by D. Cupples | Earlier this morning, some media outlets were fretting over news that presidential candidate Barack Obama's State Department passport file had been viewed without authorization.
A bit later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that the passport files of Hillary Clinton and John McCain have also been breached (ABC News). Two employees have been fired. Rice apologized and called for an investigation (though Rice refused to name the private contractor(s) whose employees were involved).
Incidentally, the employees got caught because of computer monitoring that was put into place after Bill Clinton's passport file was improperly accessed in 1992.
When the media was focusing on the breaching of only Barack Obama's file, Jeralyn at Talk Left described what sort of data is in a passport file and concluded:
"Larry Johnson is on and I think correctly states the only thing in the file that isn't public knowledge is his social security number.
"My view: It's a violation of law, but nothing that could jeopardize his safety. Any employee who works for a credit agency could peek at the social security number. It's a passport file, not a file with reports on Obama." (Talk Left)
Now that an investigation is sure to start, perhaps we can get back to focusing on real issues. The economy comes to mind, as does the Iraq war.
Regarding campaign-specific issues, it appears that Michigan and Florida will likely not get new primaries. In November, Michigan will assign 17 Electoral College votes, and Florida will have 27.
That and, in terms of population, Florida is the nation's fourth largest state.
If the Democrats choose a presidential nominee without Michigan's or Florida's input, the party will likely suffer a backlash -- especially from Florida Dems, who had no power whatsoever to stop the state's enormously Republican legislature from moving the state's primary election to a date that violated the national Democratic party's rules.
Disenfranchising Florida and Michigan is one way for the DNC to reduce its burden of accounting for new donations -- and to create a new crop of Independents.
Memeorandum has other commentary.
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