Sarah Palin Rips Obama White House Over WikiLeaks

Sarah Palin blasted out a dispatch to her Facebook supporters Monday, taking aim at the Obama administration's handling of the latest WikiLeaks document drop and criticizing the White House's "incompetent handling of this whole fiasco." The former Alaska governor also seemingly encouraged the hunting of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with "the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

In her Facebook post, Palin questions the timing of Obama's recent steps to try to patch intelligence holes that have allowed repeated leaks of classified information:

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It's of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

Palin also takes a shot at the failure to capture or stop Assange, an ineffectiveness that she appears to characterize as a lack of effort or caring by the Obama administration:

First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop Wikileaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? Assange is not a "journalist," any more than the "editor" of al Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a "journalist." He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

Palin expressed similar annoyance on Twitter Monday, when she compared her own legal effort against leaks to the latest intelligence releases:

Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a key legislator on national security issues, recently spoke with similar severity. The Associated Press reported Monday:

New York's Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on Homeland Security, said that if the lives of some Americans are endangered by the illegal release of classified information by the Wikileaks website, then the government should "go after" the people who control WikiLeaks for violating the espionage act.

It's possible that Palin and King will get their wish. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that he "wouldn't rule anything out" in the administration's pursuit of strict legal action against the website.

Comments

[chevyspeedshop]

01:32 AM on 12/20/2010

Sarah Palin: What's wrong with this woman?

[Velvettazz]

07:00 AM on 12/10/2010

Palin can't find anything new to talk about....who cares what her 2 cents are...better be careful Ms. Spitefullness...they may find out what's in your underwear drawer.

[AnonymousUser]

05:33 AM on 12/10/2010

Anonymous had released this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQl6itOxBVM a few hours before she was attacked! COINCIDENCE??? YOU DECIDE

[UnJoe]

02:52 AM on 12/10/2010

I am Spartacus

[yankeetwo]

01:26 AM on 12/10/2010

Unfortunately, secrecy in government is used mostly to conceal crimes, often crimes against the American PEOPLE, NOT to protect national security. Unfortunately, their misuse of classification is a far greater threat to our national security than anything that has been revealed. Under cover of secrecy, American officials may discuss everything from gouging taxpayers, making deals unfavorable to taxpayers, starting illegal wars, supporting totalitarian governments, forcing taxpayers to absorb the losses of private business, American brutality in Iraq, accepting gifts and bribes from corporations, and facilitating the 3rd-worldization of America. If they are going to discuss ANY of these, and a hundred other topics, we want to know about it.

We must all do whatever we can to ensure that Julian Assange is released, that Wikileaks survives, and that it continues its valuable service to the American people, and indeed, to the People of the World.

[foxisms]

12:52 AM on 12/10/2010

I can't figure out if the above picture brings "neigh...whinny...whinny" to mind or "hee-haw, hee-haw"...either fits.

[Jack Davies]

03:39 AM on 12/10/2010

Def the latter.

Or better yet, what sound does a moose make?

[dzent1]

12:25 AM on 12/10/2010

Talk about the triumph of banality. It's Palin 24/7 on HP. Enough already, or I'll take my advertising clicks to some other site that actually has good ideas about how to move Progressives forward, instead of constantly just reacting to idjits like Palin.

[General Armchair]

10:21 PM on 12/09/2010

It can be hard to find where/how to cancel your PayPal account. Here's a link:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_close-account

[Chlowina]

10:19 PM on 12/09/2010

Such knowledge from a woman who can't remember the names of the papers/magazines she reads.

She's got one heluva ghost writer. Her brain would explode if she had to think in these terms.

[Donna 4254]

09:43 PM on 12/09/2010

Why is this woman relevant? Come on HUFF PO.

[yankeetwo]

01:31 AM on 12/10/2010

She's relevant because she's in the news, and in the news... because she's relevant. I hope she DOES run in 2012. That might give a leftist candidate a chance. On the other hand, if she were ELECTED, it could be very amusing... and tragic. Either way, it should be interesting.

[AlPal3]

09:34 PM on 12/09/2010

Sarah Palin is a small potato person. Ignore her. She's meaningless and clueless.

[cliffhammond]

08:22 PM on 12/09/2010

Today in the news, former governor of Alaska and presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin, issued a statement criticizing the White House; but before she finished reading the press release -- apparently only halfway through -- she interrupted herself with a few brief lines of poetry she'd written and stepped down from the podium. All but a scattering of pentecostalists in the room were completely baffled.

[Jamf]

08:15 PM on 12/09/2010

Hey Princess Grifterella: Here's Aaron Sorkin's essay about you. Enjoy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-sorkin/sarah-palin-killing-animals_b_793600.html

[100eight]

07:49 PM on 12/09/2010

With the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders? They were CIA operatives who on many occasions were shepherded out of harms way from Tora Bora and other places in one of the most secure areas in the world with blind US eye. Now Assange, who turned himself in, is in custody and just what case does the US really have regarding him? But Sarah Palin knows from her studies of the 1st amendment of the constitution.

[bluecollaramerican]

07:35 PM on 12/09/2010

Who cares what she has to say about anything ?She couldn't even finish her term of office in her home state. She's a quitter. Who needs her big mouth?