Is Woodward Really Such a Boy Scout?

I watched Bob Woodward on the talking heads on Sunday (1 Nov 15). What a piece of work this guy is. He's been pontificating for decades as the elder statesman of the media. Such lofty stature is the result of one story that was spoon fed to him in the early 1970s.

That's when he was hand-picked by corrupt politicians and ambitious bureaucrats to chronicle and promote the undoing of a president for covering up someone else's third-rate political burglary. And he was an easy choice, having been the former Lt. Robert Woodward, USNR, who delivered President Nixon's morning Pentagon briefs. He knew most of the players.[1. Silent Coup, Len Colodny, St. Martins Press, 1991]

I'll take a moment to contrast Woodward's horrible president to a present-day potential president. I will draw this all together presently.

Who Doesn't Get This?

This new one is a congenital liar. She ripped people off in real estate deals (Whitewater) and destroyed evidence to cover her own malfeasance (Rose Law Firm). She, like Nixon, kept an enemies list in the White House. But hers was much more substantial and paranoid. She didn't just collect tidbits of the public record, and whatever private investigators and snooping might provide. No. This women kept more than a thousand unauthorized FBI files in the White House residence until first, she copied and scoured them for damning information on political opponents and perhaps "friends" for later use. Secondly, after being caught with the records, lied and obfuscated about their existence until she could negotiate their return through corrupted contacts at the Justice Department without consequence. At that point, she "discovered" the records in her possession.

The same woman headed up the character assassination squad formed to cover up her own husband's sexual dalliances [2. As is the case with most people, I don't care that Bill Clinton liked to keep his dipstick in play. The offenses here are that he and his wife intentionally bribed or destroyed those he played with. He committed perjury to further his cover ups. It wasn't "all about sex" as the left and the obedient press snarked constantly. It was all about bribery, coercion and perjury. Same citation as footnote 3] and purported rapes[3. No One Left to Lie To, Christopher Hitchens, Twelve, 2012], in the process destroying seven known lives and likely others we may not know about. One can safely assume there were women who were simply bought off as well.

Just one of the above items would be enough to utterly destroy any Republican candidate for president. Any one on the Republican debate stage last week would have faced criminal charges before even an announcement speech.

And it doesn't stop there. In almost six years as Secretary of State, this greedy, power-hungry creature we affectionately know as Hillary, accomplished exactly nothing. There is not one initiative that resulted in anything to mark her as an active, engaged, capable cabinet member and US representative.We do know she created an atmosphere whereby only things that would get her positive press or face time with the Oval Office was to reach her level of consideration. Anything that had the slightest tinge of difficulty or responsibility was to be kept from her official purview to the greatest extent possible.

"Created an atmosphere..." Who am I kidding? She told her aides what she didn't want her fingerprints on.

She did however, abuse her position as Secretary of State, to solicit money for her family slush fund on her endless "missions" around the world. That, she accomplished with great aplomb. With the first few releases of her emails, we already know she was constantly handling matters for the Clinton foundation, almost every day, everywhere she went. It is worth noting The Clinton Foundation is a fund which is entirely under the control of Bill and Hillary Clinton, with which they can do as they please. They have given a bit to actual charities and splashed money around lavishly to provide junkets to friends for the purported purpose of attending "scientific" or "charitable" conferences and such. But it's their personal piggy bank. Note to the IRS: Every dime raised during her tenure as Secretary of State, from a foreign entity, belongs to the US government, not the Clinton Fund. Note to self: The IRS is an utterly corrupt tool of the left and will never pursue this point. The previous note is almost a waste of effort.

Any one of these skanky activities would be enough to destroy your average politician, and most assuredly, a conservative. But most politicians are not completely devoid of character and ethics in the way our Hillary is. She knows the strings to pull, she's got a network of insiders to help her. And she has millions of dollars with which to buy whomever she needs to smooth her way.

And that leaves the 800 lb gorilla in the room; the monster crime; the mack daddy of Clintonian corruption; the illegal server and several unauthorized, and thereby illegal backup servers.

