White House Official Tracked Down and Fired Over Insulting Tweets
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "BBC reports that Jofi Joseph, a senior National Security Council staffer who was a key member of the White House team negotiating on Iran's nuclear weapons program, has been fired ... after a months-long probe into a barrage of tweets that included caustic criticisms of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top NSC officials, especially Ben Rhodes – whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi. Joseph, who posted under the now defunct Twitter name @NatSecWonk, gave a lacerating commentary on anything from policy to personal appearance. 'Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Weiner,' he tweeted, referring to the scandal-hit former New York mayoral candidate and his wife, a former aide of Hillary Clinton. He tweeted that Mrs Clinton 'had few policy goals and no wins' in the Middle East. He said Chelsea Clinton was 'assuming all of her parents' vices,' and targeted figures such as Republican commentator Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney's wife Ann for their looks and weight. Many in the foreign policy community reacted with shock to the revelation that Joseph was the mystery tweeter because Joseph was well known among policy wonks and his wife, Carolyn Leddy, is a well-respected professional staffer on the Republican side of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments,' said Joseph in an apology. 'I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted.'"
Wayback Machine evidently doesn't bother with Twitter, but the page can still (for now) be found on the Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://twitter.com/NatSecWonk
Will all the secret public email accounts being used to pass information to the press and between departments... they fire a tweeter?
Was Carolyn Leddy wearing beer goggles the night she met Jofi Joseph?
#DeleteChrome
Joining us on FoxNews Sunday to discuss President Clinton's State of the Union Address is former National Security Council member Jofi Joseph. Mr. Joseph, glad to have you with us.
In a nutshell (or was the IRS targetting opponents of the current regime some illusion too? No, it wasn't): To "get to" anyone that rightly puts them down for doing a SHIT JOB, period (and there's no question of them doing such a piss poor job it's not funny - look at the economy, the #1 issue, for example. That and wars based on bullshit does the job for anyone with a pair of eyes and a brain to realize scumbags run the show out of washington).
Perhaps much of what he said is true...the truth should not be insulting. In these politically correct times, he should have changed:
Mrs Clinton 'had few policy goals and no wins' in the Middle East.
to:
Mrs Clinton was policy goal challenged.
After a suitable vacation this bastion of democratic behavior will have a new, better job with a leftist think tank or university.
Leftists have no honor.
I can't believe that any prominent person tweets at all. The medium encourages inflammatory behavior and doesn't let there be any context. Recipe for disaster.
This guy was so very impressed with himself and his insider status that he forgot to act like a professional. He got his free speech and the consequences of that speech. I'm sure his wife appreciates the celebrity he has brought them.
As a TrueNerd© I'd like to know precisely how this person was caught. Was he tweeting from work? If not, it makes me wonder...
The coastal elite seem to feel that they are superior to the mere citizens they rule. Anything that takes them down a peg or two is a good thing.
especially Ben Rhodes â" whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi.
I find it amusing people focusing on an event which transpired over a few hours when absolutely no investigation or questions were raised about the two DAY refusal by the Bush administration to send in more troops to block the escape of Bin Laden.
For those that don't know, officers on the ground, both U.S. and British, made repeated requests over a two day period to have more troops dropped in to block escape routes for Bin Laden when they had him pinned down in Tora Bora. They could hear him over the radio telling his people the end looked near and he had failed them. According to one British source, they estimated the troops were within 2 kilometers of Bin Laden.
However, for those two days the Bush administration refused all requests for more troops, claiming the Afghan forces could be used instead of allied troops (which was a complete failure). As a result, Bin Laden ran free for another decade until the Obama administration was able to track him down.
Funny how not one person ever jumped up and said, "We need to investigate why Bin Laden, the man who planned the worst terrorist attack on American soil, was allowed to escape!", yet people are hellbent on talking about mistakes made over a few hours which somehow ranks higher in importance.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Back in my day we'd track down and SHOOT the bastard ourselves.
