Recent revelations of the NSA’s startling overreach-from its use of data mining to its extensive collection of civilian phone records- have rocked the Obama administration once again and given angry Republicans even more fodder while providing Democrats with another reason to question the integrity of their man. The New York Times, which has given the president a questionable amount of leeway during his reign thus far, published a withering critique of the administration on their editorial page Friday which claimed that President Obama has ‘lost all credibility’ on the issue of reconciling individual rights with homeland security.
Other Obama fans have joined in the chorus of critics calling for the president to be held accountable for his actions. Julie Roginsky served as a political strategist for the late Senator Frank Lautenberg, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr., Albio Sires, and Steve Rothman, and was the communications director for Senator Jon Corzine. As a Democrat, she issued a passionate call Friday for fellow progressives to stand up against this administration’s executive power abuses:
The events of the past month – from the Associated Press subpoena to the James Rosen search warrant to the revelation that our government has been indiscriminately collecting phone records data – have forced liberals to make a choice between complacency and outrage, between keeping silent because one of our own is in the White House and calling him out on betraying the principles for which we have fought for so long.
Refuting the tired defense that the Bush administration was just as bad or worse, a go-to for many on the left, Roginsky referenced the unpopular Patriot Act in her charge:
Progressives rightly denounced the overreach of the Bush administration when it came to abuses of the Patriot Act. We should just as strongly denounce the expansion of those abuses by this administration.
Many of us did not buy the previous administration’s excuse that overreaching infringement upon the civil rights of ordinary Americans was a necessary step in keeping those same ordinary Americans safe. We should not buy it from this administration now, simply because this president is ostensibly one of us.
She isn’t the only one crying foul on Team Obama. Politico writes that Washington has ‘turned on’ the president, and that his actions have left him with ‘little reservoir of good will,’ even among his friends in the press and Congress. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post argues that ‘Obama is killing the Democratic Party,’ detailing the president’s many missteps and alleging that “not even Jimmy Carter did this much, I would suggest, to jerk his party to the left and hobble its electoral prospects.” Liberal columnist Frida Ghitis says that the president is ‘failing on moral leadership,’ pointing to his floundering on both Syria and Guantanamo Bay as evidence. Maureen Dowd claims that the president ‘still has not learned how to govern.’ Prominent Democratic politicians, like Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and former Vice President Al Gore, are speaking out against their fearless leader. And of course, the blogosphere has been whipped into a frenzy with the emergence of the latest White House scandal.
The tide may be turning for the 44th. Only time will tell if he still has the clout to get the remainder of his second-term agenda through Congress with so much baggage hanging around his neck.