Yes, I said illegal. There is no toss-up here. There is no pondering if it might be legitimate. Is it possible it was okay to have a server in her house? Here's why it is illegal. While at the time of installation, it was considered acceptable in extremely narrow circumstances to have a server at home that would contain government, even classified information, the law requires that the reason be screened and the equipment used be provided by the US Government. The hard drives, firewalls and portals must be of a specific configuration. The house must be inspected and upgraded to a very specific set of criteria (saying that the Secret Service was on hand is meaningless in this context). The server must be installed by authorized personnel, not a State Department IT guy working under the table for the Secretary in his off hours. The server MUST be a part of a specific government network, NIPR, SIPR, etc. All backups for the server must reside in the government's computer system. Anyone with access to the server, backups or information produced by them must have the requisite clearance. All of the above requirements are for purposes of basic security and to provide the government with proper and required oversight.

The IT guy that installed the server knows all this. He took the 5th to protect himself, not Clinton.

That Clinton had a server isn't the illegal part. That she had one secretly installed, intentionally thwarting security requirements, is a very serious crime. In the event she really didn't know it was all criminal activity (quite charitable, considering the Clinton proclivity for knowing the rules and willfully breaking them), ignorance is not a defense.

Over to You, BOB.

So, we go back to Woodward and his Sunday talking head appearance. He put forth a monstrously naive or intentionally poison position that all candidates should release a detailed report about themselves and their position.

How nice. Every American would have the opportunity to peruse the political positions and background of the many candidates. I know I would. But I'm wonky that way. I know the average American wouldn't. Woodward knows, if he is not irretrievably stupid, that such documents would be parsed by a sycophantic media, then spoon fed to a public in portions the media decides, so as to create any narrative they wish to create. The outlets who go out with the most controversial, out of context phrases first, get to carry their narrative, regardless of validity.

Any argument by the candidate or conservatives would be dismissed as haters hating. I give you coverage of Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Iran, Ferguson, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine, the EPA and CO2, everything Bill Clinton ever did, the Clinton Foundation (as cited above), Executive Authority, Keystone, Obama's criminal negligence in exponentially expanding illegal immigration, etc. The media has acted as a representative of the left and weak right in these and countless other issues.

Woodward opined, in his nasal, halting midwest tone that the reports should run perhaps 30,000 words (about 130 pages in 12 pitch, single spaced). In Hillary's case it might run about 50,000 words, but he added with a chuckle, the FBI was taking care of that. It was with this inane joke Woodward gave away the game. Let's draw some real-life comparisons to demonstrate this point.

During the Bush-Obama transistion, the incoming administration picked among other things, gun control as a pet issue. people in Mexico were being killed, we were told, by guns purchased in the US and used south of the border. I cursory check by the haters that hate (that would be anyone who disagrees with Obama) demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of guns handled by drug lords and other criminals in Mexico were purchased in Chile, the Philippines. Many more were holdovers from the break up of the Soviet empire. Mexico was swimming in cheap, foreign guns so there was little need to go through the hassle and expense of trying to get guns from the US. If the new president and his utterly corrupt Attorney General were smart, they'd have simply let the story drop because no one was going after them on it.

But no, ego and stupidity insisted they create a phony movement of guns to Mexico to prop up their original assertion, thereby giving them further justification to go after the US gun industry. To accomplish this, they made some straw purchases, compiled several thousand weapons, many fully automatic and let them "walk" untraced into Mexico. They were quality weapons, so Obama/Holder knew they'd see some of them again after they succeeded in getting innocent Mexicans killed.

Then, oopsie, an American Border Patrol officer was killed by one of them. At first it was proudly announced that Dear Leader Barack had been right all along. But the story quickly unraveled. It was then we found out that the life of Border Patrol Officer, Brian Terry was as worthless to the Obama administration as a Mexican life. The White House, the DOJ and the media all went into a full court press against anyone investigating any part of the affair. Eric Holder laughed off the contempt charges congress brought and he so richly deserved. Blame for the whole thing was directed at a "mid-level supervisor" setting up the operation. Ever since, anyone who would bring up the scandal is treated as a tinfoil hat kook. No one was held to account.

