What am I supposed to do?  Get into one of those childish "Yes it is!  No it’s not!" shouting matches that pass for "debate" on Cable TV these days?

Barak Obama only gets positive press insofar as the MSM hates Hillary Clinton and will say anything to beat her (check out Chris Mthews on any given night.

But then John McCain, with only about a once-a-year exception, also gets free passes on his howlers (even when he has to be publicly corrected, right on the podium, about his factual mistakes).

And have you forgotten Chris Mathews all-but-manhug endorsement of George W. Bush as "the guy everyone wants to have a beer with" in 2004.

Re: "What about all the US Attorneys, of which all were Clinton appointees and only 8 fired later?"

Flat out wrong.  When the party in power changes at the White House, all the US attorneys submit their resignation and are replaced with the opposition party’s team.  That is what happened in the transition from Presidents Clinton to Bush.  What brought the scandal to light was Bush repeating it in 2005, w ithout a party change (which was un precedented).

Given the fact that President Bush permitted Karl Rove to purge eveyone other than “Loyal Bushies” from every other agency of the US government, why shouldn’t one presume that the US Passport office had not also been converted, like the GSA, into an arm of the Republican National Committee?

Now now, Steve. Don’t let your opposition passion entrap you into false extremes.

What about all the US Attorneys, of which all were Clinton appointees and only 8 fired later? Certainly not what Reno/Clinton did when they performed a US atty bloodbath on their entry. And that is just fine, all kosher. Just wish Bush had done the same.

Military and Pentagon are also departments with admin holdovers… as well as some that couldn’t be removed since they aren’t appointees anyway.

The low level passport officials involved were not hired by GWB. Everyone involved here is pretty low in the food chain.

Re: “Take a good look at Chicago Blogger John Rubery’s work and his examination of Obama’s Marxist ties.”

So, now the official Republican line is no longer that Senator Obama is a secret Muslim Terroist. Now he’s a secret Communist Agent?

Re: “In the short span of 30 minutes, there were no less than four stories that cast positive light on Barrack Obama; and I mean they hit all four corners here:”

Are you complaining because only John McCain is supposed to get the “man-crush” stories?

Re: My understanding is that the information divulged to other countries is only a subset of the information in one’s ‘passport file.’ For instance, I don’t believe that we divulge a full travel history to other countries. (I could be wrong on this; it’s been some time since I read up on this subject, and the rules may have changed.)”

That information is already available to foreign governments insofar that all they have to do is leaf through your passport and check the visa stamps. In the past, those reporters who could carry two passports (dual nationalities) often made sure that they used only one for their trips to Israel because Saudi Arabia had a policy of not admitting anyone who had an Israeli visa stamp anywhere in his/her passport.

Got a bum mouse and ten cent head.

Here’s Marthon Pundit John Rubery on Obama’s goofball associations -

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/obamas-other-radical-friends-bill-ayers.html

Barack Obama - the national icon - is creation of the DNC. From the time that he spoke at the Convention fro Kerry. Howard the Duck Dean and his crew of MovenOn.Org goofs have been workingon the obama Magic. They want the Clintons out.

Now the Clintons ain’t about to go quietly. They have not even begun to give Obama a tune-up.

Obama will not get support from regular democrats in Chicago due to his continued alliances with Lefty Heroes like convicted bomber Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and others including indicted bundler and power broker Tony Rezko.

The Ayers stuff has not even gotten a sniff in MSM and is far more damning about Obama’s vaunted ‘Judgment’ than even Rev. Wright.

Take a good look at Chicago Blogger John Rubery’s work and his examination of Obama’s Marxist ties.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2007/06/john-mccain-paradigm-for-american.html

