The MSM sees a dream walking.

The press has won 

by Neo-neocon.

Back in the earlier half of the 20th century right through my childhood years and up to the Vietnam War and the cultural explosion we call the Sixties, the press (with some more liberal pockets) was predominantly—at least compared to today’s press—pro-American and at least somewhat supportive of whatever government might happen to be in power, especially during wartime.

Time and Life were not only read by a huge number of Americans, but they were published by a man who was fairly conservative, Henry Luce, and they set the cultural tone, especially Life. The Saturday Evening Post was similar and the Reader’s Digest was read by a lot of people, too. Movies were on the same page.

During the 60's, as we know, all of that changed. We can date the change to this moment or that, but I think we can all agree that major elements for the press were Vietnam after Tet (including Cronkite’s response, which I've written about here), the Nixon years and Watergate. Suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly but over a period of less than ten years, the press saw itself as “speaking truth to power,” reforming government and making it more responsive to the people. It became, at least in its own self-admiring eyes, a whistleblower on government.

This would have been okay except for a couple of things. One was that America doesn't exist in a vacuum. The press’s relentless negativity about the country and its policies, and some of its presidents, was taken as gospel and accentuated abroad. After all, it was almost unheard of for other countries to do something similar to themselves, so why wouldn't they believe things must be even worse than the press was saying? Another was that it required even-handedness; the press needed to speak truth to power whichever party was in power, and to require of itself a strict devotion to getting its facts straight.

As time has gone on, though, that press has fallen more and more behind on that latter task. It goes without saying that they were always going to be rough on Republican presidents, beginning with Nixon. But to the best of my recollection they were not especially easy on Carter either, once the honeymoon period was over (isn’t it quaint, now, the idea of temporary a “honeymoon” period for both a Democratic and a Republican president—the Democratic because it’s a never-ending honeymoon now, the Republican because even the honeymoon is a knock down drag out battle?). And even Clinton, although he got a lot of good press for a long time, wasn’t always a media darling.

That changed with Obama, of course. Obama is the recipient of such fawning worship, such complete lack of criticism (and the opposite for the opposition) that it would be almost laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

The reasons are fairly obvious. Obama is the president the MSM of this generation has always dreamed of, as though sent by central casting. And it occurs to me that the press, having worked so hard for so many decades to “speak truth to power” and to further its own liberal agenda, recognizes that it has finally gotten what it wanted. Criticizing Obama would be to kill one’s own beloved creation, the fruits of all one’s labors. Why would anyone want to do that for some abstract notion like truth, or reporting? Wasn’t the point of all the reporting to coax America into electing someone like this, and then another person like this, and another?

And so, in an interestingly ironic twist, the press—which earlier in the 20th century was marching somewhat in lockstep with the government, at least in wartime, and which had some respect for the person who held the office of president no matter which party, and which had set itself up as the official government whistleblower during the 60s and beyond—has come full-circle back to marching in lockstep with the government, probably more than ever before, while somehow simultaneously retaining its own vision of itself as whistleblower by concentrating that function on Republican administrations. The press rebelled and remade American opinion in its own desired image, and is now the mouthpiece for the party a la Pravda, turning in its press badges to become bards and tribute singers to the current administration.

Whistling past the cemetery.

AT LARGE The American Spectator

Blindly Down the Strategic Valley

By George H. Wittman on 2.21.13 @ 6:07 AM

We’re past the point of deterring Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weaponry. So what now?

There is a tendency in American political and journalistic circles to believe there is some way to deter Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. This is a totally false perception, as the Iranians are already committed to the creation of a nuclear weapon arsenal. For what other reason would they have continued to invest in its extremely expensive and technologically difficult program? They certainly do not need additional energy sources, and couldn't care less about hydrocarbon pollution. This matter already has been closed.

The only real issue left is to determine how to counter the possible use of a Persian nuclear weapon. Sanctions are irrelevant in a nuclear confrontation. If a country such as Iran decides to use a nuclear weapon, the only deterrent is to create the expectation of an immediate and devastating counter-strike  The Mullahs knows full well that if they allow a first strike on themselves, any further conflict through a retaliatory strike by them would be limited by the damage originally caused by their opponent. Iran must strike first — and hard — if at all.

