For decades, Hillary Clinton has had her entire life scripted. She has existed in a world insulated by handlers and managers and “her people,” all of whom are employed for the overarching purpose of mediating her engagement with the calamitous world “out there.” Yet every time the bubble is pricked, and we no longer have to see Hillary Clinton through limousine glass darkly, we rediscover her vices — her obsessive secretiveness, her arrogance, her shrewish treatment even of those closest to her — and the unmistakable fact that she is simply not equipped to deal with the world unmediated.
Hillary Clinton wants to run a Truman Show campaign. But what the last six years have made incontrovertibly clear is that you can’t run a Truman Show presidency.
The Hillary 2016 campaign will begin tomorrow, not with a grand celebration, a speech and a press briefing, but a tweet, a Facebook posting, and a video. Not invited will be the press. This woman is treating the press like pure kryptonite at the moment, and if early indications are accurate, she will be doing that throughout the campaign. This from Hot Air, quoting the NYDN:
But Hillary Rodham Clinton is going small — real small. When the presumed Democratic front-runner announces her 2016 bid in the coming days, expect a Facebook post, a video, maybe some tweets. Then it’s off on the trail to meet one-on-one and in small groups with voters in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
The approach — described by Democratic strategists and advisers familiar with her plans — is intended to address some of the key shortcomings of Clinton’s 2008 run for the White House, when she often came off as flat and overly scripted before large crowds. The go-slow, go-small strategy, these advisers say, plays to her strengths, allowing her to meet voters in intimate settings where her humor, humility and policy expertise can show through.
What her message to those voters will be is an open question. Many supporters agree she needs a ready answer for why she wants to be president, other than that she thinks she would be good at it.
A Facebook post, a video, and maybe a few tweets? That’s certainly a social-media strategy for a campaign, but not a campaign as a whole. Even the plans for the actual campaigning look excessively modest for a modern presidential campaign — a few one-on-ones, a few small groups. The woman who made a fortune off of giving big speeches at $300,000 a pop suddenly wants the smallest venues possible.
Why? It’s not so much that Hillary comes off “flat and overly scripted before large crowds.” She’s made millions speaking before large crowds. It’s that she can’t keep the press out of large crowds once she starts making those kinds of appearances as a candidate. Her speaking tours forbid press coverage and any videotaping; even the transcripts have to be given to her at the end of the speech. Team Hillary is so afraid of media questioning that they’re scaling down the announcement to duck it.
I can well imagine Hillary, whose e-mail scandal is potentially criminal and far far from over, will attempt to control the press to a degree far beyond which even Obama managed in 2007 -- and, that said, to Obama's credit, he did take a few tough interviews during that time. Even her UN presser on the e-mail scandal was as tightly controlled as could be managed -- a foreign press corps with at least one seemingly planted question. She is going to try and coast through the primaries while keeping any unfriendly press excluded.
Will it work? Given that the Democrats seem to have no other options, probably. One thing is for sure. The MSM will not be giving her the Rand Paul treatment. Indeed, I expect that the MSM will treat Hillary as they treat Obama today, with their anger fully muted by shared goals and deference.
Ann Althouse wonders if this is not a return to the 2007 "Let's start a conversation with America" campaign. And as she notes, rather tongue in cheek, "We've been talking with Hillary now for such a long, long time...." Well, expect the "talking with Hillary" to be all one way for the foreseeable
Sorry, been very busy of late, and thus the slight lull in blogging. At any rate, these are the things I have wanted to blog about the past few days but have just not had the time:
Night of the Long Knives: Valerie Jarrett behind leak of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal
I blogged about the multiple reasons this scandal is so deeply problematic for Hillary here, but my assessments of how dangerous it all was for her future were based on an assumption that the Obama administration had her back. If that is not the case, and the administration has already initiated investigations, Hillary won't survive this.
Jonah Goldberg is having way too much fun with the e-mail scandal: It's Hillary All The Way Down
Fifty Shades of Gore: Al Gore Wants To Punish Climate Change Deniers.
One, that headline is so ridiculous. We've been coming out of the Little Ice Age for near two centuries; no one who knows the least about science claims the climate is now or ever has been static long term. Two, what Gore wants is to stop all debate. So, pointing out that, despite the theory that our temperatures will rise relative to increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, and despite the fact that ever greater quantities of CO2 have been pumped into our atmosphere over the past two decades, stating the fact that there has been no statistically significant rise in temperature in over 18 years and that maybe the theory is wrong, will result in some Gore-mandated punishment. All the while, Gore cashes in on government mandates. Disgusting.
In response to the brewing scandal regarding her use of a private e-mail account to conduct all of her business while serving as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, Hillary Clinton held a carefully stage-managed 'press conference' for twenty minutes at the United Nations today.
As I wrote in a post below, Hillary faces five potential land mines over her use of private e-mail while Secretary of State. To sum up:
1. The optics: The only rational reason for her to use a private e-mail address set up on a private server soley under her control was to skirt oversight. It was Nixonian.
2. Legal: Her sole use of a private account likely violated government record - keeping regulations.
3. Legal: If she discussed classified material over her private e-mails, then she will have violated several very strict criminal laws governing the handling such material.
4. National Security: Her private security measures were inadequate. We don't yet know the potential damage to our national security.
5. Legal: Has Hillary turned over all responsive e-mails to lawful requests for discovery?
With those areas in mind, here was Hillary spinning at the press conference:
1. Hillary throws the "gender equality" card right at the start. What does that have to do with her private e-mail account? Could she be any less subtle? SEXISM . . . all these questions are nothing but SEXISM!!! And if you didn't get the hint, at another point in the presser, a Turkish reporter -- and we all know that Muslims are so concerned with women's rights that the question could not have been a plant -- kindly asked whether such a fuss would be made over these e-mails if Hillary "were a man?" Hillary, staying above the fray, said she'd leave that for "others" to decide.
2. The reason she used only a private e-mail account was solely for convienience. She did not want to have to carry around two devices, one for work, one for private use.
