At the White House, There's Nobody Home

Real Clear Politics ^ | March 19,2015 | By Victor Davis Hanson

[Jackson Brown]

Clinton submitted 55,000 printed pages of emails — making it much harder for those emails to be searched.

Well, they could scan the emails, run thru an OCR program, and THEN do searches.

Not hard to do, but requires SOME tech “savy-ness”.

[nascarnation]

That’s exactly what is being done, at a pretty large cost to taxpayers.

[Billthedrill]

The administration has entered a very peculiar state, that's certain. I suspect it to be the natural consequence of a group of ideologues accustomed to dealing out incessant criticism who are now seeing the other end, tasked with defending actions that have resulted in some visibly negative consequences and trying to find excuses for the latter.

That's a difficult place for a radical self-proclaimed revolutionary to wind up in (Robespierre paid for it with his head). It's a defensive stance for people who consider offense to be their birthright and principal political function. And it evinces behavior that is, characteristically, accusatory and paranoid, both of which are signal features of the current administration.

The psychology of the matter is far less important than the actual damage done by policy-makers who are essentially amateurs. The astonishing behavior of two successive Secretaries of State who were placed in office solely for political exigency has profoundly degraded the status of the U.S. in the eyes of allies and opposition. Adherence to blatant failures domestically such as the "Affordable" Care Act has taxed the credibility of even the most sycophantic media figures.

Even more sinister is the sudden change in behavior within the newly empowered ideologues from high ideals of disengagement and peace to actual practices more violent and chaotic than those of the previous administration who the current one so stridently criticized for them. As so many newly empowered radical governments demonstrated in the 20th century, the glove of fascism fits very well and they didn't even need to shake the blood off. And as before, the distinction between domestic and foreign opponents has been blurred to nonexistence.

Coupled with this is a clear direction from promised consultation and transparency in government to arbitrary rule and outright totalitarianism. They are clearly trying to bend the boundaries, skirt the law, impose their will, because that's what radicals do when they don't grow up.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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[Slings and Arrows]

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against... We’re after power and we mean it... There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged