How to trap a whistleblower (opens in new tab)

I wonder, though, if perhaps a lot of "power decisions" are made at the margin.

(I mean "making decisions at the margin" in the way that economists use the term. For example: I wish cheese was free. But, in real life, I have a choice between $2.49 cheese and $2.19 cheese. So I buy the cheaper cheese, not the free cheese. Because the free cheese doesn't exist.)

If the President has to make small decisions about "the lesser of two evils", then how much power does he really have?

For example: He said he would close Guantanamo Bay, but didn't. One theory is that he was full of shit. He's just a tool. Another theory is that there wasn't the political capital to accomplish such a thing. As in: there was enough push-back from his own party... he didn't want to alienate some of his friends... as in, he couldn't afford to. So he says: "Screw it. A couple hundred people in hell isn't worth my career if I can focus on other things that can benefit more people."

(I'm not trying to be an apologist for Obama here. I think Washington is pretty horribly corrupt in both parties...)

So I'm left to wonder: Sure, no smart politician is going to burn his own career for a couple hundred foreigners that the citizens hate anyway (I guess...). But why is Gitmo still open? What does it accomplish? (I keep going around in circles trying to figure out why anyone loves Gitmo...)

A president "spends power" at the margins. He spent a lot of power on Obamacare. (You call in favors, you do the horse-trading...) But he has spent no power against the "Security Industrial Complex". I guess it's not something that he cares to achieve. People are calling it "Bush's 4th term". I understand the contractors profit from "Fear of Terrorists". And I'm sure there are some military / intelligence people who are actually hard-core about it. But, outside of that.... who the fuck loves it? I just don't get it... Washington has wrapped itself into a self-sustaining engine of fear...

... oy vey. And here we're not supposed to be getting all political on HN... :-/

Agreed, he was bought and paid for like nearly all the politicians that came before him.

It's kind of amusing on some level because the trope goes: Let's demand xyz be done about xyz, but let's not do/think of what we can to work on xyz ourselves within our own local communities before we are given permission by the establishment, who made xyz possible, to impose it on everyone else.

If by rhetoric you refer to Obama's campaign: The fact he didn't act as he said he would doesn't lessen the values of the rhetoric he held.

The arguments, the conviction, the ideology developed during his campaign holds the same values today as it did yesterday. The earth is round and it isn't less so if crooks say it.

Yes. He had one motive, to get elected. He said whatever would convince money to contribute, and he said whatever would convince people to vote. And none of it meant a thing.

This is true for all politicians. Even the one you think is yours.

There will be no Messiah.

> Another explanation that I sadly believe to be much more realistic is that Obama never had pure motives.

FYI, no one has pure motives past the age of 10. There are only people who delude themselves into thinking their motives are pure.

To understand that Nobel, you have to understand two things:

1. The awarding of the Nobel peace prize is ALWAYS political, not just in this case. The committee is wielding a tool, that is all.

It is no use getting upset by the assumption that this committee is a moral authority and Obama got unfair special treatment. They give these prizes as a political tool or signal.

2. This prize was given in the context of a bounty of needless new wars/colonial projects, especially Iraq. You can figure out what the intended signal was from this.

Now you have to admit that our involvement in Iraq has reduced dramatically, and now at least we have a timetable for Afghanistan. But that's actually beside the point. The peace prize is given as a tool by a certain European set to exert influence. It's not a justly-given award for moral perfection.

Unless you understand these things, you are going to keep scratching your head about that Nobel prize forever.

Quote: "So, let's revert back to racist treatment? This statement of yours is what drove me to the keyboard this early in the morning."

Forgive me, I only meant to say that he was supposed to help injustice, a world he claims to have come from. Now, he "sits in the front seat" so to speak and makes a mockery of what Rosa Parks endured. She really created change.

the alternative was mccain/palin. In the primaries, Hillary was the alternative. Second time around it was Romney. None of these candidates would have had any substantive differences on these particular issues and on almost every other issue would have been far worse. Single issue voting is just as naive as believing rhetoric at face value.

we absolutely need to protest Obama's actions in this area but as far as voting differently at the presidential level, unless we can radically change our voting system to realistically support 3rd party candidates, presidential politics isn't going to change much.

What they do in legislation isn't the full story, either. People vote against bills that sound like good ideas because there's something nasty subtly buried inside them. People vote for bad bills to collect votes for good ones.

Someone who kept a pristine voting record would not actually get anything done.

The lesson IMO is to rebuild the whole political system, on a foundation made of sane rules. (And that should obviously include all government agencies, especially those which have been corrupting democracy for a few decades now.)

EDIT: Don't forget that one of the earlier whistle blowers said (a few months back) that Obama had been put under surveillance by the NSA as well [0], which means

a) you should expect him to have been vetted by the powers in place before being admitted as a presidential candidate by that 1 of the 2 parties available,

b) "they" have stuff on him and can handle him like a puppet that he seems to have become.

Ergo, it's not about which puppet you elect, it's about the system.

