Barack Obama checks to see if he still needs the umbrella held by a US marine. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters
You can argue that Republicans have blocked President Obama from
doing just about anything. You can argue that he's had bad luck. You
can argue that he isn't always the greatest orator. But you can't argue
away that the Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of
seizing phone records from the Associated Press. Or the flimsy rationale justifying
drone attacks abroad and
at home. Or the
bizarre step the Pentagon has taken
to expand the ability of the military to intervene in state and local
matters. Or the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open years after Obama
vowed he would close it, and the US is making headlines
for force feeding inmates.
These are actions that President Obama and his top team have taken on their own.
Yes,
the various scandals have been politicized this week. That's the
American we live in today, but even among Obama voters, there should be
genuine disappointment. This not the President Obama we voted for, not
even close.
I was in Washington DC the night that
Barack Obama
was elected president in 2008. As usual, people were hopping from bar
to bar to watch the returns come in and high five friends (or boo, in
some cases). When it became clear that Obama had won and he
gave his victory speech,
something happened that I have rarely witnessed in America: spontaneous
demonstrations broke out. People started marching down some of the main
streets, many shaking keys or banging on pots and pans. Others carried
American flags. Cars honked (more than usual) in solidarity.
It was mostly young people marching – from varied backgrounds. Many of these parades
ended up in front of the White House
where chants of "goodbye Bush" (or some variation thereof) began. It
was the same slogan heard as Barack Obama was sworn in as president in
January 2009 and Bush flew away in a helicopter.
There was a
belief, especially among voters in their 20s and 30s, that Obama was
going to be different. That his promises to "change the culture in
Washington" were real. That his administration wouldn't be beholden to
lobbyists and conduct executive power grabs. That
any wars would be justified.
This was, after all, the candidate who put statements on
his website like:
"The
Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked
a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other
previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court."
Don't
get me wrong, we've seen cracks in Obama's idealism since he was sworn
in as president. It is typified in the fact that prisoners –
166 of them – are still detained at Guantanamo Bay despite Obama's promises to close the prison swiftly after he took office.
But this week was one head-shaking moment too many for me, and it appears from the president's
sinking approval rating
that others – including some who gave Obama a real chance – are with
me. As a registered Republican, I thought long and hard about whether to
vote for Obama, but I crossed party lines, as did many of my young
peers. I wanted a more transparent and accountable government. I wanted
America to make a very different statement after the Bush years.
Yet even setting aside Benghazi and the IRS conservative targeting ordeal, which is a big set aside considering
reports now suggest that officials in Washington were very much involved, there's still plenty that makes Obama's presidency
eerily reminiscent of the Bush administration, especially when it comes to these "trust us, this is in the name of national security" kind of statements.
Huh?
The government just had to seize the phone records of 20 Associated
Press phone lines, including on in the agency's Congress bureau, and not
tell anyone about it for what appears to be weeks. This was supposedly
done because of a leak about a failed al-Qaida plot in Yemen on the
anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death in 2012. But as the
AP has stated,
it held the article for several days before publication because of a
government request, and CIA Director John Brennan later testified that
there was no threat to the American people since the plot was foiled.
Keep in mind that candidate Obama opposed the Bush administration's
warrantless wiretapping of US citizen phones in the name of national security.
Something doesn't line up here, and the fact that no one in the Justice Department has been
fired like the IRS acting commissioner suggests that the White House doesn't see anything wrong.
No, this isn't in the league of weapons of mass destruction that don't exist. But add the AP overreach to the
Obama administration's stance on
drones,
inaction on Guantanamo and the continued push to expand military and
intelligence powers and you get more of the same old White House power
grabs.
This isn't the president so many took to the streets to
cheer on in 2008. And the blame for that can't be placed solely on
partisan politics or the media's thirst for a good scandal.
No comments:
Post a Comment