As NewsBusters has been reporting, it's been a hoot watching typically anti-surveillance liberal media members support the President's program of having the National Security Agency look into everyone's phone records.
Count MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski amongst them, for on Wednesday's Morning Joe, the co-host struck back at any suggestion that leaker Edward Snowden was a whistleblower (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
The unfolding story of the Obama administration monitoring not just telephone records but Internet usage has drawn media coverage with adjectives like “astonishing.” No doubt about it, even the pro-Obama press acknowledges it is a scandal. Still, it is laughable that the media would label him a “dictator” or discuss the “I word.”
That’s not what greeted George W. Bush at the end of 2005. Just eight years ago, journalists openly discussed tyranny and the possibility of impeachment.
With attention drawn to government surveillance of citizens, some in the media are recalling that this has long been an issue. Columnist Phil Kadner of the Southtown Star, a publication of the Chicago Sun-Times, did so in a recent column, "Do you want security or freedom?":
When Communists were suspected of conspiring to undermine our country, innocent political activists were targeted in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. The FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. because he was campaigning for civil rights.
That was not the reason for King’s wiretap, which was carried out by the FBI after Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized it on October 10, 1963. Kennedy believed that two of King’s associates had ties to the Communist party.
In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer seemed perplexed by the Fox News host asserting that "the Obama administration doesn't tell us anything" about numerous government scandals: "So you think there's been less transparency under this administrations than there has been under past administrations?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
O'Reilly responded: "I don't know. I mean maybe, but I can't find out anything. Can you? I don't know what happened in Benghazi, I don't know what happened in the IRS, I don't know what happened with James Rosen....they won't tell us anything."
Norah O'Donnell unsurprisingly conducted a confrontational interview of Senator Rand Paul on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, pummeling the Kentucky Republican for his strong opposition to the National Security Agency's controversial PRISM surveillance program. The anchor played up how "all three branches of government have approved this surveillance" after Paul asserted that "we don't want the government looking at our entire life."
O'Donnell also hammered the senator for supposedly not speaking up earlier about his objections to this electronic monitoring: "There was an invitation in 2011 for...all lawmakers to view this classified report on what was going on....Did you go to that? Why not? Why only now raise these concerns? Congress was briefed on this." [audio available here; video below the jump]
MSNBC anchor Alex Witt took it upon herself to defend President Obama’s reputation on Saturday’s Weekends with Alex Witt. To do so, she employed a favorite liberal tactic: blame George W. Bush for what goes wrong in the Obama administration.
Witt was chatting with David Nakamura of The Washington Post about the NSA’s secret surveillance programs that have recently come to light. It’s a topic that is sure to anger many Americans, so Witt made sure to deflect blame away from Obama and onto his predecessor:
As NewsBusters has been reporting, even the Obama-loving David Letterman has been humorously attacking the current White House resident for all the scandals plaguing him.
On the CBS Late Show Monday, the host said that Obama gave daughter Sasha Justin Bieber’s phone records for her birthday (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Sometimes, video can really clarify things like nothing else. You'll likely agree after watching the video below featuring presidential candidate and inexperienced Illiniois Senator Barack Obama discuss the issue of surveillance as practiced by the George W. Bush Administration compared to what now-president Obama has to say about the same subject matter.
Beyond the legality of the spying that's been conducted for years on behalf of Obama by the National Security Agency, it is transparently obvious that Barack Obama has violated his campaign promises on this issue. Naturally, we don't expect this video to get much play from the Obama-adoring media:
We're beginning to learn a lot more about National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
For instance, it was discovered Monday that Snowden supported Ron Paul for president last year.
Sometime late Thursday afternoon, an editorial at the New York Times bitterly criticizing President Obama for the expansion of surveillance efforts during his administration contained this sentence: "The administration has lost all credibility." Within a few hours, as seen here, that sentence was changed to "The administration has lost all credibility on this issue," and set off in a separate paragraph.
The Times is pretending that it didn't do what it obviously did:
Comedian Steve Martin stepped into the political ring this weekend tweeting numerous comments about the newest scandal facing the White House.
His most recent one reads, "Wearing my NSA spy-phone helmet as I bike by the UN is the definition of cacophony":
George Will had some harsh words for the Obama administration Sunday.
Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Will said that the recent revelation concerning National Security Agency information gathering is going to metastasize the IRS controversy into a national security scandal, and concluded that as a result, “the willingness to trust the executive branch is today minimal and should be.”
