The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama's Presidency - TheAtlantic

[Luminous Animal]

21. Kevin Drum: On Friday, the President Treated Us Like Five-Year-Olds

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/obama-nsa-surveillance-speech

The fact that Obama doesn't consider Snowden a patriot comes as no surprise. Presidents don't generally approve of people who release large volumes of national secrets. But this was really too much:

Back in May...I called for a review of our surveillance programs....My preference — and I think the American people’s preference — would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws,

....

Please. Only a five-year-old would read that May speech and believe that Obama had any intention of either releasing significant information about our surveillance state or proposing any kind of serious reforms. That speech was mostly about drones—because, tellingly, Obama had been forced into it by recent news stories. In a 7,000-word speech, he devoted approximately three sentences to surveillance. It was little more than an afterthought, and his only concrete proposal, after four years in office, was a laughably buck-passing decision to set up a commission and then hope everyone would forget about the whole thing. Roger McShane called Obama's Friday press conference "surreal, in a Kafkaesque sort of way," but it was worse than that. It was a president treating us all like idiots. Does anyone seriously believe that even the very moderate reforms Obama has proposed so far would have seen the light of day if he hadn't been forced into it?