November 17, 2008
Does She Get a "Bye?"
Rich Galen, of Mullings fame, wrote a cybercolumn about the 63-question "questionaire" that the Obama transition team now requires all applicants for administrative positions to fill out; it includes a very large number of very intrusive questions, which Galen compares to the "are you now or have you ever been a Communist?" type questions asked during the heyday of McCarthyism (which "ism" I happen to applaud, by the way, but that's not germane to this point).
Immediately after reading that issue of Mullings, I read this:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the candidates that President-elect Barack Obama is considering for secretary of state, according to two Democratic officials in close contact with the Obama transition team.
Clinton, the former first lady who pushed Obama hard for the Democratic presidential nomination, was rumored to be a contender for the job last week, but the talk died down as party activists questioned whether she was best-suited to be the nation's top diplomat in an Obama administration.
The talk resumed in Washington and elsewhere Thursday, a day after Obama named several former aides to President Bill Clinton to help run his transition effort.
This raises an immediate impasse: How on earth is Hillary going to be able to answer even half the questions on the questionaire? Here are a few examples, complete with Sen. Clinton's answers (leaked to Big Lizards by someone who identified himself only as "Ted"):
- If you or your spouse have performed any work for, received any payments from and/or made any payments to any foreign government, business, non-profit organization or individual, please describe the circumstances, and identify the source and amount. Also please specify if you or your spouse has ever been registered as an agent for a foreign principal.
- If you or your spouse have ever lived or worked abroad, please describe the circumstances.
- Briefly describe the most controversial matters you have been involved with during the course of your career.
- Testimony: Please identify each instance in which you have testified before Congress or other legislative, administrative, investigative or regulatory body, and specify the subject matter of the testimony. If available, please provide summaries or transcripts of your testimony.
- Speeches: Please identify all speeches you have given. If available please provide the text or recordings of each such speech or identify any recordings of speeches of which you are aware.
- Electronic communications: If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe.
- Please specifically describe any affiliation you, your spouse or any member of your immediate family have, or have had, with any financial, banking, mortgage or insurance institution that is currently the subject of federal government intervention as part of the ongoing economic crisis. This question includes, but is not limited to, the following: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Washington Mutual.
- Other than the entities identified in questions 15-19 above, please provide the names and details of any individuals and organizations with which you or your spouse have been associated with which might present a conflict of interest with your proposed federal office, or have the poetntial for embarassment.
- Please list any lawsuits you or your spouse have brought as a plaintiff or which were brought against you or your spouse as a defendant or third party, or in which you or your spouse have testified at trial or deposition. Include in this response any arbitrations, mediations, and contested divorce proceedings or other domestic relations matters.
- Have any members of your family or close social or business associates been arrested for, charged with and/or convicted of a crime, other than a minor traffic violation? If so, please identify and describe each such arrest, charge, or conviction. Please provide the same information for anyone under your professional supervision, or anyone of your superiors.
- Have you or your spouse ever been accused, formally or informally, of any violation of government or agency procedure (specifically including security violations)?
- Have any civil judgments or liens been rendered against you or your spouse? If so, please provide details.
- If applicable, please list the names, addresses and phone number of cohabitants within the last ten years. A cohabitant is a person with whom you share bonds of affection, obligation, or other commitment, as opposed to a person with whom you live for reasons of convenience (a roommate).
- Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.
- Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used -- even unfairly -- to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?
- Do you know anyone or any organization, either in the private sector or government service, that might take steps, overtly or covertly, fairly or unfairly, to criticize your nomination, including any news organization? If so, please identify and explain the potential basis for criticism.
- Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarassment to you, your famliy, or the President-Elect.
Oh heck. Maybe they'll just pencil-whip her through without the silly, old questionaire at all.
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 17, 2008, at the time of 3:56 AM
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Comments
The following hissed in response by: hunter
That questionnaire is not for high level appointees.
That screening process is not only impractical, I doubt if it will be enforced in any serious way.
It will simply be a threat to hang over the staff. And a way to defund most lobbying groups now in existence, while setting the groundwork for new groups- under The One's control.
The above hissed in response by: hunter ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://biglizards.net/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 17, 2008 5:44 AM
The following hissed in response by: David M
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 11/17/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
The above hissed in response by: David M at November 17, 2008 8:18 AM
The following hissed in response by: FredTownWard
I don't think it matters because I don't believe Hillary Clinton is seriously being considered for the post or would seriously consider taking it if offered. IMHO this is Yet Another ham-handed and insincere attempt to buy peace with the Clintons that will not work for two reasons, one conspiratorial, one substantial.
The conspiratorial reason is that not even Barrack Obama is stupid enough to place Hillary Clinton 4 heartbeats from the presidency (SoS is further down than VP, but if memory serves, still 4th in line).
