A Diminishing America

It has now been a year since Edward Snowden let the world in on the fact that the U.S. government had built and was using a 1984-esque intelligence-gathering apparatus to spy on you, and me, and our neighbors, and our grandparents, and foreigners and foreign leaders (including allies).  The U.S. government lied about it then, and is now trying it's best to demonize Snowden, particularly Secretary of State John F. Kerry.

If the Obama Administration and democratic politicians in general continue down this path they will (a) convince Republican voters of things which FOX News has already convinced them of, and (b) turn off millions of Democratic and Independent voters who are already cognizant of the fact that the big issue is not the leaker, nor the leak, but the Stasi-like overreaches of the U.S. government uncovered by Snowden.  The [Secretary] doth protest too much, methinks…

Fortunately the Republicans are similarly making asses of themselves in their attempt to smear the Obama Administration over Bowegazi.  One simple question that pulls down their pants on this is, "So, you believe we should have left the American P.O.W. behind?"  They are even trotting out Oliver North to tell us what a bad thing it is to negotiate with terrorists.  Oliver North.  Who negotiated with two different sets of what Dubyah would refer to as "evildoers" on different continents at the same time: he sold arms to Iran and in turn used the proceeds from these dealings to support cocaine trafficking death squads in Nicaragua to whom Congress had expressly forbidden aid.

The media is also repeating many an allegation against Sgt. Bergdahl with such iron-clad attributions as, "according to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News."  The real-world translation of that sentence is , "We have no idea whether this is true or not but, because it fits our narrative, we are reporting it."

The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" was buried at Guantanamo Bay in 2002, I realize that, but the speed with which the mainstream media today convicts people who have yet to even been charged with anything still astounds.  It's almost as if the presumption of innocence principle wasn't an essential part of freedom for centuries before Darth Cheney came along.

At this rate a third party candidate will have a cakewalk to the White House in 2016.  I'll be launching a campaign exploratory committee as soon as I can find my keys.