In other words, the strategic situation with Iran is a fait accompli. The only decision left to be made is whether Iran’s nuclear capability should be destroyed in some form of a first strike or a method should be devised to learn to live with the new nuclear-armed Iran. This choice also exists for North Korea, and, in a way, they are related. The nuclear cooperation between the two countries is supposed to be quite close. Certainly they share the same arch-enemy in the United States. The difference, of course, is that if South Korea is effectively North Korea’s “Israel,” there is no question that the Americans will adhere to their defense agreements with the South, though in the last few years a serious debate has arisen over just how solid the U.S. commitment to defend Israel is.

In this regard, there is no way Israel’s defense strategy can count on serious military support from the Obama administration. The question follows as to whether and to what degree South Korea could depend on the U.S. to adhere to the letter and intent of its defense accord with Washington. In fact, it would appear that the reluctance of President Obama to use American military power brings into question any and all American defense agreements.

This possible situation poses a serious question in world affairs. It would appear that American military interference worldwide is now to be limited to covert action (including, at most, lethal drone attack) and intelligence gathering. This relatively benign policy suggests the Obama White House actually believes it can pave the way for other military powers to curb their potential aggression and join Washington in a new — if unstated — agreement to forswear traditional military action, thus reducing the dangers to world peace.

While it is relatively easy theoretically for major powers such as Russia and China to pretend to such a “new concept” form of disarmament, this approach will do little to dissuade emerging nuclear weapon nations like Iran and North Korea from using their newly forming military strength to coerce or even attack their chosen enemies. Rather, it is easily arguable that the Obama concept of military preparedness and reaction is an invitation to conflict rather than a deterrent.

The basis of strategic parity through the Cold War and the following years has been the threat of mutually assured destruction. This threat extended beyond the actual potential of the major adversaries to use their massive nuclear arsenals, but collaterally diminished even direct conventional conflict between them. A good example might be the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 where the U.S. became involved only on a covert basis and earlier in Cuba where Washington was restrained from extending conventional attacks after the Bay of Pigs failure. This is to say nothing of various covert contests worldwide in Africa, Central America, etc.

Such a balance of potential destruction is not at all clear in the evolving nuclear military power of either Iran or North Korea. For the concept of mutually assured destruction to act as an impediment to nuclear assault, there must be parity in the destructive capability of nuclear arsenals. There also has to be no religio-ideological predilection to martyrdom as in the case of Shia Iran or, as is the case of North Korea, an acceptance of economic privation and a commitment to national dominance.

The truth is that the esprit of nuclear powers differs even as their nuclear capabilities to destroy tend to evolve. Will the spirit of the Israelis to survive another Holocaust drive them to a preemptive attack? Will the Iranians wait for Israel — an easy target — to make up its mind? Will the North Koreans simply unleash their limited nuclear assets as an initial barrage against a South Korea that must respond as well to a conventional invasion of a massive army from the north?

How does Barack Obama’s defense strategy consider these contingencies? And does he realize “balance of power” means a balance of physical power and the will to use it?

About the Author

George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy. March 2nd, 2013

Islam is a clock that always runs backwards.

Islamists Eliminating History

By Michael Curtis in the American Thinker 2/16/2013

A new form of warfare by Islamists is being waged.  This new offensive is not only a military campaign for jihad and for the creation of Islamic states ruled by sharia law; rather it is explicitly for the elimination of the non-Islamist past -- an ideological offensive to remove the memories, historical artifacts, monuments, buildings, or any other evidence of the history and contribution of Judaism, Christianity, and even the moderate forms of Islam to civilization.  This offensive is potentially more dangerous than any violence or vandalism or acts of revenge directed against supposed enemies.  Part of it is the denial or minimizing of the Holocaust.

It is now well-understood that since the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Islamist forces and groups, as well as the Palestinian extremists, have not only sought to eliminate it by military methods -- by wars and terrorism -- but also asserted that Jews have no historic association with the land and therefore that the State is illegitimate.  They even ignore or deny the visible evidence of Jewish history offered by the many physical sites in the area.  Instead, a fallacious Palestinian narrative has been created declaring that the disputed area, from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea and embracing Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Jericho, Gaza, Galilee, Hebron, and Tiberius, is not Jewish, but rather completely Arab by associations of history and identity.

