Two low level clerks under contract to the State Department have been let go for snooping in Barack Obama’s passport files on at least 3 separate occasions. Another State Department employee has been disciplined as a result of the incidents.
This is what is known at the moment. But does that stop our intrepid internet paranoids, goofballs, nitwits, and other denizens of the left from creating a grand conspiracy involving evil Bush and his evil minions out of the thinnest of news items?
The ever rational and reasonable Americablog:
This is not good. We know how much we can trust anyone who works for George Bush. NOT AT ALL.The first Bush administration did the same thing to Bill Clinton.
Please note the absolute, rock solid, dead certainty that the 2nd Bush Administration is guilty. Based on nothing except the paranoid delusions of the author.
The towering intellects at Firedoglake:
They are not saying yet who these people are,which Halliburton subsidiary is involvedwho the contractor is, and therefore we have no idea which Party they belong to—“The War Mongering Republicans” or the “Rapture Republicans”. However, for each of these two groups the last seven years “imprudent curiosity” usually manifests itself at airport bathrooms or donkey shows. So we really have no idea how this will play out.
This one gets an “A” for mentioning Haliburton and donkey shows in the same post.
Shakesville also gets high marks for including a Yakov Smirnoff joke:
Evidently some low-levelpatsiesstaffers were fired for their role in looking for that one time Obama flew to Afghanistan to meet with his al Qaeda overlords. One can only assume they’ve also looked carefully to find all the times Hillary Clinton flew to Novosibirsk in her youth. And if those visits didn’t exist before, they probably do now.As Yakov Smirnoff might say: “In Soviet Russia, government reads secret passport files on political opponents. But in America, same thing! What a country!”
Sorry if I whetted your appetite for a “joke.” Unless you’re a liberal, such incandescent humor seems to elude the rational among us.
And don’t forget the “patsies!” (Why does the left use so man strike-throughs?) All that’s missing is the grassy knoll and Woody Harrleson’s dad.
In truth, gentle readers, there is a much more mundane explanation than George Bush is lifting a finger to help John McCain; Hillary did it:
I remember hearing their charge that Obama had only visited one NATO country in his life and it seemed pretty hard to believe… out of countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, etc., Obama had only been to one? The boy who grew up in Indonesia, and visited relatives in Africa, never made it to any of those European countries? The guy who lived in Chicago and went to Harvard never made it to Canada? (I presume Canada wasn’t the site of the brief stopover trip.)Now, I’m not saying that the Hillary camp did the snooping in the passport file. But in asking that question, they seemed awfully certain that Obama had never been to one of those countries earlier in his life, didn’t they? Note they didn’t say, “you have traveled to only one NATO country as a senator”, (it wouldn’t be all that surprising that Obama had only taken a few foreign trips since taking office in January 2005); they worded the question so that it encompasses his entire life.
The question came from the Hillary camp on March 12; two of the breaches were before that date. One breach occurred two days later.
Maybe Hillary and Bush are working together. Maybe Bush is using Hillary as a cut out to carry out his nefarious plans. Maybe Hillary wears army boots.
Or maybe there’s nothing there. From Hillary booster and spouse of world famous super spy Valerie Plame:
Folks, this is really a non-story. ... .. We know he has not visited Europe. His only real overseas travel before joining the Senate was to Africa. And the passport records do not contain info about that trip, other than the date he made the trip. People with no need to know should not have been checking out his documents, but at the end of the day there is no there there.
The above via Taylor Marsh who adds “No kidding.” Which actually is more to the point.
No one can be this stupid, can they? No one can be paranoid enough to take these two schmucks who were poking around in Obama’s private files and turn them into GOP operatives or even Hillary boosters for that matter, can they?
Whether out of curiosity or, more likely, hoping to find something they could sell to the press or perhaps Obama’s opponents, for a conspiracy to reach down in the bowels of the State Department and pluck these two non entities from total obscurity and charge them with carrying out a super secret operation (where they failed miserably because the computer caught the intrusions right away) is beyond belief, beyond reasonableness, and makes the purveyors of such claptrap beyond hope.
At the end of the day, we will find the State Department isn’t run very well. The fact that it has taken weeks for this to come to light is more a function of the crushing bureaucracy that paralyzes that department than any deliberate attempt to hide or cover up the truth.
By all means let’s have a thorough investigation of the clerks and especially their immediate supervisors who apparently didn’t think it important enough to inform management that Obama’s privacy had been shredded. The fact that a reporter was the person to break the news to the upper levels of the State Department points right back to those two clerks who were so inept at their spying they didn’t seem to know that they had been discovered the minute Obama’s file was breached.
Some conspirators.
Conspiracies are for the weak minded. They are a lazy substitute for reasoned, rational thought. Even a cursory examination of this matter reveals the chances that the Bush Administration or even the Hillary campaign being involved to be next to zero since the perpetrators were identified and caught so easily.
If I were the left, I’d stick with conspiracies involving aliens and Area 51. At least those plots are halfway entertaining.
9:22 am
I think the Obama campaign and supporters want to trump this issue up to deflect from the damage of the discovery that Obama has been attending such a divisive church for 20 years.
9:31 am
State Department employees who leak classified info to the NYT and WaPo are “whistleblowers” and national heroes. Those who looked at Obama’s passport files are Rove operatives and Halliburton employees. Don’t you love the logic (sic) of the Left?
9:53 am
Kenneth Bacon did far worse to Linda Tripp. Where is the outrage and or remembrance of that abuse of official power!
