Washington Post: Trump’s Saddam Comments “Disqualifying” Or Something

10 Jul, 2016 by William Teach

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The Washington Post editorial board is rather vexed over Donald Trump’s Saddam Hussein comments

Donald Trump is wrong about Saddam Hussein

SADDAM HUSSEIN was not “so good” at killing terrorists, as Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed. On the contrary, he was one of the contemporary world’s foremost sponsors of terrorism. He harbored or funded some of history’s most infamous killers and jihadists, including the current chief of al-Qaeda, and plotted numerous terrorist attacks of his own, including an attempt to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush with a suicide bomb. Long before the U.S. invasion of 2003, his regime was formally identified by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. That Mr. Trump would insistently assert the opposite serves to underline not only his profound and disqualifying ignorance of foreign affairs, but also his creepy and dangerous affinity for dictators.

Now, the WPEB delves into Saddam’s working with terrorists from the time he took power in the 1970’s, noting that perhaps the only terrorist Saddam killed was Abu Nidal. They did fail to mention that Saddam paid families to send their sons off to blow themselves up while killing Jews in Israel. And lots of terrorist training camps were discovered in Iraq during the opening weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

So, Trump was very wrong. Very wrong. I’ve noted this previously. But, hey

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/752107071215140864

Let’s see. CNN offers FBI Director James Comey’s 7 most damning lines

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
“None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government — or even with a commercial email service like Gmail.”
“Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”
“We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent.”
“She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.”

The 7th was more about the reprehensible conduct of the State Department. Then there’s this, from Comey’s appearance before Congress

“Certainly, she should have known not to send classified information,” Comey said. “As I said, that’s the definition of ‘negligent.’ I think she was extremely careless, I think she was negligent. That I could establish.”

So, let’s consider: Trump was an idiot and just plain wrong with his Saddam comments. Hillary was “negligent” and “extremely careless”. Comey further went on to note that she didn’t seem to understand what the “C” as a classified marking meant. You know, after decades of signing security clearance documents and having this explained to her.

Which was is more disqualifying? Which one showed more ignorance?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.