RUTHFULLY YOURS

It is possible to identify how far down the mountain American politics has fallen in one word—Benghazi.

Benghazi is no longer the place in Libya where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by Islamist militias. “Benghazi” is now just another neutralized buzzword in the bad-mouthing wars of American politics. As a professional cynic aptly noted to Congress, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Forget Benghazi. It’s time to move on to more important matters.

Such as what?

The movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” opened last week, and the cold-water machines have been hosing it. No one cares about Benghazi anymore, the conventional sniffing goes, because the box-office is tepid. At 144 minutes, “13 Hours” is too long and, really, it’s just too political.

I sat through it, and these political faces and names appear nowhere in the movie: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice. But for the last 75 minutes, I could think of only one thing: the Obama administration’s YouTube coverup, the story—or “talking points”—about how an obscure anti-Islamic video made in California caused Benghazi to happen.

“13 Hours” is a graphic, reasonably accurate depiction of the events on Sept. 11, 2012: the consular assault, Chris Stevens’s death, an escape under heavy fire to the CIA annex a mile away, and the successful, nightlong defense of the annex. With apologies to the politically delicate, “13 Hours” makes the memory of the government’s tall tale, which it insisted on repeating for more than a week, hard to stomach.

Emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including a level meant to protect some of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence, according to a document obtained by NBC News.
In a letter to lawmakers, the intelligence community’s internal watchdog says some of Clinton’s emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters.Two American intelligence officials tell NBC News these are not the same two emails from Clinton’s server that have long been reported as containing information deemed Top Secret.
The letter doesn’t make clear whether Clinton sent or received the emails in question, but in the past, emails containing classified information have tended to have been sent to Clinton, not written by her.
The new revelation underscores the extent to which the email classification issue could continue to dog Clinton, as State Department and intelligence officials review sensitive information within messages that were blacked out before being released to the public.
Clinton, who tops national primary polling as a Democratic presidential candidate, has repeatedly said that none of the information she sent or received while secretary of state was marked classified, and nothing has emerged to contradict that. But it’s become clear that classified information bled into the emails, which were sent over unencrypted channels open to interception by foreign intelligence agencies.

Where there are open flames, there will always be curious moths. Tonight, at a little after six o’clock, Sarah Palin will succumb at last to overwhelming temptation and sign up for Donald Trump’s ever-glistering light show. And in that remarkable moment, the mask will fall off completely.

If you are surprised by this development, you shouldn’t be. Ours is an age in which politics and entertainment are melted together without opposition or disfavor; a silly, self-indulgent, shallow age in which Kanye West thinks he can be the president of the United States and the president of the United States thinks he can be Kanye West. That Palin and Trump are together at last is no accident of ideology or timing; rather, it is the inevitable and rational confluence of two ghastly cults of personality — a fat-cutting, cash-saving merger that will serve to increase overall market share. Under their own steam, both figures have convinced a significant portion of the American population that their personal advancement is the key to the country’s success. Together, just think how great America can be!

Talk to a Palin fan and you will be told in a matter of moments that to oppose her is to oppose “real America.” Talk to a Trump fan, and you will be told that to knock him is to knock “We the people” — of which, it is made abundantly clear, you are no longer a valued part. All told, this symmetry makes sense, for the pair have of late become mirror images. Sarah Palin started in politics and moved seamlessly into television and entrepreneurship; Donald Trump started in business and, after a quick foray onto the small screen, readied himself for the ballot box. Now their most effective cudgels can be wielded as one: You’re not so effete that you’re against the both of them, are you?

WASHINGTON—Emails on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained national-security information classified at some of the highest levels, according to a new review by a government watchdog.

A letter from Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough finds that Mrs. Clinton’s email trove contains a type of highly classified intelligence information beyond “top secret,” referred to as “special access programs” or SAP. That designation is reserved for information shared on a need-to-know basis to protect intelligence sources, military operations or other highly sensitive government information.

In a separate review over the summer, Mr. McCullough’s office found “top secret” information on Mrs. Clinton’s home server. The new unclassified letter from Mr. McCullough to members of the House and Senate committees that oversee intelligence, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, says that the intelligence community now believes even more highly classified information was on the server. The letter was reported earlier by Fox News.

Mr. McCullough’s latest finding is that “several dozen” emails in Mrs. Clinton’s archive containing information classified at various levels, including SAP.

Most of Mrs. Clinton’s email trove of about 55,000 pages from her time in office has been released by the State Department. That includes more than 1,300 emails with some information blocked out, or redacted, because it is classified.

