Democrats Cross Obama At Their Own Peril
[guest post by JVW]
So this has certainly been a bad week for Hillary! Rodham Clinton, also known as good ol’ hdr22@clintonemail.com. Over at Tablet, Lee Smith sees the hand of the administration in all of these leaks which have caught the former First Lady/Senator/Cabinet Secretary off guard and have her in a defensive crouch. As to why Obama would target a fellow Democrat with these select leaks, Smith explains:
This week’s tarring of Hillary Clinton is part of the White House’s political campaign to shut off debate about its hoped-for deal [with Iran]. It’s not hard to see why they’re anxious. With Netanyahu’s speech forcing lawmakers and editorial writers to face up to the proposed agreement’s manifest problems, the administration fears the prospect of Democrats jumping ship and signing on to Kirk-Menendez sanctions legislation that also would give Congress oversight on the deal. So far, the White House has managed to keep Democratic lawmakers in line, no matter how much they seem to question the wisdom of the proposed deal. Hillary Clinton, gearing up for a 2016 run in which she is likely to put some distance between herself and Obama’s dubious Middle East policies, is the one major national Democratic figure who can give Democrats in Congress cover. [emphasis added]
When you think of it, this makes sense. The Presidential election is still 20 months away and much of what has been leaked to the media this week was bound to be discovered by opposition research anyway, so Team Obama has a very to-the-point method of reminding Hillary! that she had better not stray too far from the left turn that they have charted for the party, without looking like they are trying to hopelessly derail her chances for the nomination. Perhaps bitter feelings linger from the 2008 campaign or there is residual friction from her cabinet service, and perhaps the President wants some other Democrat to be the party’s standard-bearer, but placed in the context of the ongoing Iran negotiation fiasco this should probably be viewed as keeping the little lady in line.
Do you know who else is in Team Obama’s crosshairs? None other than Democrat Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, with multiple media outlets reporting that he is on the verge of being indicted for corruption by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Menendez, as mentioned in the Tablet article, opposes the administrations never-ending pleading with Iran, and he has also been critical of the changes in Cuba policy that the administration has announced.
Now of course it pretty much goes without saying that a Democrat Senator from New Jersey is bound to be astonishingly corrupt, so this indictment shouldn’t surprise anyone. But don’t you wonder why both of these leaks happened in the same week to two key Democrats who might rally members of their party against the feckless appeasement of the administration? And why does a Justice Department that has been so ho-hum about government corruption suddenly decide to go after a member of congress?
If the Obama Administration were a fraction as tough with state sponsors of terrorism as it is with its domestic political adversaries, Tehran would probably be a glowing parking lot by now.
– JVW
Notice too that they had the good grace to save the Menendez leak for a Friday afternoon news dump, to minimize the media coverage it will receive. I doubt they would have done the same for a Republican.
JVW (854318) — 3/6/2015 @ 2:05 pmBy the way, if memory serves this Menendez corruption probe has gone on for quite some time. Wasn’t this issue raised in the run-up to Menendez’s reelection campaign in 2012? Not that it deterred the people of the great state of New Jersey from capturing almost 60% of the vote. Menendez ran slightly ahead of Barack Obama on the ballot, believe it or not.
JVW (854318) — 3/6/2015 @ 2:20 pmIt’s all in the timing. An ongoing criminal conspiracy that apparently won’t end until January of 2017.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/6/2015 @ 2:29 pmThere are times I wonder just how much the DC types have on each other, and what we see is the outcome of how much people are allowed to stray out of line before the bad news gets leaked.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/6/2015 @ 2:55 pmapparently, both Obola AND Shrillery knew this story was coming out months ago and stayed quiet
supposedly, Cankles and/or her aides think the story will die off quickly… given the way the MFM has covered her over the years, that’s understandable.
redc1c4 (6d1848) — 3/6/2015 @ 2:59 pmthese are the same failmerican grad-school-fascist losers what were given unlimited resources and couldn’t design a website
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/6/2015 @ 3:07 pmI’m sure this is just a case of Eric Holder wanting his justice department to tie up loose ends and do the right thing before he leaves office so his replacement can start fresh with a clean slate.
