The Republican/conservative establishment’s black-out of the Huma Abedin problem

As Diana West reports, the Washington Examiner declined to post her syndicated column on the letter by Michele Bachmann and four other congressmen warning that Hillary Clinton top aide Huma Abedin is a security risk. The reason for the rejection was, as Examiner editorial page editor David Freddoso (another weenie-con from NRO) explained to West in an e-mail:

We opted not to use it this week. We also passed over other syndicated columnists’ offerings about the insinuations against Huma Abedin. The reason is simply that there is no hint of proof that she has done anything improper.

But, as Andrew McCarthy has explained (quoted by West),

A person is not required to have done anything wrong to be denied a high-ranking government position, or more immediately, the security clearance allowing access to classified information that is necessary to function in such a job. There simply need be associations, allegiances, or interests that establish a potential conflict of interest.

West then details the numerous facts that demonstrate obvious potential conflicts of interest in Abedin’s case, culminating in an imaginary scenario of how the State Department would have responded to Abedin’s job application in a rational world, i.e., a world in which the U.S. (with the backing of the Republican Party and the mainstream conservative movement) was not in bed with our Muslim enemies:

Can’t you just hear the background-checker? So, Huma, your folks were in business with a guy who started a designated terrorist group, your mom’s on a board of a group banned in Israel for supporting Hamas, and you want top secret clearance to work alongside the SecState…HAHAHAHAHA.

West’s rejected column is posted at the bottom of the same entry.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 29, 2012 01:14 PM | Send