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| "You still trust me, right Bo?" |
However I would not be a good liberal, a good skeptic, or even a good American if I did not question the reasons behind this NSA data mining and ask for explanations as to why they were so sloppy in outsourcing the job to an organization that would hire a gentleman like Edward Snowden.
I both respect and admire President Obama, and I STILL think he will go down in history as one of the best president's ever.
That being said I have never been accused of blind devotion to anybody. (Okay well to be honest I HAVE been accused of that before, but that was just by trolls trying to start trouble. Not by anybody whose opinion really matters.)
Photo courtesy of the official White House twitter account.
I agree, I respect and admire him as much as I ever have. I have no illusions about him being perfect and I don't expect that he will always do exactly what I would prefer he would do. I, too, believe that he will be considered one of the greatest presidents in our history and I fully expect the Republicans to try and erase him from our history.
ReplyDeleteJohn Kennedy was too tentative at first on civil rights. And he got Vietnam wrong. And the Bay of Pigs was a disaster. But he was a great president.
ReplyDeleteThese are humans who hold office and they have human failings and they make mistakes. I don't expect perfection from them.
What I want from them is more complex, but is attainable. What I want from them Isn't perfection, but rather vision and accountability and a commitment to transparency and public debate, and to justice and the rule of law.
Always question! And, be willing to be questioned! I mostly appreciate Obama's response in encourage this discussion.
ReplyDeleteThis is where he was arriving...now this is what I call surveillance!
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/YRLpInE.jpg
I concur with you. Some things have disappointed me but I try to be fair. There is a lot of leftover Bush administrative stuff in place due to the constant hype and in some cases justifiably so, of terrorism.
ReplyDeleteRight now I am really confused. Per the Republicans, it was not okay for the Dixie Chicks to criticize President Bush in England but now its okay to rat out a black project to a British newspaper and hole up in a communist country. And further, there are those Democrats who say, well, Pres. Obama campaigned on more transparency. Snowden claims he is an American victim that will stay with whatever country wants him. Mr. Snowden, the Chinese kill with bullets or you just disappear and the Russians like poison. Good luck and never come back.
I am happy to see PBO with Bo First Dog!
ReplyDeleteI am unhappy to see PBO relying on bad science and appointing idiots who listen to the ranchers and hunter lobby about wolves.
Please read these two and if you are so moved, please comment. We did not fight to bring them back only to slaughter them for ranchers and hunters!
http://bit.ly/17I4Yad
http://bit.ly/1bsarPF
Thank you.
Now really everyone is getting all ginned up about basically the Patriot act and NSA which was started by GWB!
You have to ask yourself... Why now? And follow the money. And why hasn't congress repealed it? They've tried 30 times to repeal "Obamacare"?
I do think PBO has made some mistakes but watch this and see, What the alternative would of been if you dare http://bit.ly/137KzXH
I know a lot about animals. Bo adores his family.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama is still The Man as far as I am concerned. He has the most difficult job imaginable and I think he has negotiated it with grace. He is truly the right man for the job at this time and I'm proud to support him.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine anyone else doing better in the political climate ever in Washington and the US in whole to be truthful.
I'm sure he will be glad to get out of the fishbowl when his term is up and will become a great elder statesman!
You should read some of the comments on other websites:
ReplyDeleteThat this was a staged photo, to distract from all the upset in the Capital.
That Bo clearly doesn't like the President, because he didn't run to greet him, like the dogs of many of the commenters do. (It didn't occur to them that Bo may be so well trained that he stays in a "sit" position until told to do otherwise. And he saw the President was coming over to see him.)
Also, several of the commenters call him B. Hussein, plus all those other not-funny, clever, or imaginative versions of the name Obama.
These people are pitiful. Let's hope they're in the small minority of bots who will have no effect on anything. Yet they spread their nastiness across the internet, picking up like-minded morons from coast-to-coast. I hope they send so much money to Palin, Flake, Brewer, Cruz, Paul, etc. that they won't be able to pay a cable bill before too long.
Isn't communism, often confused by Republicans, with fascism and socialism, a bad thing? Isn't it interesting that Snowden wants to share with the communists? Who set up this cheap trick?
ReplyDeleteThe company that hired him is apparently owned by The Carlyle Group, owned largely by the Bush family. That explains a lot to me. The data gathering job was given to this company by George W. Bush, just like Cheney's company, Halliburton, was given all those jobs during the war in Iraq. Contracts to family and friends.
Delete"Yeah, OB, 'cuz we gots the same tight curl cut." And you and I are still Man's Best Friend.
ReplyDeleteIs the NSA hiring/staffing situation worse now than what it was when the Patriot Act was first enacted? I suspect that under George W. Bush it was much worse because GWB did not attract able people (heck of a job, brownie).
ReplyDeleteSnowden's access to top secret info at NSA is the sort of screw up that President Obama might be forgiven because really it's a screw up that able people should not make. Obama is entitled to expect better from the civil service.
