmation hearings of his decision not to pursue the appointment.

So rather than submit to questioning from the committee, Sorensen chose to read a prepared statement outlining his decision and answering the barrage of slurs.

Much speculation has been made over the years as to who was responsible for the rumor campaign. It was largely thought to be members of the CIA bent on eliminating Sorenesen's chances at the post, as well as right-wing extremist groups, fearing Sorensen as CIA chief was unthinkable, since he was perceived by them to be a liberal pacifist critic of covert espionage tactics.

In the end, the votes for his confirmation weren't there and, rather than stage an uphill fight, Sorensen chose to bow out gracefully.

The following recording begins with Sorensen reading his statement and follows through to the post-hearing press conference and a postmortem wrap-up with a discussion featuring former Deputy CIA Director Ray Cline and investigative reporter David Wise. Cline spends a lot of time tut-tuting that the CIA would never dream of spreading rumors and were mostly concerned with "shuffling papers" and nothing as clandestine as trashing someones career. Seriously.

I suppose the only comfort is knowing the ritual of trashing appointees isn't new and it has a long and somewhat dubious history.

Welcome to 1977.

[click here for larger] Open Thread below...

This song is just absolute power pop perfection. The Records never captured the charm/power/hook balance that they did on 1978's "Starry Eyes" but with a song like this, who needs others? Here's a live version that doesn't sound as good but it way more fun to look at.

I used to be an executive recruiter and I can tell you: the worse a recession is, the more demanding the prospective employers become. I remember trying to fill high-level software sales positions after the dot com collapse for hiring managers who didn't want "any of those dot com people." (Apparently they showed too great an affinity for risk-taking.) And yet, all the experienced candidates worked for them, so they ended up hiring people who didn't know what they were doing.

So if you're a good, talented employee and you still have trouble getting a job, please don't take it personally. The people making the hiring decisions are often a little nuts, making off-the-wall demands based on their own crazy logic:

With unemployment at 9.4% and rising, it’s a buyer’s market for employers that are hiring. But many employers are bypassing the jobless to target those still working, reasoning that these survivors are the top performers.

“If they’re employed in today’s economy, they have to be first string,” says Ryan Ross, a partner with Kaye/Bassman International Corp., an executive recruiting firm in Dallas. Mr. Ross says more clients recently have indicated that they would prefer to fill positions with “passive candidates” who are working elsewhere and not actively seeking a job.

See, that's just sales speak. It may indicate that they're first string - or it may indicate that their brother-in-law is the department head, or that the person is really, really good at kissing butt.

The whole "passive candidate" thing is something recruiters like to push because that way, we get to bill a lot more hours. After all, it takes a lot longer than just searching the Monster resume file!

The bias extends from front-line workers to senior managers. Charlie Wilgus, managing partner of executive search for Lucas Group, based in Atlanta, says a manufacturing client looking for a division president recently refused to consider a former divisional president at Newell Rubbermaid Inc. whose department had been eliminated. The client doesn’t want candidates who have been laid off, Mr. Wilgus says.

Bobby Fitzgerald prefers to hire the already employed even though he gets two dozen or more unsolicited résumés each day at his White Chocolate Grill.

Employers’ preference for the employed adds another hurdle for those who have been laid off. Job seekers frequently are competing with dozens of other applicants for the few available positions.

Bobby Fitzgerald, a partner in five restaurants in three states, says these days he gets two dozen or more unsolicited résumés each day at one of his Phoenix restaurants, the White Chocolate Grill. But Mr. Fitzgerald says his top candidates, for jobs ranging from servers to management, usually are people who are employed elsewhere. He currently has 50 openings across his five restaurants and has told recruiters to bring in only people who are working.

Yes, the "unemployed" stigma is another huge hurdle. No matter how carefully you'd explain that a candidate was really top-notch, and that the circumstances surrounding their unemployment had nothing to do with them, employers just didn't want to hear it. (Oh, and they didn't want anyone who was older. We ignored that - and if they pushed, told them we didn't use illegal practices.)

