Obama State Secrets Privilege Affidavit Sounds Just Like Bush

Newsweek:

When Attorney General Eric Holder invoked the "state secrets" privilege to quash a lawsuit alleging illegal National Security Agency spying last Friday night, his department's lawyers sounded a lot like those who worked for President George W. Bush. In fact, they justified the action by filing an affidavit from President Obama's director of national intelligence that is nearly identical to one filed by President Bush's intelligence director two years ago.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[DesertShores]

I think the HP moderators have given me a time out!

[Eris23]

And this is how Obama becomes a one term President.

[CoconutLime]

Bingo!

[CoconutLime]

The question is: Is our children safe? LOL

[ChangeurMind]

Tell us something we didn't already know.

[ElkoJohn]

Bush-Lite . . .
Kucinich for Prez in 2012.

[Dr Scott]

More Bush Era BS. Politics as usual. Its going to be a long 4 years.

[Mac Williams]

He's a politician, not the Messiah. He thrives on power. They all thrive on power. The question is not whether he will continue some of the programs the previous administration put in place, but whether he will engage in the massive abuse of power the previous administration engaged in. It's pretty clear that he is going to continue some of those programs. It's much less clear if he will abuse that power.

One other thing is worth bearing in mind: When he made some of those promises, he hadn't been briefed on the current state of national security. Once he was briefed, he likely discovered that some of the promises he made were based on assumptions that weren't even close to the facts. Being a wise man (which I believe he is), he likely was forced to alter his position instead of just charging blindly ahead because he made a promise.

Personally, I would rather spend the next three years with a wise man at the head of the government. Eight years with a dunce at the head of the government didn't get us very far.

Lesson learned, at least from my perspective.

[HWNA]

Agreed and well said.

[alan2a]

All he has to do is buy and ranch and begin clearing Brush for the Clone effect to be complete!!!!!!!

[AxelDC]

For someone who campaigned on change, he has used Bush's abuses of power as precedence too many times.

The reason we have to stand firm against the imperial presidency is because future presidents hate giving up those powers, no matter how harshly they denounced the initial encroachment on our rights.

[nooel]

"change takes time"

[KIVPossum]

Yes. But it is a bit easier to effect change if you attempt change. He's following the path Bush set and not trying to change.

[HWNA]

You lie.

[CoconutLime]

Bull-shite

[ljc]

When will this site stop twisting the facts?

[jingles32]

Won't happen; Arianna's on a mission.

[TheBaffler]

Which facts have been twisted? When will you stop apologizing for his betrayals and get angry for not delivering on his promises?

[themainpoint]

Are you kidding? Go here for the verifiable facts: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

(see Nov. 1 and the archives for more on the subject)

Then come back and try again.

On this issue, the hypocrisy is off the charts. Remember President Obama railing against the abuses of the Bush administration? Remember Holder doing the same. Just too much.

[Truthahn]

Obama is upholding Bush policies that he strongly condemned as a candidate. These are violations of core principles. If we can't trust him on these issues, can we trust him on anything?

[AllieMD]

You trusted a politician? *snicker*

[foxisms]

The audacity of my hope was that Obama would enter office with pen a-blazing and he would repair the damage that the past POTUS and CO had inflicted on this country, our gov't and the office.
While the reality of his term is turning out to do otherwise, that hope has diminished to a large degree, to the point where much to my disappointment and unfortunately, less to my surprise, he appears to be just a more palatable version of the same type of champion of the status quo that any person who rises to this level of office turns out to be.
I can remain as patient as most of us who voted for him, but I have better things to do than continuously listen with my ear to the ground for the earth to shake and give way to the new dawn for America that many of us thought putting Barak Obama in the White House would bring.
I still wish him well.
I just no longer expect very much from him.

[KIVPossum]

cosign

[HWNA]

He's been in office for 9 months...I appreciate that you can be patient but what did you expect?

Barack Obama is a level-headed leader and as such isn't going to blindly stamp his ideology on every aspect of the government in the first year, probably not even in his first term. DC is a notoriously slow-moving town and considering the pace of the gears of our government the things he has already accomplished are significant.

If he sets his focus and tackles these other issues at the pace with which he has done so on health care reform, we are going to be very happy at the end of his first term. Don't buy into the 24-hour news cycle media's insistence that everything be accomplished overnight or he is a failure. The opinions of pundits who live in the 24-hour cycle are driven by the need to constantly create conversations, whether they are based on reality or not.

Don't let them fool you into thinking that their world is reality, because it most definitely isn't. If it was, Barack Obama's campaign would never have left Iowa.

[ywcachieve]

Another misleading inflammatory HP headline...{sigh}

[Coinyer101]

He is better than Bush...., just not that much better. Vote for real progressives from now on. Centrists change nothing.....,

[AxelDC]

Is that what qualifies for success? Being better than the worst president in US history?

[HWNA]

Actually, he is a lot better than the Bush administration.

If you really think he isn't then you have an extremely short memory and not much of a long term perspective.

If by 2012 President Obama's administration has:

Invaded another country
Caused a financial crisis
Outed a CIA agent
Mangled a response to a domestic disaster
Stifled scientific research in favor of evangelical nonsense
Alienated every other country except England
Weakened and/or eliminated crucial EPA rules
Engaged in state sponsored torture
Lied to Congress
Used the Department of Homeland Security to influence election results
Staffed the Justice Department with unqualified ideologues
Allowed terrorists to spill blood on American soil

...then I will gladly join you in your opposition to President Obama.