Opinion: America Courts Disaster by Rewarding Failure

America Courts Disaster by Rewarding Failure

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BENJAMIN WEINGARTEN

May 05, 2021

Is a country that rewards failure, corruption, and deceit destined to fail? This disquieting question comes to mind when one considers how members of the commanding heights of society have increasingly failed—at least on merit—upward.

Some recent news items illustrate this point.

The Biden administration has seen a number of its nominees confirmed, with varying Republican support, in spite of their checkered records.

Samantha Power, the U.N. ambassador during the Obama administration, was found to have made several hundred seemingly unjustifiable unmasking requests— exposing the name of someone incidentally recorded by government surveillance—and apparently lied about one such series of requests, regarding retired Gen. Mike Flynn, in testimony to Congress. Her inglorious record spans from our shores to Israel, Syria, and well beyond the Levant.

Power was rewarded by being confirmed to head the U.S. Agency for International Development and is likely to be seated on the National Security Council.

Lisa Monaco, the former Obama administration homeland security adviser, played a critical role in word and deed in propagating Russiagate/Spygate. She was rewarded by being confirmed as deputy attorney general, where she is expected to take a major role in combating domestic violent extremism. There are indications that this effort could lead to the targeting of like-minded political dissenters to the ones wrongfully ensnared in Russiagate/Spygate.

Setting aside Biden administration nominees, word broke last week that Mary McCord, a former senior Obama Department of Justice official responsible for rubberstamping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications to spy on Carter Page, helping oversee the Crossfire Hurricane operation, and like Power, targeting Flynn, was named to the eight-member amici curiae of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Amicus curiae are responsible for advising the FISC on critical matters, including, ironically, legal arguments advancing the protection of civil liberties.

Read the entire article at The Epoch Times... 

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Ben Weingarten is a fellow of the Claremont Institute and co-host of the Edmund Burke Foundation’s “The NatCon Squad.” He is the author of “American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party” and is currently working on a book on U.S.– China policy and its transformation under the Trump administration.