Though their specific activity varies from country to country, in recent years Islamist leaders have emphasized this argument.  Iranian President Ahmadinejad has proclaimed that most Jews have no roots in Palestine and, in what may be considered incitement to genocide, argued that the "Zionist regime" as he refers to Israel is on its way to annihilation.  In similar frame of mind, Mohamed Morsi, in September 2010, before he became President of Egypt, declared that the Zionists, "occupiers of the land of Israel ... these blood suckers, these war mongers, the descendants of apes and pigs ... must be driven out of our countries[.]"  For Ahmadinejad and Morsi, Jewish history in the area of Palestine never existed.

Recent events in a number of countries have made clear that Islamist extremists have not confined their ambition to obliterate the history of the Jewish people in Israel.  Now they are applying it to all countries in which they have or seek to have some authority.

The occupation of northern Mali by extreme Islamist and Salafist forces in 2012 has exposed this clearly.  These extremists have sought to obliterate the reminders of the history of the more moderate Sufi Muslims, whom they regard as heretical and worshipers of idols.  They have destroyed three historic mosques, eleven mausoleums of holy Muslims and cemeteries, and thousands of ancient manuscripts in the historic town of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a center of Islamic culture five centuries ago.  The tombs of Sufi saints were totally destroyed.  The Ansar Dine [Translation-Friends of the Way of Allah] militants, who declared that they would destroy every mausoleum in Timbuktu, regarded the destruction of the various artifacts as obeying a divine command.  Between 2,000 and 3,000 manuscripts in the Ahmed Baba Institute were burned or destroyed in the city.

These militants were following a pattern that has become familiar.  In Libya, Islamists had wrecked shrines and mausoleums and destroyed Sufi holy sites, some of which were also World Heritage sites, in Zliten, Misrata, and Tripoli.  For Sufis, the sites were of cultural and religious significance.  The brutal civil war in Syria has led to the destruction of churches, as well as six World Heritage sites in Damascus and Aleppo; historic buildings; and archaeological sites, and the looting of museums.  In Iraq, libraries and archives were destroyed, and the National Museum in Baghdad was looted in 2003.

The emphasis on destruction has a long history, and it is not confined to the Muslim world.  Other religions in the past have sought to eliminate what they regarded as idolatry, but at the present time, iconoclasm is largely evident in extremist Islamist groups.  Some of these groups have memories of the consequences of the Muslim invasion of India and the rule of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, in the 17^th century, who destroyed Hindu temples and replaced them with mosques.

This kind of destruction has taken place and is still applauded in other countries: in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Perhaps the mildest but most absurd statement, and the one that would affect the largest number of tourists from Western countries, was the demand by an extreme religious Egyptian named Murgan Salem al-Gohary to destroy the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, which is said to have some power over the level of the River Nile.  He argued that all Muslims were charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove idols such as the Pyramids, as had been done in Afghanistan with the Buddhas.  He did not mention that the Pyramids were the only survivors of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The "removal" of supposed false idols in Afghanistan and of the heritage of Buddhists was indeed catastrophic.  The most well-known disaster is the destruction in the Bamiyan Valley in March 2001 of the world's two largest Buddhas, one 175 feet and the other 120 feet tall, carved into a sandstone cliff, which had stood for more than 1,500 years and which together made for a World Heritage site.  The Taliban, perhaps influenced by al-Qaeda, destroyed them by explosives and tank fire.

These actions have to be seen as the desire to destroy all parts of the pre- or non-Islamic past of Central Asia and North Africa.  To its discredit, the international community took no action to prevent the destruction in Afghanistan.  But the lesson has now been learned to some extent: Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, did in December 2012 call on the international community to act urgently to protect the cultural heritage of Mali.  She recognized that the attack on the heritage of Timbuktu was an attack against the nation's history and values.  The wanton destruction of inestimable treasures was a crime against the people of Mali, committed by the Islamist radicals.