-D Cheney
Good people go to bed earlier.
Chips don't just fall where they may anymore. If there's a chip spinning on the ground in an uncertain way, you can bet someone with an agenda set it in motion.
The problem with wanting to rule the world is that everybody wants to rule the world.. and that is just not logistically possible.
Until you meet someone with no sense of humor.
It does lend credence to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Dunno about you, but if I were to make comments like that where I work, I expect the boss to say something like 'I see you're really unhappy here, so why don't you take this box and clean out your desk'. Why is this a big deal? It's not like he got jail time out of it.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
While firing the unprofessional jerk after he was outed is perfectly defensible (I have no problem with it at all), the government did get caught working against America's interests again:
Why THE FUCK was the government spending time investigating this? And why the fuck is this not a big secret?
The BushBama whitehouse is seriously confused about what the country needs from its government, and over the last 12 years they have just gotten repeatedly more brazen and open about it. Is it simply that really, nobody cares?
I pay taxes in order for you to funnel them to obscurely-overbilling contractors for substandard work, so that they can then divert a portion of their obscene profits to the re-election campaigns of the people in congress and administration, who make the funneling happen. That is why we have government: to give crooks a non-violent outlet for their greed and need to victimize society. A few billion dollars here, a few billion dollars there .. we have a strong economy and can sustain that.
But I don't pay taxes for you people to spend it tracking tweets. That's not what government is for! All these crooks need to get out of the surveillance game and back into mainstream profitable corruption. And we voters should insist upon it. Please, everyone: stop voting Republicrat.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Any time Benghazi comes up, it's imperative for shills to employee "but-but-but-Bush!"
You can tell what the priorities of the Obama administration are by who they hold accountable. People can die in Benghazi, give guns to Mexican drug lords, abuse the powers of the IRS, but when it comes to tweeting, somebody has to go down.
I think your touching some raw nerves here sending off some PR talking point alarms. The anonymous shills are crawling out of the woodwork trying to wave their flags and distract from all these uncomfortable points you are raising... (thanks, btw)
> "'Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Weiner,' he tweeted"
Good question. I assume they were both building their political careers. Easy for him to fall in love with her, but her? His level is more Honey Boo Boo's mom.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I think his remarks about are probably accurate.
This is nothing but censorship. The government does not want us tax paying peons to know the truth about our exalted leaders.
There is no monopoly on them.
We fire a guy for insulting tweets, but....
- We don't fire people for the Fast & Furious illegal gun running op.
- We don't fire people for the IRS scandal.
- We don't fire for the lies to the public regarding Benghazi
- We don't fire for the absolute disaster that is the Obamacare implementation
It's nice to see that our priorities are in order. It's also obvious that this administration is extremely thin skinned and cannot take any amount of criticism. They view their political enemies as a first priority and everything else be dammed.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
proving there is no anonymous tweeting
I for one find it infuriating that they can't balance the budget and must either raise taxes or cut spending simply because pointless expenditures like this apparently take precedence.
And sadly probably half the population is not the least bit upset, instead just thinking "good job guys! serves him right, that no-good trash-talking tweeter!"
Look at the results. That's all I have to say, just like any employer does. They're placed into their offices as well as bought off even further by lobbyist bribes or other forms of coercion (ala "Senator, if you do that, we will bring up our dirty laundry we have on you from our NSA findings" or "We will pull those factories out of your state, good luck getting re-elected next term when your constituents lose their jobs" - which they'd offshore for a savings of a penny later, anyhow, just to cater to the 1% investment class trust fund baby scumbags). People aren't stupid anymore and realize that there are no "democrats" or "republicans": Only crooks put in place by the true ringmasters, the wealthy campaign donations concerns that hedge their bets and back both 'candidates' so they win no matter what and keep profiting at your expense taxpayers, no matter what, to continue fucking you over, hard. Worst of all, with YOUR money from taxes, people. All they're after is "continuity of government" (spelled sideways = continuing our ripoff gravy-train at your expense, lol, with YOUR MONEY). That tells me in that alone that the type of men elected to office aren't out for your good. They're only protecting themselves. Look at the results economically and tell us differently. Look at the wars with no WMD's found just so war profiteers gain more by killing others, and tell us its right to do, and not a waste of money and lives - Literally $10 BILLION A DAY IN AFGHANISTAN for example. Look at everything they've done, and the ruin these morons have created, and TRY to tell us they've done a "good job". Man... Were we to do such a fine job, we'd be fired. That's certain.
