Contractors snooped in Obama's passport file

Three contractors at the State Department have been disciplined for looking at Barack Obama's passport file without permission, according to a State Department spokesman. [CNN]

[HT: Ted]

Comments

[TB]

"According to a new piece out in the Post from Glenn Kessler, the breaches occurred Jan. 9th, Feb. 21st and March 14th.

That would be the day after the New Hampshire primary, the day of the Democratic debate in Texas and the day the Wright story really hit. "

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/184677.php

I know, I know, corollary is not causality, but still ... how much you want to bet this thing is going to blow WIDE open.

[The Phantom]

Oh, grow up.

It was most likely some Obama groupies who were curious. What do the conspiracy mongers here think?

Besides, TB. The Wright story is not deemed to be a big deal here!! Despite the fact that it has destroyed Obama's candidacy, as was predicted, and as recent polls most certainly appear to confirm.

[Mold]

Obama fans as contract workers during the most politicized administration in recent memory? Recall please, that the AG removed conservatives that weren't loyal enough to Bush. That the bestest qualification for high office is a degree from StorefrontU. That nearly none of the appointees can give testimony under oath, giving rise to the question of how many need to plead the Fifth.

[The Phantom]

Any attempt to hype this issue will be correctly seen as an effort to divert from the Racist Reverend Wright scandal.

[Cass]

By whom?

[The Phantom]

By Obama's supporters.

If they freak out about this, it will be a transparent diversion from their current crisis

[Uncle Kvetch]

Jack that thread, Phantom. JACK IT!

[The Phantom]

?

Just pointing out the obvious. This viewing of the file is unacceptable, action has been taken, and there is no reason for anyone to think that there's any there there.

[Cass]

No, who is it who's going to "correctly" see the discussion of this post "as an effort to divert from the Racist Reverend Wright scandal"?

[The Phantom]

Cass

Perhaps that's exactly what TB was trying to do.

how much you want to bet this thing is going to blow WIDE open. (yawn)

[TB]

So Phantom, things over at The Corner got a little too much for you?

[The Phantom]

??

Do not get the reference

[TB]

There's a lot you're not getting kiddo ...

[Cass]

Phantom, you said that discussion of the subject matter of this post will be seen by some person or group of people, whose identity is not clear, as an effort to divert attention from the Rev. Wright affair. I sense, however, that its not some third party, but yourself, who's very uncomfortable with the subject matter of this thread, and is at the same time desperate to start yet another exchange about the Racist Reverend Wright. Which is fine. But if other people here want to discuss the topic of this thread as oppposed to your own favored subjects, well, that would seem their right too.

[Uncle Kvetch]

The "crisis" is certainly producing its fair share of entertainment. I'm thoroughly enjoying the myriad variations on "I was just starting to come around to Obama...but now this! [clutch pearls, swoon]" from people who, in actuality, wouldn't have voted for Obama in a million years.

Not to name any names, of course.

[Ted Powell]

According to a briefing now being played on CNN, they discovered this morning that Clinton's file and McCain's file have also been snooped.

[Ted Powell]

Also on CNN...
Minutes from now, Bill Richardson is expected to endorse Obama, at a rally in Portland OR.

[parse]

Phantom, I've only seen brief excerpts from Wright's sermons on television. I'm predisposed to think favorably of him, because it was a delight for me to hear, as I surfed through various local and cable news channels, "God damn America!" over and over. But what specific remarks did he make that strike you as racist?

[The Phantom]

Cass

It is a story. It's just not the super-duper story you're probably dreaming it is.

Uncle [ and I hereby blame you for the shitstorm that will follow. He hijacked the thread!! I'm kinda sorta innocent!! Blame Uncle Kvetch! ]

I am sure you won't not believe me, but I personally know three people who actually -did- vote for Obama in the NJ and NY primaries, but who are so angered by this that they will never vote for him again. One is a close member of my family.

The sudden drop in the polls is not indicative that "whites would never vote for him". They DID vote for him. Until NOW. For a very specific cause.

Your "clutching of pearls" remark, and the excusing by many of racist diatribes, is indicative of a truth that is there for all to see-- that the conservatives have, after a lot of struggle, substantially pushed the racists out of their house. The Democrats/Liberals have not done so. The fact that the racism that they excuse comes from the black side of the house does not make it any more excusable.