3. Her use of the private e-mail account accorded with all government regulations.
4. The vast majority of her work e-mails went to other government employees at their government addresses, and thus should be captured for archiving.
5. She claims to have provided all of her e-mails to the State Dept. that "could possibly be work related." And, in her own personal desire to insure transparency, she wants the State Dept. to release all of the e-mails she has provided them.
6. In reviewing her e-mails, Hillary decided to scrub the system of all of her personal e-mails. Everyone understands that was all about privacy, right?
7. Sixty thousand e-mails were sent and received over her private account. After a "thorough" investigation, she decided that half of them were personal and deleted them from her server. The official e-mails she provided to the State Dept. in hard copy, not on electronic media.
8. The server contains communications from she and her husband. It is her private property and she will not allow it to be inspected by a third party.
9. There were no "security breeches."
10. According to Hillary, it is up to the individual federal employee to determine for themselves what is to work related and thus required to be archived.
11. She claims she did not discuss any classified information or send classified material on her private e-mail account.
12. She ended the press conference as soon as someone asked about the diplomat who was fired during her tenure in part for using a private e-mail account to conduct State Dept. business. She directed the reporter to go review the record, then left the podium.
Analysis:
1. The optics: Hillary did herself no favors by claiming that the private e-mail account was strictly about convienience, that she did not want to have to use more than one device. She certainly has not had that problem since leaving the State Department. According to Legal Insurrection, Hillary appeared at Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women less than two weeks ago and ostentatiously made note that she "had both an iPhone and . . . a Blackberry." In addition, there's this from Hot Air regarding her time at the State Department: "Judicial Watch claims that not only did she operate multiple devices, she insisted on using Apple products even though State’s IT people told her that their enhanced security is designed for Blackberry only."
Moreover, the reason she gives for refusing to allow a neutral third party to inspect her server is even more obviously a lie (thanks, Bill). Hillary says that she won't allow such an inspection because the server contains private communications between her and her wayward husband, former President Bill Clinton. But according to Bill's spokesperson, Bill has sent all of two e-mails in his entire life, both when he was President.
The optics here cannot possibly help Hillary. When even the MSNBC anchors are gobsmacked at Hillary's decisions, no amount of hitting America over the head with the gender card is going to make this go away.
2. Government Record-keeping Regulations: According to Hillary, she has complied with all applicable regulations. This one is still murky, and I am not expert on these regulations. According to John Hinderaker at Powerline, she violated the spirit of State Department policy that allows for occasional use of private e-mail in exigent circumstances, but otherwise require the use of offical e-mail. Meh. She probably won't take a hit for this.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, like all departing federal employees, was required to fill out and sign a separation statement affirming that she had turned over all classified and other government documents, including all emails dealing with official business.
Fox News Megyn Kelly reported Wednesday evening on the requirement and that a spokesman for Clinton had not responded to a request for comment, including an explanation of when the former chief U.S. diplomat signed the mandatory separation agreement or, if she didn't, why didn't she. . . .
Kelly also reported that State Department regulations in place when Clinton resigned as secretary required all departing employees to return all official documents, including emails, to ensure that the department would be able to respond to Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests, as well as subpoenas in litigation.
Failure to do so carries with it both fines and possible jail time.
Clinton, in December, 2014, turned over a portion of her e-mails to the State Dept. It would seem this bears watching also.
[Update: Powerline discusses the requirements for determining what is and is not a public record, noting that Hillary is giving a patently false impression of how such determination is to be made at law, and notes that she may well be guilty of a felony.]
Update: Hillary makes the point that, since most of her e-mails were to and from people within the State Dept., they would have been caught in the official e-mail tranche and archived. Stephen Hayes appeared on Fox today to point out that at least two of Hillary's top aides, her advisor Huma Abadein and her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, had private e-mail accounts. So to them at least, and probably many others, there is a real question whether those e-mails have ever been archived and whether any of them appear in the Clinton hard copy document release.
3. Discussing Classified Material: Knowing the low standard for classifying information as well as the rules for handling classified information, to believe that Hillary, as Secretary of State, didn't discuss classified information in over 30,000 e-mails over four years is simply impossible. [Update: And today, the NYT runs a story largely agreeing with that assessment.] [Update: Andrew McCarthy has much more to say on this at NRO.] Moreover, there is this from Powerline:
Hillary’s private email account came to light when a hacker called Guccifer broke into the email account of Democratic political operative Sid Blumenthal, and found a trove of emails between Blumenthal and Hillary. The emails related in part to Benghazi; you can read a couple of them here. Blumenthal passed along detailed information he had gotten from confidential sources about the terrorist attack. These emails obviously relate to Hillary’s duties as Secretary of State, not funerals or family vacations, . . .
All we have is Hillary's word that she didn't discuss classified materials over non-official channels, and what little information we have suggests otherwise. This isn't just a landmine for her, it's a nuclear landmine. No, Obama will no more see her prosecuted than he'll see Al Sharpton prosecuted for perrenial tax fraud. But the above alone should be more than enough to justify a judge to order sequestration and forensic examination of the private server. And if it appears she has committed criminal acts, even she won't be able to brazen her way out of that one between now and the 2016 election. It will be her "I didn't have sex with that woman" moment.
4. National Security: Hillary's blanket claim that there were no "security breaches" is as paper thin as her justifications for using the private e-mail and, now, for keeping from inspection. Professionals who have examined the security of Hillary private e-mail account have said that the question is not whether the account was hacked, but to what degree. We won't know the extent of any security breaches until we have had a forensic examination of her server.
5. Hillary's Compliance With Lawful Requests For Information: I am sure that we will soon see numerous instances where lawful and legally binding requests were made for discovery, whether under FOIA or other subpoena, and which requests would have covered her e-mails. And we'll see that Hillary did not comply with those requests. We already know that the documents referenced in paragraph 3 above, the trough of Hillary e-mails she sent to Sid Blumenthal and that were made public by Guccifer, were not among those "55,000" pages of documents she provided to the State Dept. and, a subset of which was provided to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Moreover, Trey Gowdy, the chairman, is already on record stating that there are numerous gaps -- month or more gaps -- on the e-mails Hillary has provided to his committee.
