CIA Director John Brennan was talking about "diversity" to the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation's annual conference the other day.
What stories could an old white guy bring to a diversity address?
He was asked a question about barriers to recruiting diverse candidates for the intelligence community, including whether past records of "activism" could hurt someone applying for a clearance later in life.
Brennan recalled undergoing one of the first tests he would endure for a top security clearance, including a polygraph. He was asked the standard question: "Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the U.S.?"
"I froze," Brennan told the group. "This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate."
The CIA director said the agency's mission is to protect the values of the Constitution – which include free speech.
"We've all had indiscretions in our past," he said, adding neither some drug experimentation nor activism was a non-starter. "I would not be up here if that was disqualifying."
He proceeded to tell the story of his test.
"I froze, because I was getting so close to coming into CIA and said, 'OK, here's the choice, John. You can deny that, and the machine is probably going to go, you know, wacko, or I can acknowledge it and see what happens,'" Brennan said.
He said he chose to be forthcoming.
"I said I was neither Democratic or Republican, but it was my way, as I was going to college, of signaling my unhappiness with the system, and the need for change. I said I'm not a member of the Communist Party, so the polygrapher looked at me and said, 'OK,' and when I was finished with the polygraph I left and said, 'Well, I'm screwed.'"
But he soon got his admission notice to the CIA and was relieved, he said, saying that though the agency still had long strides to make in accepting gay recruits and minorities, even then it recognized the importance of freedom.
"So if back in 1980, John Brennan was allowed to say, 'I voted for the Communist Party with Gus Hall' ... and still got through, rest assured that your rights and your expressions and your freedom of speech as Americans is something that's not going to be disqualifying of you as you pursue a career in government."
I don't doubt it for a minute. But suppose an applicant had worked on behalf of the tea party? Would he or she be so fortunate? We know Barack Obama's Internal Revenue Service selectively audited tea party activists and delayed applications for tax exemptions. Would an administration that did that look kindly on applicants with a background like that getting sensitive government positions? I'll leave it to you to answer that question for yourself.
But that's not even what I find so fascinating by Brennan's comments and his history.
What occurs to me is this guy has never been right about anything.
He once voted for unrepentant Stalinist Gus Hall, the presidential nominee of the Communist Party USA. Today he remains in a love affair with all things Islam.
If you doubt what I am saying, I submit here for your own judgment a three-minute video of a speech he gave in 2010 in which he extols the beauty of the religion of peace – in flawless Arabic:
Worse yet, in the address, he refers to the eternal capital of Israel by the Islamist name for it – "Al Quds."
Maybe America would have been better off had he flunked the security test back in 1980.
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