HYPOCRISY: It's a D.C. epidemic

The hypocrisy of today’s politicians is staggering!

When will ex-President Obama step up to report how his State Department financed an organization in Israel to unseat Netanyahu? Or, ex-President Clinton confess to the $10 million he spent to secure success for the underdog Russian presidential candidate Yeltsin in his run for president of Russia. Then there is Johnson’s meddling in Ghana’s elections. And, on and on…

Dov Levin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, has identified 62 American interventions in foreign elections between 1946 and 1989.

The Atlantic’s July 22, 2018, article entitled “The U.S. Needs to Face Up to Its Long History of Election Meddling” details many of these episodes all deemed necessary to insure that democracy is secured. The article also quotes from Lindsey O’Rourke’s book, “Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War,” that the author in discussing meddling “cannot think of a case in which America’s democracy concerns superseded its national-security concerns.” More hypocrisy.

Perhaps the first step in stopping foreign electoral intrusions is for the U.S. to stop doing the same thing. Or, if the meddling is deemed necessary in order to be secure, then cut some slack for the other countries when they do it to us.

DICK SHELDON

Coeur d’Alene