Summary:
There is no question that Hillary used a private e-mail account on a server she personally controlled in order to skate lawful oversight. There are very serious questions regarding whether she violated laws governing the handling of classified material, whether she has endangered national security, and whether she has complied with lawful requests for information. What information we have available, beyond her bald and, indeed, laughable denials, suggests she has violated our laws, that she has put our nation at risk, and that she is refusing to honor lawful requests for full and complete information. There is more than sufficient information here to justify a judge sequestering her server and ordering a forensic examination.
Hillary, for her part, will try to brazen this out. She has already begun by providing "55,000" pages of hard copy, but no digital media record of her e-mails, thus slowing down analysis of what she has provided to a complete crawl. She has already announced that she will fight any attempt to examine her server -- quite literally the only thing that might give us answers to the many questions. And even then, it may well be that the thing was accidentally degaussed by a giant magnet some foolish people were marching through the Clinton home recently. And, of course, you know that this will all be played as a war on women and a vast right wing conspiracy. The more things change, . . .
Until a few days ago, Hillary seemed a virtual shoe-in to be chosen the next Democrat nominee for President. She had skated around her mistakes as Secretary of State, she had survived the Benghazi scandal without any real damage, and by God, it was time for a woman in the oval office.
But then the e-mail "scandal" broke, and I don't think that people yet realize just how serious a problem this is for Hillary. This may be one that she cannot shamelessly bluster her way out of.
Here are the facts. In the week before her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary established a private e-mail account within "clintonemail.com," a private domain on a server physically set up inside of her private residence. Eschewing the use of official government e-mail, she exclusively used her personal email accounts to conduct government business as Secretary of State.
Problem one for Hillary are the optics of this. There is no question that the only reason she did this was to try and keep her communications a permanent secret, or at least to limit all access to those e-mail communications she never wanted to see made public. This looks so bad that the rabidly far left crowd at MSNBC was stunned speechless, and Politico has compared Hillary and her secret e-mails to Nixon and his tapes. In a world of bad optics, you can't get much worse than this.
Two, as the NYT has stated, Hillary "may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record." This still is not clear, though it is likely the least of Clinton's problems in regards to her e-mails. That said, it does look bad, given that State Dept. policy is that all employees use the government system for e-mails, and at least one ambassador serving under Hillary was fired in part for using private e-mails to conduct official business.
Three, it is simply inconceivable to me that Hillary, in her capacity as Secretary of State, and despite claims to the contrary, did not daily discuss matters and materials over e-mail that were classified to the highest level or security. Having had experience with handling classified government information, I can assure you that the laws governing the handling and transmission of classified information are strict. And while I do not remember the specific laws, I do recall that storing such information on a private medium is a violation of the laws. And I am relatively certain that transmitting that same information outside of secured government means is also a violation of the law. And note that we are not talking about a single incident, we are talking about four years worth of material. This is potentially far more serious than the discrete breaches of security for which former General Petraeus was recently prosecuted.
Four, Hillary used private means to secure her e-mail communications -- and it appears they were less than adequate. This from Gawker:
When Hillary Clinton ditched government email in favor of a secret, personal address, it wasn't just an affront to Obama's vaunted transparency agenda—security experts consulted by Gawker have laid out a litany of potential threats that may have exposed her email conversations to potential interception by hackers and foreign intelligence agencies.
"It is almost certain that at least some of the emails hosted at clintonemails.com were intercepted," independent security expert and developer Nic Cubrilovic told Gawker.
Do read the article. It lays out in detail all the weaknesses in Hillary's private e-mail set up. It may be that we will never know the degree to which her decision to use private e-mail has compromised our nation's security, but it should be the subject of an investigation.
And lastly, despite numerous legal requests for discovery of information over the past years that would have included her e-mails as Secretary of State, Hillary provided only very limited responses, and indeed, seems to have, at least in some cases, not allowed any search of her private e-mail account at all. For example, in regards to House Committee requests for information from the State Dept. on Benghazi, her aids produced only approximately 300 e-mails from Hillary herself. It's beyond question that there is much more information that has yet to be produced, and that does not bode well for Hillary:
Hillary's decision to use a private e-mail account on a private server to conduct her official business as Secretary of State may be the biggest mistake of her political life. So far, all we hear from Camp Hillary is silence. Any one of five aspects to this scandal could be the bomb that ends Hillary Clinton's run for the President.
Update: Hillary has maintained radio silence, but her minions are out in force to claim that Hillary's actions are a complete non-story. According to James Carville, MSNBC and the New York Times, the most left wing outlets in America, are "in the tank for the right" for addressing this story. While over at Fox News, Clinton hatchet-man Lanny Davis went fully rabid in trying to defend the indefensible.
Meant to blog this earlier in the week but have been overcome by work.
If you are black and you believe that the greatest of threats to the black community are "racist" laws to insure the integrity of the ballot box, you are either a person making your living off of the racial grievance industry or an utter fool. If you found yourself nodding when Hillary Clinton tried to play you on Day One of her campaign for the presidency, you are ignorant of most, if not all, the relevant facts.
Ask yourself why Hillary and every politician on the left is trying to make you angry about voting laws. Those are laws that protect the vote of blacks and whites alike. Not a single one of those laws have been shown to have disenfranchised a single black voter. Or ask yourself why these same people are making Stand Your Ground laws such an important issue when such laws had nothing to do with the Trayvon Martin case (and indeed, which laws are invoked most often by black defendants)? Now ask yourself why not a one of these politicians is talking about the black community's problems with unemployment (over 50% for teens), poverty (risen to over 25% for blacks under Obama), education (the "civil rights issue of our time"), crime, or family?
For god's sake, think for yourself.
