Obama’s "I’m-Not-Dick-Cheney" Standard for Government Secrecy [View all]
On several threads recently I've made the observation that some of the stuff Obama
is doing -- related to creating an intrusive 100% saturation surveillance matrix, coupled
with a national security police-state aparatus, with kill lists and drones -- would not have
been tolerated by the Democrats on the Hill under a Republican President.
For pointing this out, I've been subjected to harsh derision and ridicule, by "outraged"
DUers that I would entertain such a notion, assuring me that under Prez. RawMoney,
we'd have it much worse, so I shouldn't worry. Move along now. Nothing here to see.
Well, then I see this on firedoglake, and as often happens, I find that someone else has
written the article I could have written myself on this topic, as is the case with this article;
which illustrates the exact point I was making, and it apparently came out of the mouth of
Obama himself.
Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, upset about not being provided with memos containing the legal justification for targeted killing operations, such as drone strikes, was apparently told by President Barack Obama not to worry because he is not Vice President Dick Cheney.
POLITICO reports:
…Near the outset of his closed-door session with the Senate Democratic conference on Tuesday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) confronted the president over the administration’s refusal for two years to show congressional intelligence committees Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memos justifying the use of lethal force against American terror suspects abroad…
Obama apparently responded, “This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here.” He argued his administration was “more open to oversight than that of President George W. Bush, whom many Democratic senators attacked for secrecy and for expanding executive power in the national security realm.” He also said, as if it was some kind of valid justification for secrecy, he was “not involved in drafting such memos.”
As a Senior life-long progressive "radical"/Democrat (sometimes Independent or Green),
I feel it is my civic duty to point out the insidious nature of hyper-technological draconian
over-reach (with security cameras every where, drones on their way, DHS buying billions
of bullets and armor-plated vehicles mysteriously, etc.) , no matter WHO is in charge of it,
or WHO tries to tell me "Just Trust Us, we're the good-guys".
I don't need to be reminded that Obama "is better than" RawMoney on many fronts, but
on the civil liberties front this is small consolation when "better than" looks like my worse
nightmare taking shape, in terms of the kind of world or society I want to live in.
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