Could you imagine an even more dangerous pick than Hagel for Secretary of Defense? Under Obama, yes. Worse is always what's next.
President Barack Obama said today he would nominate former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, to be Secretary of Defense, and his top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to head the CIA. Astonishing. Obama is doing the full monty.
The president's CIA pick called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies. During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."
White House pro-jihadist John Brennan speechifies in Arabic and has equated Muslim terrorists with shoplifters. Lawmakers have called for his firing (here).
Atlas readers are long familiar with the pro-jihadi thug Brennan. If you recall, during the 2008 presidential election, I ran a number of stories on the breach of Obama's passport at the Department of State. It bears noting that John O. Brennan, whom Obama first appointed to be Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, in which capacity he made his notorious and incredible pro-terror remarks, some in Arabic no less, about the beauty of jihad, was connected with the tampering with Obama's passport.
He led the investigation into the breach of Obama's passport records -- the mysterious passport Obama traveled to Pakistan on in 1981.
Quid pro quo?
Back in March 2008, State Department employees had tampered with the passport files of Barack Hussein Obama. The State Department launched an investigation into allegations of improper computer access to Obama's passport records. The investigation was focusing on one employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (more here at The Washington Times).
Obama said at the time:
In Portland, Ore., Mr. Obama said the series of attempts to "tap into people's personal records" were "a problem not just for me but for how our government functions."
Laughable, considering how intrusive his administration has been and continues to be in accessing private information.
Officials do not know whether information was improperly copied, altered or removed from the database during the intrusions.
[...]
"As soon as we realized that there were these unauthorized accesses for Senator Obama's passport files, we collected the information, we briefed the secretary, we briefed Senator Obama's staff, all before we ever replied to the reporter," Mr. McCormack said.
You will also recall that the key witness in the presidential passport tampering case was murdered. Shot in the head, in his car, in front of his church.
Chief of firm involved in breach is Obama adviser
updated 9:10 p.m. EDT, Sat March 22, 2008
cnn.com
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.
John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.
Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.
The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January…
At the time, "State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the violations of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the unauthorized access of Obama's records and a separate search was conducted."
The incidents raise questions as to whether the information was accessed for political purposes and why two contractors involved in the Obama search were dismissed before investigators had a chance to interview them.
I always thought they rifled through Clinton's and McCain's files to make it look as if it was all three, but it was Obama's passport records that they accessed. Secondarily, almost as an afterthought, there were "violations" concerning Clinton and McCain. But who stood to gain from a tampering, and why?
There is a video here of Obama's response to the passport "breach" back on March 21, 2008. Watch it -- I think it's telling that he says, not that he has anything to hide: "not because I have any particular concerns" [minute -.23].