How do we know this account is accurate enough to at least have brought contempt charges against Obama's AG? Look at other incidents that Holder has pursued. Orlando and Ferguson. Holder eagerly involved the DOJ in incidents of low-level neighborhood violence where an opportunity to tar entire cities or police departments with the appearance of racism by the very presence of the DOJ. His motivation was political, racial, quick and thorough. Even though there were state and local authorities in place and pursuing the crimes efficiently. The endless river of murder occurring in major cities throughout the US wasn't even a blip on his radar. Can't make racial hay out of all that. But single incidents with political angles, oh, you bet! This goes to intent in those scandals he helped cover up.

From this we can draw a few applicable conclusions. Holder, when motivated by race or politics, can move the weight of the DOJ quickly and efficiently. When motivated with his own neck and/or Obama's (Fast and Furious was no low-level op) he is happy to sit back and take heat all day without lifting a finger to pursue anything. This Justice Department will not go after Hillary as they know they should. They have no intention to do so, ever. No one in the Administration cares about creating even the appearance of propriety. They know they're protected.

Finally, to pull it all together, let me give you one more "what if" scenario.

An Old Saw, But Sharp and Accurate!

What if it was discovered that Condoleeza Rice had a private server at home that was hooked up by an IT guy who worked at the State Department after business hours and that she used it for official business? What if the server was not properly configured and networked directly and only with the State Department? Just stop at that and ask yourself what the obvious result would be.

We all know that the result would be banner headlines every day until criminal charges were brought. I don't approach this from a standpoint of what is fair or unfair. It's about what is honest and forthright vs what is dishonest and sleazy.

Now, what would happen if the State Department was an hour late with one document subject to a subpoena? What if she lied about having the server before admitting to having it? What if she destroyed 30,000 documents prior to turning over paper copies of the remaining documents? What if she gave her uncleared attorney unsecured thumb drives containing documents? What if documents released later showed that classified information was on the server and on backups held by commercial computers services?

All these questions refer to criminal acts. And we know what the answers to them are. In fact before we could ask the second question Rice's house would be raided, everything that wasn't edible would have been boxed up and confiscated, and a no-holds-barred investigation would have been launched.

A real-world for instance. How long did it take the DOJ to latch onto Dennis Hastert. And not for potential sexual abuse, no! It was just about some money inappropriately withdrawn from his own account. I don't feel sorry for Hastert, but you must see the double standard here.

If there was a shred of integrity left in the entire Executive Branch, to include the IRS, State and DOJ down to the FBI, Clinton wouldn't be running for president. She'd be spending all that good foundation money on defense attorneys. She knows she's protected. She knows that not even FOX News has the testicular fortitude to demand proper charges be brought and investigations run in a correct and timely manner.

Right, Bob. Let's pretend the FBI is really doing it's job. Let's pretend a single agent would actually follow a real lead and that his career wouldn't be over before the end of the business day. Let's pretend that the gradual release of emails isn't a double-dose poison pill. One dose to facilitate a later claim of a prejudiced outcome by a potential defendant and the other to keep attention on the emails themselves and off the clearly illegal server.

So Woodward believes that this would be the same media that would handle the candidates personal reports with objectivity and honesty. You bet!

One last thought: Why has the IT guy not been offered blanket immunity by Congress and the DOJ? Changing this will be a test for Speaker Ryan. Is he an honest man, or is he just the newest member of the Four Morons [4. Pelosi, Reid, McConnell and now Ryan]? If he doesn't offer the immunity and insist, publicly that DOJ do the same, then we'll know what his tenure will consist of. If Clinton reaches the end of the election cycle without facing charges, then Ryan can shove his clean-cut, Catholic, do-gooder facade. We'll all know he's as dirty as the rest of them.

Matt Jordan is a travel writer, political commentator and author of 16 20 24. Get your SIGNED copy here!

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