[0] http://www.peterbcollins.com/2013/06/19/boiling-frogs-blockb...

And not Cameron?

Blair had a plan, he managed to execute a fair amount of it, then fell apart. Exactly like Thatcher. Cameron has none. Oh yeah, "austerity", which I think the US has now shown to be not the way to go. Heh, Cameron even nicked that idea off Brown. Like Obama, he just continued with the previous leader's polices.

Sorry, both sides are full of crap. UK, US, its all the same. Its that old thing, "no matter who you vote for, the government always get in."

Forgive me, I only meant to say that he was supposed to help injustice, a world he claims to have come from. Now, he "sits in the front seat" so to speak and makes a mockery of what Rosa Parks endured. She really created change

I hear that a lot, but I'm curious who these masters are. And if you say "corporations" I'd like to know which ones you suspect.

> Obama is a vain, stupid man who believes that he is the president of the United States.

I will intentionally ignore this line above because what you later said would apply to every elected person in any country, not limited to the USA:

> In reality he is manipulated by a small inner group of people who have the real power and who play him like a puppet. Do you really believe that a man of such limited capabilities can stage a successful campaign to become president? Obama is the biggest con ever played on the American people.

Taking that into consideration, I was still hoping that the president's role was something more positive and not completely covering up the NSA's blunders when they got caught with their pants down.

Well, reporting of politics shouldn't necessarily be politics. There is no reason to stoop to the low level of politicians when you call them on their bullshit.

> Politics is full of that sort of indirect language.

Politics may be full of that sort of language, but why are media? This is not North Korea where journalists have to fear punishment for insulting the supreme leader. Or is it?

Why does technicality matter? It's not like being 'legal' or 'non-legal' even matters when it's a pliable circumstance (which is really the problem exposed here) crafted by the law makers that are at work doing their best to serve themselves over the rights of the people (which is kinda the purpose of laws).

Edit: this comment is not specific to your question alone, it's a comment on this specific thread.

Well the prosecution was lying to the judge:

"The Drake case collapsed in spectacular fashion when the judge found that the information Drake possessed was completely unclassified, and had only been marked otherwise after it was seized from his home."

I did not phrase that properly. I meant: technically in the law books and interpreted as such, but violates the spirit of the law and is unconstitutional. At the risk of beating a dead and buried horse, consider the legal definition of "torture".

I doubt he would have had assassins on his trail, but he would have been put through the legal system the same way Manning was.

Also consider the court of public opinion -- there's enough of an uninformed mass who think this is a scumbag who gave American secrets to China and Russia that an administration can bend the laws quite a bit and get away with it.

Financial ruin, stress put on family and friends, etc.

At times I've blurted out that the most serious problem facing Western Civilization now is the news media, journalism, that fails to provide the information needed by well informed citizens.

My hope is that the Internet will make the needed information available and that enough citizens will get and use the information to get the government we need to meet the challenges of our current world.

E.g., the OP points out some of Obama's superficial nonsense, and we discuss it here. Much more such activity, and Obama will have to think twice and talk once, and we might be on the way to better government.

> However, I'm curious what would lead one to expect any other response from a politician.

I will give some examples of US presidents who actually did some things. This will take me into some very contentious history: My goal isn't to take sides in the history but just to illustrate that some presidents actually try to do things. For some of the items in history, you may believe that the presidents did well or poorly; that difference does not concern me here but only that they did do somethings along with, secondarily, to observe that we can differ on the quality of the results. If we do differ on the quality of the results, then we have to accept that presidents who do things can risk failure; one way to avoid both failure and success is not to do anything.

As far as I can tell, no one knows what was in the minds of W and Cheney at the start of Gulf War II -- not even still in the minds of W and Cheney.

But Gulf War II was a big effort and not just some "placating sound bites", platitudes, cliches, fantasy nonsense. I thought that the effort was foolish, but it wasn't small.

So, for Gulf War II, were W and Cheney just pushing out "placating sound bites"? No, I don't think so. Basically I wish all they had done was push out "placating sound bites". Instead, I have to believe that they believed that what they were doing was prudent, maybe even necessary, to "protect and defend" the US. And they had a point: At the time of Gulf War II, doing nothing seemed to risk a significant WMD attack on the US; I didn't really believe there was much risk, but, right, it was a small chance of a big loss and, thus, difficult to evaluate.

Of course, as we know now, what they did in Gulf War II cost the US a lot in blood and treasure. I'm sure there were some brilliant military operations, some grand heroism, and some astounding successes; there were also some major screw ups.

Maybe long term, history will record that the US dumping Saddam in Gulf War II and putting in place a democracy, fragile, a long way from perfect, was a grand turning point in the Mideast, US and world security, taming of radical Islam, and progress for world peace. Hopefully. And I can believe that such was some of what W and Cheney had in mind. I doubt we achieved such success, but maybe.

So, Gulf War II was an example of political leaders actually doing something, that they believed in, that was risky, and that they could get blamed for. I'd say they were high on courage, sense of responsibility, and patriotism but too low on simple, basic, pragmatic smarts.