The urgent issue now is whether the international community is indeed willing to take action to prevent history and the artifacts that attest to that history from being erased or from being falsified for the sake of anti-democratic and fanatical ideologies.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/02/islamists_eliminating_history.html at February 20, 2013 - 02:49:18 PM CST

A slow unraveling.

LOOSE CANONS in The American Spectator

Hell Is for Hagel

By Jed Babbin on 2.18.13 @ 6:10 AM

If you think Chuck Hagel is inept now, wait until he collides with sequestration. [Not to mention Iran and the NORKs.]

Senate Republicans could do Chuck Hagel a great favor. Instead of lifting their half-hearted filibuster and enabling his confirmation, they could make the filibuster real and thus protect the former Nebraska senator from the budget hell that will greet him at the Pentagon’s door.

On March 1, right around the time Hagel’s confirmation will probably occur, the Pentagon budget will be hit by sequestration under the 2011 Budget Control Act. Sequestration — at four syllables, too long a word to use in politics — is part of the BCA that automatically imposes about $600 billion in spending cuts on the Pentagon over the next ten years, on top of the $487 billion already cut by President Obama.

Both Congress and the White House say that they don’t want sequestration to be imposed, but neither has been able to do more than postpone it. The final postponement expires on February 28. The ax will fall the next day.

Three problems will make sequestration impossible for Hagel to deal with.

First is the un-laudable conduct of his predecessor. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta — a former budget director and presumed expert — had, until last month, utterly refused to plan for the sequestration since the failure of the BCA’s “super-committee” in November 2011. In February 2012, Panetta said, “As the president has pointed out and I've emphasized, we are not paying attention to sequester.”

All Panetta did was to tell Congress how horrible it would be if sequestration were imposed. But he refused — apparently at the president’s direction — to plan how to manage it. It was an irresponsible decision for Panetta to reach. There was no reason — other than politics — for him to refuse to plan for the impact on the services’ ability to perform the missions for which they are responsible. But refuse he did.

Equally irresponsible were the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who didn't rebel against Panetta’s refusal to plan. By their silence, they approved Panetta’s refusal to plan. In April 2012, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said that sequestration would result in a hollow force and require a change in our defense strategy. Only a few weeks ago did Panetta relent and the planning began.

[Chart from the DOD budget 2012]

Dept. of the Army	FY 2011*	FY 2012*	Delta '11-'12
Military Personnel	$12,419,263,000	$8,091,618,000	-$4,327,645,000
Operation and Maintenance	$68,918,425,000	$58,182,324,000	-$10,736,101,00
Procurement	$12,918,007,000	$4,771,149,000	-$8,146,858,000
RD & T	$57,962,000	$8,513,000	-$49,449,000
Military Construction	$924,484,000	$0	-$924,484,000
Family Housing	$0	$0	$0
Revolving and Management Funds	$0	$54,000,000	$54,000,000
Total Dept. of the Army	$95,238,141,000	$71,107,604,000	-$24,130,537,000
Dept. of the Navy	FY 2011*	FY 2012*	Delta '11 - '12
Military Personnel	$2,439,850,000	$1,664,345,000	-$775,505,000
Operation and Maintenance	$12,189,291,000	$10,688,009,000	-$1,501,282,000
Procurement	$3,162,461,000	$2,632,101,000	-$530,360,000
RD & T	$99,637,000	$53,884,000	-$45,753,000
Military Construction	$0	$0	$0
Family Housing	$0	$0	$0
Revolving and Management Funds	$0	$0	$0
Total Dept. of the Navy	$17,891,239,000	$15,038,339,000	-$2,852,900,000
Dept. of the Air Force	FY 2011*	FY 2012*	Delta '11 - '12
Military Personnel	$1,783,852,000	$1,472,603,000	-$311,249,000
Operation and Maintenance	$13,236,712,000	$10,895,287,000	-$2,341,425,000
Procurement	$4,383,368,000	$3,853,436,000	-$529,932,000
RD & T	$188,967,000	$142,000,000	-$46,967,000
Military Construction	$474,500,000	$0	-$474,500,000
Family Housing	$0	$0	$0
Revolving and Management Funds	$17,000,000	$12,000,000	-$5,000,000
Total Dept. of the Air Force	$20,084,399,000	$16,375,326,000	-$3,709,073,000
*Continuing resolutions, no budgets passed.

