2 fired over Obama passport file breach
Third employee at State disciplined over accessing candidate’s records
Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of "imprudent curiosity," which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined. "We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, so we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case," McCormack said…
Barack Obama’s campaign tonight is demanding a full investigation of reports that his passport files at the State Department were viewed without authorization. “This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an Administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.
Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we’re not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we’re not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems. By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.
But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people? As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said — not about black people, but literally, the exact same things — I think we’d notice that he’s crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke’s love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming "home to roost.")
Imagine a white pastor saying: "Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. … We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God."…
A scant two years ago, Ward Connerly was leading the fight for an initiative in Michigan that would clearly end the resentment of whites over preferences, while at the same time making it crystal clear that racial discrimination was against the law. Connerly promoted and campaigned for Proposition 2, an amendment to Michigan’s constitution that would prohibit the state from "discriminat[ing] against, or grant[ing] preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." Sen. Obama opposed Ward Connerly’s work. In fact, he lent his voice to a radio ad during the campaign for the initiative. The radio ad was sponsored by a group called One United Michigan and talked about leveling the playing field for minorities and women…
And least you thought the Christian Right was out of the mix, this is from the Traditional Values Coalition:
Sen. Obama also noted: “Did I know [Wright] to be a fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I am sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”
Yet, until last week, Sen. Obama was denying he was in the pew when Wright made controversial statements against whites, America or Israel. A NewsMax report, however, revealed that last July, he was, in deed, in the pew when Wright blasted white America for the woes of the world and referred to the United States as the United States of White America.
“If Senator Obama could sit in the pew and listen to these diatribes against America, why didn’t he confront his pastor over these statements last year – or any time during the 20 years that he attended this radical church?” asks TVC Chairman Rev. Lou Sheldon…
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