In the short span of 30 minutes, there were no less than four stories that cast positive light on Barrack Obama; and I mean they hit all four corners here:
1) The headline story - Contractors at the State Department caught looking at Obama’s passport history. Promptly followed by video of Condoleezza Rice explaining the situation to the MSM (I don’t know about you guys, but I think she has better things to be doing), and telling how she personally called Barrack Obama to apologize (wonder if he apologized for Wright having slandering her?) for the incident. The take-away here for the less well informed American public - Even the current Republican administration is sinisterly shadowing Obama, the MSM’s anointed candidate.
2) The Clinton - Wright photograph: While ultimately revealed to have been released by a member of Obama’s campaign (which still hasn’t been widely acknowledged by the MSM), the fallout from this was designed to fall squarely on Hillary’s campaign. Take-away - See! Even the Clinton’s have touched this man, they’re just as dirty as Obama is! (Never mind Bill’s just meeting him at a regular function, versus having a deep 20+ year association with the man).
3) McCain suspends aide for posting video - For having posted the video “Is Obama Wright” to a social network site he was a member of. In the name of taking the high road, McCain suspended the man for an unspecified time. The take-away for general public: McCain is sneakily mud-slinging. (The reality here is that McCain was if anything over zealous in trying to keep his campaign clean)
4) Bill Richardson endorses Obama - New Mexico governor, and former Presidential candidate Bill Richardson backs Barrack, with special emphasis that he is the only Hispanic governor in the U.S. The take-away: Despite his revealed racist ties, the general public should not dump Obama (as the recent polls have shown his numbers falling), but return to his banner, particularly Hispanic’s who have so far backed Hillary or conservatives. At this point Obama hardly needs a media consultant, since the MSM is giving him freebies like this as often as possible.

Obama’s speech on race failed to properly sway the public, as did MSM claims that it “ended the debate” about the Wright Affair, the MSM is now adapting a new tactic; bury it under enough “new” news regarding Obama, and the American public will forget about it. It’s true enough the Americans show distressingly short memories, so it becomes imperative for the blogosphere to keep truly weighty matters like the Wright connection and other facts about Obama that may emerge in the spotlight, and fresh in the minds of American voters. Not to mention the inevitable counters that the radical left will throw our way (with MSM support).

Happy Easter! That is a fine sentiment - indicative of a deep Partiotism and good sense.

I find this Basso Profundo Asso - to be the most obnoxious, unctious, twerp to his the small screen since Pee-Wee Herman - but Pee Wee didn’t read the news and saved his onanisms for darkened theatres.

Well played Aces!

We do what we can.

Happy Easter!

Pat Hickey

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2008/03/msnbc-keith-olbermann-americas-1-juice.html

1) To be honest, the first thing I thought was “someone wants some blog fodder.” The second thing I thought was that (here comes the conspiracy theory) someone hit one candidate as the primary target, but did the other two as cover.

2) The three clowns who abused their privilege/clearance/whatever should be fired, and they should be barred from any future government work. (Two have been fired, but the third is getting a “review?” I don’t think so - out the door with him.)

3) The contractor should face a stringent personnel review before any contract is renewed.

4) My understanding is that the information divulged to other countries is only a subset of the information in one’s ‘passport file.’ For instance, I don’t believe that we divulge a full travel history to other countries. (I could be wrong on this; it’s been some time since I read up on this subject, and the rules may have changed.)

5) I have a problem with this:

“Though they heralded the computer monitoring system installed a few years ago to detect such breaches, senior officials at the State Department were said that they had only learned of the Obama breach from a reporter calling for comment earlier Thursday.”

If it takes three months for senior officials to learn that the records of our most notable citizens are being breached, and only then when a reporter finds out first, that’s one broken “alert system.” Putting on my information security hat, I would expect that (just on general principle) the files of our Federal officials (elected or appointed) would set off flags whenever they were accessed; in fact, one would think that special permission should be requried before accessing those files. I can understand if my passport file doesn’t set off bells and whistles when opened, but Obama’s? McCain’s? Clinton’s? That has a direct impact on national security.

Yes they could have been bored workers, workers that were looking for tabloid fodder, workers that tried to get information to give to the other candidates, or were spies for one group that tried to gain info on two of the candidates and covered their tracks by looking at the stats of the candidate they were looking for. Since other governments can freely look at this information, it would be weird for them to try to give this information to them.

If foreign governments can look at this information, then I would suspect that there isn’t that much information one could gain, but since these employees were low level from a contractor that obviously didn’t know the workings of the passport system, I would say either curiousity and or some sort of power trip led to them doing it.

I also think this helps prove that Barackis worthless as president. He opened his mouth before knowing about the workings of the passport system since North Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela (even if they have to share info), including some companies working for the U.S. government, has access to the same information that these two guys got. Barack wants Congress to be part of the investigation as if this was classified information that those two workers were looking at. Maybe he should show up more often and ask around more and he would be told that it’s closer to being public information (at least in some countries).