The real and unforeseen public consequences of "private" behaviors

Setting aside for a moment how the MSM has made itself an all-but-formal part of the Obama presidential campaign team, there is another undiscussed angle to how Obama became his party's nominee for President.

Remember a decade ago how we were told Bill Clinton's improper behavior with Monica Lewinsky was a "private" matter which had no relevance or impact on his public role as President?

Well, maybe not. Is it really all that suprising that the same man who had no principles in his private life would carry the same ethical indifference into his public role as President?

Consider this issue and its impact nearly a decade later on this year's presidential race:

'Smear!" "Guilt by association!" "Politics of fear!" The Obama campaign has its cue cards at the ready whenever any of us right-wing demagogues has the temerity to suggest it might be relevant that a candidate for president is a friend of — is a business partner of, is simpatico with — a died-in-the-wool, America-hating terrorist.

The campaign doth protest too much. The sheer thuggery in their reaction to patently relevant questions about Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, raised by the intrepid Stanley Kurtz and the American Issues Project, betrays their candidate's panicked self-awareness. Of course it's relevant. Compound an era of terrorist threat with the Democrats' decision to nominate a walking, speechifying tabula rasa and what could be more relevant?...

Here's the dirty little secret: You can thank Bill Clinton and his co-president.

For all Bill's whining about Obama playing the race-card, for all the armchair psychoanalyses of Hillary campaign infighting and mismanagement, the Clintons and all the rest of us should know that Hillary — not Barack Obama — would be the Democrats' Anointed One today were it not for a single, solitary, gut-check issue.

Terrorism...

...No, Barack Obama is the Democrats' nominee because Bill and Hillary Clinton, reputed geniuses, are short-sighted Hedonists, so self-absorbed, so intoxicated by their craving of the moment, that they can't plan for the fix they'll need five moments from the moment.

In 1999, Hillary Clinton — feminist champion whose claim to fame was riding her more politically gifted husband's coattails — was scheming a run for the legendary Pat Moynihan's U.S. senate seat. Rudy Giuliani, New York City's fabulously successful but then-reeling Republican mayor, loomed as a potential opponent. Rudy would eventually drop out, but the Clintons couldn't resist: Despite a terrorist onslaught that had just claimed over 200 innocent lives in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clintons decided Hillary's prospects could be advanced if Bill pardoned terrorists.

To appease Democrat activists, who somehow seem always to have a soft spot for assassins, Clinton pardoned 16 members of the FALN terror organization who'd set off scores of bombs in the United States. How better to lock up the Puerto Rican vote …. in an election Hillary could have won with no Puerto Rican votes?

That, though, was little-league stuff. On the last day of his presidency — that is, on his way out the door, with no debts to pay and no groundwork to lay — Bill Clinton decided it was time to use his raw, unreviewable power to make his bones with the Communist radicals he'd always admired but lacked the courage to join.

The embassy bombings were almost a distant memory. Not three months had passed since terrorists bombed the U.S.S. Cole, murdering 17 American sailors and nearly sinking a U.S. destroyer. No matter. Clinton's last official acts in office included the pardons of Susan Rosenberg, a Weatherman terrorist serving a richly deserved 58-year sentence, and Linda Sue Evans, a Weatherman terrorist serving a richly deserved 40-year sentence.

Barack Obama has an inexplicable relationship with Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers — and Ayers's wife, the equally disgusting Weatherman terrorist Bernadine Dohrn. It's a disqualifying relationship. All that needed to happen was for Obama's opponent to point it out.

Hillary Clinton couldn't point it out.

You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Remember this story the next time you hear another argument about how improper private behaviors have no relevance to that person's public role. Yes, there are real and unforeseen public consequences to "private" behaviors. Maybe even four years of an Obama presidency.

Now think of how Obama dismisses his longstanding connection to unrepentant Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. Is that really all that different from how Clinton dismissed his relationship with Lewinsky? Yet, at another level, a "private" relationship with potentially far more serious public implications?

Then ask yourself what could be the real and unforeseen consequences in the future should America, at a time of war and growing tensions in the world, elect a man as president who not only has longstanding relationships with terrorists, convicted felons, and other people who openly state their hatred and disdain for America but can't come out and say he is committed to leading us to victory against the terrorists who threaten our very existence.

Thanks, Bill and Hillary.