[UPDATE II: And the plot thickens! Now State Department officials are reporting that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain's passport files were breached as well! The Clinton breach seems to be a completely separate incident, according to the spokesman of the State Department, as a trainee that was instructed to "search for a family members passport file" while training instead searched for Hillary Clinton and was reprimanded (not fired) for doing so. The McCain breach, however, is related to the three Obama breaches of the past three months: the guy that breached the Obama file on March 14th is also the person responsible for the McCain breach at the same time (and this is the worker that has only been disciplined, while the other two workers of the Obama breaches were already fired). Thus, it seems political motivation has yet to be ruled out, but what can already be confirmed is that the passport division of the State Department is staffed by a whole array of incompetent people...and therefore functions much like any other department of the Bush administration.]
[UPDATE: Apparently MSNBC reported that "Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of the Bureau of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under Bill Clinton." This sounds more like coincidence than conspiracy (it seems possible that various current government bureaucrats could have carried over from their service under the Clinton administration), but this could end up being another angle of the story that will be interesting to watch as more details become available.]
With the incredible breaking news of Senator Obama's passport information being breached by individuals within the State Department, we find yet another parallel between presidential candidate Barack Obama and former-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Back during the 1992 presidential campaign contest between incumbent George H.W. Bush and challenger Bill Clinton, President Bush Sr.'s administration was behind a similar breach of Clinton's passport information (as well as other devious government searches into Clinton's past, including his time spent at Oxford, etc.). Obviously, Bush Sr.'s motivations for such actions were directly linked to his running for reelection against Clinton, while this new breach by those within the current Bush administration is more likely some combination of similar opposition research motivation and a general consequence of an administration hell-bent on destroying every last vestige of privacy within government (as well as some amount of general idiocy by those individuals involved who actually thought they could access a high-profile government official's records without flags being raised).
More importantly, as more and more information comes out over the next few days, it will be particularly interesting to see how far up the chain of command news of the breaches, and the corresponding investigation regarding the breaches, traveled over the past couple of months. As if the Republican Party didn't have enough of a stink going into this election season, an incident that potentially hearkens back to the days of Watergate could just about finish them off completely!
[UPDATE: Apparently MSNBC reported that "Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of the Bureau of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under Bill Clinton." This sounds more like coincidence than conspiracy (it seems possible that various current government bureaucrats could have carried over from their service under the Clinton administration), but this could end up being another angle of the story that will be interesting to watch as more details become available.]
With the incredible breaking news of Senator Obama's passport information being breached by individuals within the State Department, we find yet another parallel between presidential candidate Barack Obama and former-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Back during the 1992 presidential campaign contest between incumbent George H.W. Bush and challenger Bill Clinton, President Bush Sr.'s administration was behind a similar breach of Clinton's passport information (as well as other devious government searches into Clinton's past, including his time spent at Oxford, etc.). Obviously, Bush Sr.'s motivations for such actions were directly linked to his running for reelection against Clinton, while this new breach by those within the current Bush administration is more likely some combination of similar opposition research motivation and a general consequence of an administration hell-bent on destroying every last vestige of privacy within government (as well as some amount of general idiocy by those individuals involved who actually thought they could access a high-profile government official's records without flags being raised).More importantly, as more and more information comes out over the next few days, it will be particularly interesting to see how far up the chain of command news of the breaches, and the corresponding investigation regarding the breaches, traveled over the past couple of months. As if the Republican Party didn't have enough of a stink going into this election season, an incident that potentially hearkens back to the days of Watergate could just about finish them off completely!
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