The substantial reason is that not even Hillary Clinton is stupid enough to believe she could prevent Obama's foreign policy from being a total disaster so why place herself in a position to share in the blame when the Messiah screws up? Better to wait four years and challenge a potentially unreelectable Obama for the nomination.
The above hissed in response by: FredTownWard at November 17, 2008 9:06 AM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Someday, after the current political brouhaha subsides …
(Never mind. That’ll take 4 -- 8? -- years.)
Someday, maybe you could expound on your thoughts about McCarthyism. Should be interesting.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at November 17, 2008 5:48 PM
The following hissed in response by: Steelhand
Dafydd,
Thanks for a hilarious (Hillaryous?) post. And on a more serious aside, I, too, would like to see your take on McCarthyism. I love seeing shibboleths fall.
The above hissed in response by: Steelhand at November 18, 2008 4:21 AM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Dick E., Steelhand:
Sorry; I started to respond, but my browser crashed. I've been having really nasty computer problems here, which is one reason I've been posting less!
McCarthyism on a Nutshell... a tale of two Josephs:
- Communism did indeed exist (and still does today).
- It was (and is) a violent, extremist, conscienceless, tyrannical, soul-killing, and expansionist hell.
- The Soviet Union under the first Joseph, Josef Stalin, had a deliberate and well-funded program to subvert the freedom- and liberty-loving democracies of the world. To this point, I don't think any rational person would disagree.
- Now for the controversy... I firmly believe, on the basis of an overwhelming boatload of evidence, that part of this plan of subversion included infiltrating the governments of those democracies, most especially including the United States. (A good roundup of much of the evidence I talk about, from trial testimony to congressional testimony to the Venona intercepts, can be found in the Ann Coulter book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Whether you like Coulter's writing or not, you should read this book.)
- Now for the other Joseph, Joseph McCarthy. Sen. McCarthy was an imperfect vessel of an important movement of antiCommunism. He was a strong New Dealer, despite being a Republican; he was first elected to the Senate on a platform of instituting Social Security. Once that issue was off the table (because it was enacted), he hunted around for another cause... and seized upon antiCommunism.
- Regardless of his sincerity (or lack of), his was the most important voice against Communism in the 1950s, just as Richard Nixon and Whittaker Chambers were the most important voices against Communism in the 1940s.
- There really, honestly were Soviet agents in the United States government -- State Department, Justice Department, numerous other agencies, Congress (all throughout congressional staffs), and yes, even the military... and remember, every Communist or Soviet agent in the 1950s -- was a Stalinist. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made not the slightest attempt to root Communists out of the federal bureaucracy, probably because FDR never really believed Communism was bad; cf. Mission to Moscow, by a third Joseph -- Joseph Davies, FDR's ambassador to the Soviet Union.
- McCarthy did indeed "out" a number of secret Stalinist agents within the government.
- Contrary to what most people believe, there is scant evidence that McCarthy falsely accused specific patriotic Americans of being Communist agents, simply because they were "liberal" or "believed in freedom of speech."
- Contrary to what 99% of Americans believe, McCarthy had nothing whatsoever to do with hunting Communism in the movies (and in comic books). McCarthy was almost entirely concerned with Communist agents within the federal government, a little in the state governments, and occasionally among top industrialists.
- Joseph McCarthy served a vital role in awakening Americans to the fact that our erstwhile ally during World War II, Communism, was in fact just as evil as our former enemy, Naziism; in fact, both are versions of socialism, whence they derive their primary evil: denial of the rights, liberties, and autonomy of the individual to glorify the collective.
- Yes, McCarthy did not always have solid evidence in hand to back up his sometimes grandiose claims (much of the missing evidence did indeed surface later, after McCarthy's disgrace and early death). Nevertheless, he was, in essence, far more right than wrong -- and certainly far more sinned against than sinning. And he was crucial to breaking the stranglehold the Left had on political discourse, and on Communism in particular, throughout FDR's administration.
Therefore, unlike conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Hugh Hewitt and "neoconservatives" like Dennis Prager and especially Michael Medved, I praise McCarthy and support and applaud "McCarthyism," despite his flaws and the movement's excesses. I stand rather with Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and William F. Buckley, jr. on this issue.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at November 18, 2008 1:19 PM
The following hissed in response by: Necromancer
I have to say I agree with you on this subject Dafydd ab Hugh.My Mother will be 89 this next January and she has always said that the leftist liberals and communists would get us by using the public education system. Looks like it has almost worked judging by what I've been reading on lots of the blogs and web sites.
I'm going to order those two books you have mentioned in this article. Thank You.
I can hardly wait until you start-in on the bho.
The above hissed in response by: Necromancer at November 18, 2008 2:24 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
Thanks ... interesting.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at November 18, 2008 5:52 PM
The following hissed in response by: Xpressions
She probably will. The left-wing illuminati transition team can't expect her to know more than they did Obama.
The above hissed in response by: Xpressions at November 27, 2008 9:02 AM
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