Bwa hah hah
elissa (5cae8d) — 3/6/2015 @ 3:36 pmand the Obama administration – via Valerie Jarrett – begins to distance itself in a big way from Hillary Clinton. They can’t throw her under the old bus, there’s no room under that bus, they’ll have to get another bus…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/6/2015 @ 3:46 pmI think the Rs writing on political sites and appearing on TV need to do a much better job starting now to explain in excruciating detail why Hillary’s emails on a private server are a big deal, and why official business is supposed to be handled on government servers, and why this is potentially a security breach for–of all people–the Secretary of State. We here all understand why this is a problem and why it’s an ethics violation for a government official to hide her correspondence where FOIA and government internal auditors can’t get at it unless she hands it over to them after it’s been scrubbed. But I don’t think we should speak in shorthand. I don’t think we should assume that all the dolts or even older people out there who are not that technology savvy and who are gradually hearing about this scandal automatically fully comprehend why it’s such a shocking breach of judgement and official protocol. Don’t just call it a scandal that should keep her from ever being president. They must explain WHY it’s a scandal and why this disqualifies her.
elissa (5cae8d) — 3/6/2015 @ 4:21 pmHow do we know the hacker found Hillary’s email by chance? The NSA knows everything now, plus there’s no love lost between Obama and the Clintons. I can imagine Obama making sure he has dirt to use against friend and foe, and setting it up so he can use it when he needs it.
DRJ (e80d46) — 3/6/2015 @ 4:46 pmHow tough do you expect this administration to be with those Islamic vipers? They see eye to eye. They’re using the same playbook. The deal Obama is making with the the Mullahs is the 21st version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity when I heard this news about Menendez. Obama knows better when he pretends that ISIS targets Muslims. Yeah, right. They target Muslims the same way Obama targets Democrats. It’s no coincidence that the leader of ISIS chose the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
Abu Bakr was the first rightly guided caliph after Muhammad died. And the first wars he fought were the wars of apostasy. A lot of people only became Muslims so Muhammad wouldn’t kill them. When he died they tried to wander off the reservation. Abu Bakr first set his own house in order. He famously said that if anyone paid Muhammad so little as a piece of rope din zakat, then it would be their life if they didn’t pay it him. And he set about making examples of people so others wouldn’t get any ideas about staying off the reservation.
Obama is doing the same thin Abu Bakr did/is doing. He’s getting his own house in order.
Whereas I once looked forward to Sen. Menendez going down like this now that it’s happening I find I don’t get any pleasure out of it. Ultimately, the joke is on us. Sure, ISIS and the Iranians hate America. But more than this administration does? Not enough to matter.
Steve57 (71fc09) — 3/6/2015 @ 4:46 pm* so little as a piece of rope in zakat…
Steve57 (71fc09) — 3/6/2015 @ 4:49 pmIt was Purim yesterday, which means the Book of Esther bulks rather large in my reading this week.
But Esther 3:15 did strike me as apposite.
kishnevi (91d5c6) — 3/6/2015 @ 5:54 pmAnd the king and Haman sat down to feast, but the people of Shushan the capital were bewildered.
Purim. That’s the Persians. The Greeks were in December and the Egyptians are coming up in April. I wondered about the Romans and found Tisha B’av in July. [Stops typing here.] 😉
nk (dbc370) — 3/6/2015 @ 6:24 pm#4: Doc, I wonder just how much the DC types have on each other? About twenty-five years ago I was fairly close to local Seattle politics, and it was a revelation. Many administrators within the School District were reported (by an estranged husband) to be routinely partying with reporters and others with some fairly hard banned substances. A crusading black lady I supported was elected to high office, and she was shocked at the open display of child pornography at “elite” downtown parties. And it’s a matter of public record that the Democrat candidate for Baghdad Jim’s Congressional seat in the early 1990s was forced to withdraw when he was arrested for molesting a 13 year old boy in a public park in the middle of the afternoon. It is also a matter of public record that a Seattle Judge committed suicide just before he was “outed” by the Seattle Times. A prosecutor I knew remarked that it was a well known strategy of public defenders to send their juvenile defendants to spend the weekend with this judge in order to get favorable treatment. This particle Judge was the School Districts lawyer in the early 1970s. This stuff was well known within the “elite” establishment. And everybody pretty much just laughed it off.
