I have no problem with politicians, well, being politicians. Spin me, bullshit me, tell me the sky is green and the grass is blue. This is all in a day's work for those guys.
But Obama is crossing a line here. Yes, Congress in the aggregate could do a hell of a lot of things, but not in some generic sense. It's not like one of them could go out and start making press releases.
Intelligence committee members and their staff are the only folks that are supposed to know about intelligence matters. Not "every member of Congress". And they are thoroughly briefed NOT to disclose any information that comes their way. In fact, there are clear penalties for doing so. Releasing unauthorized data is a felony, and felons go to jail, Congressman or not. (And no, Article 1, Section 6 specifically does not cover felonies)
Even then, the intelligence community doesn't brief the intelligence committees on everything -- they've found out from painful experience that somehow or another anything really juicy they tell them always gets out. So with some of this stuff, the only people that were briefed were the majority/minority leaders and the chairmen of the committees. Not "every member of Congress" Not even the people supposedly overseeing intelligence matters.
I think it's one thing to go about bullshitting when it comes to public policy, or any other thing the nation does. But when the government purposely keeps secrets from us, they take on the responsibility to at least honestly explain to us how the system works so that we can address the problem. Not continue to spin us as if this were just some proposed employment law or something. You can't keep it secret and then also lie to us about what we need to do to fix it. For Congress to again be a player here, it would need to pass some major legislation -- and the president would need to sign it. Let's with what that legislation would look like, which the president would be the best person to say (since the executive branch knows all the secrets anyway), and go from there. I'm happy to call up my Congressguy and give him hell -- but not in order to be some kind of pawn in a PR war about whom to blame.
It is common for Administrations to make declarations implying something can be, could have, or should have, knowing full well it cannot, could not, or would not, ever been able to be done. They simply rely on the general ignorance of the public. The public is inclined to believe the simplest of explanations, they don't want to really know how the sausage is made.
But Obama is crossing a line here. Yes, Congress in the aggregate could do a hell of a lot of things, but not in some generic sense. It's not like one of them could go out and start making press releases.
Intelligence committee members and their staff are the only folks that are supposed to know about intelligence matters. Not "every member of Congress". And they are thoroughly briefed NOT to disclose any information that comes their way. In fact, there are clear penalties for doing so. Releasing unauthorized data is a felony, and felons go to jail, Congressman or not. (And no, Article 1, Section 6 specifically does not cover felonies)
Even then, the intelligence community doesn't brief the intelligence committees on everything -- they've found out from painful experience that somehow or another anything really juicy they tell them always gets out. So with some of this stuff, the only people that were briefed were the majority/minority leaders and the chairmen of the committees. Not "every member of Congress" Not even the people supposedly overseeing intelligence matters.
I think it's one thing to go about bullshitting when it comes to public policy, or any other thing the nation does. But when the government purposely keeps secrets from us, they take on the responsibility to at least honestly explain to us how the system works so that we can address the problem. Not continue to spin us as if this were just some proposed employment law or something. You can't keep it secret and then also lie to us about what we need to do to fix it. For Congress to again be a player here, it would need to pass some major legislation -- and the president would need to sign it. Let's with what that legislation would look like, which the president would be the best person to say (since the executive branch knows all the secrets anyway), and go from there. I'm happy to call up my Congressguy and give him hell -- but not in order to be some kind of pawn in a PR war about whom to blame.