There is one operative word in Andy McCarthy's illuminating examination of some of the facts obscured by the weird and racuous apotheosis of Huma Abedin currently enlivening the hysterical demonization of Rep. Michele Bachmann by the media and John McCain, a grotesque and shameful display triggered by a question -- one question -- Bachmann and four other House Republicans have raised about Abedin's close family connections to the rapacious Islamic supremacist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

That word is "adults."

Having outlined these connections, which are not, the former federal prosecutor writes, "contrived or weightless," McCarthy notes it's not "a crime to have close relatives who are either members of, or associated with members of such an organization. Again, however," he patiently explains, "no one is accusing Huma Abedin of a crime."

He continues:

The five House conservatives instead are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin’s family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood’s agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?

These are rational questions. The fact that such questions now require a painstaking defense is a measure of how berserk -- how subverted -- our reasoning powers have become. The fact that such questions are only now being asked by just five House members is a measure of how very few adults hold positions of authority in our government. (NB: It is this same subversion of reasoning powers that led me to write my new book, American Betrayal, which became a "prequel" of sorts to The Death of the Grown-Up.)

The bottom line here is that adults responsible for national security have an urgent obligation to ask these questions -- to bang the table and demand answers and oversight on what could well be a longstanding chink in our national security armor in the person always at the side of the Secretary of State -- Abedin -- who is also the daughter and sister of people variously aligned with an international movement dedicated to the destruction of Western civlization. There are rules about this, after all, in the State Department's own code (see the section of Foreign Influence). Rather than uncover the facts of the matter, rather than seek even minimal clarification from the two public servants in question -- Clinton and Abedin -- the media have instead dropped all pretense at fact-finding, all responsibility for reporting, and have instead formed an impermeable phalanx around the two women, protecting them from questions and shutting down efforts to get facts to their viewers and readers.

For shame.

It is an extraordinary operation to behold: the extinguishment of the first flickers of inquiry into whether, once again, there is an ideological enemy within -- agents or dupes of a foreign movement seeking to subvert US policy from inside the halls of government. We know for a fact from extensive archival confirmation that this happened before with the Soviet-directed infiltration of literally hundreds of agents and thousands more fellow-travelers and useful fools working from within to promote Moscow's war on Washington. It is no accident that the witnesses and investigators who tried to expose what they knew sixty years ago suffered the same cauterizing reception from the Establishment that Bachmann is experiencing today. The Establishment, then and now, fears the exposure of facts -- sunshine -- will reveal what is at best its members' gross incompetence. This might take them from the seat of power, which they love more than anything.   

And so the muck flies -- at Michele Bachmann. She has the audacity, in their eyes, of asking for information that the American people have every right to know. Her character-assassins in the media, in her own party, committ the very crime they falsely accuse her of: slandering without facts. House Speaker John Boehner actually admitted he hadn't read Bachmann's query letter but saw fit to denounce Bachmann anyway for "throwing around" accusations that were "pretty damgerous." John McCain, the man who last year called AQ-linked Libyan forces his "heroes,"  erroneously stated on the Senate floor that Bachmann's concerns -- "sinister accusations," he luridly called them -- “rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family.” (Again, as Andy McCarthy lays out here, "the ties of Ms. Abedin’s father, mother, and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated.") Bachmann's former campaign manger, Ed Rollins, penned a poisonous screed for Fox News that is notable mainly for its historical illiteracy:

Having worked for Congressman Bachman’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy  level. (Joe McCarthy falsely made claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies inside the State Department in the early 1950’s. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on  two counts.) 

Contrary to Rollins and the echo chamber that has ignorantly taken up "McCarthyism" as a sledgehammer,  Joe McCarthy was correct, as the historical record, meticulously and copiously salvaged and reconstructed by M. Stanton Evans in Blacklisted by History, proves.

But what is proof in 21st-century America? The dark theme energing here is that facts, history, evidence are of no concern to leaders in our public square today. This is an existential problem, a crisis, one that is taking our country down. It will require a showing from many more "adults" than five House Republicans to put things to rights. There is no time to waste.

The first order of business is to support  Reps. Bachmann, Franks. Gohmert, Rooney and Westmoreland in their efforts to investigate whether the Muslim Brotherhood, through its identified domestic front groups, has gained influence over US policy. 

Save Our Adults.

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