Given that this was small city politics, I expect that almost everybody in D. C. ends up knowing a lot of awful stuff about pretty much everybody else. But my expectation is that reporters are brought into the club, and they become part of the cover up. It was so entrenched in Seattle that we decided to send our kids to private and Catholic Schools, which worked for us. But for the kids who were consigned to the public schools … ?
I can only laugh when these clowns say they’re “doing it for the children”. The unasked question is what is “it.”
A hundred years ago a vigilante committee would have resolved the problem in a couple of days.
Re: emails, see Mark Steyn’s article today. He points out the Hillary had a number of email addresses at this server (the #22 was to distinguish this username from the seven or eight similar names she used.) The Russian, Chinese, Iranian, ISIL hackers must have had a field day reading her most “secret” thoughts.
bobathome (cb0d92) — 3/6/2015 @ 6:50 pmPer Rush, perhaps bigger than using personal email is that she controlled the server,in other words, she could really, really delete messages, not just delete them from her in box while they sat on the server indefinitely.
It was also pointed out that unless Hillary knew her way around computers, who ever set the system up could have archived it to something only he/she knew about.
Cloak and dagger.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/6/2015 @ 7:03 pmI don’t see how the Big Dog is going to be able to avoid commenting on this sometime soon. He is, after all a lawyer and was President of the United States. Supposedly he lives in the Chappaqua house with Hillary where the servers were humming away. Even with his rhetorical tap dancing skills it’s hard to imagine what kind of excuse he would be able to sell. We expect skeevy from them, but this is almost unbelievable skeeve.
elissa (80274f) — 3/6/2015 @ 7:15 pm“Don’t think we’re not keeping track of this, brother.”
Famous warning…er, remark of Obama to Ben Nelson re Obamacare. I have to hand it to Menendez, who seems to be shooting the moon lately, politics-wise.
Patricia (5fc097) — 3/6/2015 @ 7:34 pmnk@14
kishnevi (adea75) — 3/6/2015 @ 8:21 pmActually, TishaB’Av is shared out among the Babylonians, Romans(both the war of Titus and the war of Hadrian), and the Spanish (connected by the date of the Expulsion in 1492). Some folks also include the wave of pogroms in Belarus and Ukraine in the mid 1600s. The Germans of course were promoted to their own day in modern times, Yom HaShoah. G-d willing the Arabs will never get their day, despite Obama.
What nags me is that the Obama Administration has messed up so many things and/or has allowed so many things to go wrong that it takes more and more to “change the subject” and give him cover. After 6 years of crying racism/partisanship, attacking Republicans doesn’t work so now Obama must go after his own people (Petraeus) and other Democrats (Menendez and maybe Hillary). It’s better for Republicans and the country than some other things I can think of, such as a Clintonesque Wag the Dog or a nuclear deal with Iran, but I’m afraid that’s the next step.
DRJ (e80d46) — 3/6/2015 @ 8:38 pmA deal with Iran is a desired end state, not a distraction. I think Obama wants to make a place for himself in history by (he imagines) bringing Iran back into the fold. To do so he will agree to anything the Iranians ask, for a piece of paper worth less than Chamberlain’s. He does not understand, perhaps does not care, that Iran is playing him for a fool. He just wants his place in history. He will have it, just will not be the place he expects.
kishnevi (adea75) — 3/6/2015 @ 8:55 pmHis blind ambition will be his – and our – undoing.
Dana (86e864) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:03 pmNot that it deterred the people of the great state of New Jersey from capturing almost 60% of the vote. Menendez ran slightly ahead of Barack Obama on the ballot, believe it or not.
I can only laugh when these clowns say they’re “doing it for the children”. The unasked question is what is “it.”
Sheesh, and good God (or Allah).
I very much respect the owner of this blog, but his entry a few days ago where he was rhapsodizing about how everyone has different opinions and that each one of them should be respected — or words to that effect — made me realize just how philosophically-emotionally corrupt we as a society have become. IOW, when a person of the right (and not a dummy of the left) is no less vulnerable to falling for kumbaya-happy-snuggles talk in the context of today, given everything going on all around us, that is a manifestation of “there’s no turning back now—it’s all downhill from here on out.”