Presidential races are about the future and Hillary Clinton is stuck in the past. That pretty much explains why her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 has slumped.

Mrs. Clinton is not attuned to the political situation she faces. Her experience, family and fame aren’t much help. This year, angry voters have turned increasingly to populist, antiestablishment and future-oriented candidates. As a status quo candidate, she doesn’t fit the moment.

But her chief opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has captured it, just as Donald Trump has in the Republican presidential race. Mr. Sanders, 74, is a socialist from Vermont with a Brooklyn accent. But more than his left-wing ideology, it is his persistent calls for a “revolution” upending conventional politics that has brought him neck-and-neck with Mrs. Clinton in Iowa and ahead in New Hampshire, the first states to vote in the fight for the Democratic nomination.
We saw the difference between the two in Sunday night’s Democratic debate. She talked about preserving President Obama’s health-care program and the Dodd-Frank crackdown on Wall Street—in other words, the past. Mr. Sanders spoke of a future in which health care is inexpensive and a right for everyone, a future in which the wealthy cannot control politics with their campaign contributions and elect their allies.

My wife and I surprised ourselves. We didn’t move to the right or the left. We did what we believed to be sensible, and the responsible thing for ourselves and our children. We moved into a retirement community. We are not old. (Of course, that allegation is relative. I turn 75 later this month and Caroline is two years older.) We are physically active and have all our marbles, or, at least, I believe I do; though my grandchildren don’t always find my sense of humor amusing.

We did not make this move to escape what seems an increasingly discombobulated political environment. However, I admit that a respite is desirable, if just to maintain one’s sense of moral balance. This is especially true in an election year, and particularly so when the leading candidates are as distant from the center as they are. But extremism begets extremism. When dissatisfaction with the present and disillusionment for the future is rampant as it is, candidates and the electorate to whom they appeal hug the fringes. It is enough to make one want to slip beneath the counterpane, wishing for the morrow.

Speaking of retiring, President Obama gave his final State of the Union address last week. It is the moment when exiting Presidents look back and cite their accomplishments, or, at least, present what they have done in a favorable light, and then present their vision for the future. It is the natural way.

Mr. Obama is a good speaker, as long as his teleprompters function. Last Tuesday he was his eloquent self. He told the usual lies and made the expected exaggerations. He took more than the usual jibes at the opposition. His narcissism, as usual was on display. But, with a straight face, he said his biggest regret was a lack of compromise, an increase in unilateral decisions and a corresponding decline in civility. Most of us share that regret. But where does blame lie? Who was it in early 2009 that responded to a query from Representative Paul Ryan: “I won; you lost!”? Who was it that said to Republicans later that same year: “I’m driving; you’re in the back seat!”? Which Speaker admonished skeptical members of Congress when the Affordable Care Act was being considered: “We must pass this bill to find out what’s in it!”? If Mr. Obama had deliberately set out to sabotage any sense of commonality, he could not have done better.

For more than 30 years, Iowa’s obsession with its ethanol fuel industry has played an outsize role in its presidential caucuses. The winner of every caucus in both parties during that period has strongly backed federal subsidies or mandates for the corn-grown fuel. That winning streak could end this year if Senator Ted Cruz takes Iowa. Polls currently show him with a narrow lead.

In 2008, Fred Thompson told me he didn’t see merit in subsidizing one fuel over another, but in Iowa’s GOP caucus that year “opposing ethanol was like pushing against a mountain.” Hillary Clinton voted against ethanol a total of 17 times in the U.S. Senate, saying she found it “impossible to understand why any pro-consumer, pro-health, pro-environment, anti-government member” could vote for ethanol mandates. In 2007, as she announced for president, she took a sharp turn on the Road to Des Moines and embraced ethanol. This year, she calls ethanol “a success for Iowa and much of rural America.”

But on the Republican side, two candidates have broken ranks. Senator Rand Paul, true to his libertarian principles, supports an immediate phase-out of subsidies. And Cruz addressed the Iowa Agriculture Summit, run by ethanol and wind-subsidy interests, in March 2015. His message: The federal mandate on ethanol, which has cost consumers at least $10 billion since 2007, had to end. In front of a crowd of pro-ethanol farmers and moneymen, Cruz said:

I don’t think Washington should be picking winners and losers. I have every bit of faith that businesses can continue to compete, can continue to do well without having to go on bended knee to Washington asking for subsidies, asking for special favors. I think that’s how we got in this problem to begin with.

