The mainstream media are very interested in Dr. Ben Carson’s past, and his portrayal of his past. Good for them. That’s their job, or part of it.
But isn’t there a difference between “vetting” and character assassination?
Say what you will about Carson, he rose from “the hard-core ghetto” (to borrow a phrase from Al Sharpton) to become one of the most famous neurosurgeons in the world. He is a black man — not from Hawaii, not raised by his white grandparents — who has deeply conservative views.
And that, of course, is intolerable to some.
People have rightly raised the question, Why weren’t the media so interested in Barack Obama’s past, and his portrayal of it? Take Obama’s involvement with the New party. I learned about it from Stanley Kurtz, an anthropologist from Harvard. Good. Stanley is indefatigable, brainy, and brave.
But shouldn’t I have learned about it from, say, CBS News?
I am now getting to Hillary Clinton. Everyone says that she has been so “vetted,” there is nothing left to know about her. She has been scrutinized since 1992.
That may be — but there are still aspects of her life that are underknown, by the general population. I know them. But I am a peculiar character. People at large do not know about them, and should.
It has always amazed me that so few people care that Hillary chose to spend a summer, while in law school, at Robert Treuhaft’s firm in Oakland. This was a frankly Communist law firm. It was outright, unapologetically Red. Not “liberal,” not “progressive,” Communist. As Treuhaft told Gail Sheehy, “Anyone who went to college or law school would have known our law firm was a Communist law firm.”
Now, listen: It’s a great thing to grow out of Communism into anti-Communism and love of freedom. Some of the greatest people who ever lived have been ex-Communists. Half the founding writers and editors of National Review were ex-Communists.
And I realize that Hillary Clinton is just a Democrat — like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and all the rest of them. Plus, for a lefty, she has accumulated one hell of a fortune.
But has she ever dealt with her association with the Treuhaft firm? Shouldn’t she?
She associated herself with an ideology that has killed tens of millions of people and enslaved hundreds of millions more. Isn’t this kind of a big deal? Something 60 Minutes might be interested in? Doesn’t it take some ’splaining, as Desi put it?
Evidently not.
What if a leading presidential candidate had worked with a fascist firm or a KKK firm?
Ah, but too many in our mainstream media think of Communists as very nice Hollywood screenwriters who were just interested in protecting the First Amendment.
Disgusting.
P.S. With his friends, Mitt Romney cut the hair of a classmate in high school against the classmate’s will. Romney was ashamed of it afterward. If he had cut the hair of a fellow clerk at a Communist law firm — would anyone in the media have cared?