Posted on 10/10/2014 12:24:58 PM PDT by Signalman
Joe Biden has a point.
“I’m finding that former administration officials, as soon as they leave, write books, which I think is inappropriate,” Biden said this week. He went on to add, “At least give the guy a chance to get out of office.” I’m with Joe here, and I say this as a man who believes you’d be hard-pressed to find a single national-security or foreign-policy issue where Biden has been right. The vice president’s snark was aimed at Leon Panetta, the most recent of his former administration colleagues to publish memoirs that highlight the faculty-lounge fecklessness of the president he served first as CIA director and then as defense secretary.
Even worse for the Obama administration, Panetta’s characterizations all ring true, and they comport with what we’ve gleaned from other ex-insiders. Still, old Joe has a point. Those who answer a president’s call to serve in a position of trust incur some duties with their offices, which must include discretion. For one thing, if a president is sitting in an Oval Office filled with appointees he believes likely to publish the juicy bits while he’s still in office, he — and the rest of those in the room — will never be as frank as they have a right to expect they can be.
This is not an argument for blind loyalty. Plainly, an appointee who cannot in good conscience carry out a presidential policy ought to leave. And if the disagreement goes beyond a simple policy difference — if it speaks to something so profoundly dishonest or reckless or wicked that it is illegal or in some way threatens our nation — duty itself might easily compel an official not only to resign but to make public the reason.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I think they feel Obama is doing much damage to this country and feel compelled to speak out.
I agree with Petraeus that the grunts can’t quit. But resigning in protest was probably the best option he could take for the country. As for the other tell-all book writers, none of them is a person of good moral character. So it’s to be expected they’d do bad things for a bad man and then make money by knocking that man down in their books. Frankly, I can’t see any Democrat objecting to anything another Democrat does on moral grounds. Flexible morality is the defining characteristic of Democrats. But if Obama complains that he was betrayed it’s rather like complaining that the hooker you paid for sex last night doesn’t really love you.
So the American People are not entitled to the truth for a 4 to 8 year period? There was a time when “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Was the policy of American Politicians. Now it’s screw em and steal what you can, when you can, and while you can!
Biden - The best protection a President can buy!
“So the American People are not entitled to the truth for a 4 to 8 year period?”
I presume you’re commenting on the article and not on my post. If I were working for a president I agreed with, but had a policy difference and his policy failed, it would be inappropriate to write a book vilifying him because his policy failed and presumably my policy would have worked. We can’t know my policy would have worked any better than the president’s. The problem here isn’t about officials of good character disagreeing. It’s about people of no character doing bad things to America that they probably know will cause harm and either don’t care that it does or that’s their intent. Then, they quit and cash in on the book and talking-head circuit. This isn’t about telling American’s the truth. It’s about milking the maximum dollar and that last ten seconds of the fifteen minutes of fame.
Just maybe, if the president believes that his discussions in the Oval Office are going to be revealed to the public, he just might be more likely to actually be concerned about the well-being of the country.
As it is, we can only guess by their actions (or inaction) as to their true feelings.
Yea, sorry you just happened to be # 22!
Liberals praised McClellan for trashing President Bush while Bush was still in office, but they are dumping on Panetta. McClellan was a nobody that no one would have heard of if Bush had not made him his press secretary, and he didn't distinguish himself in that position.
Panetta, on the other hand, had an established reputation long before, in his 70s, he went to work for Obama, and he is clearly more competent and better informed than his former boss.
Panetta was a pond scum liberal and life time self serving ambidextrous pay check grabbing federal politician or employee!
That said, he was exactly correct to tell what he knew about this illegal, marxist regime.
This country is in it’s darkest hour! All bets are off!
He best not waste time hoping for pity from me.
His fortitude was not showing when he had some authority and could have changed the game.
But Joe had a brain scan and nothing was found. :=)
Rumors are rumors and talk is talk. Yes, he had a "D" on his shoulder patch and that means, as it always has, that he will put politics above everything. At least he's a team player.
(When I moved to Monterey, CA in 1984 Panetta was running for congress and it was widely circulated that he was a strongly moral and honest man who was running as a democrat in order to carry the district which had suffered a growing liberal base because of the farm worker population and the wide influence of Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.