The Week

We can see why Bobby Ray Inman is so upset. It’s an outrage that the Republicans were planning to disrupt his daughter’s wedding.

Morton Halperin has also withdrawn from his nomination, in his case for the post of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Peacekeeping. This was a wise decision that will spare him unpleasant and, we had hoped, unsuccessful confirmation hearings. An examination of Mr. Halperin’s writings about security policy would have been educational, and we were hoping to learn a bit more about his support for Phillip Agee when the latter was going around revealing the names of U.S. intelligence agents. Still, had Mr. Halperin lost in the Senate, most of the press would have blamed his defeat not on his unfitness for the job but on “rightwing hit squads” and “Cold Warriors.” Halperin’s Last Stand would have rallied Senate Democrats, however reluctantly, to his defense. Better that he quietly return to private life, and much better that the job (a Clinton invention that ought not to exist anyway) be filled by someone else. Best of all would be if Mr. Clinton henceforth remembers that some elements of his party hold views too extreme to permit their inclusion in any Administration—even his.

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Bill Clinton

Department of Defense

We can see why Bobby Ray Inman is so upset. It’s an outrage that the Republicans were planning to disrupt his daughter’s wedding.

Morton Halperin has also withdrawn from his nomination, in his case for the post of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Peacekeeping. This was a wise decision that will spare him unpleasant and, we had hoped, unsuccessful confirmation hearings. An examination of Mr. Halperin’s writings about security policy would have been educational, and we were hoping to learn a bit more about his support for Phillip Agee when the latter was going around revealing the names of U.S. intelligence agents. Still, had Mr. Halperin lost in the Senate, most of the press would have blamed his defeat not on his unfitness for the job but on “rightwing hit squads” and “Cold Warriors.” Halperin’s Last Stand would have rallied Senate Democrats, however reluctantly, to his defense. Better that he quietly return to private life, and much better that the job (a Clinton invention that ought not to exist anyway) be filled by someone else. Best of all would be if Mr. Clinton henceforth remembers that some elements of his party hold views too extreme to permit their inclusion in any Administration—even his.