I’ll talk carefully about the major party candidates in this coming election season. In full disclosure, both are incredibly flawed. Where’s the breaking news there? So am I. But I’m not running for elected office, so let me stick with the job qualifications and what you all may think of the candidates is your business. They’re trying to get a job. We all need to speak with gentleness and respect, but also with truth. These posts appeared on my Facebook page a year ago. And now, no one seems to be talking about these job qualifications. I will. Truth matters. So, let’s take a look — one more time — at each candidate’s qualifications, or disqualifications, if you will.
I’ve grown weary of the smart-aleck remarks and the so-called “jokes” about somebody’s e-mail server. Those of us who have held our nation’s highest security clearances know what’s going on here.
For her to say that “no one’s talking to me about this but the press” is because this involves our nation’s highest security clearances. Anyone talking to her about it would be in the same mess she’s in. She’s just like that guy who authored Obamacare who thinks the voters are just too stupid (his words) and she’s banking on the fact that no one who really knows this business could describe it in a one-page press release enough to harm her candidacy. Well, those of us who know something about this business figure she’s doing just fine harming her own candidacy. The polls show that few trust her and that’s a qualification she needs for the position.
Anyone who has received our nation’s highest security clearances—and I mean anyone—receives a comprehensive briefing that you can’t ignore, sleep through, consider yourself too lofty to pay attention to or “phone it in.” She has signed a form somewhere to that effect. My guess is that she didn’t think too much of it, but more on that form in a minute. That briefing explains why the “cleared” individual should treat that information with special care and stewardship. Quite simply, to handle this information insecurely through carelessness or worse, willful negligence, means that real people are placed in grave danger. I don’t find that funny. UPDATE NUMBER ONE: Neither did the Iranian who recently was executed by others finding his name in her e-mail.
It’s very true that civilians control our military and intelligence resources but that doesn’t allow them to play fast and loose with our sensitive national secrets. Ignorance is no excuse. Rank may have its privileges but not at the risk of lives and national security. Just ask General Petraeus. Convenience equates to “willful negligence.” If no one told her it was wrong, they didn’t have to. That was her responsibility.
She has broken the law and reasonable people know it, especially those familiar with this business. She has placed real people in grave danger as a result, and that’s saying nothing about other places she has placed real people in grave danger: Benghazi or abortion. That disqualifies her for this job. She might be a fine person. Fine people get turned down for jobs every day. She should get turned down for this one and let’s find someone we can trust.
Remember that form she must have signed after receiving her briefing on the handling of secrets? That’s enough of a smoking gun to convict anyone if someone could find it. Perhaps no one has done a reasonable search for it. After their investigation, the FBI said that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring her case to court. Looks to me like we need some unreasonable people to apply for duty at the Department of Justice.
UPDATE NUMBER TWO: That form, I pointed to over a year ago, was part of the data dump from the State Department just prior to the Labor Day weekend a few weeks ago. It’s what would have convicted me if I had done the same thing. Sorry. I just can’t bring myself to vote for a criminal. She’s disqualified.