A specter is haunting the conservative movement. From the dark underbelly of corrupt Washington, D.C., an unyielding “Republican establishment” has come out to feast upon the mutilated corpses of Reagan, Goldwater, and Buckley. The smarmy hucksters who make up its rank are masters of disguise: During the day, they insist that they represent the great silent majority of conservative Americans; at night, they prove that they’re in it only for the money, the power, and the Georgetown social scene. The monsters have names — such as Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy, Mike Lee, and . . . wait, what?

To turn on talk radio or to sift through the murkier regions of the Internet is, invariably, to be told that the leaders of today’s reform conservative movement are RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — through and through. According to many who inhabit the Right, even those men and women who rose in the 2010 tea-party wave have fallen now to the dark side. Once, they led the fightback against Barack Obama; now, just a few short years later, they have allied themselves with official Washington in a dastardly scheme to maintain the status quo.

Is this claim true? No, it is not. Indeed, by simply taking a look back at the last five years of conservative commentary on three well-known reform conservatives, we can see that the storyline of “tea-party champion becomes establishment stooge” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Conway, N.H. – Ted Cruz says the Republican presidential primary has reached a “new phase.” He’s acting like it, too.

Less than a month ago, the Texas senator was predicting the contest would narrow, as it typically has, to a two-man race between a conservative and an establishment favorite. But it turns out 2016 may have surprises in store even for Ted Cruz.

On Monday afternoon, as his campaign bus barrels down the highway here, Cruz appears to be surveying an altogether different landscape from the one he’d anticipated: Instead of a potential showdown with Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, he finds himself staring at Donald Trump, perhaps the one candidate with an even bigger claim to the outsider mantle.

“There’s no doubt the contours of the race have changed,” Cruz says, leaning back in the leather seat of his luxury bus, surrounded by campaign aides on all sides.

Cruz now sees Trump as the only man standing in his way. The collapse of their détente has scrambled the Republican race, forcing Cruz to make political calculations he’d planned on avoiding. But he delights in playing political strategist, and he is doing so now, analyzing the field anew, searching for Trump’s hidden weaknesses, and, for the first time here in New Hampshire, going after them aggressively.

Cruz has long scoffed at the traditional notion that there are “three legs” of the Republican stool — that is, that a candidate must satisfy economic conservatives, social conservatives, and foreign-policy hawks. Instead, he has talked about the “four lanes” of Republican voters — Evangelicals, libertarians, tea-party activists, and moderates — and argued that he can win over enough voters in the first three lanes to capture the nomination.

Cruz admits that Trump has eaten into his base. “The voters supporting Trump are coming from multiple lanes,” he says. “He’s got a significant numbers of moderates and liberals that are supporting him. He’s also drawing votes right now from some evangelicals, from some tea-party activists, and from some Reagan Democrats. From three of those four categories — evangelicals, tea-party activists, and Reagan Democrats — we have very, very strong appeal and strong support, and so we are battling him for support in each of those lanes.”

Here in New Hampshire, where Trump leads in the polls, the contours of a Cruz offensive are coming into view. The senator tells me we’re entering the phase of the campaign “when the voters begin seriously examining the records of the candidates.”

The children of political candidates are useful adornments in campaign literature and ads, and when they are older, as character witnesses on the campaign trail.

Rarely are they used as attack dogs, let alone armed with shameless talking points to try to dampen the rise of an inspirational political rival. But nothing is beneath Bill and Hillary Clinton. So they trotted out their daughter, Chelsea, to warn about the dastardly designs that Bernie Sanders has for ending Medicare as we know it.

It’s part of a hammer-and-tongs assault that should feel familiar to Republicans. It turns out that becoming the target of Medicare demagoguery isn’t just for Newt Gingrich or Paul Ryan anymore. No one has released an ad of Bernie Sanders pushing a senior citizen over a cliff yet, but if the Vermont senator continues his rise, just give it a couple of more weeks.

Chelsea Clinton charged that Sanders “wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Children’s Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare, dismantle private insurance.” For those keeping score at home, that’s a lot of dismantling. Chelsea said she worried — the chain of reasoning was left fuzzy — that Sanders would somehow give Republicans “permission” to go back to the pre-Obamacare era and “strip millions and millions and millions of people of their health insurance.”

Frightened yet? What Sanders is proposing is so-called Medicare for all, a universal, single-payer health-care program that has been the goal of progressives for decades. For this, he is being savaged by a Hillary Clinton who in the early 1990s famously immolated herself in a doomed fight for her version of universal coverage.

The gravamen of her case against Sanders is that he is a socialist — and an enemy of the welfare state. He is advocating a further step in the Democratic crusade to expand the social safety net — and is a dangerous radical because of it. He is a threat to all that has been achieved by the Left — because he wants to achieve more.