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Unprincipled WaPo Editors Damned Comey Critics – Now Join Them
The Washington Post editorial page is staunchly neoconservative and early on endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. On July 7 2016 the editors pinned an editorial defending FBI chief Comey's decision to then close the Clinton email case:
Republicans attack Mr. Comey for doing his job
IF REPUBLICANS believe the FBI director is corrupt and political, they should have the gumption to say so. Instead, many have insulted James B. Comey with slimy implications and underhanded threats since Tuesday, when he announced that he would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton relating to her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
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A look at today's Washington Post editorial page seems to demonstrate a change of mind:
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From the first piece headlined James Comey is damaging our democracy:
First, the FBI director, James B. Comey, put himself enthusiastically forward as the arbiter of not only whether to prosecute a criminal case — which is not the job of the FBI — but also best practices in the handling of email and other matters. Now, he has chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, departing from the department’s traditions.
From the second piece by notorious mud-slinger Dana Milbank:
I’ve long believed in Comey’s integrity. But if he doesn’t step forward and explain his October Surprise, he may inadvertently wind up interfering in the political process — perhaps even reversing the outcome of a presidential election — in a way that would have made J. Edgar Hoover gape.
And the third strike:
FBI Director James B. Comey’s stunning announcement that he has directed investigators to begin reviewing new evidence in the Clinton email investigation was yet another troubling violation of long-standing Justice Department rules or precedent, conduct that raises serious questions about his judgment and ability to serve as the nation’s chief investigative official.
Back to the July 7 editorial:
“It appears damage is being done to the rule of law,” Mr. Ryan said. He’s right, but the FBI director isn’t doing the damage. The wreckers are those who cast baseless aspersions on U.S. law enforcement in the service of their partisan goals.
I for one believe that Comey was wrong in July and is right today. He should have pressed for charges against Clinton early on. Using a "secret" private email server for confidential state business is not legal and would have been out of bounds for anyone else. Now possible new evidence was found and must be investigated. It is not Comey's job to ask if the timing of a renewed investigation is convenient for the potential culprit. He also had to inform Congress because he had reasonably promised to do so. (He also needed to save his ass before anyone else in his department talked to the media.)
The so called "election" of a U.S. president is always a sorry show. But this season's version has at least some amusing moments. Seeing the hypocrites at Fred Hyatt's Funny Pages™ squirm is one of them. It makes me smirk.
Washington is tying itself up into frightening knots over this election. About 90% of the 2,000 or so individuals running this joint in D.C. appear to be severely mentally defective. Perhaps the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are attempting to retain a little scrap of sanity.
{quote} National Security and Military Operations Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Joseph Dunford testified at a hearing on military budget needs, particularly as it related to readiness across the world.
[….]
Dunford tells Wicker controlling airspace in Syria means war with Russia. McCain throws tantrum. Dunford refines answer. Sen. Wicker pushes Carter and Dunford about a enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria but calling it by a different name (“more palatable terms”). Carter stammers while giving his answer. Dunford tells Wicker that controlling the airspace requires going to war with Russia and Syria. Sen. McCain throws a small tantrum. Dunford says a no-fly zone wouldn’t require a war. {end quote} — C-SPAN, September 22, 2016 (includes video clip of the hearing):
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4621738/dunford-tells-wicker-controlling-airspace-syria-means-war-russia-mccain-throws-tantrum-dunford
Now, Eric Zuesse at RINF Alternative News has this to say:
{quote} President Obama Threatens President Putin with Nuclear War
[….]
“It’ll be at a time of our choosing,” says U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on NBC’’s “Meet the Press,” to be aired on Sunday, October 16th.
Interviewer Chuck Todd had asked him, “Why would he [Obama] send a message out to Putin?” Biden pursed his lips, paused, and said, with a grim look on his face, “We sent him the message.” Of course that didn’t answer Todd’s question, which was “Why?” Biden and Todd both remained silent for another tense moment. Then, Biden picked up again: “We have the capacity to do it, and, uh,” and Todd interrupted him there with “He’ll know it?” Biden replied: “He’ll know it, and it’ll be at a time of our choosing, and under circumstances that have the greatest impact. Uh, the capacity to do, to fundamentally alter the election, is not what people think; and, uh, I tell you what: to the extent that they do [‘do’ presumably meaning: fundamentally alter the election], we will be proportionate in what we do. And, uh,” Todd again interrupted his interviewee, and said, “So, a message is going to be sent. Will the public know?” Biden replied, “Hope not.”
