COMMIES IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT. I remembered a line from a college song, "Cannot trust the State Department/Every one's a commie slave," when I read James Taranto's recent item which refers to a State Department website titled "Famous Speeches".
But there's nothing from Eisenhower, Reagan, either Bush--or, for that matter, from any
Republican other than Lincoln.
The U.S. State Department Web site features a page linking to "famous speeches" of
American history, including Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death,"
Washington's Farewell Address and Lincoln's Gettysburg address. But the choice of more-
recent orators is, shall we say, somewhat limited. It includes two links to Martin
Luther King speeches, including the "I have a dream" speech, which is one of the great
orations of the 20th century. The list also includes FDR, JFK, LBJ, Carter and Clinton--
five of the seven Democrats who served in the White House during the 20th century--and
even a speech by Hillary Clinton.
We hear this just after we discover that the CIA was running anti-Administration
intelligence operations in the Wilson-Plame affair. It should not be surprising,
actually. Recall the main reason academia is leftwing: smart leftwingers do not, for
ideological reasons, want to work in for-profit businesses. What does that leave?
Academia, for one thing. Government, for another. The CIA is probably even worse than
corporate America, unless you are a leftwing mole as so many Englishmen were in the
1940's. But we should expect leftwingers in the State Department, a traditional
employer of rich WASPs who wanted a prestigious job that was not overly onerous and did
not need to pay very well. They should mostly be of the old "Rockefeller Republican"
variety who disliked Tammany Democrats but hated Midwestern Republicans even more.
Nowadays, that group has probably transmuted to Clinton Democrats who dislike big
business Republicans but hate any sort of religious or folksy person of any partyt--
e.g., George W.-- even more.
Update, October 9: This episode is a good illustration of how the political appointees
who run an agency do have the authority to get things changed--but only if they know
what's going on. If they don't, the career people can do whatever they want. The reason
it's a good illustration? The website is now drastically different, two days later, as
Mr. Taranto reports:
On Monday we noted some curious omissions from the State Department Web
page listing "famous speeches" by American leaders. Since then, the
folks at Foggy Bottom have made some additions to the list, including
speeches by Presidents Eisenhower, Reagan and both Bushes. A speech by
Hillary Clinton that appeared there before no longer does.
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