President Barack Obama stands with Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman at the Great Wall in Badaling, China, Nov. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
A would-be GOP presidential candidate, in this case U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, is caught red-handed sending gushing letters to the last two Democratic presidents.
In one, sent Aug. 10, 2009, Mr. Huntsman lauds President Bill Clinton for his “sense of history and brilliant analysis of world events.” He pours praise on his wife, Hillary Clinton, saying she “has even more charisma than her husband!”
In the second, written six days later, just as Mr. Huntsman was setting off for his post in Beijing, the former Utah governor thanks President Barack Obama for the appointment and for his “graciousness and kindness” towards the Huntsman family.
And then, with the key word underlined in bold, Mr. Huntsman praises Mr. Obama as “a remarkable leader.”
The letters could be a problem for Mr. Huntsman as he gears up for a possible bid for the Republican nomination.
Both letters were leaked to The Daily Caller, which splashed the story Friday on its website under the banner: “Jon Huntsman’s love letters.” The reporter, Jonathan Strong, gives no hint as to who provided the letters, saying only they, he or she “did so on the condition their identity not be disclosed.”
But the range of potential leakers is small, namely: the White House, in cohoots with Mr. Clinton, via the Democratic National Committee; the state of Utah, assuming copies were left behind in the archives; or Mr. Huntsman himself. Each would have had very different motives.
One could make a case that people allied with Gov. Gary Herbert, who served as Mr. Huntsman’s lieutenant governor, might have pulled the letters from a file in Salt Lake and passed them around. The possible motive? Mr. Herbert in 2008 backed Mr. Huntsman’s fellow Mormon and potential 2012 rival, Mitt Romney.
But his office says he didn’t do it, and officials in Salt Lake say there is no evidence that any copies of the letters exist there. “Gov. Herbert’s office did not release these documents, and nor have we received an open-records request for any such correspondence,” said John Pearce, the governor’s general counsel.
The White House might ostensibly have let the Obama letter slip out, assuming it wanted to weaken a Huntsman bid before it even got started. But how would it have known about the Clinton letter? Might the DNC have gathered them both, and put them out?
The White House did not return calls for comment. Nor did the DNC.
The Huntsman camp says that all signs point to the Democrats. Their logic? Mr. Obama’s team is trying to discredit Mr. Huntsman, fearing he could be the toughest competitor in a general election next year.
“Need further proof the White House fears Jon Huntsman the most? I don’t think so,” said a Republican strategist aligned with Mr. Huntsman.
But in examining the copies posted on the Daily Caller site, a state archivist in Utah made an interesting observation. Both letters bear the same faint outlines of punch holes in the same place, indicating they had been stored in identical binders.
And who would store copies of letters in identical binders, if not the sender?
Asked if the Huntsman camp might have sought to inoculate itself by leaking the letters, knowing they could come out at any time, another Republican strategist allied with Mr. Huntsman laughed, and agreed that it wasn’t a bad strategy.
But he emphatically denied that Mr. Huntsman was behind the leak. “That didn’t happen,” he said.
The mystery endures.
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