Is Wikileaks an operation to get rid of Hillary Clinton prior to 2012? There are a few writers who think so.
Don Surber wrote about the Time interview of Julian Assange where he says Hillary should resign and concludes:
The Wikileaks scandal is not that it was leaked but it is a blatant attempt to eliminate Hillary Clinton as a threat to Barack Obama’s re-election.
~~~This is a political assassination that deserves inquiry by the Republican House come January. Forget getting Julian Assange on publishing the leaks. Find out who leaked.
We know why.
And some in the liberal left are pushing the meme. Here is Jack Shafer of Slate:
The leaked cables make it impossible for Hillary Clinton to continue as secretary of state.
A U.S. diplomat must possess patience, poise, and tact. He must also be attentive to cultural differences, a good observer, and proficient in several languages. When called upon, he must use his skills as a negotiator in the national interest. And, as the latest dump of WikiLeaks tells us, if the dip works for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he must also be prepared to spy on his fellow diplomats.
Yeah, our diplos used to have to convince people they don’t secretly work for the CIA; now they have to convince people they don’t secretly work for Hillary Clinton. Our guys and gals are good, but are they that good?
Should Hillary Clinton resign as secretary of state due to the WikiLeaks revelations? My friend Jack Shafer at Slate makes a good case. His reason: Clinton, like predecessor Condoleezza Rice, signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations.
~~~…Of the many WikiLeaks revelations that have emerged in the past few days — and more are to come in the next few months, as the renegade website continues to release batches of the 251,287 State Department cables it has obtained — the news that U.S. diplomats have been turned into part-time spies certainly warrants thorough investigation.
~~~…Yet there have not been such passionate calls for investigating the transformation of U.S. diplomats into undercover snoops. The administration’s strategy — as is to be expected — is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress.
I’m betting we will see more of this coming up in the months ahead from the Obama faithful in an attempt to drive her out of office and ruin her chances of running against Obama in 2012 or a run in 2016.
I just don’t see her being forced out of anything tho. She won’t resign, that would be an acknowledgment of guilt. Personally, I can’t stand her but I don’t see anything wrong with her conduct. Of course we spy on other countries and their diplomats. This is a shock? I would have been disappointed to find that we weren’t doing this kind of intelligence work. If these ObamaBots are trying to make the utterly ignorant argument that other countries aren’t doing the same exact thing then they are incredibly naive.
See author page
An interesting spin to this leak.
Obama and Holder have done little to stop these leaks, as if they, themselves knew they would not be hurt as much as ”others,” namely Hillary and her State Dept.
The earliest Wikileak was Assange putting out a video that alleged to show American soldiers killing, even targeting, a journalist.
Not true.
But the timing allowed Obama to gain support for gutting the US military.
And that is exactly what he now intends to do!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/TheMomentofTruth.pdf?hpid=topnews
A PDF link to the Obama Debt Commission Report.
The proposal of the fiscal commission calls for steep cuts in military spending to keep the deficit under control.
Under the fiscal commission plan, security spending would be frozen and then have its growth capped.
The security budget would be $688 billion in 2012 and just $700 billion by 2020.
Keep in mind that this would include not only spending on defense, but on all other aspects of security — homeland security, veterans and international affairs.
In 2000 that was the budget of JUST the military!
The trolls are silent. What does that tell you?
Amazon was hosting Wikileaks, but no more.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/01/amazon-severs-ties-wikileaks/
“The company’s decision to cut off Wikileaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material,” Joe Leiberman said in a statement.” I call on any other company or organization that is hosting
Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.”
No indication that Obama or Holder stepped in.
Their silence is starting to become deafening.
I am not sure what I believe in this. I don’t think of it as a conspiracy though. I don’t think that the Obama administration is all that good to develop a conspiracy. I think the truth is that they didn’t really care or see it as a threat to them, and just didn’t worry about it. They had too many other things to worry about, like his next basketball game and pleasing Charles Barker, and fixing the fat lip he got. I think that it all boils down to is that they really don’t care and think it is no big deal. They probably think it is funny that the world knows what jerks the others are. This administration reminds me of a group of adolescents stuck in high school, and I think that they think it is funny that this got out, kind of like the kids who smirk when someone steps in it and gets caught dissing others. They were caught in the act and they think it makes them look clever and devious. The more this administration acts, the more I am reminded of high school and the games that goes on there. Or maybe just a bad episode of West Wing.