Now, the Joint Chiefs and Hagel will have to deal with the immediate impact of about $55 billion in sudden cuts in Pentagon spending in the remainder of FY2013. Instead of spreading that amount over the whole fiscal year — which began in October — the cuts will have to be imposed in only six months.

To make that happen, Hagel will have to cancel or impose major reductions on major weapon system contracts. But which ones? The troubled F-35 was supposed to provide a universal solution to the needs of the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. But after ten years, the F-35 still hasn't achieved operational status. The new Air Force tanker is, as I've written many times over the past decade, desperately needed to support our entire military, not just the Air Force. And which Navy ships will be cancelled? (The Navy has already delayed the refueling and overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln, leaving the ship and its air wing in port indefinitely.)

The problem with canceling or delaying programs is that cuts result in increased unit prices. Terminating contracts results in paying “termination costs” to the contractor, for which the government gets nothing.

The F-35 is now up to more than $120 million per aircraft. If the production rate is cut, that price could double. A Secretary Hagel will end up spending more for fewer aircraft, ships, and land vehicles.

Which leads to the second problem Hagel will face.

It all boils down to the fact that policy takes money to implement. The less money you have, the less you can do.

In the State of the Union address, the president barely mentioned defense. He said he wants to strengthen missile defense and continue supporting the Karzai regime after U.S. troops finally withdraw from Afghanistan next year. Obama’s global strategy, such as it is, calls for the reorientation of our military posture, shifting from the Atlantic theater to the Pacific. He has said we would not permit Iran to have nuclear weapons and would eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons. And, among other things, he’s promised a sea-based missile defense system to Poland as a substitute for the ground-based system promised by George Bush.

Sequestration, as Panetta has said, will result in the smallest navy since 1915, the smallest Air Force fleet since the Air Force was created, and vast reductions in the capabilities of the Army and Marines.

In short, Obama’s strategy cannot — as General Dempsey has said — be supported by so small a military. 

We will, as Dempsey has also said, have to give up certain missions. But which ones? If we abandon Europe entirely — breaking Obama’s promise to Poland, ending our failing NATO alliance — the military will still be unable to protect American interests and allies in the Pacific region.

Our adversaries know this. Last week, Russian jets circled our exposed forces in Guam. China is building new stealthy aircraft, new submarines and surface ships equipped with new ship-killing missiles to deny us the ability to interfere with its ambitions. It is also conducting an aggressive cyberwar against us with espionage and interference with the functioning of essential satellites.

How will Obama and Hagel deal with China’s aggression around Japan’s Senkaku Islands if it flares into war? We don’t have — and cannot afford to build — the ships and aircraft it will take to deal with this crisis, or with North Korea’s threats to target America with nuclear armed missiles. This leads us to the third problem Hagel will face.

To put it bluntly, Hagel isn’t equipped by intelligence, experience, or expertise to deal simultaneously with the threats we face even with a fully-equipped, trained, and ready military. Hagel was a deer in the headlights in his confirmation hearing. He will be the weakest defense secretary since Clinton appointed former congressman Les Aspin to the Pentagon’s top job.

Aspin will be an unfortunate role model for Hagel. When Aspin was secretary of defense, as I’ve learned from people who were in high Pentagon positions at the time, he would rush in every morning and undo every decision that had been made the day before. Aspin tossed everything up in the air every day. But it was peacetime, and Aspin had a strong military around him that prevented his mismanagement from causing a real disaster. [Except for Blackhawk Down.]

Hagel will take over in the midst of a war, and on the brink of more and larger conflicts. He won’t make decisions unless Obama dictates them. And the military won’t object. They've neutered themselves by not refusing to go along with what Obama has already done. To his credit, Gen. Dempsey warned Congress last week that the Pentagon can’t give Congress one more dollar in cuts. But he won’t do what is required to make the point. [To understand this read Dereliction of Duty by Brig, H. R. McMasters.]

It’s been seventeen years since a general resigned rather than go along with a decision he believed was wrong. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ron Fogelman quit rather than blame an innocent man for the Khobar Towers bombing. No general or admiral since has had that courage.