Is there still some racism against blacks on the fringes of America - I am sure there is. There is no place for it, and when found, it should be punished. But the unvarnished truth is that white racism is no longer any sort of major problem in this country, nor does it play any sort identifiable role in the problems facing the black community. So why then does every left wing politician from Hillary on down want to pretend that it is?
The answer is simple - they need the black vote to stay in power, but you might stop doing that if you start demanding that they actually address the problems besetting blacks today. Addressing those problems would mean two things. One, they would have to admit the problems are not caused by white racism. Two, it would soon become obvious that the left puts blacks far down on the list of interest groups. For instance, teacher's unions are the single most moneyed interest in the left's pantheon, and in any conflict between blacks and the teacher's unions, blacks come out on the short end of the stick. Or for that matter, take the DC City Council that is now driving Walmart out of the city at the behest of unions. With it goes thousands of jobs and the availability of low priced products. Do you really think that decision is being made in the best interest of the black community in DC? If you do, please, do the world a favor, don't reproduce.
For God's sake, wake up! Step off the left's plantation and look around. Hold the people you would elect accountable. The day the left is unable to take your vote for granted is the day the situation of blacks in this country will begin to greatly improve.
On a side note, it is not only blacks who are treated this way by the left - it is virtually their entire staple of low information voters. I blogged years ago about my horror at how MoveOn.org operated - asking people to act on pure emotion with no discussion whatsoever about policies. They tell you what to think and demonize any who do not agree. At Powerline, they make that same observation today. They are still operating on pure demonization and hate.
In the words of Instapundit: "Fuck ‘em. I’ve had it with this crap." Good. Glad to see the anger. We need ton's more of such anger if this "crap" is ever going to be stopped.
1) Liberals aren’t held to the same rules as Republicans: When liberals say racist things, it’s just excused out of hand as if it’s no big deal. . . . [This holds not merely for racism, but the most venomous reverse racism as well - Jeremiah Wright being but the small tip of that iceberg.]
2) Minority racism must be ignored: According to Rasmussen polling, “Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American Adults think most black Americans are racist, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. . . . [T]he most grotesque examples of racism from minorities are just shrugged off
4) Outrage matters more than facts: It doesn’t matter what Bush actually did in New Orleans or that the local government failed the people of the city; it matters how people FEEL about it. It doesn’t matter that Democrats have run Detroit since 1962; it matters that people FEEL Republicans are responsible. It doesn’t matter that Trayvon Martin wasn’t really a twelve year old kid and that he was slamming George Zimmerman’s head into the pavement; it matters that Zimmerman’s acquittal FEELS symbolic of law-abiding black Americans being profiled because so many other black Americans are criminals. Once an accusation of racism is made, facts are treated as if they’re of secondary importance to FEELINGS.
5) It’s okay to discriminate against white Americans: It’s unbelievable that in 2013, we still have race-based discrimination in America and liberals are perfectly fine with it. . . .
6) It’s always the fifties and sixties: Comparing the United States of 2013, when we have a black President of the United States to a time when black Americans couldn’t drink from the same water fountains as whites is so ridiculous that to do so should practically be considered a sign of mental illness. Yet, it happens all the time . . .
7) Past evidence must be ignored: Ironically, saying you have “black friends” is now considered to be something that a racist would say. That says much more about the sort of witch hunt allegations of racism have become in this country than the people who say it. Judge Charles Pickering put his life on the line to prosecute the Grand Dragon of the KKK in Mississippi in the early sixties; yet liberals falsely branded him a racist to stop his nomination to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. George Zimmerman tutored black children and fought to get justice for a black homeless man beaten by police and even voted for Obama, but he was still falsely portrayed as a racist. This can happen only because determining if someone is a racist has become a political tool that is completely disconnected from whether the person in question actually dislikes people because of the color of their skin.
8) Republicans secretly want to do things Democrats used to do: Conservative, moderate, and liberal Democrats were behind slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the Tuskegee Experiment, lynchings and every other racist horror inflicted on black Americans in this country. Republicans stood against the Democrats while they were doing all of those terrible things and while we congratulate them on now agreeing with us that they were wrong, it’s disgusting to try to blame Democrat sins on the Republican Party. . . ..
9) Minorities shouldn’t be held to the same standards as whites: . . . If there is one general characteristic of white liberals, it’s their condescending and demeaning attitude toward blacks.” The soft bigotry of low expectations that liberals bring to the table encourages mediocrity, undercuts excellence and generally helps to hold minorities in America back.
10) When a white non-liberal disagrees with a liberal minority, it’s probably because of racism: Republicans absolutely detested Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; so what kind of moron would assume that their intense dislike of Barack Obama must be driven by race? Tea Partiers love black conservatives that agree with them, like Herman Cain and Allen West; so could there be a reason that they detest Barack Obama other than race? Do we really need the Scooby Gang to figure out why a group that’s all about small government, low taxes, and cutting spending would dislike a socialist who’s all about big government, higher taxes and increasing spending? . . .
The Zimmerman case has brought out the full panapoly of the worst in our nation, along with a smattering of the intellectually honest.
The Idiots
Stevie Wonder - Mr. Wonder has vowed not to perform again in Florida until the state rescinds the Stand Your Ground law. Somebody tell this idiot that the Zimmerman case was purely a self defense case - the Stand Your Ground law was never raised in the Zimmerman trial.
The Race Baiters
Eric Holder - The most politicized - and race baiting - attorney general our nation has ever had, spoke today before the penultimate race baiters, the NAACP. What did he attack today to satisfy the NAACP lust for racial vengence? Stand Your Ground laws - while never mentioning what he well knows, that Stand Your Ground was never raised in the Zimmerman trial.
Like virtually everything that a race baiter touches, this is actually insidious in respect to the black community. Blacks do not merely commit crimes at the greatest rate in our nation, they are also much more likely to be the victims of that crime. Just what law abiding black victims need is to make it more difficult to legally defend themselves. As to Holder's assertions regarding stand your ground laws, I know of no data whatsoever that would support his claims.
