Obama sponsored bill that would have made Verizon order illegal

[rlegro]

8. Moment of zen

I'm not happy about the NSA program, although that's been true since well before Obama. And it's not because I am convinced they're actually cataloging the content of all those phone calls, rather than the data concerning the sources and destinations. It's a matter of principle and a slippery slope, after all.

But what would any president do with that power? Use it. It's US law, however bad the law. Absent Congress reversing itself or a Supreme Court ruling against the law (likely, huh?), few commanders in chief would want to voluntarily constrain themselves. Go back in time four years. Obama is under heavy fire and has barely gotten to the point where he could pass meaningful legislation. Meanwhile, the tea party and GOP are screaming that Obama is a tyrant and, gasp!, a secret Muslim and thus a proto-terrorist. So say he doesn't use the full measure of powers granted him, there's a terrorist incident, and, boom, he's impeached. Of course, it was THEIR law that, more than anything, enabled whatever tyranny advanced under Obama's watch.

Maybe there's a saint of a policymaker out there who would have said, "Screw this shit; it's unconstitutional." But those guys are sadly few and far between, especially in high politics. Obama was protecting his flanks and using the powers at his command. I disagree with just how aggressive he has turned out to be, but it may have been the only thing granting him and not Mitt Romney this term in the White House. Better the devil you know.

But, moreover, we knew about this program while Bush was still in office; the Fourth Estate got worked up then. too, and the progressive response was pretty much the same. The difference? No one was going to take on Bush in any legal sense. And maybe they won't take on Obama, either, since the other side would like to still have this law on the books whenever they regain command. Arguably, if you're Obama, the very best way to get the law reformed or repealed is to actually USE it.