With the weakest defense secretary in two decades and a careerist military, Obama will continue our gradual abdication of the role of a superpower. Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and China — just to name the obvious — will continue their aggression unchecked.

Policy without money to accomplish it is as weak and ineffectual as diplomacy unsupported by military force. Obama’s policies are bankrupt in both regards.

We are entering an era of instability and war that will accelerate a global realignment dominated by our enemies. With Obama and Hagel in charge for the next four years, that realignment will mean that the 21^st century will belong to them unless their successors can revive both our economy and our defenses. The 

longer it takes to begin that revival, the less possible it will be to accomplish.

About the Author

Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.

Our Future?

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

Hillary: Polygamy, Polyamory a Civil Right

By Jeffrey Lord on 3.28.13 @ 6:09AM

Hacked Clinton e-mails: Adultery supported in April 1 announcement.

Uh-oh.

A draft statement for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, released from an anonymous hacker and dated April 1, 2013, reveals the potential 2016 presidential candidate will become the first presidential hopeful of either party to formally endorse legalizing polygamy, polyamory and adultery.

Clinton is also lending her name to a new coalition being formed by a number of celebrities including former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, South Carolina ex-Governor Mark Sanford, and golfer Tiger Woods.

The Clinton draft statement for April 1 reads this way:

Like so many others, my personal views have been shaped over time by people I have known and loved, by my experience representing our nation on the world stage, my devotion to law and human rights and the guiding principles of my faith. Marriage, after all, is a fundamental building block of our society. A great joy, and yes, a great responsibility.”

For example, I have learned much from the wisdom of my great friend Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa. Jacob, as you can see here, is the world’s most prominent polygamist, having married his lovely sixth wife, Gloria Bongi Ngema. Ms. Bongi Ngema already shares First Lady duties by accompanying the president on official trips, along with President Zuma’s three other current wives. In truth, President Zuma’s several wives have shared their husband with much more grace than I shared my own husband with Monica Lewinsky or Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones or the many other women, famous and unknown that were my husband’s various attractions.

I owe each and every one of those women an apology. I was unaware at the time just how bigoted were my reactions, and I was wrong to have felt as I did.

My great friend Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has, as I know was reported years ago, four wives, seven sons and fifteen daughters. He is a wonderful man who has provided me with much wisdom on this subject. And of course, our British allies, the United Kingdom, have begun the long journey to civil rights and fairness by legalizing polygamy for Muslims in the UK.

A few years ago, Bill and I celebrated as our own daughter married the first serious love of her life. I wish every parent that same joy. To deny the opportunity to our own daughters and sons to have multiple partners solely on the basis of how many they love and when they love them is to deny them the chance to live up to their own God-given potential, as Bill has so often said to me.

I know that many in our country, like my friend Maria Shriver, still struggle to reconcile the teachings of their religion, the pull of their conscience, the personal experiences they have in their families and communities. And people of good will and good faith will continue to view this issue differently. So I hope as we discuss and debate, whether it’s around a kitchen table or through flying dishes, as Bill and I have occasionally discussed the issue of multiple partners for so many years, or in the public square, we do so in a spirit of respect and understanding.

For those of us who lived through the long years of the civil rights and women’s rights movements, the speed with which more and more people have come to embrace the dignity and equality of Polygamous, Polyamorous and Adulterous Americans has been breathtaking, and inspiring. We see it all around us, every day, in major cultural statements and in quiet family moments. Who can forget Big Love, the touching HBO series on plural marriage? Or the sheer joy of Ellen DeGeneres celebrating the reality TV show Sister Wives, the true story of the courageous Kody Brown and his four wives? As Ellen noted on her show that day, “I don’t judge because I really believe whatever works for somebody should work for somebody and it’s nobody else’s business.”

Amen to Ellen.

In my own personal life, I can never forget the wonderful and deeply courageous women who have made my marriage to Bill so richly diverse and distinctly memorable, whether in our days in Arkansas or the White House. But the journey is far from over, and therefore we must keep working to make our country free, fairer and more chilled out.”

