Video: Newt condemns Hastings, Colmes defends on count of no conviction

I held a Top Secret security clearance with bells and whistles for thirteen or so years. Try and get one of those puppies some time, I dare ya…and mine was granted in sleepy peacetime.

We’re at war, and they want to give Alcee Hastings a key to the magic kingdom! They’re going to have a disgraced former judge oversight over the most *SENSITIVE* aspect of national defense.

Colmes is a moron. That goes without saying…but you’d think that even a moron would have survival insticts sufficiently robust to recognize that giving this guy a clearance, much less the uber-clearances he’d need to do the intel oversight job, would be about as wise as letting CAIR sit in on cabinet meetings.

Somebody needs to speak up: the guy’s got seniority because he’s in a safe seat. He’s not qualified by character or personal history to have access to *ANY* classified information. He’s a security risk par excellence, not only from any possible blackmail — the opportunities there must be staggering — but from leaks from his own d*mned mouth!

Betcha Pelosi’s gonna use this one to try to get a bit of her own back for the Murtha/Hoyer thing…to the detriment of the country. Then again, what does she care for the detriment of the country. Apart from designer shoe stores and the opportunity to lord it over he plebs that she’s Da Speakeress, she could care less for the country.

The Dems…the party of Leaky Leahy…now, the party of Unindicted Alcee. Excellent….

Puritan1648 on November 21, 2006 at 5:56 PM

You guys may tire of hearing it, but it can’t be said enough. Thank you for everything you’ve done to protect this great country. — JadeNYU

…you same me, and I must be honest with you.

The closest I ever came in 16 years to protecting anything was the month or so that I slept in our battalion’s operations tent while our group was over in Turkey, the guys downrange herding Kurds outta the hills. It was a metaphor for my entire time as a soldier. I slept there, in case anyone needed a command decision. I was woken up once. I think that I signed for a routine message or something…I can’t remember. For all I know, I authorized the commo guys to order a pizza.

I served under Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush. My service was sort of like fire insurance. We didn’t have any fires of any significance between about 1972 and 1991, except for two blips that they didn’t send my unit to. So, for my part, I just sat there, being potentially heroic…which, if you’re too stupid to know how very grubby being heroic can be is like someone wishing for open-heart surgery so’s he can swan around afterwards, showing off the scar.

Meet someone who’s ever *ACTUALLY* “seen the elephant” — and we’ve a fine, brave crop of ‘em now, the ages of my sons — and you’ll notice a distinct hesitance in accepting gratitude. They did what they were expected to do.

We old peacetime soldiers can only look on ‘em proudly, and be honest about our own more pacific service.

But, as I said earlier in the thread, I did hold a clearance, and it wasn’t and should be easy to get.

I don’t know about the oath of office for congressmen superceding a clearance. It’d be sad if it did. Yet another perk we hand them, our faux-aristocrats.

Puritan1648 on November 22, 2006 at 12:08 AM

Ent…I don’t know where or how News served. I can only speak for myself.

The citizens of this country bore and raised and guided the young men and women we have fighting over there today…every day they rise up and make America work. They make the stuff we buy, they move it, the sell it, and they pay the taxes, so’s those men and women will have the beans and bullets they need.

That is laudable. That is praiseworthy.

The home front is the front every youngster over there is defending. They deserve our praise and our prayers.

Myself…I was went in unemployed, learned a job, and got a paycheck for 16 years. I was a place-holder, keeping the Army running between the generation who were lied about in Vietnam, and these kids who’re bein’ lied about in Iraq and Afganistan. We trained as privates and shave-tails some of the senior NCOs and field grade officers who’re running things over there. That wasnt much. We had to do something to justify the paychecks. We had it pretty easy, all things considered.

Turn your praise to the kids fighting today. *THAT* is laudable.

Puritan1648 on November 22, 2006 at 12:44 AM

Amen Puritan. Never pursued the “wierd” bars – vanilla red was adequate for my situation – but was braced for it. Some of my “colleagues” have the scars that went w/the extra bars tho’.