Hillary Clinton - She gave a speech to a black sorority, painting Trayvon Martin as an innocent angel and a victim, There were no words of support for the jury verdict, nor for George Zimmerman, nor for the people or businesses suffering violence at the hands of animals in the wake of the jury verdict. Rather Clinton described the verdict as causing "heartache, deep painful heartache."
Charles Blow - At the NYT, Blow puts the all the blame for innocent Trayvon Martin's death on "the system," amazingly enough, even including the right to self defense.
Yahoo News - Yahoo begins their story: "In a case that bears some striking similarities to George Zimmerman's, a 76-year-old Milwaukee man is set to stand trial this week in the 2012 shooting death a 13-year-old boy he had accused of stealing from him." Striking similarities? Read about the case. That statement is insane. There is not a single similarity beyond the fact that a person with black skin is dead.
The Animals
Baltimore: A group of black teens chased down a Hispanic man in Baltimore then pistol whipped and beat him, shouting that "this is for Trayvon."
Mississippi - Three blacks pulled a white jogger into their car then pummelled him, shouting that "this is for Trayvon."
Richard Cohen - WP: Racism versus Reality Kudos to Cohen, a left wing journalist, for making a decent effort at intellectual honesty while literally bleeding onto the page in an effort not to overly offend his left wing readers.
Yamiche Alcindor - USA Today: Experts: Prosecutors failed to humanize Trayvon. Mx. Alcindor opines that the reason Zimmerman wasn't convicted was because the state failed to humanize Trayvon Martin, arguing that they should have played more on the emotion of the jurors. She must not have watched the trial. The state's whole case was emotion, not fact. Further, if Trayvon had been portrayed realistically, it would only have been easier for the jury to decide that he was a troubled teen who made a fatal - and criminal - error in attacking Zimmerman.
Hillary Clinton is finally appearing before Congress to answer questions on Benghazi. This in the wake of a State Dept. "investigation" that was an utter whitewash, finding that no one in the State Dept., from Hillary on down, bore culpability for the criminally reckless decisions that led to the death of our Ambassador in Libya and three other Americans. Clinton, in her opening statement, is magnanimously taking "full responsibility" for the Benghazi scandal, but defending against any culpability on the grounds that she had no idea what was going on. Kudo's to Rand Paul for hitting the nail on the head in his response to Clinton's testimony:
The worst scandal in living memory - the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi by al Qaeda and related groups - just got worse yet again, this time via the leak of a Secret cable showing that our people in Benghazi specifically saw such a coordinated attack as possible and assessed that it would succeed. This from Fox News:
The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.
Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.
“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.
That cable was addressed to "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee." That this is being embargoed by the MSM is an obscenity. I am waiting again to hear Hillary pawn off responsibility for security decisions in the run up to the 9-11 attacks. Obama refused to answer who denied requests for more security in Benghazi and why. The reason virtually has to be because of a policy decision by either Clinton or Obama. We need those answers before Nov. 6. - as well as the answers to the other equally serious legs of this scandal. Who denied military support to the consulate during the seven hour attack, and why did the Obama government claim for weeks that the attack was the spontaneous reaction to a youtube video?
Sec. of State Clinton said this last night about the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi:
What she said is insufficient. If she was truly taking responsibility, she would have accompanied her mea culpa with a letter of resignation, or the heads of the "security professionals" who, she would tell us, made criminally reckless decisions. Instead, what Clinton gave us yesterday was a whimsical "my bad, sorry." Or to use the vernacular of Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't 'taking responsibility taking responsibility.' It states the obvious, leaving all of the important questions regarding security, intelligence and foreign policy unanswered, and holding no one accountable.
Yes, as Clinton stated, the specific manning decisions for security in Benghazi would be made at the State Dept. and would never reach the White House. That said, if the decision to underman security in Benghazi irrespective of the actual threat was made in consideration of a policy, then we need to know where that policy originated. who approved it and why. That is either Clinton and or Obama. Bob Woodward highlighted this exact point several days ago on Fox News:
And then, of course, there is the now the well publicized testimony of LTC Wood, commander of a security detachment in Benghazi who begged the State Dept. for more security months in advance of the attack - "[f]or me, the Taliban was on the inside of the building. . ."
Moreover, there is the claim that "fog of war" lasted for near two weeks, during which time Susan Rice, Obama, Clinton and others in the administration claimed that this was a 'spontaneous' protest over a video that got out of hand. State Dept. officials who were in Benghazi on 9-11-12 have given a first hand account of what occurred on that day. To say that our intelligence agencies were mystified for weeks, let alone 24 hours, by the "fog of war" is utterly beyond belief. Charles Krauthammer highlighted that on a Fox News panel:
So that raises the next series of questions, regarding our intelligence capabilities. Who in our intelligence community briefed the White House and what was the sum of that briefing? Either our intelligence community has degraded to the level of the keystone kops or someone is lying to America. And further, we have been told again and again that our nation had no "actionable intelligence" regarding the Benghazi attack. Why not? Are we seeing degraded intelligence capabilities because of the President's decision to deal with al Qaeda almost solely through drone strikes and not through capture and interrogation?
Then there is the elephant in the room. If Obama was trying to deceive America about the nature of the Benghazi attack, why was he doing it? Others have answered that. Charles Krauthammer, in his column The Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, points out that Salafism is resurgent in the Middle East, that Obama's "doctrinal premises were supremely naive" and that his policies have been "deeply corrosive to American influence." Laura Logan noted that Obama's deception runs deeper than just al Qaeda and the Benghazi attacks:
[O]ur government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”
{The US. is experiencing] a false sense of security for no, we are not safer today. For the past eleven years, our soldiers and intelligence services have performed brilliantly. They have done all that we have asked of them. And yet, the future in the Middle East and, more particularly, as regards the radical Islamists, looks far more threatening today than it did on September 10, 2001.
