Karl Rove's IT Guru Dies In Small Plane Crash

A dozen readers have submitted the story of the death in a plane crash of Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT adviser, the man who set up and ran the gwb43.com mail server, and an important figure in GOP tech circles since 1997. The closest thing to straight reporting to be found in a mainstream media outlet is a piece from KDKA in Pittsburgh giving a detailed backgrounder on Connell's work for Rove, two generations of the Bush family, and many GOP congressmen and committees. CBSNews.com is now mirroring the KDKA reporting. Almost all the early media coverage comes from the left and some of it is frankly conspiratorial. Among the milder pieces (although it could not be called balanced) is this interview with Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of two books about the 2004 election in Ohio. Connell was compelled to testify on the day before the US election in a lawsuit involving Ohio election irregularities in 2004. Connell, an experienced pilot, died on Sunday when his plane crashed two miles short of the runway of Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.

Accident?

<tinfoil-hat>Does anyone really think this was an accident?</tinfoil-hat>

But seriously, if anyone knew "too much," this guy could qualify.

Re:Accident?

Yes, and a guy associated with the billion-dollar ponzi scheme also committed suicide... or, well... he was found with his wrists cut and had bled to death... the cause and nature of death has yet to be determined precisely.

As the Republican dynasty comes to an end, I think we will see more of this. Not to say that Democrats are clean and clear -- there were a number of "interesting deaths" surrounding the Clintons as well. I believe there is a lot of ugly truth associated with the rule of the U.S.A... we will never ever know the truth. Depresses me sometimes.

Re:Accident?

umm, the ponzi guy was an INVESTOR in the scheme. A scammee not a scammer.

I know of at least 3 bankers who have committed suicide recently, mostly from those banks whose funds have tanked. It's almost like the twenties.

The only "interesting deaths" surrounding the Clintons were those which their opponents tried to tar them with.

Not everything has to be a conspiracy. Aircraft do crash.

Re:Accident?

umm, the ponzi guy was an INVESTOR in the scheme. A scammee not a scammer.

I know of at least 3 bankers who have committed suicide recently, mostly from those banks whose funds have tanked. It's almost like the twenties.

There's an interesting post [frontierps...rist.co.uk] about that, which also points out that there wasn't a lot of bankers who committed suicide after the crash in 1929. Looks like that's a bit of an urban legend [straightdope.com].

Re:Accident?

Not everything has to be a conspiracy. Aircraft do crash.

Is that a threat?

Re:Accident?

Not everything has to be a conspiracy. Aircraft do crash.

I'm glad somebody is being reasonable here.

Yes, but when there's someone on them who has information that could expose a lot of fraud by powerful people, you have to entertain the possibility that it wasn't merely coincidence that this particular person died.

Airplanes crash, people have heart attacks, and good samaritans really do pick up hitchhiking transvetite prostitutes out of the goodness of their hearts. Doesn't mean that the version of the story you're told is how it really happened.

Re:Accident?

Does anyone really think this was an accident?

Not to go all Paul Wellstone [wikipedia.org] on everyone, but rawstory is reporting [rawstory.com] that "45-year-old Republican operative and experienced pilot had been warned not to fly his plane in the days before the crash."

"Connell...was apparently told by a close friend not to fly his plane because his plane might be sabotaged," Renault said. "And twice in the last two months Connell, who is an experienced pilot, cancelled two flights because of suspicious problems with his plane."

From PRNewsWire [prnewswire.com]:

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

Alternet reports [alternet.org] the following exchange on Amy Goodman's program Democracy Now:

Amy Goodman: Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell's activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus." Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to "take the fall." Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University

[snip]

Marc Crispin Miller: Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we're obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when Wellstone's plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We're told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at -- and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make.

AG: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?

MCM: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck -- also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell's life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first -- who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He's also very connected. And all these people were

Re:Accident?

From PRNewsWire:

FYI PRNewsWire is exactly what it sounds like - a clearing house for press releases. Anyone get an "article" published on PRNewsWire by simply paying the appropriate fee. I think there was even an exploit of that fact a few years back when someone paid for a forged press release from a big-name company in order to manipulate the stock market.

cut the conspiracy theory nonsense

This was definitely an accident. You see, Connell was involved in Rove's secret plot to cut the underwater cables in the Mediterranean, and was flying out to intercept the repair crew when he crashed.

Re:Accident?

The guy set up and ran the illegal mail server that Bush, Cheney, Rove and others used to evade the Presidential Records Act (remember the "missing emails"?). I imagine the email going through that thing was anything but boring, quite a bit easier to decipher than a bunch of numbers.

Screw Balance.

(although it could not be called balanced)

Seriously. Screw Balance. Don't kowtow to some asshole who disagrees with you just because he says you're not reporting fairly. Know your biases, know them well, and know how to counteract them. As for the readers, know your biases and know or at least anticipate the author's biases.

"Balance" is for people who want to be heard, even when they know they're lying. It's for people with persecution complexes who have no business having them. "Balance" is reporting that Wall Street needs $700 billion, but auto workers are paid too much. "Balance" is promoting two sides as equal when they're not, or promoting two sides when an issue is more complex than that.

How many times have we IT people complained about unfair, ill-informed, hyped, or spun news articles about us? Why is this exact same tactic on the front page here? "Almost all the media coverage comes from the left and some of it is frankly conspiratorial." Marginalization and a thinly veiled ad-hominem attack? When did slashdot start culling from the mainstream?

"Balance" is bullshit, truth is paramount.

Re:Screw Balance.