Of course, that “Hope not” could mean many things. It might mean: A blitz nuclear attack in line with our government’s belief that we now enjoy Nuclear Primacy (an idea that was first published by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2006, and which has never yet been renounced by the U.S. government, during the decade since). That would be very much a public response, which Biden would “hope not” to be ’necessary’. In other words: Biden might have meant, there: “I hope it won’t have to be that.” But, clearly, Biden isn’t wanting the public to understand anything, other than that President Obama has threatened President Putin, with something, and that it will be “proportionate,” and the excuse for it will be — if it will happen — that Putin had done something which Obama thinks caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election to Donald Trump.
[….]
This Biden-interview is really intended, in that sense, to be a threat aimed at America’s voters, telling them, telling each one of us: Vote for Hillary Clinton, or else! He’s not telling us what that “or else!” is going to be — and maybe he himself has no accurate idea of how far it will ultimately cycle and go. Ultimately, whatever he thinks it would be, might not turn out to be the last step in this cycle of escalation — unless it’s going to go directly to a blitz attack against Russia.
Obama is thus coercing us, before he coerces Putin. He’s telling us: If we vote against Hillary Clinton — if she loses this election — then President Obama has something in mind that we won’t like — and he won’t wait until the next President is inaugurated on 20 January 2017 to do it, whatever ‘it’ might be. Obama here is threatenting not only Vladimir Putin, but the American people. Even if Obama truly believes that he alone possesses all the power, he does not, unless he possesses the power to terrorize America’s voters to elect Hillary Clinton, even if we otherwise would not. {end quote} — RINF Alternative News — By Eric Zuesse — Oct 15, 2016:
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/president-obama-threatens-president-putin-nuclear-war/
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Here is my take on the matter. Because we are saddled with single-bid (“plurality”) voting, we are stuck with “Duverger’s law” (which has been very poorly defined), which mandates that single-bid voting inexorably leads to the establishment of an entrenched two-party system. If we had strategic hedge simple score voting we could, for example, give 10 votes the Stein, and from 5 to 9 votes to Trump (and then simply add them all up). But since we are stuck with a two-party system from which there is no possible escape, it is futile to vote for anyone but Trump if we wish to avoid death by nuclear fire. Hopefully if Trump wins the military will immediately begin taking orders from Trump, and ignore Obama.
Posted by: blues | Oct 31 2016 10:23 utc | 129
You can the Washington Post every day for a thousand years and continue to be misinformed about foreign policy, wars in the Middle East, neoliberalism and everything else…OR if you prefer to eliminate the neocon propaganda and BS you can simply read the Yinon Plan
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties (aka the Yinon Plan) almost blows your mind in the way its recommendations have become reality since its publication in 1982.
In essence the plan suggests fomenting endless war (intra-national and international) among Israel’s “neighbours’”with a view to rendering them devastated, divided, impoverished and powerless, and thus easy prey for Israeli expansionism. I
Incidentally the document provides a chilling insight into the mind of a textbook psychopath, one utterly devoid of morality and empathy, casually proposing the death and impoverishment of millions of innocent civilians.
Here are are a few illustrative excerpts
full text here:
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html
“The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place recently. Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its
dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible.”
Now compare this to what Gen. Wesley Clarke revealed about the lead-up to the Iraq War:
Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Are we still going to attack Iraq?” He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”
This document, and the events which have followed its publication, should lay to rest once and for all any illusions we might have harboured in relation to the various wars in the Middle East.
The depths of the associated treason and treachery are simply breathtaking and with so many Republican neocons and architects of the Iraq War (Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, David Frum, etc) supporting Hillary and expressing an almost irrational hatred for Trump, we have to assume the neocon wars will continue in overdrive should Hillary Rodent Clinton be elected President.
Posted by: Fontana | Oct 31 2016 17:19 utc | 147
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