Growing international outcry about NSA surveillance is straining alliances worldwide, and time and again official denials are proven untrue in the wake of new revelations. One would think it would be a tense time in the White House, but the comments show a remarkable level of indifference about the whole situation.
Several days of reports on whether or not President Obama knew about an 11-year-long wiretap against German Chancellor Angela Merkel were brought up today during President Obama’s interviews, and he shrugged them off, saying he didn’t feel like he had to comment on that sort of report.
Obama insisted the question of whether or not he knew was itself classified, a remarkable position to take when the White House itself has been pushing the idea that he didn’t know and had nothing to do with the surveillance. It reflects a trend in the administration to refuse to go on the record with its own narrative in public interviews, preferring to just hit a few buzzwords, reference 9/11, and leave.
White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted in separate comments that President Obama has “full confidence” in everything the NSA is doing, an even more perplexing claim if, as Carney and others assert, Obama hasn’t the foggiest idea what the NSA is doing. Whatever they’re doing, Carney insisted, they’re “doing extraordinarily well,” because they’re doing it post-9/11.
So, one is left to wonder: is the problem that the government of the United States is bugging the entire planet, including its own citizens? Or is the problem that somebody has exposed this fact?
Contained within the answer to that question is the future of this nation.
There are those who are comfortable with and indeed comforted by the revelations, yet outraged at their coming to light. And there are those who are revolted by them and thankful that there are people of integrity and courage.
The future of this nation depends entirely upon how many feel which way, and are prepared to act upon their feelings. It is really no more complex, or simpler, than that.
And upon that simple, complex fact depends whether this nation is entering deeper into the beginning of a long, dark winter’s nite, or the beginning of the birth of a spring’s new dawn.
You'd think this man would get tired of lying in public. I guess not.
One wonders how many whoppers people will absorb before they finally withdraw support for Obama and his pathetic band of crooks and cowards.