Mark (c160ec) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:07 pmFunny you should say that, Mark.
nk (dbc370) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:14 pmkishnevi,
I agree a deal with Iran is one of Obama’s goals and not a diversion, but the ultimate deal doesn’t have to be real or lasting for Obama to stake his legacy on it. In addition, the closer we get to the end of his final term as President, the more willing he may be to make a deal with Iran. In that case, I think it will be even more likely Obama will try to find things to distract us from the terrible deal he would make.
DRJ (e80d46) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:14 pmMenendez: The White House’s Least Favorite Dem. New article detailing many reasons for the strained “relationship” between Menendez and Obama.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/politics/menendez-corruptoin-charges-obama-relationship/index.html
elissa (80274f) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:33 pmI’m planning on surviving the cork sucker, Dana.
We want Hillary to be the nominee per Happy to avoid electing the bought out mealy mouths of our own party.
At this point we need to create a plausible cover story to keep Clinton limping along in the general direction of the nomination, she’s that crippled up.
The thing that puzzles me is why aren’t people giving Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi investigation the credit he deserves? He reached into the ocean and come up with a whale by the throat.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:44 pmNo one will stop obama.
mg (31009b) — 3/6/2015 @ 9:48 pmMillions of dollars Issa has wasted and now it’s Gowdy time. More puppets for the cause. If by chance this delay dolt does anything, time will have run out, and we will receive a- we will get em next time. Republican group think needs an abortion.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 4:58 amI think the Scooter Libby prosecution ripped the scab off of that particular festering sore. Everybody knew everything about each other (not that in Plame’s case there was any non-official cover left to blow since her cover had been blown years earlier and the USG was not taking any affirmative actions to conceal their relationship). I mean, who didn’t know Plame worked for the CIA? Including the reporters who belonged to the same cocktail party circuit.
I’m just going by my long distance observations, augmented by what my friends who served as “potted plants” during their DC tours had to say. They sometimes had to go to social functions in uniform to add some sort of flavor to the event. But they were treated like the rest of the furniture; they called it being a “potted plant.” But who here doesn’t act naturally when they’re alone with the furniture?
I also knew a couple of DSS agents. A lot of people who’ve lived with security details for a long time tend to forget they’re around, too.
It seems to me that when people say there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties there’s a great deal of truth in that statement. When you’re talking about inside the beltway, and you’re talking about members of the inside the beltway club. Who are not necessarily going to be the elected pols who are coming in from outside. They can be; look at Mary Landrieu. She couldn’t even pretend to have any connection to Louisiana anymore.
But outside of long term legislators the real members of the inside the beltway club are the bureaucrats who only care about what’s good for the machine they serve. They all knew Eric Holder lied to the Senate confirmation committee when he said he didn’t know anything about Mark Rich’s background, and if he had he would have opposed Clinton’s party. They’d been there long enough to know he had prosecuted a Swiss company for concealing their business relationship with Rich to get a USG contract. Holder knew everything about Rich. But Holder is a member of the club in good standing, so they backed his nomination, and the Senate went along.
They don’t worship Obama. But Obama is good for them. He’s enriching members of the inside the beltway machine. If Obama personally wanted to get rid of Menendez because Menendez failed his loyalty test he couldn’t do it. The inside the beltway club has to want to get rid of Menendez for its own reasons. That’s the only way the charges can stick.
Look at Petraeus and how he went down.
Steve57 (71fc09) — 3/7/2015 @ 11:20 am“Millions of dollars Issa has wasted and now it’s Gowdy time.”
mg – Is your solution just to scrap the investigations?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/7/2015 @ 11:45 amCruz questions the timing, too. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/234966-cruz-menendez-probe-politically-motivated
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2015 @ 12:48 pm31-The media will take care of the investigation, move along.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 12:57 pmmg – Got it. Let Obama thugs do whatever they want.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/7/2015 @ 1:31 pmWhere are all the articles Obama wrote as President of the Harvard Law Review? #LegendInHisMind #FalseProphet #EmptySuit
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/7/2015 @ 1:39 pm34-it’s a been happening for 6 years, just wait till his third term.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 1:48 pm“34-it’s a been happening for 6 years, just wait till his third term.”
