Think what you like about the Obama Administration. Insist the president was born in Kenya if you want to make a fool of yourself. Whisper conspiracy theories about his supposedly Muslim roots and socialist agenda if it makes you feel “in the know.” Even paint lurid pictures of a Big Brother government spying on us – on our phones, on the web, from drones in the sky. If that kind of melodrama makes you happy, enjoy!
But don’t make a hero of Edward Snowden.
Snowden is a traitor.
He has admitted openly that he took a job with a contractor for the National Security Agency for the sole purpose of spying on his country. To me that’s about as low as a human being can get.
The United States is not perfect. Far from it. But it’s the man’s country, after all. By betraying his country, this puffed up punk has provided aid and comfort to its enemies. In Britain – or any British colony – back in my dad’s time, he would have been shot.
I know you’ve seen all those movies that suggest “the government” is evil, that if you get on the wrong side of the right people you end up being pursued by spooks and SWAT teams – or whatever. And I don’t doubt there’s some truth to the underlying premise. Power corrupts, etc.
But there’s a right way to crusade against totalitarian tactics. And sabotaging your country’s security is not it.
To describe Snowden as an idealist is childishly credulous. Snowden is at best a megalomaniac, with an insatiable lust for fame; at worst who knows? It could well turn out that he is nothing more than a paid provocateur in the pocket of a rival power like Russia. His motive could well have been money.
There are so many people who want to make this president look bad. But while I don’t always agree with him, I am sure of one thing – he means well.
I do not believe that Barack Obama is the kind of person who would approve of a Big Brother program that violates the rights of Americans.
We’re finding out that he had nothing to do with the IRS targeting Tea Party groups. And that he’s not the villain of Benghazi after all. But the “scandals” won’t go away. Indeed, new “revelations” keep coming.
No other president has been so beleaguered, so suspected, so misrepresented. He is even simultaneously portrayed as Hitler and Stalin – which is an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Now, his critics want us to believe he is some kind of Orwellian dictator.
Really?
Isn’t his real offense – to many of these critics, anyway – the fact that he was born black?