I've tried to talk to these people. I'd say, "Look, if you hire some superstar away from another company, what you've hired is someone who's really in demand and will always be ready to leave you for a better offer. It's better to hire a good solid performer who will be loyal because you gave him a break." (Occasionally they would listen.)

The other annoying thing that happens during a recession is that employers start demanding all sorts of unrelated skill sets in one person (figuring they'll get them to do two jobs for the price of one). I'd advise you against taking a job like that even if it's offered - no matter how bad the economy is, it's not worth the heart attack you'll probably get.

Now, as a recruiter, I would never advise a candidate to do anything unethical or misleading. But as a human being, I can tell you: Remove any dates on your resume that indicate your age. Don't list every job you ever had, it only makes you look old. And don't put down "consultant" as your present employment (unless you work for a known consulting company) because most people will assume that means unemployed.

But if you're doing any part-time consulting for anyone, see if they'll agree to say you're working full-time, and list that job title instead. Do what you can to make it look like you're already employed.

It's a jungle out there, guys.

Right on cue, Rush Limbaugh attacks Al Franken's victory in Minnesota.

LIMBAUGH: Look at this. From Iran's press television, the state-run media in Iran: Ahmadinejad gains votes in recount, just like in our country! It had -- just like in our country. Norm Coleman wins in Minnesota in a recount, and they keep having recounts, and Al Franken wins. So they had the recount in Iran, and shazzam! Ahmadinejad gained votes!

Hmmm, what to say, what to say. Are we all living in Iran now?

Could it be true? Is the sky falling? Did Tony Scalia really just side with the liberals in a major case? (Legal explanation here.)

WASHINGTON — In a rebuke of the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a federal bank regulator erred in quashing efforts by New York state to combat the kind of predatory mortgage lending that triggered the nation's financial crisis.

The 5-4 ruling by the high court was unusual. Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the most conservative jurist, wrote the majority's opinion and was joined by the court's four liberal judges.

The five justices held that contrary to what the Bush administration had argued, states can enforce their own laws on matters such as discrimination and predatory lending, even if that crosses into areas under federal regulation.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the four dissenters, argued that laws dating back to the nation's founding prevent states from meddling in federal bank regulation. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts and justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito.

The ruling angered many in the financial sector, who fear it'll lead to a patchwork of state laws that'll make it harder for banks and other financial firms to take a national approach to the marketplace.

Poor babies. My heart just bleeds for them. Why, it might make it even harder to throw 84-year-old widows out onto the street!

"We are worried about the effect that this ruling could have on the markets," said Rich Whiting, general counsel for the Financial Services Roundtable, a trade group representing the nation's 100 largest financial firms, in a statement. The decision "hinders the ability of financial services firms from conducting business in the United States. Even worse, it will cause confusion for consumers, especially those who move from state to state."

Oh, the markets! The sky is falling! Quick, throw the banks some money to help! Oh wait, we tried that already...

Stephen Ryan, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery, said the decision "will have a significant, negative impact on the ability of a national bank to offer a financial product uniformly throughout the country."

In a statement, Ryan, who's brought suits against state enforcement, predicted "a crazy quilt of conflicting legal instructions" and a "confusing situation of shared enforcement responsibilities for financial services."

Ha ha ha! Mr. Ryan, have you ever read the small print on an adjustable rate mortgage?

But wait, apparently it's not as bad as the banks claim:

Some of the industry's allies said yesterday's decision is hardly disastrous for banks, given that state officials will not have the power to demand documents or compel executives to submit to questioning without a court order.

"Obviously there's going to be some additional burden on the big banks," said Seth Galanter, of counsel at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, who filed a brief on behalf of former comptrollers of the currency. "But civil litigation has always been available to private parties. This just adds state attorneys general to the list of groups that can sue."

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Both Mark McKinnon and Nicolle Wallace, recently the McCain-Palin campaign's media gurus, were both on MSNBC this morning to talk ostensibly about serious subjects but eventually came around to the matter of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin, in which they both figure prominently as objects of the diva's ire.