As far as the extent of the data collecting, we really have no idea whether George W. Bush era sweeps were vaster and more intrusive. It's hard for me to believe that Dick Cheney was restrained in the snooping. Regardless, I would be happy to see the Patriot Act repealed or amended to have more checks and balances on authorization for snooping.
Surely the extent of the snooping in the initial years of the Patriot Act would interest us all. And give us a perspective on whether the Obama era snooping is appropriately restrained.
Funny how we haven't hear anyone from the George W. Bush administration saying how they did SOOOOO much better than Obama at limiting the snooping!
And then to smear Hilary even more, a "whistleblower" came out and said that her security staff were going to see prostitutes when they were overseas and that it was covered up for political reasons.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Gryphen... The more I read about that snow don guy, the less I believe his story. There is NO WAY IN HELL that ANY employee, let alone a JUNIOR employee would have that kind of access to that kind of information. NO WAY IN HELL. The US is stupid, but the NSA is not THAT stupid.
ReplyDeleteHis story simply does not add up on sooo many levels. The first thing being him lying about his salary, then him lying/hiding the fact that he moved out of his rented house in Hawaii WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND, because the landlord wants to sell the property.
Also, too, why would he go to HONGKONG, and not to some other, more secure-from-the-US location. Also, why leak his story now, just before President Obama is to fly to Germany for celebration of President Kenedy's speech of ' Ich bin ein Berliner'?
Somewhere, I also read that this guy is an avid follower of Ryan and other Teabaggers...
I agree with you. According to a "friend" of Snowden who knew him well in 2007-2009 when Snowden worked for the CIA, stated that he was having pangs of consciousness that made him unhappy with our government (that was 6 years ago, when he was only 23). He quit that job, and then gets a job with the NSA and only worked for 3 weeks before requesting leave without pay for 4 weeks, claiming medical problems. When he didn't returned, his boss got concern. Snowden went to Hong Kong 4 weeks ago! (I think he planned to steal data to sell to China when he accepted the job).
DeleteIf the government was spying on Americans - then why didn't they know what Snowden was up to?
I find him suspicious because he praised China's freedom of speech.
DeleteNO way in hell - read Neil Postman's Technopoly, then get back to us.
DeleteThis isn't the easiest situation to choose sides, over, is it?
ReplyDeleteI saw one of the usual asswipes who manage to get his stupid looking face on TV all the time, whining like a stood up prom date, that both Snowden and the journalist who got the story out, are nothing but rotten scum Communist faggots, who are threatening to publish names of U.S. spies.
That bothered me, if it was true. But right after that, I heard an interview with the journalist, who CALMLY explained that there are no such names to divulge, and that King is simply lying to get publicity over this event.
THAT was a LOT more believable.
Of all the presidents in my lifetime I trust President Obama the most.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine if McCain won the presidency.
ReplyDeleteOne, he would have to watch his back.
Two he would need to hire someone to try to keep Vice President Sarah Palin busy.
Three. Hire extra staff and security to keep an eye on the Wasilla Hillbilly family when they stop by.
DeleteFour. Hire more security to keep those billies double wide trailers off the lawns.
I have a dog named Mo. He is a Bichon Frise and is hypoalergenic the same as Bo. (That is, will not cause alergies) He is white and curly. He is about one third the size of Bo and has a heart of gold. I look at that photo of Obama with his dog and my heart just melts. My dog looks at me the same way. If there were no other reason I love this president, his dog would be that reason.
ReplyDeleteThat's the nature of outsourcing, Gryphen.
ReplyDeleteLoss of control with the contract going to the lowest bidder.
Look at what is happening to education, particularly online cough - Pearson Ed - cough.
Hodgepodge curriculum written by freelancers with no oversight - because it's CHEAPER that way. Online "Teachers" hired because they "don't want to deal with kids face to face."
A society that blogs and posts personal details on Facebook doesn't have much credibility to whine about the violation of privacy.
ReplyDeleteThe NSA director under Bush says that he commends the president for being more transparent than the Bush administration, which mined data but didn't inform Congress. The president has notified Congress 22 times about this program. If your representative is lying about being in the dark, then the voter needs to remedy that issue--in the voting booth.
The president hasn't done one thing wrong, and it's disingenuous for liberals to suggest otherwise. Amazon, Google, Goodreads have the real personal data. NSA is gathering metadata, not listening in on conversations. To be honest, they can waste all the time they want analyzing my phone calls from Sallie Mae when the school loan payments are late or robocalls from my alma mater.
It's interesting how quickly we moved from the Boston Marathon bombing and wanting to be safe at home to this phony outrage.
We really have to make up our minds. Do we want a shrinking government? Because guess what, when the government shrinks, which means shedding jobs, then contractors are hired, and those contractors in turn have employees who are the barely literate sons and daughters of lobbyists and Congressmen. If we want qualified government employees working at NSA, not high school dropouts, then that means bigger budgets, bigger deficits, and paying higher taxes. Surely we can't actually believe that the president has control over NSA (or IRS) hiring.