Yesterday, utilizing my intelligence acquisition expertise — the kind of competence one can only accrue via being alive since the year 2000 — I searched the background of Jesse Lee, the newly hired White House Director of Progressive Media & Online Response/Woodrow Wilson Comes Alive! Laser Light Show Project.
I typed “Jesse Lee” into Google. Thirty seconds later, I knew that not only did Lee once sound like a navel-gazing twit at an undergraduate philosophy conference a decade ago, but that he recently married a woman named Nita Choudhary. Choudhary is a prominent figure at MoveOn.org, was the leader of MoveOn.org’s anti-Iraq war campaign, and also may have once made a tiny error in judgment, nothing to speak of really, but for the sake of transparency, she may have purchased a full-page ad in a national newspaper dubbing General Petraeus “Betray Us,” and then suffering from Crime and Punishment-level pangs of guilt, or the opposite of that, she went on C-SPAN and ardently defended the ad.
As Lee is now responsible for defending the administration from damaging PR, and as Petraeus is a member of the administration whom Lee might be asked to defend, you might identify this as a showstopper conflict of interest. The NSA, or whoever is in charge of WH employee background checks — let’s say Al Franken — did as well, which is why, at an elaborate State dinner, Valerie Jarrett went out of her way to create the perfect opportunity for Lee to propose marriage to Choudhary. Don’t question Franken. (Hat tip: Dan Riehl.)
It’s not necessary to bother Petraeus’ office for comment regarding how the very person who slandered him received special treatment by the White House, we won’t be doing that.
What you should take from this story: the most anti-American, anti-military elements of our society are not simply tolerated by the Obama administration; they are not simply, and cynically, welcomed as potential voters.
This administration is more comfortable around people like Nita Choudhary then around people who disagree with her. Lee’s relationship with Choudhary was not a negative for his White House career. I’ll posit it was a plus.
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