Both do their best to speak glowingly of Palin -- McKinnon says he actually only coached her for two hours -- and Wallaces talks up Palin's future prospects. But really, one only need read the piece to see the writing that's been on the wall for some time for Palin: She is road kill in the rear-view mirror of the Republican Party's Beltway movers and shakers.

It also raises some salient larger points:

Whatever her political future, the emergence of Sarah Palin raises questions that will not soon go away. What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

The issue, it seems, comes down to the initial lack of vetting:

There is virtually nothing about Palin’s performance in the fall campaign that should have come as a surprise to John McCain. Had he really attempted to learn something about her before the fateful day of August 29, 2008, when he announced that she was his choice for running mate, he would easily have discerned all the traits that he belatedly came to know.

Palin's career as a mainstream Republican is probably at a dead end, because her name is now synonymous with Wacky Loser. However, that doesn't mean her career is dead, by any means. There's a big bunch of Teabaggers out there primed and ready to party with a charismatic leader, and Evita Palin fits the bill.

Is Sanford completely off his rocker? I understand about love, but why is he giving passionate interviews with the AP? And does he think he'll save his marriage by telling them that his lover is his "soul mate?"

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called his Argentine mistress his "soul mate" Tuesday, but said that he would try to fall back in love with his wife.

Sanford also admitted Tuesday that he saw Maria Belen Chapur more times than previously disclosed, and that he had "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress in the past -- but never had sex with them.

In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office Tuesday, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

He said he met her two other times -- their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay and a coffee date in New York in 2004 during the Republican National Convention. He said neither time was romantic.

It was the first disclosure of any liaisons with Chapur in the United States and contradicted a public confession last week during which Sanford admitted to a total of five encounters over their eight-year relationship...read on

He's lied so many times already about this that it's hard to keep up. Did anyone really believe he saw her only three times in eight years? And now he admits to reaching out to other women too.

Sanford also said he had "let his guard down" with some physical contact with women other than Chapur and his wife, but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail. Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur.

Did Sanford tell the AP what the Bible says about "letting his guard down?" What does that even mean? It means that he's a player and has been for a long time.

Will his wife think he should be given a second chance after reading and hearing about all of this? Sanford is a mess and can't stop talking about "Maria." Isn't there a show on the BBC about Maria?

'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?'

I think there's a reality show in this somewhere. Does Sanford really want to stay married? It certainly sounds like he'd rather have the media send love notes to Maria, his true soul mate than make up with his wife.

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So now Norm Coleman has conceded:

Republican Norm Coleman has conceded to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota's contested Senate race, ending a nearly eight-month recount and court fight.

Coleman announced his decision at a news conference in St. Paul, hours after a unanimous Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and liberal commentator, should be certified the winner.

"The Supreme Court has made its decision and I will abide by the results," Coleman told reporters outside his St. Paul home.

This means the hissy fit is truly and finally over. Except, of course, for the one Bill O'Reilly is going to throw.

Blabbermouth:

A new ALICE IN CHAINS track entitled "A Looking In View" is now available for purchase via iTunes and Amazon. Two short teasers for the song's accompaying video clip can be viewed below. Meanwhile, sources tell The Pulse of Radio that an official radio single called "Check My Brain" will head to rock stations in mid-August.

ALICE IN CHAINS' first collection of all-new studio material in 14 years, "Black Gives Way To Blue", is set for release on September 29 through EMI Music's Virgin Records label. The disc will feature the recording debut with the group of singer William DuVall, who first got behind the mic for the band's 2006 reunion tour after original vocalist Layne Staley died in 2002.

I have to say, I'm impressed. A new Alice in Chains record without Layne Staley's vocals raised a lot of eyebrows, and new singer William DuVall brings the right amount of tribute and originality to the table. It also can't be said enough how much guitarist Jerry Cantrell's background vocals are part of the Alice in Chains sound, not unlike Michael Anthony in Van Halen, who allowed them to switch singers with (relative) impunity over the years.