Else? For Saddam, I'd have put in place one heck of an intelligence operation so I knew what the heck he was/was not doing. I'd turn as an intelligence asset everyone of importance in the place short of his cook and maybe also his cook. Then I'd "Make him a offer he couldn't refuse: 'Behave or you and your family, children, and grandchildren will all perish.'"

Or, for a small example, in Iraq US General "Mad Dog" Mattis told some Sheiks: "I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I plead with you, with tears in my eyes, if you f&&k with me, I'll kill all of you.".

I know; I know; international relations are not supposed to do that. So, adjust the message a little. But, net, I'd have left the thug in power and saved US blood and treasure. If the Iraqi people didn't like their thug, then that was their problem; the role of US policy was mostly just to make sure he was not our problem.

Ike? He pushed the interstate highway system.

Reagan? The Soviets were terrified of Star Wars (I doubt that they should have been), and Reagan used it, along with Poland, etc., to help break up the USSR.

LBJ? He was just determined, beyond belief, to 'fight for freedom' in Viet Nam. He allocated huge US blood and treasure. My view is that the US is fully happy with Viet Nam now (my Brother laser printer was made in Viet Nam and is better than my old HP laser printer), and my view is that the US could have had essentially the same result in 1947, 1956, ..., by doing essentially nothing. Yes, Ho Chi Minh liked to appear on parade reviewing stands in Moscow and Peking -- nothing's perfect -- but actually that meant next to nothing.

Net, lots of US presidents actually try to do big things; mostly I don't like the results; but they don't all just mouth platitudes.

When the press is combative, the press is docile if not subservient since he has entered the political spectrum. If it weren't for Putin's obvious lack of respect for President Obama Snowden would already have been shipped back

Who is the clown here ? Obama or Leno ?

I believe you have a good point, but it appears that so far he is winning. And the Guardian and the Wapo understand how to push an issue before the public. And apparently Snowden has a long list of stuff he can release slowly, once each few days, for a long time.

I don't know why killing OBL is considered a big win, it's not in my opinion. It took so over 10 years, many human lives, run down the US economy from a surplus, American citizens are giving up on some basic freedoms, people are paranoid with fear, got the ugly side out in form of G-bay, torture etc and more over recently, US is loosing credibility e.g. I saw a cloud services website recently being discussed on HN and they mentioned ...We are serious about security, we do not have servers in US... on their website (paraphrasing), it's bad if not being associated with US is one of your business's selling point. I don't know why killing OBL is considered an achievement, but people don't seem to notice at what cost it came. And, the worst part, it was one attack, and the rest US did to themselves. I wish US was a little more resilient. Regarding the banking crisis, they way I see it they did well to maintain status quo and in my opinion they only setup themselves for the next big fall because the same people are responsible for the same banks are probably doing the same thing again. Pulling out of Iraq, it's probably debatable again, because I was for pulling out of Iraq but the current state of Iraq, July being the bloodiest month ever of more than 1000 people killed in July alone, I wouldn't use this as something exemplary for someone's achievements.

If you paid attention, all of Obama's "deadlines" for pulling the US out of Iraq were the same deadlines as Bush. The only time they were different was before the first election.

Economy: Spend a lot of money via TARP I and TARP II and otherwise let Bernanke handle it.

There is one view that the US went from The Great Depression to a hot economy, with 2-3 jobs for everyone who could work, in just 90 days after people started shooting at us. We spent huge bucks, and nearly everything that the bucks bought was junk on a battlefield in a few weeks or sold for war surplus. Still, the spending, even on stuff that was just junk, got us out of The Great Depression.

My view is that mostly the extra spending was just wasted, but, as for the WWII example, have to believe that even wasted such spending can get us out of a great depression. So, I'm not totally against the spending. But the waste was still a black mark. We didn't have just to waste so much of the money.

OBL? Fine. But bringing in Hollywood to make a movie and letting out secret information on Navy Seal tactics was not good. I credit the Navy Seals and the DoD. Even if a president doesn't do anything, there still is the rest of the government, and sometimes it does things. So, can credit Obama for not messing up a good effort across the Potomac River in that five sided funny farm.

US out of Iraq? Another post in this thread says that that was just the schedule anyway.

I can't claim that Obama never does anything. Still, I see a difference: It appears to me that he has the strategy I tried to describe, on a lot of headline issues, pass out a lot of platitudes but actually do something on only a small fraction of those. Otherwise do relatively little and, thus, don't get blamed for failures.

It's all on a continuum and not 0 or 1. It just looks to me like he talks the talk without walking the walk, or some such, more than other presidents since, say, FDR.

Maybe it's good pragmatic leadership, and if so most of the blame is on the mainstream media and the voters. US voters are awash in power, can shake DC just by pulling some levers behind a curtain, and with the Internet are awash in information. If Obama gets away with what the OP described, then the voters get what they deserve.

That's a practical reason, not a moral reason.

What a lame nick.

Who exactly is going to write and pass this law?