I followed that prescient observation by noting that we have failed to engage in the war of ideas, and thus al Qaeda will be constantly regenerating in some form or another. This is not a 'war' that will end in 2014 as we turn off the lights in Afghanistan. Because we are not engaging in the war of ideas, this will be a conflict that will last for decades.
At any rate, the answers to all of the questions raised above were not answered by Hillary Clinton's whimsical acceptance of responsibility with no consequences. This is not a "political" diversion; it goes to the heart of our national security and the wages of four years of policy decisions by the Obama administration. It so happens that they are all encapsulated in the answers to why the Benghazi attack happened, why it succeeded, and why the Obama administration lied about it to America. Those are questions the Obama administration wants to avoid like the plague until after the first Tuesday in November. Those are questions America deserves answers to today.
The prog war on the Kulaks - and their desire for global governance - continues apace. This from Breitbart:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Monday "One of the issues I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country," Clinton said. “It is a fact that around the world the elites of every country are making money. There are rich people everywhere, and yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries.”
This is pure class warfare as perfected by Lenin. The difference between the rich in a capitalist system and the rich in the world of progressives is that the latter are hand picked and favored. Its not, at least in America, that the rich don't pay their "fair share," the top 5% are shouldering, what, something like 50% of the total income tax burden. Its that the progs, like the Hildabeast, want a bigger cut, and more importantly, they want to use class warfare to increase their own power.
Everything that the Obama administration does in the foreign policy realm seems coldly calculated to harm our interests. And as we saw with Honduras, when democratic principles are implicated, the Obama administration seems sure to come down on a position at odds with those principles. All that and more is showing up in the most recent bit of foreign policy insanity - refusing to support - or at least stay wholly neutral - as regards Britain's centuries old claim to the Falkland Islands. But Argentina wants the Falklands - and they just got a big boost from Team Obama.
This is sheer insanity. Our most important ally for well over the past century has been Britain. Britain has stood with us shoulder to shoulder on countless issues and in countless ways. We should be supporting them fully unless it is clear that they are overreaching. But they are not. Britain's claim to the Falklands is in fact significantly stronger than Argentina's. Moreover, in terms of democracy, the people of the Falklands overwhelmingly want to continue British rule - something not hard to understand if you know the political and economic history of Argentina.
The Falkland Islands don't sit within the territorial waters of Argentina - the islands sit fully 300 miles off the coast. Native Argentinians never inhabited the Islands - in fact the Islands lay uninhabited until discovered by European explorers around 1502. The Brits laid claim to the Islands in the late 1600's and started a settlement in the Falklands in 1765 - nearly half a century before Argentina even came into existence. Britain arrived in the Falklands in force in 1838 and has ruled the Islands ever since. The population of Falklands is 3,100 - the vast majority of whom are of British descent and all of whom, are by law, British citizens. When, 25 years ago, Britain broached the idea of turning the Falklands over to Argentina, there was rioting in the streets of the Falklands.
Argentina wants to take the Falklands by hook or crook. Argentine politicians have long used the Falkland issue as a political tool to focus nationalism in their country - often in an effort to deflect from the true and serious problems inside Argentina itself. But there is an economic motive also. There is valuable fishing and the possibility of large oil reserves near the Falklands. The UK's position has long been that, regardless of the relative merits of the competing claims, they will happily put the issue to a referendum of the Islanders - something which Argentina refuses to honor. Instead, a military junta governing Argentina in 1983 attempted a military takeover of the Islands and were beaten back by a British Expeditionary Force. Ronald Reagan fully supported Britain in that short, brutal war.
But that was then. When the Argentine government raised the issue of the Falkland Islands with the Obama administration, here is what happened according to the UK Times:
Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup yesterday in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after a two-hour meeting in BuenosAires between Hillary Clinton and President Cristina Fernándezde Kirchner.
Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for “friendly mediation” between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered “to encourage both countries to sit down”.
Her intervention defied Britain’s longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands’ 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in BuenosAires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands.
Britain insisted there was no need for mediation as long as the islanders wanted to remain British. “We don’t think that’s necessary,” a Downing Street spokesman said. . . .
Ruperto Godoy, the official Argentine government spokesman on the islands, said the new pressure from Mrs Clinton was “very significant, very important” and would help BuenosAires to force Britain to the negotiating table.
In the Falklands, reaction to the meeting ranged from dismay to fury. “It’s outrageous after all the support we have given the United States,” said Hattie Kilmartin, a sheepfarmer’s wife. “They are not looking at the people who are actually living here and what they want, and it’s crazy that they are even contemplating going against us.”
Jane Clement, who works at Stanley airport, said her reaction was “probably unprintable”. She added: “I’m very disappointed. I always thought we would have support.”
Tiffany Gillen, an American citizen living in the Falklands, wrote a letter of protest to President Obama, asking: “How can we not support these people, this country? Have we ceased to be allies of the United Kingdom?”
With allies like Obama and Hillary, who needs enemies?
How much do you want to bet that neither Obama nor the Hildabeast know the first thing about the history of the Falkland Islands?
How much do you want to bet that Hillary was operating without the slightest awareness of or concern for the desires of the citizens of the Falkland Islands.
I would bet my meagre life's savings that they look at Britain occupying an island far from their coast for 200 years and assume its a simple hold-over from the colonial period. But colonialism by definition means a foreign power occupying terrain owned by another and imposing their government by force on the natives - or, in the alternative, displacing the natives. None of that applies to the Falkland Islands' situation. Ironically enough, it will be colonialism if Argentina is allowed to impose its foreign government on the Falkland Islands against the will of the native citizens.
Let me ask my British friends, in light of the fact that Obama was more popular in the UK come last election than he was in the U.S., are you wishing George Bush was still in office now? Lord knows I am. For that matter, I would even settle for the grossly incompetent but well intentioned foreign policy of Jimmy Carter at this point.
The odious Harry Reid is at the center of a tempest in a tea pot with the publication of a book, Game Change in which Reid is quoted as saying some distinctly up-p.c. things
[Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama’s race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.