Over the years I have come to realize the sheer bigotry, not to mention futility, of keeping people from loving the people they want to love.

There is no reason in the world my marriage can’t be shared with Monica, or as I call her “Sister Wife Number 17” not to mention with Gennifer (Sister Wife Number 5), Paula (Sister Wife Number 6) and, well, not to bore with names, Sister Wives Number 2, 3, 4 and 7 thru 16.

Over time, I must say my husband and I have reached agreement that adultery laws are antiquated relics. I mean, who’s kidding whom, right?

Clinton’s stunning statement comes on the heels of the blockbuster news she is to be the honorary chair of a new human rights organization called Proud, Polygamous, Polyamorous and Adulterous Too (“PP —PAT” for short). Serving as honorary co-chairs with Clinton will be her husband, former President Bill Clinton, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, golfer Tiger Woods and polygamist Kody Brown. Particularly notable is that Clinton tried to enlist Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, a GOP 2016 presidential prospect, as an honorary co-chair. Senator Paul’s office issued a statement that fell short of endorsing PPPAT but calling for Americans to “embrace liberty in the personal sphere.”

Political observers noted that one Clinton staffer had smirked when questioned as to why Clinton’s potential 2016 opponent, Vice President Joe Biden, had not joined the group. Biden, an outspoken supporter of gay rights, was called a “bigot” and “so yesterday” for his refusal to join what the Clinton aide called “the next fundamental fight for civil rights and marriage equality.” Adding a reference to Mrs. Biden, the Clinton aide said sadly: “And the shame of it is Jill is so hot.”

PPPAT is also challenging the Human Rights Campaign’s support for what it calls the “LGBT” community, saying the HRC’s refusal to include polygamists, polyamorists, and adulterers effectively and ironically makes the longtime human rights group guilty of discrimination.

“It’s outrageous Establishment BS,” said PPPAT Executive Director Mary Ralph Pelosi, the longtime San Francisco activist who identified herself as the openly bisexual cousin of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Aiming her remark directly at the Human Rights Campaign and liberal gay rights groups, Mary Ralph Pelosi said: “What’s the point of being bisexual if I can’t have a husband and a wife? To shut the door on the civil rights of polyamorists is outright bigotry and a violation of our civil rights. It is a disgraceful attack on marriage and relationship equality.”

In what is apparently to be an organized campaign to, in the words of a Bill Clinton e-mail to his wife, “fulfill my wildest dreams”, conservative lawyer and former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson and liberal lawyer and former Al Gore attorney David Boies have prepared a draft article supporting the Hillary Clinton PPPAT initiative for publication in the Wall Street Journal. PPPAT has joined Olson and Boies by filing a friend-of-the-court brief with a law suit in favor of marriage and relationship equality that Olson and Boies have taken to the Supreme Court. The lawsuit is aimed at a referendum supporting opposite sex marriage passed by South Carolina voters.

The Olson-Boies article reads in part: 

Four years ago, the two of us joined forces and launched a federal constitutional challenge to Proposition 1,373, a ballot initiative which eliminated the right of polygamous, polyamorous marriages as well as adulterous relationships in South Carolina. Our lawsuit was joined by former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a conservative Republican, along with 100 prominent Republicans with similar interests as well as former President Bill Clinton, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and television star Kody Brown.

We represent 277 loving and committed polygamists, polyamorists, and adulterers. In many ways, our clients’ relationships are indistinguishable from our own: They have lives, they breathe air, they go to the bathroom, and they are raising children — lots of them — they have jobs, they pay bills, they run errands. They experience together many of the joys and sorrows and laughter as a family in America. Not long ago, the Boston Globe wrote a touching story of practicing polyamorists, revealing just how widespread is this consensual practice between human beings whose only desire is to share their love. Newsweek has also focused on the unfairness in making polyamorous marriages illegal, saying the obvious to many of us: “It’s enough to make any monogamist’s head spin. But traditionalists had better get used to it.”