See http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/05/25/tripp.file/index.html
Pentagon investigation finds spokesmen violated law in releasing Linda Tripp information
No prosecution to follow
May 25, 2000
Web posted at: 3:24 p.m. EDT (1924 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN)—The Pentagon’s inspector general has concluded that Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon and one of his deputies, Cliff Bernath, violated the federal Privacy Act by releasing information from Linda Tripp’s security file to a magazine reporter.
9:56 am
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 03/21/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
9:57 am
If Bush can single handedly smite the warmening of the seas just imagine what he can do with Barack’s passport?
Like adding two more passports and making a small shelter for a tiny toy dog. Or skimming it across a tiled floor. Or snicker over a really bad photo. Or taking a magic marker and drawing a mustache on Obama’s face (Laura always get’s a kick out of that one).
10:10 am
I realy wonder what is in those passport details that makes him so scared that his passport details are going to be used against his campaign.
This clearly shows that he has realy something realy bad to hide there.
Maybe a recent travel to some Muslim country, where he made negociations with his Muslim brothers for bringing a Muslim takeover of USA and the introduction of a worldwide Sharia Law.
And i am also sure it has something to do with his well hidden Muslim background.
USA and the rest of the world is in serious danger and doomed, when he comes into power.
10:43 am
It’s obvious Hillary and BusHitler are on the same side. After all, Rush Limbaugh is supporting Hillary. And I once saw an interview with Woody Harrelson’s dad. He ADMITTED one of the tramps looks just like him.
10:50 am
It’s obvious Hillary and BusHitler are on the same side. After all, Rush Limbaugh is supporting Hillary, and even ordering Repukes to register as Democrats. And I once saw an interview with Woody Harrelson’s dad. He ADMITTED one of the tramps looks just like him. So there.
11:24 am
Yawn… gosh. something that looks like oppo research is viewed by some blogs as a conspiracy. This includes Macsmind, who says “... it’s my belief that whatever they found is already out there somewhere, and I imagine it’s very damning.”
I agree that this is a non-story, but when bloggers find conspiracies, that’s also a non-story. Shoot any fish in a barrel lately, Rick?
1:31 pm
Conspiracies are for the weak minded. They are a lazy substitute for reasoned, rational thought.
It’s disturbing how calling “conspiracy” has become the shorthand version of sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating “I’m not listening to you.” over and over.
Calling “conspiracy” today is a way of trashing your opponent and relegating whatever they’re questioning to the garbage, no matter the validity. This is ridiculous, because in the course of reasoned, rational thought, it’s often necessary to ask such seemingly odd or conspiratorial sounding questions. It forces you to think in different ways and reach conclusions you might not have thought of otherwise.
Calling conspiracy is a cop-out. It essentially ends debate during the exploratory reasoning process. Sometimes there is a conspiracy.
The Tuskegee Experiment was a conspiracy theory, until it was proved true.
The CIA trafficking cocaine was a conspiracy theory, until it was proved true.
Extraordinary Rendition was a conspiracy theory, until it was proved true.
The US Overthrowing Democratically Elected Governments is a conspiracy that’s been proved time and time again.
George W. Bush attempting to incite a Palestinian civil war was a conspiracy theory until it was proved true.
US funding terrorists in Iraq so they won’t blow us up was a conspiracy until it was proved true.
The temptation to shut people down by calling “Conspiracy!” is great. It’s a fast and painless way to embarrass your opponent and dismiss what they’re saying. Sometimes instant dismissal is valid, sometimes it’s not. It would seem to me though that reasoned, rational thought requires exploring all lines of questioning, even those easily dismissed at first.
10:38 pm
So they got into Hussein O’s passport files. The conspircy nuts got shot down. They also got in Shrillary’s and McCains….
7:47 am
According to the Washington Times:
“The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama….The third employee, who has not been fired, worked for The Analysis Corporation (TAC), which is headed by John O. Brennan, a former CIA agent who is an adviser to Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy.
The TAC employee is the only individual to have accessed both Mr. Obama’s and Mr. McCain’s passport information without proper authorization, a State Department spokesman said. That employee, who was not named, triggered an electronic alarm system, officials familiar with the probe said.”
Yet according to tHePeOPle:
“Calling “conspiracy†today is a way of trashing your opponent and relegating whatever they’re questioning to the garbage, no matter the validity. This is ridiculous, because in the course of reasoned, rational thought, it’s often necessary to ask such seemingly odd or conspiratorial sounding questions. It forces you to think in different ways and reach conclusions you might not have thought of otherwise.”
Also, the guy’s “conspiracies proved true” were laughable. For instance, the CIA selling crack has been debunked thoroghly. The coke was being shipped and sold by contract employees and proprietary airlines with CIA connections. But to say that actual employees of the US government were profiting from the drug trade is ridiculous. The CIA used drug smugglers to get guns to the contras because, well, who else were they going to use, FedEx? To smuggle guns in that part of the world you use smugglers. And people like Gene Hassenfuss smuggled everything from drugs and guns to blue jeans.
This seemed to grate on the sensibilities of many liberals who insist that there is no difference between a CIA contract employee and actual CIA government employees. Did they know the guys were smuggling drugs? Duh. Should they have turned a blind eye when they started to ship to the US? To believe that crack wouldn’t have gotten in some other way is to believe in fairy tales.
As for most of his other “conspiracies” they hardly qualify as such. Secret government programs are not conspiracies – only secret. There’s a difference that the gentlemen doesn’t make.
ed.
10:14 am
There is no other word for 99% of Dems except UNHINGED IDIOTS!
Hillzilla’s file and McCain’s file were also accessed.
But then so were Britney Spears’ medical records of her recent hospitalizations. Does some muffinhead blame GWB’s administration for THAT as well!?
Good grief Charley Brown!
10:46 am
I hear the guilty parties were actually Obama supporters…how do you explain that all you conspircay nutjobs