If you define racism as a belief in the inate superiority of one's race over another or hatred of another based upon their race, then I see nothing that smacks of racism in the above statement. What I see is "leftism."
I defined leftism in some length in a prior post. To summarize from that post - the alpha and omega of the left wing is identity and grievance politics. They look to define people as victims and then use claims of "victimhood" to advance their, the left's, political interests. They use charges of racism and sexism to shut down debate and demonize their opponents. [See Chart at bottom of post] If someone on the left actually engages in racism or sexism aimed at another leftie, it is forgiven and forgotten. If it is aimed at someone on the right, then it is simply accepted and ignored, if not supported. The sexism aimed at Palin, Jesse Jackson's Hymie-town comment, and Rev. Wright's vile reverse racism are just a few of the countless examples that come to mind.
So now to pull apart Reid's comments:
"He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate,"
Hmmm, I was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate this past election also, just not Obama for all the tea in China.. Get Thomas Sowell in there and I'll make like an "acorn" - I'll vote early and often for him. To continue . . .
". . . especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” . . ."
If this were a conservative making this statement, the left would be throwing race cards at light speed. The words uttered by Reid would be reinterpreted in front of every microphone as evil, racist, conservative code for outlandish racial animus. Is there anyone who doubts that the left would conduct a lynching in the media that would not end until the person who said it was hounded out of public life? That is hypocrisy writ large - and par for the course for our modern left.
But it seems clear that Reid was not displaying racial animus. He was merely coldly calculating the reality and advantages of Obama's race in purely political terms. Nothing could more cleary show the left wing mindset than Harry Reid's comments - including even the cynical thought that Obama could adopt or discard a "Negro dialect" as the need arose. One, that technique has been used before in Democratic politcs. We saw Hillary Clinton on several occasions break into "a singsong Southern twang before . . . black audiences" during the campaign. The Youtube video is here. It would seem highly offensive to me if I were in the audience, but then again, I don't think like the left. Two, this is the same Harry Reid who tried, in 2007, to surrender in Iraq on behalf of America after attacks by four al Qaeda suicide bombers. That was a raw, naked grab for political power which, for Reid, took priority over America's national security. With that in mind I think it impossible to underestimate Reid's capacity for partisanship and cynicism. If he could sell out his country for political power, he can certainly ponder Obama making use of a "Negro dialect" for the same purpose.
It is incontrevertible that a unique speech pattern and inflection identifiable with some communities of African Americans does exist, so Reid was merely being honest about that. As to "skin color," it is well known that people are hardwired to initially respond best to others who look like themselves. I refuse to get into arguments here about subconscious racism - something that I think highly superficial in any event. Regardless, it seems apparent that Reid, in making these statement, was just doing leftwing political calculus.
As to Reid's use of the word Negro, that just dates Reid as over age 60 He was raised in an era before "black" became p.c. and long before the left came up with "African American." No racism there.
It does pain me to defend, of all people, Harry Reid. But I gots to calls 'em as I sees 'em. The guy is wholly without a shred of intellectual honesty and he values political power all else. He is the paragon of the left wing mindset, but not a racist.
Update: Pillage Idiot provides us with a Racist Remarks flow chart that is precisely accurate. Click on it to enlarge:
From Wapo, The GREEAAAATTTT News . . . . Copenhagen was an epic failure. The bad news, the highly politicized anthropogenic global warming (AGW) cabal is not slowing down in the slightest. All of the issues raised by Climategate are being studiously ignored, meaning the juggernaught of anthropogenic global warming rolls on. The really ugly news - the Obama administration is planning to send tens of billions of dollars of our money to third world kleptocracies. In other news of note, God, it seems, really does have a sense of humor - Obama and Pelosi had to leave the global warming conference early because two feet of snow is expected to fall in Washington D.C. overnight. And it bears repeating yet again that a world record for irony was set at Copenhagen - capitalism was saved by the communist Chinese.
The Copenhagen Conference had several ambitious goals - all centered around accreting power and transferring wealth. The AGW cabal wanted Copenhagen to end in a binding legal agreement with the finalization of a treaty in Mexico in 2010. The treaty would have brought the U.S. into a global carbon trading scheme, set draconian and binding carbon reduction targets, and set up a vehicle for transferring vast sums of wealth out of the West. It would have been an end to capitalism as we have known it and the beginning of a movement towards global government. It would have meant the transfer of countless American jobs to from out of the U.S. And if the movement towards the draconian carbon reduction targets actually came to fruition, it would mean energy prices through the roof and a reduction in our standard of living perhaps to levels not seen since the nineteenth century. All the while, socialists would regulate ever more of our economy and lives while rent seekers amassaed untold wealth picked from the pockets of every American.
As to the above, what came out of Copenhagen is, in all respects but one, a truly epic failure for the forces of . . . I will call them "evil." I do not think that word too strong, as they are attempting rape, pillage, enslave and conquer the world. The only difference between them and the Mongolian horde is that these guys are wearing ties. At any rate, no agreement was signed. Instead, all the UN IPCC managed to produce was an unsigned statement of aspirational goals. Moreover, the movement to sign a binding treaty in Mexico next year is now off the table. In its stead, all will be revisited in 2016.
As to the ugly news, we have Clinton, on behalf of the Obama administration, promising that we will begin transferring wealth on a vast scale - weath that we damn well don't have and that will have to come out of the pockets of the electorate - to third world countries. This from WaPo:
The United States backed what amounts to the single biggest transfer of wealth from rich to poor nations for any one cause -- in a sense offering compensation for decades of warming the Earth.
Clinton pledged that the country would help mobilize $100 billion a year in public and private financing by 2020 -- an amount that is almost equal to the total value of all developmental aid and concessional loans granted to poor nations by the United States, Europe and other donors this year. She did not specify how much the U.S. government would commit to giving, but a senior administration official said it would be 20 to 30 percent. Administration officials said they envisioned most of the money coming from private sources, or from revenue generated by a cap-and-trade scheme, but other sources could include redirecting existing subsidies or a tax on bunker fuel.
