(June 27, 2013) -- When the entire matter involving Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker first came out I made one observation that appears to be turning out to be one of the primary issues in this whole matter. When personal information about him was made public I could not believe that someone 29 years old, a very spotty employment history, virtually no formal education whatsoever, could be hired for such an important and sensitive position within our government.

Now, just days after this whole mess started we are finding out that there are serious issues with respect to his hiring. We are also finding out a whole lot of very fascinating facts about who we use to actually screen people for jobs like these and hopefully after all of the dust and crap settles in this case there will be some serious re-thinking of the pre-employment practices and policies of the NSA and CIA with respect to who gets hired and subsequently placed in such sensitive and critically important positions.

Perhaps this is a return to my roots of the 60's and my time in the Army and my tour in Vietnam, but I have always been very wary of the military-industrial complex in this country and I suspect that among other things that many of the ‘civilian’ contractors that our government agencies so conveniently use are very much tied into former high ranking military personnel from all branches of the military. I know for a fact that this is the case with respect to the security firms that employ thousands of former military and law enforcement personnel in the Middle East and I also suspect that agencies such as the NSA or CIA or others also have deeply imbedded roots with those who at one time in their lives were upper level ranking military personnel who took their very generous military pensions and then either started their own companies, or just went to work for one that already existed and that they were in a position to funnel billions of dollars of defense money into while they were still on active military duty.

I am certainly not going to refer to Mr. Snowden as a "good guy" by any definition. I also am not going to refer to him as a "whistleblower" because what he has done, in my opinion, does not meet the true qualifications and intent of what the "whistleblower" statutes in this country were intended to be. I am also not ready to declare him a traitor, but if I had to choose from all of the aforementioned, I would be leaning towards the latter given what we know right now, that’s for sure.

There is little doubt in my mind that some good will come from all of this, not the least of which is what I talked about earlier on in this article. Our government leaders have some serious issues to deal with in agencies such as the CIA and the NSA. Some jobs are just too important and too critical to the mission of national security to be outsourced.

I have also been following the saga of Celebrity Chef Paula Deen these past few days. Do we really live in such a politically correct and almighty society today that what we may have said decades ago can come back to destroy our lives decades later? I don’t know of anyone who is perfect. This world is full of people who have made mistakes and somehow managed to survive those mistakes and gone on to lead successful and productive lives. Some have become great leaders and have done remarkable things for the good of mankind.

However, it just seems that some things can fall into a category where forgiveness is just not an option. How is it that we can forgive those who have stolen, cheated, and destroyed the lives of others in ways that were truly evil but we can't find the ability to forgive someone who may have said something truly ignorant. I may be a former cop but count me among those that do believe that people can and do change. Holding them accountable or hostage for their actions and beliefs decades earlier, in my opinion, is just plain wrong.

Paula Deen is seeing her life literally destroyed. This is a classic example of an old saying about the punishment not fitting the crime. She could have used a myriad of other words or phrases and gotten away with perhaps a slap on the wrist. Somehow the political correctness of using the "N" word is one that seems to be unforgivable. This is wrong!

I spent a lot of years on the streets of Los Angeles County dealing with many people of various ethnicities and color. Working in a black neighborhood was a real eye opener for me because I heard more black people use the "N" word than I did white people. Did that make it right? No it did not make it right. But I can’t help but consider this a huge double standard in the world in which we all live in today.

I am not defending what Ms. Deen did or didn't do, but I sure have a problem when the world in which we live in can be so totally hypocritical, and overly political sensitive and where there is no room for forgiveness whatsoever in instances like this.