Utterly ridiculous. First, from all accounts, Obama is quite happy with Hillary in State. So how would this leak, assuming he somehow orchestrated it, keep her from running against him if she wanted to?
Second, she has a much better chance being named his next vice president candidate than she would have running against him. She knows that she would not only lose an effort to unseat Obama, but also kill her chances of ever being anything in the party.
Third, if anything, the leak hurts the Obama administration because it will make diplomacy harder and create some heat for a few of the parties we deal with. It would be the ultimate cut off your nose to spite your face move to risk your own diplomatic agenda in order to “get” a perceived “enemy” who is NOW IN YOUR GOVERNMENT.
In short, the conspiracy theory is not only factually unsupported (not that the absence of facts bothers you people), but it also makes absolutely no sense at all.
Dang. Beat me to it. I absolutely believe Clinton is being left to hang.
Bush negotiated with the Times to limit the damage. Obama is doing nothing and is hiding from this issue entirely.
Holder is “thinking” about doing something.
He and Obama knew this was coming and they did nothing. Clinton is toast and they’re standing by with the butter.
A political Occam’s Razor, perhaps? The simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. Makes sense to me.
Hilary is behind the leak.
I can’t prove it, but it serves her purpose of undermining Obama.
@Silly Rob: You said:
When all else fails, try an insult.
As a matter of fact, it has been my experience with you here on FA that you RARELY, if ever, offer facts to support the outlandish claims you make on a near daily basis. So why now are you lobbing that grenade at the very people who consistently utilize facts, cite studies, web sites, etc… to make their arguments against the crap you throw on the wall.
Sorry for the double post, but when I hit send my browser locked up and part of my comment was lost in cyber space.
I’m having a real hard time believing that these documents are still attributed to the PFC. As a Vet I know the spooks get some pretty high access with in the specified departments. But come on how would a someone processing paper work in the Army have access to the State Department cables? Can someone explain that to me?
PFC Bradley Manning was a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst based in Iraq who had access to these cables as part of his clearance level.
He took in a memory stick each day and downloaded all he could fit for as long as he took to get all 260,000 diplomatic cables from government computer networks.
Apparently he pretended to be singing along to Lady GaGa songs while he did this so other soldiers would leave him alone.
That worked.
This was one of the first things that came to my mind. It is clear that they had no will to stop this information from coming out. Considering that the most damaging so far seems to be things Hillary did…put two and two together. It also serves the purpose of spreading more worldwide hatred for the US, which this administration seems to enjoy doing.
Texmom, Obama and Hillary are leading the charge of hated toward America. This is who they are, this is who we must stop.
Yes, that is what I meant, that Obama and Hillary may be happy to have this Wikileaks issue add to the hatred of America.
Toldja.
Yes, Dr. John, the timing is suspect.
Ivan says Hillary is behind the leaks.
Dr John says Obama is behind the leaks
Tea Party founder Ross Perot says leaks are a good thing.
I say any male who sings along to Lady Gaga should be hung.
@Nan G, WikiLeaks is running out ways to collect cash too. PayPal suspended their account, used for donations.
heh… That’s going to make Assange pull in his belt while on the lam
BTW, rich… *that* was funny!
BTW, speaking of “leaks”, now the WH is up in arms about how ABC, CNN and MSNBC broke the news about his Afghanistan trip 30 minutes before he hit the ground, thus endangering his life.
Oh yes, and this is gonna hurt….
I have to go with Occam’s Razor. Just a leak and neither Obama or Hillary is behind it.
@rich wheeler #17: You said:
I agree with you on the Lady Gaga point.
I disagree with your assertion about Ross Perot founding the Tea Party. His two stints as a Presidential candidate may have loosely served a role model for the Tea Party movement, but he is hardly a founder.
The only thing you left out is that the leaks MUST be Bush’s fault…
ANTICROCKS I meant to say Ron Paul. Got my Texans confused.
Two great ballgames on now.Auburn-South Carolina and Oregon-Oregon State
@rw: Well you at least mentioned someone that is in the political news NOW, lol. But Ron Paul isn’t the founder of the Tea Party movement, either.
That is the thing that drives the left nuts – NO ONE is the founder of the Tea Party movement. It is a bottom-up, grass roots phenomenon.