Some Things Never Change--McCain Defends Hillary Aide

One of the more curious aspects of John McCain's disastrous 2008 presidential campaign was his absolute refusal to take on the issue of Obama's radical associations and shady past. Not only did McCain refuse to address it, he went out of his way to endorse Obama as a "fine family man" and fired staffers who sought to exploit Obama's mysterious past.

Now. no doubt frustrated because he hasn't been on any of the Sunday morning shows for a few weeks, he's back at his old game of trying to undermine fellow republicans. The issue this time os a long time Hillary Clinton retainer, the wife of disgraced Dem congressman Anthony Weiner. A group of House Republicans headed by former presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann wrote letters to the Inspectors General of State and other security agencies pointing out that the aide had longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood through immediate family members.

One would assume that McCain, as a self-proclaimed security expert, would see the obvious potential for security breaches there. Otherwise, why does the FBI do these extensive background checks on people? Of course, since we now have a president who wouldn't normally have qualified for a Top Security clearance, maybe the old rules don't apply. In any event, McCain saw an opportunity to get back into the good graces of the liberal media and gave an idiotic speech denoouncing his colleagues and praising the Clinton aide. Apparently in his world, chatting with someone at Senate receptions and Georgetown dinner parties is far more important than actual facts.

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McCain Defends Clinton Aide Huma Abedin Against Bachmann Accusation About Muslim Brotherhood
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Image credit: Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images

Describing the accusations against her as “ugly” and “sinister,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., came to the defense of Huma Abedin, longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Last week five Republican members of the House of Representatives, including former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, made claims that Abedin’s family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and questioned whether she is part of a nefarious conspiracy to harm the United States by influencing U.S. foreign policy with her high-level position at the State Department.

“The Departments Deputy, Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and /or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy making,” according to the the June 13th letter, signed by Reps. Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-GA.

The letter was sent to Harold Geisel, the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of State, while similar copies were sent to the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Read the letter to Giesel here.

The lawmakers point to a report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank, which makes the allegations about Abedin’s family ties and calls on the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State to begin an investigation into the possibility that Abedin and other American officials are using their influence to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took to the Senate floor today to rip apart his fellow Republicans’ accusations and came to the defense of Abedin, whom he calls a “fine and decent American,” after observing her work as both a long-time aide to Clinton while she was a Senator and as the Secretary of State.

“These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way,” McCain said. “These attacks have no logic, no basis, and no merit and they need to stop. They need to stop now.”

McCain argued that there is no evidence to back up the claims by the House Republicans.

“To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it,” McCain said. “The letter in the report offer not one instance of an action, a decision or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department or as a member of then-Senator Clinton’s staff that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government.”

McCain said that no one, “not least a member of Congress,” should launch such a “degrading attack against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are an ignorance of that hey stand for.”

A statement issued after McCain’s speech by Bachmann suggested the letter was being taken out of context. Read it here.

The controversy comes at a time when Abedin’s husband, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, may be trying to revamp and clean up his image. After being out of the public eye for over a year following an embarrassing sexting scandal which led to his resignation from Congress, rumors are swirling that Weiner may be planning a bid to succeed Michael Bloomberg as New York City’s mayor.

“It took a lot of work to get to where [we] are today, but I want people to know we’re a normal family,” Abedin told People magazine in an interview this week with her husband.

A press release from Michelle Bachmann’s office immediately followed McCain’s speech.

“The letters my colleagues and I sent on June 13 to the Inspectors General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of State – and the follow up letter I wrote to Rep. Ellison on July 13 – are unfortunately being distorted.”

The letter encouraged “everyone” to read the 6 letters sent to various agencies. They can all be found HERE.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...use-gop-charges-of-muslim-brotherhood-scheme/

 

<img src="http://tildology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Michele-Bachmann-Newsweek-cover_620x350.jpg">

"Did I hear my name?"

 

And by "being distorted," Ms. Bachmann of course means "read verbatim."

 

Say what you will about McCain, he is still actually sane and still has a sense of decency and knows what's right and what's wrong. This latest Muslim conspiracy crap is crazy even by Bachman standards.

Yes McCain is correct for saying Obama is not a Muslim, waterboarding is torture, and this latest Muslim thing is nuts. This is nothing but fear-mongering. My respect for him has gone up another notch.

The fact you would criticize McCain for this shows you to be a foaming at the mouth rabid right-wing nut-job. Time for your meds?

 

McVain is /was/ never will be a conservative.

That's why he won the nomination but lost the election.





ARE YOU LISTENING REPUBLICANS?

 

Notice how her "smile" doesn't reach anywhere near her eyes? Essentially, she's just baring her teeth.

 

It's obvious. McCain is an agent of the Islamics.

OR

It's obvious. AAA is channeling Joe McCarthy.

 

Now Boehner and Rubio are piling on (so to speak).

<img src="http://tildology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Michele-Bachmann-Newsweek-cover_620x350.jpg">
"The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you."

 

Ironically, McCarthy was exactly right about communist agents being scattered throughout the Truman administration.

I went back and read the letters Bachmann and the other congressmen wrote. This woman was actually a minor part of it. Most of it went to questioning how islamists and Muslim Brotherhood front groups had managed to gain access to this administration and the previous one, and why they were deeply involved in programs directed at the muslim community. Their main concern centered on the fact that excessive deference was perhaps being paid to purported muslim "cultural norms" which were actually precursors to terrorism or extremism.

The concerns varied by agnecy. With the State Department, one of the major ones concerned a worldwide effort by a muslim group to ban criticism of islam, something that is directly counter to our First Amendment yet could perhaps be achieved by treaty or through the UN, much as the administration is pushing similar backdoor gun control and confiscation efforts.

In the context of these issues and puzzling and some would say distinctly unAmerican positions taken by the administration, it is hard to ignore that a longtime Clinton aide has a long family history of Brotherhood involvement. As I recall, the letter asked how someone with such a background could have been granted a security clearance, which seems a reasonable question. They did not accuse her of anything, but simply asked how she could pass the background check, which typically invovles intrusive questioning of friends, neighbors and family to uncover suspicious activities or connections. Having immediate family members who belonged to a terrorist group would seem to raise red flags.

 

So its channeling Joe McCarthy...

That a person whose family in Egypt may have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood is like saying the average Republican has connections to Democrats. The Muslim Brotherhood is a popular organization in Egypt.

Bachmann's ploy is to create a false sense of insecurity among voters going into election season, not unlike Bush and Rove did in 2004 by issuing all those Orange level alerts. She is a shallow
demagogue.

That McCain stood up to point out the nonsense should put you to shame. AAA, you have a tendency to make any outrageous statement so long as it supports your political position. You even said that the Democrats wanted to push through the Affordable Health Care Act so that they could deny medical care to republican voters, a proposition so absurd as to make one wonder who is your drug dealer and what's his tel number?