President Barack Obama on Friday seemed to acknowledge that the determined effort by the White House and Congress to demonize Edward Snowden has not exactly worked. The White House has put pressure on many people in this town to make clear that Snowden is not to be praised in the media or by members of Congress. Various reporters and new organizations have held the line in mocking Snowden or refusing to call him a “whistleblower” rather than a “leaker.” After all, the fear seems to be that Snowden has to be a traitor or Obama would look like a tyrant. Even high-ranking members have been frog walked back before cameras for uttering a work of praise for Snowden. The problem is that it has convinced few people, even with alteration of Wikipedia and other sites to maintain the party line. Now Obama has come forward to assure people that Snowden is no patriot. No, I guess that title belongs to Obama and others who have engaged in warrantless surveillance and continue to mislead the public on the erosion of privacy and civil liberties. Those patriotic souls include John Clapper who lie under oath to mislead the public about the programs. He is not a perjurer but a patriot in America’s New Animal Farm. Notably, however, not a single reporter asked Obama about the perjury by Clapper. Instead, Obama laid out another set of meaningless measures designed to lull the public back into a comfortably and controllable sleep.
Obama seems to be going through the stages of Kübler-Ross from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance. Last week, he was in denial and assuring the public that they are not being spied upon even as more stories appeared revealing even broader surveillance programs. He then attacked Snowden and now insists that he is no patriot for throwing away his life to disclose these massive surveillance programs. He ended the week with bargaining, telling the public that he would create a committee of hand-picked experts to review such surveillance — just like his committee ratifying his killing of citizens without charges or convictions.
Obama clearly wants to have unchecked power but not be thought of as authoritarian. He returned to the theme that he can create the due process and review within his own Administration that is obviously lacking in Congress or the courts. He went as far as to say that a simple committee of his making would have avoided the Snowden affair because the public would have accepted his word for the status of their rights and privacy. “There’s no doubt Mr. Snowden’s leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than if I had simply appointed this review board.” In other words, I messed up by not first creating a screen for the programs to give my allies cover. In the meantime, his Administration is moving to remove the greatest danger to their warrantless surveillance programs: people.
What was particularly galling was Obama’s statement that “[g]iven the history of abuse by governments, it’s right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives.” However, his administration has been classifying even legal argument to prevent such questions from being asked and has pursued both reporters and their sources for any stories informing the public. His Administration is the most anti-whistleblower government in modern history and has abused national security laws in the pursuit of leakers to an extent that would make Richard Nixon blush.
Obama added as one of his great reforms on Friday that he would consider making the legal rationales for these programs more public despite the view that such classification was always ridiculous. So he will make legal arguments public and appoint his own committee to review his own policies.
Finally, he got away with telling the media that Snowden is not a whistleblower because he had “other avenues” to oppose the programs. Maintaining a straight face (and again without serious challenge from the press corp), Obama noted that “he can appear before a court with a lawyer and make his case.” First, by that definition, no one would be a whistleblower since they could all take the suicidal act of filing a public complaint or seeking judicial review. Second, if Snowden revealed the programs to an attorney, he would have been immediately charged. This is an Administration that put reporters under surveillance for speaking with leakers. It is also the Administration that has forced courts to dismiss dozens of public interest lawsuits by classifying the evidence needed to establish standing or the merits of the case. This includes the greatest victory of his Administration in killing the Clapper challenge (that’s right the same guy who lied to Congress recently). The Obama Administration succeeded in getting the Court to reject the standing of civil liberties groups and citizens to challenge the Obama Administration’s surveillance programs. President Obama has long been criticized for his opposition to such lawsuits and his Justice Department has continued a successful attack on the ability of citizens to challenge the unconstitutional actions of their government in the war on terror. The 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. insulated such programs from judicial review in yet another narrowing of standing rules. (After claiming that such surveillance programs were too classified to be discussed in courts, they then a few months later discussed such programs in the public only after Snowden’s disclosures).
The level of disingenuous arguments coming out of the Administration now amounts nothing short of open contempt for the public and its intelligence. With both parties working to support the effort, it could well succeed. However, the degree to which Obama feels free to make such transparent arguments show how little he has to fear from contradiction in the media or in Congress. It is simply a problem of optics with a public that still feels uncomfortable with the expanding Imperial President established in the last decade. It is hard to get a public back to sleep when they wake up in a nightmare. That is when you have to tell them soothing stories.
Source: CNN
“Patriot. n. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.” — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Yes, President Obama, you certainly can’t call Edward Snowden a patriot, since he clearly refuses to serve as your dupe and tool. My, but you have a talent for doubleplusgood duckspeaking, Mr President. You claim that you want the debate that Edward Snowden has started, but you despise and wish to persecute Edward Snowden for starting it. Do the terms “cognitive dissonance” and “schizophrenia” mean anything to you? Or do you simply wish to personify them so that when people look up these terms in a dictionary they will find a picture of you and will understand immediately?
The Atlantic gave Obama’s speech a rave review
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The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama’s Presidency
His tone on Friday was inappropriately dismissive, while the substance was misleading at best and mendacious at worst.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-surveillance-speech-a-low-point-in-barack-obamas-presidency/278565/
They really liked it …..
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Jon Stewart once reacted to a Barack Obama speech by marveling that “at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults.”
