Speculation

It's the weekend, and I would like to air a few speculative thoughts. Yes, surmise can be sleazy when it forgets to wear its proper label. But speculation, identified as such, does have the advantage of introducing new thought patterns and new areas of investigation.

Thus, we shall indulge.

Whitey: Ryan's revenge? Our previous post focused on the long-rumored "Whitey" tape -- which may or may not exist, and which may or may not be genuine even if it does exist. That post elicited a fascinating response from a reader named BQ. Here are the choice paragraphs:

...I e-mailed you before about my suspicion that the source of the tape was not TUCC, but the guy that Jack Ryan had following BO around in the months leading up to June 2004. It may very well be that she was responding to Pres. Clinton's appearance at that conference, but it might have been in an informal conversation. I'm not sure where Ryan would fall on the hate-McCain v. okay-with-McCain Republican spectrum, but iirc, he's a moderate, so he would probably be on board with waiting for November for the ultimate O'Bama humiliation payback for the '04 scandal, which had Axlerod written all over it.

...The fact that Ryan probably has miles of video of MO and BO allows for plenty of raw material for a real-fake tape as you described. It is apparent that he was not limiting himself strictly to campaign appearances, because BO complained that he couldn't even call his wife without the video guy overhearing. After BO kvetched, but eventually acceded that it was a common practice - Ryan agreed to back off, but not to stop (that was late May 2004, iirc).

What does our reader mean by the '04 scandal? In 2004, Barack got the lucky break of a lifetime in his race for the Senate. His likely Republican opponent had been moderate incumbent Jack Ryan. But scandal forced Ryan out of the race when a judge in Los Angeles unsealed documents pertaining to his 1998 divorce from the glamorous actress Jeri Ryan. The papers revealed salacious and humiliating details of their marriage. Neither party wanted the information made public, yet public it became.

Slate's explanation for the Judge's odd behavior does not persuade me, and may not persuade you. Other sources say that the papers were illegally leaked. Conservative writers (see here for but one example) have always presumed that Obama's team made Ryan's secrets public.

Even if the scandal had never occurred, Ryan might well have lost; polls ran against him. Still, no-one questions that he would have been a more formidable foe than Alan Keyes proved to be.

As our reader notes, Jack Ryan mounted an effort to get dirt on Barack Obama -- an effort which began well before the scandal broke out.

Ryan employed a staffer, video camera in hand, to follow Obama around last month and record his every move, including private conversations with his family. "To have somebody who is literally following you a foot and a half away everywhere you go ... it seems to be getting a little carried away," Obama told reporters last month as Warfel held a camera inches from Obama's face, according to the Lincoln Courier. "It's this kind of incivility in politics that turns people off to politics."

Today, the spectacle of Barack Obama complaining about "incivility in politics" will make many a PUMA person smile. More to the point: Ryan's mania to get dirt on Obama may have prompted Obama to get dirt on Ryan. Tit for tat, and no pun intended.

(I have italicized the word "may" as a reminder that this post contains speculation.)

Could Ryan's camera-guy have taken the fabled "whitey" video (presuming, for the sake of argument, that such a video exists)? Possibly. However, if he possessed the tape, why did he not produce it in 2004, as a retaliatory strike? Perhaps he felt that the spectacle of Michelle Obama insulting white people would not overpower the mental image of Jeri Ryan in a sex club. Very few things short of nuclear war could overpower that image.

Or perhaps -- as reader BQ suggests -- Ryan's cameraman captured an innocuous piece of video which provided the raw material for a later forgery. This oft-cited Washington Post story gives an indication of how such forgeries may be accomplished.

By the way, one of the obvious sources for Time's very revealing piece on the "whitey" rumor was Valerie Jarrett, listed as Michelle Obama's close friend and adviser. We will have more on Jarrett anon; for now, suffice it to say that she was once the head of Chicago's planning commission, and that she may have played a major role in the slum housing scandal.

Larry Sinclair: History repeating itself? For a while now, the Sinclair tale has had a certain ring of familiarity. I've been asking myself: Where have I heard this story before? Larry reminds me of someone -- but who?

Finally, the name popped into my cranium: Whittaker Chambers.

If you're young, you may not be aware of the Hiss/Chambers case. If so, this is one instance where I cannot recommend Wikipedia: Their article on Chambers is far too adulatory. The Hiss matter must be understood as part of a long series of fabrications perpetrated by anti-Communist zealots. You may want to read up on the Matusow affair, McCarthy's list of 205 State Department communists, Air Force Major George Jordan's "Diaries," the "Reverend" Kenneth Goff, and a host of fake quotes attributed to Lenin. At a later stage of the cold war came the hoax documentary Harvest of Despair. Anyone who knows this background will understand how to regard the Venona "evidence" against Hiss. (For more information, see here and here and here.)

Many believe that Chambers' motive for lying about Hiss had a connection to his bisexuality. Chambers was overweight and homely; Hiss was handsome, intelligent -- and heterosexual.

A stepson of Hiss, Timothy Hobson, has claimed that Chambers invented the spy allegations after his sexual advances were rejected... Hobson, a retired surgeon, grew up in the family home in Washington, D.C.

Hobson has said that Whittaker Chambers lied about his personal relationship with Hiss and had never visited the Hiss home as he claimed.

Hobson said that during the time Chambers claimed to have visited the home, he was recuperating from a broken leg and met every person who came calling.

"It is my conviction that he was in love with Alger Hiss, that he was rejected by Alger Hiss and he took that rejection in a vindictive way," Hobson said.

This site discusses Chambers' penchant for "fictions and hoaxes."

Is Larry Sinclair another Whittaker Chambers? If so, then the kilt-clad Montgomery Sibley is doing a rotten impersonation of Nixon.