Through the smoke and mirrors in his first news conference in four months, President Obama shows us one hand, while hiding the other. He acknowledges that the American people have a growing lack of confidence in what goes on in Washington. You know, from all those phony scandals which, btw, he has refused to
name. Why? Maybe because not one “reporter” asked him what he thought the phony scandals were, or are? And it’s not about Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden.
It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs. The American people have to have confidence as well.
To restore confidence, the President is going to have to do more than speak about it as an innocent bystander. A tactic the media lets him get away with.
So far, all he has actually done drains confidence, not builds it. Americans are losing confidence. Not only because of the NSA spying (on Americans) programs, the intimidation from the IRS, and the not-so-blind justice of the Justice Department, but also because no one has been held to account. Not NSA Director James Clapper for lying to Congress. IRS officials that we know (so far) were responsible for targeting political adversaries have received promotions. And not one policy change, zip, zero, nada, has been made to insure that such government intimidation and abuse of power won’t, or can’t, happen again.
There’s plenty of reasons Americans are losing confidence in their government Mr. President. It all starts, and ends, with you!
Link: Obama speaks out on Snowden, calls for greater transparency on surveillance
h/t Mark O’Brien
