Why the NSA scandal belongs squarely in President Obama's lap [View all]

[Savannahmann]

If you hire me as a Manager, then the things that happened before I showed up to run a department are not my fault. I wasn't there, I can't be expected to fix things that happened before then. I can be and absolutely should be held responsible for things that happen from the time I show up onward.

Bush was an idiot. We said so on this board many many times. We posted polls that the majority of people said so.

We cheered President Obama's election. We called him a Genius during the campaign, and many times since. Bush shredded the Constitution, and we protested it.

So we take the two cases. An idiot who wasn't smart enough to understand the importance of the Constitution. One who was accepted to Harvard Business School based upon his family influence. Then Daddy kept him safe from the nasty old War in Vietnam. A Frat boy who never earned a thing in his life. Too stupid to even manage to own a baseball team without losing a ton of other people's money. It was too much to expect that Bush the idiot would understand the 4th Amendment. He probably used that phrase to request a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. A moron who agreed with the Fascist bastards Rove and Cheney when they proposed this crap.

If limited mental capacity is justification for mitigation of sentence, then we must admit that Bush was certainly limited in mental capacity. That doesn't mean he should be forgiven by any stretch of the imagination. However, when assigning blame, we should recognize that he was an idiot and almost certainly didn't come up with this. Undoubtedly Cheney did, with Rove, and when they briefed Bush with hand puppets told him all was cool with it.

But President Obama has no such excuse. Unlike Bush, he was not only a Law School Grad instead of a Business School graduated by his Family name, but actually taught Constitutional Law. President Obama almost certainly lectured on the 4th Amendment during his tenure. He certainly studied it at Harvard Law. So we find that one was an idiot, and the other was a genius who taught the importance of the 4th Amendment.

President Obama had a choice. A choice to say no. A choice to defend the Constitution as he swore an oath to do. A choice that was dictated to him by his legal education. From the NY Times covering his initial inauguration.

Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday before a massive crowd reveling in a moment of historical significance, and called on Americans to confront together an economic crisis that he said was caused by “our collective failure to make hard choices.”

He didn't make the right choice, he didn't make the hard choice. He took the easy way out, and for that, the blame rests squarely on his shoulders. He had the power, and he failed to take the right action, the action that was required by the Constitution, and by his oath. We can blame Congress, for they share some blame. But one man had the power to say no. That one man did not do the right thing when he absolutely knew better.