“If he governs consistent with some of the things he’s said as a candidate, I would be very frightened,” former CIA Director Michael Hayden says about Donald Trump.
These are the words that begin an ominous television spot from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The advertisement concludes that Mr. Trump is “too dangerous.”
Hayden was director of the National Security Administration under President George W. Bush, before becoming the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and then moving to head the Central Intelligence Agency. He served at the CIA for only a few weeks into President Obama’s first term, but obviously Mrs. Clinton wouldn’t broadcast his negative view of Trump before millions of us in TV Land if she didn’t respect Mr. Hayden’s opinion.
Funny, yesterday on John Catsimatidis’s New York City radio program, Hayden declared, “I’m uncomfortable with the nominee of both of the major political parties.”
“John, a lot of my friends are saying that’s nice, Hayden, but you have to vote for one of them,” the former top spy offered, “but I’m not so sure I do.”
He doesn’t. Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson will be on all 50 state ballots and Green Party standard-bearer Jill Stein will be on most. And there are others.
“Somebody is going to win, but … I’m hoping they don’t think they’re sweeping into office with some powerful mandate,” Hayden continued. “And for people like me … to vote for some other choice, might deny them that sense of mandate, which would make, I think, things even worse.”
I’m no fan of Mr. Hayden, but regarding this? I agree.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Photo of Michael Hayden Credit: TechCrunch on Flickr (CC License)