…unclassified story: I was all impressed with all the access I had. I was sent to NSA one time, and one day played hookey from the *BORING* thing I was sent to look at, deciding instead to find info on stuff more atuned to the assignment that had sent me there on “vacation”.

I found a guy through another guy who worked in another part of the building, and got his invite and his extension to call and visit sometime. Eager, I called a couple of days later, and arranged to visit him at his cubicle.

I showed up at the door he directed me to (you find your way in that building as in many other offices, by door number incorporating floor, placement in the building, etc.), and called him from a nearby secretary’s desk in the hallway. He came to the door and escorted me to this desk. He showed me the stuff of interest, and we must’ve talked for 5-10 minutes. He was the sort of geek you’d expect worked there, but was a happy and engaging geek…not like the bitter and self-important geeks all too common in the commissary there.

The thing is that, when I was there that time, you were not allowed to wear your fatigue (civilian: combat dress) uniform in the building. Even the military there were “business casual” with ties four days a week, dress or half-dress uniform on Fridays. Wearing Army Class B khaki uniform was “dress down Friday”.

I and the other guys from my unit wore our cammies (Vienam era leaf-pattern cammo cotton fatigues, worn by Marines then, and us). I didn’t think it right to be at work in civvies, and I did like wearing a tie. I stood out like a sore thumb. My ensemble, once it was noticed (I received a few disapproving stares coming into this guy’s lair), screamed “THIS GUY DOESN’T BELONG HERE”.

One of my benefactor’s co-workers (may be a boss), toddled over and, without introducing himself, asked what level of clearance I had. I told him. Suddenly, everyone in earshot began diving on their desks, covering the stuff they were reading with their bodies as an infantryman would jump on a grenade. Fat ladies began standing in front of their workstations, trying with one hand to spread the black felt cloth they kept for this purpose over their workspaces.

I had cooties.

Turns out that I had the *MINIMUM* level of clearance to even be in the building, and that access to *EVERY OTHER* desk in that office space (maybe 2 dozen cubicles) was rated at “eschelons above the President”. This guy had this stuff that interested me on a desk in the exact geometric middle of an office even Dir NSA would have to be “read on” to enter…exaggeration, but not by much.

Anyway, I was led to the door…swiftly. The guy I’d met apologized for the necessity of my rapid exit, and seemed a bit miffed that I’d not let him know my status prior to our arranging this meeting. I hadn’t given him the “eschelons above the President” secret handshake, I guess.

I didn’t get in any trouble after I explained the issue to the section which was hosting me, and I hope that the guy who was so accomodating didn’t get in trouble. I never found out. Still, I will always remember with hilarity the sight of 40 and 50 year old career desk-jockies, as big as dairy cows some of ‘em, diving like teenagers over their desks.

They were probably defending with their sagging bodies the transcriptions of our intercepts of Martian cerebral activity…or something *REALLY* important.

As it is, I was supposed to be at NSA for 2 months, and left after one. I was bored to tears. I came back again the next year, to the same section, and they remembered me. I got a friendly but no-nonsense lecture about not going off the beaten track this time.

I wore cammies every day after that. Actually had an executive secretary call me over once to *YELL* at me for my attire. I left four to six weeks early this time, too…by my choice.

…fond memories….

BTW don’t know if you’ve always had posting privs. or were only able to land them more recently, but I’m definitely glad you’re here. — RD

…recent arrival. It’s one of the few places I’ve found where I can write…and get away with it.

There’re *LOTS* of informed people here, and regular updates of interesting subjects. The trolls, with one exception so far, have been informed also.

Overall, HotAir is a breath of FreshAir…and I’m definitely glad you and ever’body else is here.

Puritan1648 on November 22, 2006 at 1:22 PM

A security violation in his service record and if it was not the first one – he’s gone. — News2Use

…depends on whether it went official.

It *WAS* the unclassified version of the story, after all. Redacted a number of details.

Puritan1648 on November 22, 2006 at 3:22 PM