mg – More like four. Republicans couldn’t run committees until they retook the House. Why haven’t investigations moved faster? That’s a real head scratcher for Team Instant Gratification, isn’t it?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/7/2015 @ 2:10 pmWhen the minority leaders are in control of the majority, instant gratification is no longer a concern. Family survival is paramount. Loyalty went out the picture window with the beating candy crawley unleashed on mittens. Gutless nominee by a useless party.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 3:40 pmyes yes family survival is SO important
that freaky romney jackass didn’t understand families with net worths of less than 40-50 million or so
he should read more books
happyfeet (831175) — 3/7/2015 @ 3:48 pmand just once we should be treated to hearing his hooch say
“oh this old thing I made it myself just got a pattern from the hobby lobby and fired up the singer”
happyfeet (831175) — 3/7/2015 @ 3:49 pmConservatives have zero faith in the republican fantasy of, give it all away politics. From failed and faulted candidates juanny mac and mittens to the majority non leaders boenher and mcconnell along with the chamber of commerce amnesty plan the republican party is a complete failure.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 4:17 pma complete and utter failure
happyfeet (831175) — 3/7/2015 @ 4:19 pmdaleyrocks-
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 4:31 pmhttp://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/07/why-a-conservative-national-security-expert-says-trey-gowdy-is-involved-in-a-scandal-too/
I just read that article mg. Gowdy is a prosecutor and as such I just see him applying legal and psychological chess moves to get at the truth–not a “scandal”. Geez. Trey is one of the good guys.
elissa (e03d31) — 3/7/2015 @ 5:08 pmSince Menendez’ trips to the DR bear a striking similarity to Bubba’s trips with Epstein, one could think that the leaked coming indictment of the Senator is a shot across Bill’s bow.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/7/2015 @ 5:13 pmPerhaps he needs to convince his “Better Half” to retire to her grandmotherly duties?
I’ll ride with Andrew McCarthy, elissa.
mg (31009b) — 3/7/2015 @ 5:46 pmA good guy does not miss a chance to vote, especially when it comes down to one vote. I look at him as trailer trash.
Yes, let’s give All Seeing Obama the credit, the same guy who has to check the newspaper to find out which of his embassies were overrun last week.
Has anyone entertained the notion that the reason why Benghazi was left undefended was because Chris Stevens couldn’t navigate the labyrinth of the Secretary of State’s personal email system?
Is that a stretch? I don’t think so.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 3/7/2015 @ 6:09 pmIt is a stretch. Why would someone with the low rank of Ambassador be allowed to know the email address of She Who Must Be Obeyed?
kishnevi (91d5c6) — 3/7/2015 @ 6:14 pmMy point exactly. Um. Oh. You were being facetious. Right?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 3/7/2015 @ 6:44 pmNot only did Hillary not know what to do when the 2 o’clock in the mrning phonecall came. She had her call screener set to ‘do not disturb’.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 3/7/2015 @ 6:47 pmOne important thing to gain an understanding of is who “the enemy” is.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/7/2015 @ 6:55 pmGuess where President Obama learned about Hillary’s private emails? Monica Crowley vents
CBS reports, “the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.”
You think Ebola knows who his Secretary of State is this week? Maybe we need to send him a couple thousand emails to remind him.
The headline should have been,
“The Chimperor hasn’t communicated with his Secretary of State since ’08.”
Monica Crowley is cool with me, but that other Crowley, Candy Crowley, I want to cut off her Johnson. Step on it and squish it.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 3/7/2015 @ 8:32 pmNow you’re just being ridiculous.
Prom Queen discovered within hours of nominating Kerry to replace Hillary! as SecState that he had nominated Kerry to be his new Secretary of State.
It was on TV. He learned about it when he saw the clip of himself making the announcement.
Now, he doesn’t know what he had for lunch today and who joined him at the table. Lunch was closed to the press. So that will take a six month internal investigation.
Steve57 (71fc09) — 3/7/2015 @ 8:49 pmSo Gowdy was aware of clinton’s e-mails 6 months ago, what has he been doing for 6 months? He has been working with team clinton to try and access documents relating to Benghazi. With the people that set up the deaths of our soldiers. Fricking brilliant he went to school for this? Forced to issue a subpoena because of it becoming public is sick. He has known for 6 months and refused to issue a subpoena, No congress critter with a law degree is trustworthy.Hard Working Lower Middle Class Americans should be in charge of this cover-up disaster made by govt. lawyers.
mg (31009b) — 3/8/2015 @ 4:37 am