What we're doing in Libya apparently isn't very hostile . . .

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As consistent as any other politician, and Obama wasn't a presidential candidate in 2005, either. There's a reason that individuals trying to brand him as dishonest or hipocritical tend to juxtapose Senator Obama with President Obama -- juxtaposing candidate Obama with President Obama doesn't actually work very well, since Obama's actions as president are in fact quite consistent with the platform he built and maintained after throwing his hat into the ring in 2007. Of the three front-runners, his platform was the closest to the center. For some reason, a lot of people failed to notice that. Maybe it was because he was black?

 

Yep, on some issues 2011-Obama is a real right-wing pain in the ***.

I like the "Candidate Bush vs President Bush" more, though. "We will not engage in nation-building," what a kidder .

 

Hmm. I do find it sad that politicians are expected to never evolve or refine their positions in this day and age, and while I find the comic amusing on one level, I find it saddening on another. Many key portions of the act have been altered, limited, or banned as the result of various court rulings since 2005, so it is in many ways not the same legislation that Obama attacked in 2005.

Beyond that, democrats -- Obama included -- overreacted to many other key portions of the legislation and, since many of the feared abuses never materialized, the reasons for opposing the legislation on those grounds have faded. After examining such issues with a team in order to create a solid electoral platform, some of Obama's views have indeed evolved considerably, often in directions that have angered the left. This is perfectly normal. Politicians, just like the rest of us, can and should change their minds. They can and should evolve their views on various issues over time. They shouldn't be punished for it, nor should they need to run from or apologize for the fact that they now see some issues differently than they once did.

 

...Just like a woman.

Good to see back again, Late Night Thinker.

 

I hear that was an awesome debate hosted by John Stewart.

However maybe you missed how W was being consistent. See nation building involves governments actually doing something for their people. So if we sit back and allow heroin transporting warlords turned government ministers to pocket money supposedly intended for the health care, agricultural aid, and the education of their own people while local police shakedown drivers for their watches it becomes totally consistent with having military forces in their countries but not nation building-even if there are occasionally people shooting at each other.

See having a military there is not inconsistent with avoiding nation building so long as you successfully manage to avoid doing anything that may resemble a nation successfully being built or people's day to day lives being improved. Its when those last two start happening that W would have had to worry about being inconsistent.

 

Not to sound too conspiratorial, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the abuses of a semi-secret wire-tapping program would not be reported to the public? Particularly if those abuses were not internally perceived as such? I suppose if something immoral is occuring, we just have to place our trust in the courage of whistle-blowers.

 

Funny thing about warrant-less wiretapping. It, uh, isn't really different from the way things were done before. I actually worked at the NSA before the Patriot Act was passed, and I still remember the procedures for when an American came on a monitored channel. If there was reason to believe that good intel would be gained from the contact, we did not cease monitoring the channel. If no valid intel was gained, the data was destroyed. If valid intel was gained, a request was issued after the fact for a warrant. If the warrant was approved, we got to keep the data. The court we submitted requests to was a rubber stamp. All Bush did was remove that rubber stamp, what was essentially a non-existent check on the intelligence community. Americans of course fear that the NSA/CIA/FBI/etc would now use their new-found powers to spy on them without just cause. This really didn't happen, and there was never any real danger that it would. Why? Our intel and law enforcement communities only have so many resources -- they lack the manpower to individually investigate every pimply faced teenager that checks out the Anarchist's Cookbook. Finding leads has never been the problem -- the problem has always been narrowing them down. The average American simply isn't special enough to warrant monitoring by a government agency.

 

That program was secret and it was illegal. In this instance Obama was as bad, if not worse than Bush Some think he was worse than Nixon on this issue.

An insider's look at what happened:

More:

This is where the courage of whistle blowers gets them:

Don't count on Obama....

This sums up pretty much how the game is played:

 

I never worked for the NSA or anything like that, but I agree with this in general. There really are no secret agents hiding outside in your bushes unless you're Al Capone or somebody.

Still, I think the fear many people have is the whole slippery slope thing. e.g. there could come a time when there are enough resources to monitor everybody Big Brother style. I kind of doubt that myself (not only are most Americans not that special, they're downright boring - imagine listening to your grandma discuss Oprah for a thousand hours and then ask yourself what the chances are of that happening x 300 million), but I do understand the apprehension in that context.

 

Gaear - I agree about the "slippery slope." The average American has rights according to the Constitution. However: