The White House issued a long statement today that was pretty sympathetic to the CIA in response to the report. It's appeasing.
I have started to write this several times in the past year and a half, since the NSA revelations: I wonder if Barack Obama has ever felt in physical danger from all these guys. I don't have a conspiratorial bent of mind--Look at everything I've written in the past 12 years, it's just not there. I don't write it, I don't think it.
But look: Those Secret Service failures, the White House breaches; Obama inherited a parallel military government from Bush: spying abroad at unthinkable levels, at home too. Snowden said NSA could bug Obama's phone; this CIA abuse and keeping the truth from both presidents, Bush and Obama; secret courts. It is all so massive, Obama does not own it, it owns him.
How much more direct can I be than "parallel military government?" A coup d'etat would be easy but I don't think that is the fear, if there is any fear at all. If there's a fear it's the fear of intimidation. How could you blame Obama for that, if he has that fear?
There is no history of coups d'etat in the U.S. but there is history of this intimidation: J. Edgar Hoover. A lot of presidents wanted to get rid of Hoover but were...afraid. He had been at FBI so long, had the dirt on EVERYBODY, every president, every candidate. They knew it! And if they tried to cashier him...They didn't know, that's how intimidation works. I have the power to bring you down or to assassinate you and YOU know I have the power. I don't have to say anything, I don't have to threaten you, your knowledge of my power over you is enough to keep you from doing anything "rash."
NSA and CIA power over a president that J. Edgar Hoover could only dream about.
Now, Empathy alert: I'll tell ya man, if I was POTUS and that last mo-fo had jumped the fence armed and nobody had stopped his run across the lawn and he helped himself to a tour of the first floor of the White House, I, Benjamin Harris, would not have concluded that that was another "Oops," I would have concluded that that was a "sign." They're sending me a message that my life and my family's life are in their exquisite control.
And, Wooly in the knees check: I have never been in a fight where my life and the lives of my children have been threatened. I have fought with my career at risk however, and I lost. Lost my career. (I'm on my second career now.). Yet, I can say to a moral certainty that If I was POTUS under identical conditions and did have a fear for my career and my life and my family's life, I would still fight. I would cut back NSA so far it would think it didn't exist anymore; All those programs would be ended. All these CIA activities, GONE, maybe the "Company" itself. I would fold Secret Service into Treasury. With all of them, better rubble than rabble and I would have erred toward reducing them to rubble. I might lose, as I have before, I may die and my family may be killed, but I and they would go out of this life with a BANG! if necessary. We would not go out with a whimper.
Obama however has gone easy on NSA. He went easy on the CIA today. He went easy on the Secret Service failures. Maybe all that wasn't only being easy-going. Maybe he's cowed. Or not! If I'm being conspiratorial, well, it's the first damn time in my life.
Anyway, I will invoke Tolstoy here: This is what I wanted to write in the way I wanted to write it.
I have started to write this several times in the past year and a half, since the NSA revelations: I wonder if Barack Obama has ever felt in physical danger from all these guys. I don't have a conspiratorial bent of mind--Look at everything I've written in the past 12 years, it's just not there. I don't write it, I don't think it.
But look: Those Secret Service failures, the White House breaches; Obama inherited a parallel military government from Bush: spying abroad at unthinkable levels, at home too. Snowden said NSA could bug Obama's phone; this CIA abuse and keeping the truth from both presidents, Bush and Obama; secret courts. It is all so massive, Obama does not own it, it owns him.
How much more direct can I be than "parallel military government?" A coup d'etat would be easy but I don't think that is the fear, if there is any fear at all. If there's a fear it's the fear of intimidation. How could you blame Obama for that, if he has that fear?
There is no history of coups d'etat in the U.S. but there is history of this intimidation: J. Edgar Hoover. A lot of presidents wanted to get rid of Hoover but were...afraid. He had been at FBI so long, had the dirt on EVERYBODY, every president, every candidate. They knew it! And if they tried to cashier him...They didn't know, that's how intimidation works. I have the power to bring you down or to assassinate you and YOU know I have the power. I don't have to say anything, I don't have to threaten you, your knowledge of my power over you is enough to keep you from doing anything "rash."
NSA and CIA power over a president that J. Edgar Hoover could only dream about.
Now, Empathy alert: I'll tell ya man, if I was POTUS and that last mo-fo had jumped the fence armed and nobody had stopped his run across the lawn and he helped himself to a tour of the first floor of the White House, I, Benjamin Harris, would not have concluded that that was another "Oops," I would have concluded that that was a "sign." They're sending me a message that my life and my family's life are in their exquisite control.
And, Wooly in the knees check: I have never been in a fight where my life and the lives of my children have been threatened. I have fought with my career at risk however, and I lost. Lost my career. (I'm on my second career now.). Yet, I can say to a moral certainty that If I was POTUS under identical conditions and did have a fear for my career and my life and my family's life, I would still fight. I would cut back NSA so far it would think it didn't exist anymore; All those programs would be ended. All these CIA activities, GONE, maybe the "Company" itself. I would fold Secret Service into Treasury. With all of them, better rubble than rabble and I would have erred toward reducing them to rubble. I might lose, as I have before, I may die and my family may be killed, but I and they would go out of this life with a BANG! if necessary. We would not go out with a whimper.
Obama however has gone easy on NSA. He went easy on the CIA today. He went easy on the Secret Service failures. Maybe all that wasn't only being easy-going. Maybe he's cowed. Or not! If I'm being conspiratorial, well, it's the first damn time in my life.
Anyway, I will invoke Tolstoy here: This is what I wanted to write in the way I wanted to write it.