The real rub out of Copenhagen is the manner in which our MSM and our far left radicals in the government - not the least of whom is President Obama - have studiously ignored the issues raised by Climategate. It is clear beyond any doubt that those who take AGW on faith and those who look at AGW as a means to accreting power and wealth have no intention whatsoever of being slowed by facts or questions. They control all the levers of power in the West, and with but few exceptions, are aided by a fully complicit MSM. We defeated these socialists in the Cold war. We have now moved into a new, and equally existential phase of the same conflict. Call it the Warm War.
Sally Quinn’s column in the Washington Post today, "Palin's Preganancy Problem," is hypocrisy of the left gone mad. Ms. Quinn is in full scale righteous “anger.” She is “shocked.” She is “insulted.” McCain has chosen a failed mother who needs to be attending to her children. She reminds us that we on the right are supposed to by misogynists. And, she tells us, Gov. Palin is too inexperienced for vice president, studiously ignoring the Obamaphant in the middle of her office.
I said in the post below, Palendimonium, that the left just won’t be able to stop themselves from sliming Gov. Palin and attempting to claim she is too inexperienced for the job of Vice President. Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn’s steps into the left wing breach today with an effort to do just that. And it is an outrageous effort indeed.
You can find Ms. Quinn’s column here. Quinn’s most outrageous arguments surround Gov. Palin as a mother. First, pointing to Gov. Palin’s teenage daughter’s out of wedlock pregnancy, Quinn asserts that this “must certainly raise the question among the evangelical base about whether Sarah Palin has been enough of a hands-on mother.”
It would be hard to imagine a more insulting or fatuous argument. What teenager does not rebel and try to distinguish themselves as a person? And in doing so, what teenager does not make mistakes? How many children are born in this country to parents whose wedding dates are less than nine months from the birth date, let alone how many are born out of wedlock? Quinn just painted the parents of all of these people as intinsically failed people in order to slime Gov. Palin. That ought to play well amongst the fly over crowd.
Two, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of those on the right who espouse morals and try to live by them. We see human failings all the time – in ourselves and all around us. That does not mean that a person who fails is a failed person, as Quinn would paint Gov. Palin. The evangelical Rev. Dobson's response to Bristol Palin’s pregnancy could have been written in response directly to Sally Quinn:
. . . ”Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord. I’ve been the beneficiary of that forgiveness and restoration in my own life countless times, as I’m sure the Palins have.
“The media are already trying to spin this as evidence Gov. Palin is a ‘hypocrite,’ but all it really means is that she and her family are human. They are in my prayers and those of millions of Americans.”
Second, Quinn takes a century of feminist efforts to end misogyny and have women treated as the equals of men and she tosses it out the window. She explicitly argues that Palin, as the mother of five, has no business being the V.P. She should be at home taking care of these children as her primary responsibility.
Not only do we have a woman with five children, including an infant with special needs, but a woman whose 17-year-old child will need her even more in the coming months. Not to mention the grandchild. This would inevitably be an enormous distraction for a new vice president (or president) in a time of global turmoil. . . . [W]omen also will have to decide if they will vote against their conscience by voting to put the mother of young children in a job outside the home that will demand so much of her time and energy. . . . [H]er family situation [is a] valid and vital considerations here.
If there is any intellectually honest feminist out there, they should be spewing their coffee across the keyboard while they read that one. And one wonders about how Ms. Quinn feels about women in other high powered jobs. How does she feel about Michelle Obama holding down a job with two young children? What about fathers of young children? How about Bill Clinton in the White House while his daughter was a teenager? So according to Ms. Quinn, we should vote against Republicans to save motherhood and to demand that mothers stay in the home. Could this get any more hypocritical?
Quinn spends much of the rest of her piece trying to de-legitimize Gov. Palin by labeling her, in essence, an affirmative action pick. This is aimed at the general electorate and, more narrowly, at the Hillary voters. Quinn makes her argument while ignoring Gov. Palin’s accomplishments, her success in office, her background, and the affinity McCain has for a “kindered spirit.” I addressed this argument at length in a post below, Palendemonium. Suffice it to say, Gov. Palin’s plumbing may be a plus, but McCain’s justifications for choosing her neither start nor end at Gov. Palin’s gonads. One finds no hint of that in Quinn’s piece.
And lastly, there is the inexperience argument. The fact that, as mayor and governor, she has more executive experience than the combined Democratic ticket is studiously ignored – as is the fact that Gov. Palin’s foreign policy experience is the equal of the Obamaphant in the room. Instead, we get:
How can McCain call Barack Obama unqualified, inexperienced, not ready from Day One, not able to be commander in chief, and then put someone like Palin in a position that is a heartbeat away from the pesidency?
All one needs to do is turn that argument on its head to see how dangerous it is for Democrats. How can Obama be President if he has less qualifications and relevant experience than even the Repulican’s VP pick? That is the real question.
Quinn’s piece is a disgraceful attempt to smear Gov. Palin. Quinn is making an ill disguised reach across the aisle to evangelicals to telling them that they should just follow their misogynist instincts. And it is an explicit warning to Hillary backers not to vote for McCain-Palin. While Gov. Palin may share their plumbing, she is obviously not of their cut. The snobbery and identity politics emanating from Ms. Quinn’s keyboard is palpable.
As I wrote in Palindemonium, the left will just be unable to stop themselves from smearing Gov. Palin because of what she represents – a woman who does not accept victim status and who has made it on her own. That is so antithetical to the left’s belief system and their identity politics that Gov. Palin’s mere presence on the ticket has opened up the gates that held back the sewer water. Ms. Quinn's piece just happens to be one of the first bits of excreta that has floated out. But if America starts to like this most amazing woman, Gov. Palin, and finds her competent, their revulsion at the tactics employed by people such as Ms. Quinn will be reflected in November - and hopefully in the bottom line of Ms. Quinn's MSM employers.
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