Creating domestic jobs or paying down the debt would be a better wiser way to spend it. No, instead? They spend tons of cash targetting political opponents who only tell it how it is or who have a chance of ousting the "powers that be" fratboy power clique in office now. IRS scandal, anyone? This is just another example like it.
The system's been setup by criminals, the worst kind (white collar) FOR more of their brand of "legal crminality" (easy to do when corporate execs write bills these puppets pass into law via "secret courts").
The top boys, the REAL ones? Pay zero taxes in comparison to you via that game in fact.
It's easy to win a game of monopoly when you can change the rules on the fly, after all. That's exactly what they do too.
A child could run things better than the skull and bones fratboys doing it now.
Now, let's go bail out some more of our "good ole' boy buddies" in banks who fucked up large yet again - the sheep/cattle are too scared to stop us and we'll just keep taking kickbacks and lobbyist bribes as usual and devaluing the US dollar, since we can just print more 'fiat money' anytime we like, even though it's becoming worth as much as toilet paper everytime we do it. Any of our puppet governments the CIA put in place gets outta linie? Well, hell: Let's just BOMB THEM too! Why not? It's not our kids fighting it. It's the SHEEP's KIDS and money too (lol).
China wants their trillions. Russia's making moves to oust the "petro-dollar". Why? See above. They KNOW we're run by greedy filth. If that "petro dollar" status goes? WE GO. Hyperinflation's next right after that, shortly.
News at 11.
Then he turned into a pussy. Don't apologize, stand by what you said!
No matter how many millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours must be diverted from inconsequential terrorist threats, perpetrators of this sort of lèse-majesté and thoughtcrime must be stampped out.
would have been if he had converted to Islam. Ok ok, I don't find this funny either. But I'm pretty sure if Sarah Palin explained the joke to me, Icould not stop laughing.
What a wanker. You posted them, don't apologize. Say, "Fuck ya, I posted those. You like?"
Because I thought they were great myself. Sorry you lost a job, but in reality, you are better off.
Be seeing you...
Attention sheep:
The truth is offensive.
Lying is Truth.
Consume.
Conform.
Let's not forget that, in New York, this kind of pseudonymous online conduct is considered a "crime of deceit and provocation" that the Internet authorities can prosecute to the full extent of the law. See the documentation of one current case involving sock puppets and criminally deadpan "satire" at: http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/ and see how the NY Attorney General opened a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn to get some of those scoundrels posting fake comments on Yelp: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24218139 (Let's hope they go after every single fake "best chiropractor" and "best probiotic" on Amazon too. This is a potential source of billions of dollars in fines.) It would not, of course, be surprising to see rampant criminal deceit and provocation even at the highest level of government, but we should at least be clear that if you use "sock puppets" or engage in "astroturfing" or send out deadpan "confessions" in someone else's name, at least in New York (a model in this respect for the entire country and especially for Washington), you are presumed to be a criminal. This latest incident should be thoroughly investigated at once by the appropriate Internet law enforcement authorities and the perpetrator, assuming he "crossed the line," should be brought to justice.
"After a probe that included an investigation into Joseph’s travel and shopping patterns – parsed from over 2,000 tweets - lawyers from the White House counsel’s office confronted Joseph and ordered him to leave the executive complex, according to two sources familiar with the situation."
There's your tax dollars at work. Money well spent, I'd say. /sarcasm.