A Presidential Breach

Looking back at all the discussion about the presidential candidates, particularly their view of the strategic challenges facing the Western world, it occurred to me that Americans may very well elect a president who would not qualify for the simplest security clearance.

Out here in the state of New Mexico, national security has a strong presence. We host the Sandia National Laboratories, the facilities at Los Alamos, the White Sands Missile Range, important military bases, and private companies that are linked with the sector. Anyone who does not have personal experience knows from his friends that the procedures required to obtain a security clearance are long and arduous. It can take months or even years to complete the process.

If private citizen Barack Obama were to present himself at one of our facilities, he would not be cleared to run errands at Wal-Mart.

Consider his profile: formed in the ideological swamplands of the victim industry; mentors that include Rev. Wright; links to Islam; the most Leftist voting record in the Senate; “reaching out” to the nation’s most implacable enemies; a bitterly anti-American wife; and open hostility to ordinary Americans, to American history, and indeed to everything the country stands for.

The investigation would be relatively quick. No need to probe his credit history, family background, college friends, alcohol and drug use, or any of the other factors that are normally considered. Public information alone would be enough to disqualify him from setting foot in a secure facility.

The implantation of hostile elements in sensitive areas does not set any earth-shattering precedents. In these interesting times, as the post-modern collectivist vulture spreads its wings far and wide, even the defense industry is infected. In a recent post I discussed a notice sent to employees at the Sandia National Laboratories, informing them about a workshop at an upcoming conference, “Beyond Tolerance to Inclusion.” The description of the workshop said that white people

may learn through multicultural education, but are likely to persist in racist behaviors unless persuaded to abolish the privileges they receive as members of the white race.

A comment by Flanders Fields on that post bears repeating here:

This should be a confirmation as to how invasive this assault on freedom is. These are not misled people who are misinterpreting law. They are intentional agents for reducing our liberties until their programs are fully implemented. Freedom is their enemy and they intend to stamp it out.

Quite true. We are being eaten alive, from within. Even the military itself is not immune, as evidenced by the frightening advances made there by the radical feminists. In addition to the damage directly caused, even worse may be the climate of fear that is produced. This paves the way for yet more grievous attacks on the military’s morale and integrity.

Mr. Obama as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces? One hardly knows whether to laugh or cry. If we invited Hugo Chavez to come and occupy the Oval Office, I am not sure how much more serious the security breach would be.

Of course, we must consider the possibility that if America drives off the cliff of political correctness with Obama at the wheel, the notion of “security risk” might be redefined to include all of those “racists” and “Islamophobes” who object to having their nation turned into a dumbed-down multiculturalist fairyland.

We may be looking at a situation similar to that in Israel under the Rabin government, where in the wake of the Oslo Accords, many patriotic Israelis were placed under surveillance, excluded from sensitive posts, and sometimes even arrested or jailed on trumped-up charges. Rabin, Peres, and their cohorts defamed these loyal citizens as “obstacles to peace.”

What would the Obamamites call the American equivalent? Reactionary or fascist would be too worn and outdated. How about obstacle to racial conciliation?

Let us not be astonished if efforts are made to redefine “security risk” so that anyone advocating forcefully for America’s interests would be suspect. The adaptation of rules and/or practices to the new PC reality is not unthinkable, particularly given the fact that the opinion-making intelligentsia is an automatic cheering section. Moreover, if the Leftist establishment in America moves from harassment of our Constitutional foundation to an open challenge to its legitimacy, expect our presumed bedrock standards to be subject to dramatic change at every level.