Hillary Clinton, state secrets and the Middle East

After the Read More! Andy McCarthy wonders what security clearance Hillary had when she was co-President. Fallon's resignation: what went on?

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The NYT found that Hillary Clinton did not hold a security clearance during the period during which she was supposedly co-President. But Andy McCarthy at the NRO thinks a President can clear anyone he wants, so Bill was not violating any law when he discussed matters of state with Hillary; but McCarthy does wonder why the principle didn't protect Scooter Libby.

A related issue came up two years ago when Democrats and the media were erroneously alleging that Scooter Libby had leaked classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate to the press. As I explained at the time, the information was not classified because President Bush himself had decided to declassify it so Libby could speak to the press about it. ...

I don't believe there would have been any bar against President Clinton's giving his wife a security clearance or declassifying information so he could speak to her about it. .... I am talking here, of course, only about a situation in which a president has sought to involve his wife in a formal or quasi-formal policy-making role, which is what Sen. Clinton often suggests she had.

When the media hype about the foreign policy experience and superior "judgment" of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is subtracted there is very little residue. Of course this is described as an advantage, not a liability. One of the things an "outsider" brings to a corrupt system. Yet Hillary and Obama are also the ultimate insiders. How else, besides being on the "inside", could Hillary have accessed the ultimate secrets without a formal security clearance. As as to Barack Obama, his ability to network socially is the ultimate source of his legitimacy. The politician's claim that "I can attract crowds and therefore I am trustworthy" is ultimate form of self-legitimizing leader. "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

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AllahPundit at HotAir repeats the blogospheric speculation that Fallon was the only thing "standing between the US and war in Iran "and as such, if he leaves Centcom it’s a surefire sign that he’s lost the debate and the bombs will soon be dropping".

I'm not sure this is true for two reasons. The first is that a the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an administration appointee. He's a reflection of the current political consensus, not the driver of consensus. Second, any imminent preparation for war against Iran would be accompanied by a plethora of signs, none of which are evident.

It's more likely that Fallon is an indirect casualty of the Surge. The Admiral was appointed at a time when it was widely believed the US had been balked in Iraq and reflected the cautious mood of those days. But now the US has much more confidence in its regional position at a time when dangers have also been increasing. Therefore Fallon's departure may simply reflect that more aggressive position. But a more aggressive stance doesn't automatically equal a war against Iran.

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The Unthinkables

Rick Moran gives readers a tour of the "Chicago Way" and starts off the education with a quote from the movie The Untouchables.

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I’m saying is, what are you prepared to do?

Ness: Anything and everything in my power. Malone: And then what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they’re not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.

Ness: How do you do it then?

Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here’s how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way…

Many of us familiar with Chicago politics have been wondering for months at the apparent disconnect of the media regarding Obama’s relationship to the Chicago political machine. Where did they think this guy came from?

The lack of curiosity by the press about Obama’s connections to one of the most corrupt city governments in the United States should be one of the big media stories of this campaign. While it is true that Obama’s connections to the Machine are not as extensive as many other politicians, I’ve got news for you Obama apologists; try running for any office in Chicago – local, state, or federal – and see how far you get without support from the regular Democrats.

Moran's article is a tour de force. There's just one thing I don't get. The guys down at the NYT can read the Chicago Tribune just as well as anyone else. New York may be big, but Chicago isn't that small a ville. So why would political events roiling that town give the national news a miss? What else is going on? What explains the curious media blindness towards Chicago, Rezko and -- coming in from left field -- Auchi? The blindness isn't caused by illiteracy, it's not even caused by bias.

The blinders were probably caused by the Audacity of Hope. The inability to look closely at Obama was rooted in what they feared to see. It's not as if Obama's media admirers didn't know about the Chicago Way. They just didn't want to think about it; that would break their own spell.

The more bankrupt an ideology, the more more manic-depressive it is. The more manic-depressive it needs to be. In Orwell's 1984 the Two Minutes' Hate regularly alternated with ecstatic news bulletins about mythical victories on the Eurasian Front. True believers oscillated from a state of outrage to ecstasy with the permission of the Party because both were safe states. It was the quiet that was haunted. It was the moment of calm realization that the Party feared. Bankrupt ideologies require prodigies and miracles to keep its world spinning on its axis. As long as it spins you can't look around. And in the 21st century, which has been shorn of miracles, the wows are supplied by appearance, rhetoric, youth and glitz. Liberalism needed Obama as much as he needed them. He gave them dreams and they would give him power.

To truly accept tha the existence of the "Chicago Way" is to simultaneously concede the necessity of the painstaking, often morally ambiguous ways needed to deal with it. The "Chicago Way" is the domestic expression of the International Way. Not the fairy-tale United Nations paradise imagined by some, but as it really is: a sad place thronged with tyrants, psychopaths and dangerous people, the Capones, Rezkos and Daleys of the world stage.

People who need to believe Barack Obama can solve the world crisis by calling a Muslim summit must of necessity need to forget you can't clear corruption from Chicago by meeting with the aldermen of that great city. To believe in the Audacity of Hope you need to dis-remember the Chicago Way. Especially if you plan on voting for the man representing Hope who came from there.

Mayor Richard Daley making an argument for raising real estate taxes to fund a bankrupt rapid transit system.

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