For Most Democrats, It Always Comes Back to ‘Disrespect’

Today on NRO

DAVID FRENCH: How the left brings the church into politics. Is Obama Really a Christian?

ELIANA JOHNSON: Are we on the cusp of a Rubio moment? Insider Buzz Grows for Marco Rubio.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: From Petraeus to Hillary, public servants have been trying to manipulate the historical record in their favor. Why the E-Gate Epidemic?

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: The president is right, and his critics are — this time — wrong. Join Obama on Pacific Trade.

PHOTO ESSAY: F/A-18 Hornet.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty, Conservative Journalist of the Year

March 12, 2015

For Most Democrats, It Always Comes Back to 'Disrespect'

p>Notice how quickly the media's narrative shifts from whatever the issue at hand is to the Obama administration's preferred "Isn't this a terrible insult to the president?"

To judge from some voices on cable news, the central issue in American life is whether or not the opposition party is sufficiently respectful of the president.

The more time you debate "Did congressional Republicans insult the president by inviting Bibi Netanyahu to address them?", the less time you are debating "Is this deal with Iran a good idea?" or "Are we forcing our allies the Israelis to live with an unacceptable risk?"

The more time you debate "Did 47 Senate Republicans undermine or disrespect the president by writing that open letter to Iran?", the less time you are debating "Can we trust the Iranians to keep their word?" or "Shouldn't something that looks like a treaty, sounds like a treaty, and has the impact of a treaty be ratified by the Senate like a treaty?"

Those are the questions we would prefer to debate -- both because they're more important and because we think we have a stronger argument there. The administration's eagerness to change the subject to perceptions of disrespect is a quiet hint that they don't think they have a stronger argument there . . . or, alternately, that a full-throated defense of the Iranian regime's right to enrich uranium in a non-weaponized program just doesn't stir their base. But "the Republicans are disrespecting the president!" Well, that sort of thing gets more than 200,000 Democrats to call for arresting 47 senators on charges of treason.

(By the way, things like that petition or the New York Daily News headline 'TRAITORS' are why we can't have a more civil discourse in this country.)

Or we could debate this development:

As U.S. and Iranian diplomats inched toward progress on Tehran's nuclear program last week, Saudi Arabia quietly signed its own nuclear-cooperation agreement with South Korea.

That agreement, along with recent comments from Saudi officials and royals, is raising concerns on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies that a deal with Iran, rather than stanching the spread of nuclear technologies, risks fueling it.

Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of the royal family, has publicly warned in recent months that Riyadh will seek to match the nuclear capabilities Iran is allowed to maintain as part of any final agreement reached with world powers. This could include the ability to enrich uranium and to harvest the weapons-grade plutonium discharged in a nuclear reactor's spent fuel.

Is this deal exacerbating regional tensions and accelerating nuclear ambitions, or alleviating them?

Or is asking that question somehow insufficiently respectful of the president, too?

You Know Who Could Really Challenge Hillary in a Democratic Primary?

Hillary Clinton is still the person most likely to be the Democrats' 2016 nominee. But this week's almost comically bad press conference makes a non-Hillary nominee significantly easier to imagine.

Every once in a while, I'll hear from GOP folks speculating about Democrats taking a hard look at former Virginia senator Jim Webb or former Indiana governor Evan Bayh, contending that the opposition may zig when everyone expects them to zag, and head to the center.

No, no. The hearts and souls of Democrats passionately yearn for another Obama -- somebody young and inspiring and unapologetically progressive. (Yes, this is not the most electable option. Remember, a lot of Democrats think that whoever they nominate will win no matter what, because of changing demographics.)

How about California state attorney general Kamala Harris? Yes, she's running for the Senate right now. Part African-American, part Asian-American; first female state attorney general of California; vocal proponent of gun control; tough on those "predatory" banks; she tried to fight evictions of people who stopped paying their mortgages; opposes the death penalty; eager prosecutor of hate crimes; created an "Environmental Justice Unit" in the San Francisco DA's office, and of course, enthusiastic supporter of EMILY's List:

Tell me she isn't the kind of candidate who would have progressive activists doing cartwheels. She's the "tough D.A." figure who goes after all of the liberals' perceived enemies.

She's not experienced enough? Remember, Democrats don't worry about experience.

She's too young? She's actually 50. Maybe she has a portrait on the wall that ages faster.

She's too liberal? A majority of Democratic primary voters aren't convinced that such a thing exists.

At this point, there's no indication that Harris wants anything other than the Senate seat. But one of the more astounding developments of this young cycle is that no major Democratic figure looks in the mirror and sees "the Barack Obama of this cycle" staring back. If anything, Hillary's political instincts have atrophied and she comes across as more phony and brittle.

Time's new cover:

"They write their own rules" is a really, really gentle way of saying, "they don't obey the written rules that everyone else does."

No, the E-Mail Story Isn't Going Away

Well, here we go again:

House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), said he was prepared to subpoena Mrs. Clinton to answer questions about her email. Another Republican committee chairman, Rep.Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), who is investigating the attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, said Mrs. Clinton should turn over the entire server to an independent arbiter who would verify that she didn't erase emails the public is entitled to see.

"It is far broader than just some emails or documents about Benghazi and Libya," Mr. Gowdy said.

The Wall Street Journal reminds us of the rules:

The agency began grappling with the question of how to handle "electronic mail" in 1995, when the Foreign Affairs Manual was updated to require these records be preserved just as paper records would be. The manual said there was no need to save every message, adding it was up to individuals to decide which were about government activity and must be kept and which could be discarded.

In 2005, the manual was updated and said "normal day-to-day operations" should be conducted on authorized, agency computer systems . . .

In October 2009, federal regulators updated rules to require that emails sent by government employees across private systems be preserved.

In 2011, a cable sent to all diplomatic and consular posts offered advice for handling email and included this admonition: "Avoid conducting official Department business from your personal email accounts."

Oh, and look who drove this decision:

When Mrs. Clinton's aide, Huma Abedin, approached Mr. Clinton's staff about piggybacking on the server, they were initially skeptical that it technically could handle the additional load. But requests from Mrs. Clinton were nothing they took lightly and they complied, people familiar with the matter said.

Kevin Bocek, a vice president at the Internet security company Venafi, said the Clinton server was encrypting data it sent and received as of March 29, 2009, about two months after she took office, based on a search he did of Internet records. During the first two months of her tenure, however, it doesn't appear that Mrs. Clinton's email had such protections, Mr. Bocek said.

Gee, what are the odds that foreign intelligence services would be targeting Mrs. Clinton's e-mails for those first two months in office?

ADDENDA: Take a look at our man Charlie Cooke and his book, The Conservatarian Manifesto! I'm told his book hit 395 on Amazon yesterday!

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For Most Democrats, It Always Comes Back to ‘Disrespect’

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