On Friday, President Obama spoke to us about surveillance as though we were precocious children.
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Then it goes on to shred the speech
What AY said …
What Gene H said.
Obama has won the Nixon trophy to put beside his Nobel Peace thingy.
Yeah, Scott, Congress will impeach Obama, and then impeach itself.
There is a weird paradox happening especially among many of us that support the ACLU and civil liberties. We love roughly 80% of Obama’s policies but absolutley hate the remaining 20% that violate the U.S. Constitution (torture, assassinations, Guantanamo, etc.) but also know the Bush Republicans would be even worse. So we can’t support the vast majority of candidates of either party at this time and some states have no candidates that support the U.S. Constitution (which is their supreme oath of office and requirement for holding government authority in the first place).
“Obama clearly wants to be authoritarian but not thought of as a tyrant.”
Yep.
“The level of disingenuous arguments coming out of the Administration now amounts to open contempt for the public and its intelligence.”
Of course we are all idiots. We’ve let them openly sellout democracy by buying into the lies that money is free speech and corporations are people and that Saudi Arabia is our ally and the Patriot Act is necessary and that an unending war against a tactic and a noun as likely to kill you as your own furniture merits trashing the Constitution and creating a draconian surveillance fascist police state. How dare we question that the oligarchs be held accountable. Don’t we know that the rule by law exempts them from consequences of crimes, treason and betrayal?
“With both parties working to support the effort, it could well succeed.”
Don’t forget industry – from defense, to private prisons, to mainstream media – is aiding and abetting in this game. Fascism is the team sport of oligarchical forms of government.
“However, the degree to which Obama feels free to make such transparent arguments show how little he has to fear from contradiction in the media or in Congress.”
It’s good to be King. Until it isn’t. Just ask Louis XVI.
“It is simply a problem of optics with a public that still feels uncomfortable with the expanding Imperial President established in the last decade.”
‘Don’t you just love my new suit,’ asked the Emperor. ‘It came with a brown shirt and a black shirt. The finest Italian fabrics.’
“It is hard to get a public back to sleep when they wake up in a nightmare.”
I’m hoping that it proves to be impossible rather than simply hard.
“That is when you have to tell them soothing stories.”
Or run to the hills.
Getting reaaal sick of your shit Obama
I was going to write a modern version of Animal Farm. Amerika version,where you would have to figure out who each animal represented.
Jay Haley
Obama reminds me of Robert Preston in The Music Man. It’s refreshing to have this whole Snowden affair exposing the Spy State for what it is, and that it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Meanwhile, Obama is still selling snake oil but increasingly more American people are waking up to the scam.
With Eric Holder investigating Eric Holder, the IRS harassing conservative groups, and the courts rubber-stamping the FedGov’s illegitimate and intrusive crimes against the people, perhaps NOW is the time to see some indictments of federal bureaucrats, and articles of impeachment of Premier Obama?
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
Reblogged this on Reality Check and commented:
Let me see here:
patriot [ˈpeɪtrɪət ˈpæt-]
n
a person who vigorously supports his country and its way of life
[via French from Late Latin patriōta, from Greek patriotēs, from patris native land; related to Greek patēr father; compare Latin pater father, patria fatherland]
patriotic [ˌpætrɪˈɒtɪk] adj
patriotically adv
Apparently if you believe in your Constitution and what the Forefathers taught us, and you do the things they did, you’re no Patriot.
In effect releasing “classified data” generally labels a person as a traitor.
But when that data released is concerning the VERY CONSTITUTION and the Bill of Rights, which we all live by, believe in and support this becomes a sticky point for both sides.
Under other circumstances, I’d too label Snowden a traitor. However, I balk here because of what is being done in the name of “fighting terrorism” even though Obama can’t even use the word “terrorism” in a sentence.
Partisan politics aside, Snowden did us all a favor, right or wrong.
Americans have awakened to the fact that WE SHOULD NOT TRUST THE GOVERNMENT.
It’s time to start removing some of the criminals who are wreaking our country.
Mr. Snowden is a patriot by definition.
President Obama must really see a threat from the idea of someone like Edward Snowden to act with such resolve against him. Maybe George III is a role model for him, especially with regard to those pesky patriots.
“meaningful measures” – You meant “meaningless gestures,” didn’t you?
“Obama seems to be going through the stages of Kübler-Ross ” … very apt description.
I have an idea. How about if I choose who is on the panel to review the policies. Let’s see, Sen. Wyden comes to mind. Bernie Sanders and if we need a civilian, how about former Senator Russ Feingold. I would be happy with those guys looking over Obama’s shoulders.
Professor, don’t hold back so. Just tell us how you really feel.
Our once-beloved Prez keeps putting his foot in it. I can’t believe the gratuitous insult to Putin, comparing him to a bored teenager at the back of a classroom, and implying that he, President O., is the teacher and little Vladimir had better shape up. The affair with the Bolivian presidential plane borders on the insane. I am totally unimpressed with his talk of bringing about “transparency” in his administration’s surveillance programs. Our current WH incumbent–while driving his runaway Executive Branch–sometimes talks a good game, but in this case he did not even do that. To think that I once admired this man, voted for him, and regarded him as our nation’s hope!
How about Obama…. Go self copulate….. Snowden has more spine than you…. Heck, I think an eel has more of a spine than you…..