The Boston Globe is reporting today that recently ousted American diplomat — and Vermont resident — Peter Galbraith has had oil business deals with Iraqis.

Peter Galbraith, a former American diplomat who has been among the most forceful advocates for Iraqi Kurds to retain control over the oil in their region, acknowledged yesterday that he has had business dealings involving oil companies in Iraqi Kurdistan since 2004.

But Galbraith, a key adviser to Iraqi Kurdish politicians who also helped shape US public opinion on Iraq with his writings, said his business relationships did not drive his support for the Kurdish cause, or present a conflict of interest, because he was working as a private citizen at the time.

It sure looks like Galbraith has got some explaining to do.

By now, anyone who cares already knows that Montpelier’s city government came forward last week with the head-spinning admission that – whoops – they made a $400,000 error. And if that’s not bad enough, Mayor Mary Hooper and Town Manager Bill Fraser are also admitting that they have been purposely “not disclosing” this error to the town’s taxpayers for several years. Yes, years.

The Times Argus broke the story last week, right before – wink, wink – Hooper & Fraser, et al said they were about to go public with the information themselves. [Editorial assertion: Yeah, right.]

And the back-story is as dumb as it is simple: The town got goofy with digits and issued a check to a contractor for nearly $400,000 more than the correct $50,000ish owed to him. And the smarmy contractor cashed it, paid off a debt or two and then, when finally confronted more than a year later, said: “The money’s gone.”

Now, if this were happening to mere citizen mortals, this would be the point in the story where law enforcement was contacted and any and all legal measures were put into place to recover the money. No such luck here, because Hooper & Fraser et al decided to make their situation worse by “not disclosing” (read: hiding) it from the public AND entering a multi-year re-payment plan with a man who had already shown all his cards when it came to his ethics.

I know, let’s call it: “Operation: Dumb, squared.” Just because.

But the deed is done.

“Mistakes were made,” declared Mayor Hooper to WDEV’s Mark Johnson this morning, while in the midst of a rather Nixon-like ramble about “feeling bad,” “understanding the urge to feel bad,” and “feeling so bad that she feels like throwing up in the morning.” Um, too much information, Mayor.

But the reality here is that Mayor Mary Hooper must go. And probably Bill Fraser too. Because this mistake, its non-disclosure, and the awkward, unconvincing and – frankly – insulting manner in which Hooper has tried to spin it, is a huge mistake that will have a tremendous economic impact to Montpelierites.

It’s sadly ironic that the “good liberals” in Montpelier have been deafly silent on what is already being called Hooper’s Watergate. That’s what happens when party loyalty usurps better judgment: you start to ignore gross neglect when “among friends.” Ouch.

Imagine, for example, if a similar story was breaking statewide with regards to a Jim Douglas mistake. The response from the liberal Dems would be, “Outrage! Outrage! Outrage!” As it should be.

But when their own house starts to stink, they sound like little more than a field of crickets in response. Carry on, because there’s no one here but us crickets.

Let me repeat: Hooper must go.

I know. Let’s play a game.

And it’ll go like this:
I’ll be perfectly silent
and you try to figure out why.

The aggressive silence will keep us
on the edge of our seats.

Just the way I like it.

[And here’s the near-perfect background music for your pondering time, The Feelings: What Goes On (Velvet Underground cover). Ah.]

“I think agitation is the most important factor of all — the most deeply important. To stir, to question, to suspect, to examine, to denounce!” — Walt Whitman, circa 1856

‘Only by unintermitted agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity…Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated.” — Wendell Phillips, circa 1851

Still freaked out about McGruff. Can’t tell if my neighbors are watching me more than they used to. I’ve been trying to watch them more just to see if they’re watching me more. So far, it just seems to be creating a lot of tension in the neighborhood. Perhaps something is brewing. Perhaps not. Trying not to act suspicious while watching them but also committed to erring on the side of neighborhood safety. It’s a fine line. But I will keep watching. I have to.