Learn as much as you can, check other independent sources, compare them. That's how historians do it. And be alert to freshly uncovered evidence that may contradict your previous conclusions. It doesn't guarantee that it's the truth, but it's the best methodology any of us have, so it greatly increases the odds.

Re:Screw Balance.

Actually, balance is about weight, so the point is to give the various sides of the arguments the weights they actually deserve and not treating them all as equal, which happens far too much when people claim to be "balanced."

The perfect example is the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate. The fact that some outlets try to put them on the same level and treat them as equal, but opposite opinions is not balanced reporting.

This is how the gov't gets away with this crap

Because it's always just a conspiracy theory.

No need to investigate anything. Nobody has a reason to want this guy dead or anything. And lordy lordy the government would NEVER do anything unethical or illegal.

Occam's Razor

When a mouse in a house full of cats dies, the simpler explanation isn't that he suddenly lost the will to live.

The Razor is for simplicity. Your need to reaffirm your faith in the humanity of those in power is irrelevant.

Re:Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor would lead to the conclusion that the only reason this story was posted to slashdot was to boost ad impressions due to partisan bickering.

Assumptions.

One man having an accident, or several, perhaps dozens of people conspiring to fake said accident?

False dichotomy.

What is it with people and the assumption that sabotage requires an elaborate chess game complete with blueprints, secret agents, wiretapping, and van full of CIA listening equipment?

It takes one man with a fucking match to burn down a house.

It takes only one mechanic with a desperate need to pay his family's medical bills to snip an important wire.

Only One

Karl Rove. Come on, give the guy some credit.

The guy ran oppo [wikipedia.org] for the Republican party. They guy know who to talk to, and how to get information. He has is own databases of personal information on people - check his website and his own polling data.

He is fully capable of doing his own leg work with his own resources.

If *I* know what I would need to do to get the info needed to manipulate only one guy, Karl Rove better know, or the Republican party is overpaying him!

Money quote from linked KDKA article:

>It was later learned that
>Ohio Secretary of State
>Kenneth Blackwell's office
>had routed Internet traffic
>from county election offices
>through out-of-state servers
>based at SMARTech in
>Chattanooga, Tenn.
>SMARTech hosts dozens of GOP Web domains.

I can't see any positive way to spin this.

Newest Ninjalistics news story pertains to this

The newest article posted on Ninjalistics (your leading supplier of ISO 9000-compliant corporate espionage and assassination services) is, "Six additional political operatives die in separate accidents unrelated to Karl Rove [ninjalistics.com]."

Why Is This Front Page News

Dunno why this made it on the front page of Slashdot.

First off, it's old news. Mike Connell died a few days ago, at least someone could have reported it in a timely manner.

Secondly, there's really only two reasons people take much of an interest in Mike Connell. The first is that he developed technology for use in politics. Second is the whole 2004 mess, where he has been accused of voter fraud in Ohio (and allegedly in Florida).

Too much importance is given to Mike Connell and his 'role' in various things. He was a web designer, he ran a technology company, just like me and a lot of people who read Slashdot. The fact that he worked in politics is just another detail about his life (his relationship with teh turdblossom aside). He was also a board member of the American Association of Political Consultants. While listening to him speak could be entertaining, his ideas about ways to use the Internet never really struck me as anything new that hadn't already been done better by someone else.

It just makes me sad that people want to remember him for all these 'scandals' and that his notability is based on innunendo and rumor instead of the actual accomplishments in his life. I mean, I am a Dem and have no love for the man, but it is just rotten to think this is how people choose to remember him. Reducing him to a rumor of some wrongdoing and despising him over his dealings is just another way of dehumanizing the man, and people should be above that.

M

I now believe political murder is real in America

I now believe that assassination is a frequent political tool in America. I thought for years that Castro ordered the death of JFK until I saw the video (possibly now on YouTube) of the film interview with Lyndon Johnson's mistress. I now believe Kennedy was killed by the Rockefellers and Lyndon Johnson. There is much more in the interview, which everyone should see. For some reason it is not being talked about-- probably because years of crackpot "conspiracy theorists" have made even supportable theories about conspiracy suspect.

What Lyndon's mistress has to say is jaw-dropping and highly credible. Of course, for interested parties to deny or combat it would be to promote it, so that's not happening.

This interview gives a picture of American politics I never believed until I heard this straightforward, plain-talking woman. Political murder CAN happen and DOES happen-- often-- in the US. Now I am deeply questioning the official stories about Vince Foster, JFK, and now Mike Connell. Does anyone believe Karl Rove would not stoop to murder? The movie Bush's Brain makes it clear his ruining of opponents caused one or more suicides, yet in threatening to prosecute Connell's wife (for illegal lobbying !!!!!!!!!) (and as much as admitting he can give or withhold presidential pardons) he shows his tactics haven't changed a bit. I now believe Scooter Libby was persuaded to "take the fall" by threats of being ruined and by promises of a pardon if he bit the bullet.

We, the American people, have to wonder about the inadequacies of our political system (or the easy-to-abuse mighty power of the Presidency) that allow these corruptions to happen. I believe that Rove and Cheney are despicable murderers. This "accident" with Connell just proves it. This is what happens when you aren't a good boy like Scooter Libby.

America, we need to look at the issue of political murder and the frequency of its use for advantage.

Re:Condolences

While I'm sure it's sad for his family, it's NOT always sad when someone dies. People who exploit the public and abuse its institutions, whatever their politics, are not owed sympathy or some rose-tinted remembrance. I'm not saying whether this particular person did or didn't, this is a general statement.

Re:Hmmm.....

Like Monica?

Re:Seriously...

DON'T FLY YOUR OWN AIRPLANE!!!

And if you must, have the server backup media shipped by alternate means.