The man was nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who was executed for allegedly passing on information to the United States. Amiri had been in and out of the news since 2009, when he first defected from Iran, eventually turning up on our shores. After a series of contradictory appearances on YouTube and in other videos in which he repeatedly changed his mind about residence in America, he returned home to be with his family. Then, in 2010, he disappeared, presumably was put under arrest and ultimately, according to Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, "was hanged for revealing the country's top secrets to the enemy." That would be the United States, the West's preeminent force in agreeing to President Barack Obama's reckless nuclear deal with Iran. The Iranian government calls us "the enemy."
I have long argued that Hillary Clinton is incompetent and sometimes dangerous to those around her. If elected president, she will be a danger to the country. Our president claims, "there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president." This is the sheerest pishposh. His qualification for office was being a community activist.
Actually, I have, after reviewing Clinton's record over the years, devised a fitting term for her achievements: the Clinton Curse. In her wake, she has left an astounding number of casualties. Back in Arkansas, there were the McDougals, Jim and Susan, the Clintons' partners in the failed Whitewater land deal. They went to the hoosegow, Jim McDougal never to return. The Clintons escaped judgment. There was Hillary Clinton's law partner, Webb Hubbell. He, too, ended up in jail. Another victim of the Clinton Curse was former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. I knew Tucker before he went to jail. He was a typical member of the Arkansas political machine, very amiable and very shifty.
Then there was Vince Foster, Clinton's law partner at the ill-starred Rose Law Firm. He followed her to the White House. He was once, as had been reported at the time of his death, romantically involved with Clinton. In his recent New York Times best-seller, "Crisis of Character," former Secret Service officer Gary Byrne reports that a vindictive Clinton blamed Foster for the Clintons' early White House troubles. She humiliated him before the White House staff, and the distraught Foster went to Fort Marcy Park in Virginia and shot himself to death.
There are more recent victims of the Clinton Curse. There are various members of Clinton's State Department staff, who accumulated huge legal bills defending themselves against the FBI. None got off lightly, and poor Huma Abedin is still tied to that lunkheaded exhibitionist, ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner. He undoubtedly chose our racy ex-President Bill Clinton as a role model. And by the way, Bill looks to be at death's door -- or am I just a health nut?
Yet, now we are opening a new chapter on the Clinton Curse with Hillary Clinton's errant server and all her exposed classified and unclassified information. How many more innocent or compromised people living abroad will be executed because Clinton was not, as FBI Director James Comey said, "particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information"? And remember, if you will, our president's ignorant boast about her qualifications.
I think a young United States senator who happens to be a generation younger than Clinton, and a war hero to boot, summed up the death of Shahram Amiri best. Sen. Tom Cotton said over the weekend, on CBS's "Face the Nation": "That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe." Sen. Cotton is from the great state of Arkansas. He has seen the Clinton Curse up close.