Is it time to throw Obama under the bus? Is it time for Obama to throw people under the bus? Bush? [View all]

[Coyotl]

The context of these two questions, of course, is with regard to spying on everyone, everywhere, all the time.

The questions are simplified for those of/among us who had sufficient insider knowledge or information (leaks) to have full knowledge spying on everyone, everywhere, all the time was happening. The military-intelligence electronic infrastructure was designed to be monitored before it evolved into the Internet with public access. The capability to monitor everything is more recent. Some of us knew directly or via leaked information that Bush was doing this illegally or quasi-illegally, and reported same. Some remained in the dark or choose to not believe it. To get to the simplification, some of us had well-informed opinions of this matter when George W. Bush was President, and we sure metaphorically threw him under their bus. Which brings us to a third question.

What kind of person are you, one whose thinking is shaped by political tendency to favor a party or politician, or one who has their own independent political opinions that are a guide to one's own multitudinous opinions of politicians and political parties and their diverse activities? Well, at the end of the day their are just human agents taking actions while political parties are conceptual entities, tools of human agency. Thus the narrower question, a focus on Obama and by inference any politician, focuses directly on the individuals not parties, while parties are relevant to our individual responses to knowledge of the spying. If you knew or believed the spying was happening on Bush's watch, this question is easier to answer (albeit contextualized by illegalities and changes in law under Bush).

The next question depends a lot on how you answer the last one. So, the topic is best confined to the already very broad discussion outlined above and restated as:

Regarding spying, Who needs to be thrown under this bus? There's lots of room.

This all moves us on from the implicit question in all this, "Is the United States of America spying on everyone, everywhere, all the time?"? After Snowden the situation seems to be "asked and answered" instead of "leaks and whistleblowers indicate."

Personally, I think Obama should throw Bush under the bus and reverse course on spying by turning it into a national and global dialogue a la democracia.