If you look at the McCain website, you don't see any groupings by ethnicity. But if you go to the Obama website there are many ethnic/gender identities to choose from, including : Asian / Pacific Islander, African American, First American [ note to Obama: Indians hate that shit ], Latinos, LGBT, Women.

Everything is race, ethnicity, gender. Same old bullshit. But: a lot of Americans are trying pretty hard to get beyond these categories, including members of these groups.

That's why I declared this election last night. McCain wins in a walk, unless they find him in bed with all of Spitzer's and Paterson's girlfriends at the same time.

The Dems are caught in traps within traps, on a foundation of quicksand.

You may now resume the usual bullshit. I have to eat my lunch. Gumbo from the "Soup Nazi".

--parse--

Watch it again

[Windypundit]

Remember this from November?

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

If the government doesn't even safeguard the privacy of our leading presidential candidates, how can the rest of us possibly trust it with our private information?

[parse]

Phantom, I don't know if there's a link to Wright's comments anywhere, but I don't look forward to listening to them in the hope of catching the bits that strike you as racist. Can you save me the trouble.

I heard the 9/11 stuff, and I understand why some people find it offensive, but it don't see how it could accurately described as racist.

I heard the "government invented AIDS" stuff and I think it's crackpot, and a horrible thing for a pastor to tell his congregation--but again, not racist.

What were the racist remarks?

[Eric Jaffa]

The Phantom -

"The Corner" is a right-wing blog by National Review magazine.

[The Phantom]

[ and they drag me back in... ]

The entire context of Jeremiah Wright's church is that of race. I take the following from the Trinity United Church of Christ website:

"We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.."

There are plenty of churches that are ethnically based--there used to be more --Norwegian Lutheran Churches, Korean Baptist, etc. But as far as I could tell, those places were set up on ethnic lines more to ease the transition of immigrants in the native tongue, not to bash the Swedes or the Japanese, whatever.

Trinity Church is different. The congregation is defined as "Black". A tenth generation black man is "black" [ not American ], and explicitly so.

Whites are members of that church, but as members, on sufferance, of this "black church". In some of the video clips, Wright is seen referring to "some white people in the audience".

His remark":
"The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color" is clearly a reference to white people in the government trying to "get rid of black people. I hold that as a racist remark.

The "God damn America" is thinly veiled racism. Here, again, it is white Americathat he is clearly getting at for "treating our citizens as less than human. "White America" in 1866 certainly treated blacks as less than human. In 2008? Its a lie.
' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

The crack against Hillary Clinton was unnecesary, harmful, race-baiting.:
"Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a n-----."

Natalee Holloway, was probably murdered in Aruba --which has been the subject of much tabloid television reporting. But Wright, trying --I suppose--to make some point about Darfur, says "... Black women are being raped daily in Darfur, Sudan, in the Congo...That doesn't make news...One 18-year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and 'gives it up' while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months"

The unnecessary cruelty directed at a specific [dead] person who did no one any harm, is OK to him because she is a white girl

You may not find any "white people are the devil" quotes from this guy --he's a little too slick for that. The racism is set on a base of ersatz Africanism ( which is his right ) , legitimate grievances mixed with lies about "what white people have done", a satisfaction at the events of 9/11, where mostly white people died, and here, mocking of a girl who got killed.

I'm sure that there are many other quotes/inferences from Wright. Those who find them will be deemed to be "Obama bashing".

[parse]

Phantom, I think if the remarks were genuinely racist, you'd be able to report them without having to add so much of your own interpretation.

I don't understand how saying that a congregation is "Unashamedly Black" is any more racist than proclaiming it "Unapologetically Christian" is anti-semitic. I think identity politics is a dead-end, myself, but I don't think you can fairly characterize it as racist.

[The Phantom]

Well, you have to appreciate the context.

I've spoken to and heard (on the radio) black people agreeing that the man was and is clearly racist.

Think of the last time you heard a white minister making fun of a black girl who gave it up. But you've never heard that.

And if you had heard that, you'd scream bloody murder, and rightly so.

This is the same thing, inside out. I don't buy that this guy is any kind of a true Christian. He's a racist who did some good deeds.