Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (73685)	6/11/2012 10:38:51 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103300

Re-Election Trumps Security In Obama Leaks Scandal National Security: It wasn't the usual kind of leaks the New York Times received from numerous Obama officials. To make the president look tough on defense, they actually made America less secure. What are the motives for illegally revealing national secrets? Communist spy Alger Hiss, perfectly situated as a high-ranking U.S. diplomat, wanted the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. For CIA analyst Aldrich Ames, who compromised an array of vital agency assets, the motive was mostly money. FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who did even more damage than Ames, had psychological issues. At the root of the new Obama leaks scandal is something that might just be worse than the motives behind these other cases, because it directly involves a presidential election. Dozens of administration officials were apparently sources for Times writer David Sanger, who reported that President Obama has been secretly ordering cyberattacks against the computers of Islamofascist Iran's nuclear facilities. Multiple sources within the administration also leaked to the Times word that the president personally oversees "a top-secret 'nominations' process to designate terrorists for kill or capture," as the paper described it. Sanger got enough material to fill a new book, "Confront and Conceal," which sports a telling subtitle: "Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power." "Surprising," get it? You didn't think this oh-so-left-wing Obama was such a warrior against the enemies of the U.S., did you? It strains credulity to hear Sanger express doubts about political motives. He told CNN on Sunday of his "18 months of reporting, long before the political season started." But rewind to the ordeal Judith Miller went through, serving a three-month sentence for refusing on First Amendment grounds to divulge Bush administration sources for her New York Times articles on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program. Instead of backing a journalist who chose prison over betraying a confidence, various Gray Lady VIPs, from then-executive editor Bill Keller to columnist Maureen Dowd to then-public editor Byron Calame, attacked her as a dupe of the Bush White House. After serving her time, she found herself unwelcome back at the so-called Newspaper of Record, a place where Moscow correspondent and Stalin puppet Walter Duranty's photo still hangs in a place of honor. Their real problem with Miller might have been her beat, which she liked to describe as "threats to our country." In other words, she was that rare mainstream journalist who is a patriot. As the Weekly Standard's Lee Smith pointed out this week, showering the press with secrets about how tough Obama is has led to a Pakistani physician going to prison for 33 years, a "casualty of the White House's vanity." Another casualty is a British/Saudi agent within al-Qaida who helped foil an attack on the U.S. homeland. According to Smith, White House leaks "not only damaged the ongoing operations of allied intelligence services, but also put the lives of the agent and others at risk." And how about the scene Sanger recounts of Bush defense secretary holdover Robert Gates telling Obama national security adviser Thomas Donilon his recommendation for a "new strategic communications approach," which Gates described as "Shut the f*** up." The names of Hiss, Ames and Hanssen are forever engraved in the history books alongside Benedict Arnold as American traitors. Is puffing up a president's national security record to win re-election a nobler motive for giving away secrets and endangering the country?