But South Carolina has locked our clients out of the institution of marriage and the relationships of their choice because they are polygamists, polyamorists, and adulterers. Governor Sanford himself was forced to flee to Argentina to conduct his affair. As the official voter guide expressly stated in 2008, Proposition 1,373 was enacted to communicate, with the force of law, that polygamous, polyamorous and adulterous relationships are not ‘okay.’ This sent the unmistakable message that such relationships are unworthy of the respect, dignity and status that society accords to opposite-sex and same-sex marriages — a status even our opponents describe as ‘indispensable to the integrity of the individual.’

While we file this case some suggest that the American people are not ready to embrace polygamous, polyamorous, and adulterous men and women as equals with respect to the right of marriage and relationship equality.

In fact, public opinion has shifted dramatically in favor of polygamous, polyamorous, and adulterous marriage and relationship equality. This very month, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 58% of Americans favor marriage equality, compared with just 36% against. The same poll found an astonishing 99.999% of adults under 30 in favor of sex with as many married or unmarried partners as possible. That poll came on the heels of the above mentioned friend-of-the-court brief on marriage equality filed by, among others, more than 100 prominent sex-starved yet decidedly proper Republicans.

As we have proved during a 12-day trial we won in a South Carolina federal court in 2011, laws like Proposition 1,373 cause devastating harm to the lives of polygamous, polyamorous, and adulterous men and women. President Clinton was unfortunately almost excluded from the White House. Governor Sanford was threatened with the loss of his governorship and is, as this is written, the target of a campaign to deprive him of an opportunity to serve in Congress once again. Former Governor Schwarzenegger has been forced to star in D-list movie flops.

Exclusion because of participation in the institutions of polygamy, polyamory, and adultery marks those targeted with a badge of inferiority, doomed to result in famous and lucrative television shows, bad movies, appearances on the Ellen DeGeneres show or, most horrifically, condemned to raise money for activities at which Lady Gaga must shake her booty in their face or force a once-distinguished governor to canoodle on South American beaches. The damage this does to their hearts and minds and wallets and egos and private parts is immeasurable — and the damage it does to all of us and our belief in the nation’s ideal of equality is incalculable.

For one to say that the Supreme Court should leave the question of marriage and relationship equality to the political processes of the states is to sully the reputation of one of the Court’s own, the late Justice William O. Douglas. Justice Douglas proudly committed serial adultery in the course of three of his four marriages, each of which are now known to have involved so-called “cheating” as he married successively his second, third and fourth wives almost immediately following divorces from wives one through three. As the Justices of this Court well know, a humiliating impeachment resolution targeting Justice Douglas was filed in Congress by then-Congressman Gerald R. Ford, a future president. For this pain to have been imposed on Justice Douglas, accompanied in the media by suggestions that his adulterous affairs were somehow not “okay” and therefore not a fundamental right caused devastating pain and humiliation not just to Justice Douglas and his wives 1 through 3 but to the governmental harmony of the United States itself.

The Constitution forbids such an indecent result. It did not tolerate it in separate schools and drinking fountains, it did not tolerate it with respect to bans on interracial marriage, and it does not tolerate it here.

Because of their sexual drive, a characteristic with which they were born and which they cannot change — our clients and hundreds of thousands of polygamous, polyamorous, and adulterous men and women in South Carolina and across the country are being excluded from dozens and dozens and dozens of life’s most precious relationships.

Opening to them participation in the unique and immensely valuable institution of marriage and hot sex will not diminish the value or status of marriage and hot sex for those who prefer a two-couple marriage, whether gay or straight. But withholding marriage or adulterous relationships causes infinite and permanent stigma, pain and isolation. It denies polygamists, polyamorists and adulterers their identity and their dignity; it labels their families and their relationships as second rate.

This outcome cannot be squared with the principle of equality and the unalienable right to liberty with presidential interns, Argentine hotties, or even a gubernatorial housekeeper — happiness — that is the bedrock promise of America from the Declaration of Independence to the 14th Amendment, and the dream — the fantasy — of all Americans.

This badge of inequality must be extinguished.

A covering e-mail also released by the anonymous hacker was a simple one-line sentence from former Secretary Clinton to her staff. It read:

After long and intense discussions with my husband, I finally decided: “What the hell.”

There was also one last e-mail, an incoming e-mail from Bill Clinton to Hillary. It read:

“Go baby!!!!”

About the Author

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.