{"id":12461,"date":"2018-09-13T09:05:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T13:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=12461"},"modified":"2022-08-12T21:50:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T01:50:12","slug":"usa-today-obama-fueled-the-cynicism-he-now-denounces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/13\/usa-today-obama-fueled-the-cynicism-he-now-denounces\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY: Obama Fueled the Cynicism He Now Denounces"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

USA TODAY, September 13, 2018<\/h1>\n

Barack Obama’s return just reminds us how he fueled the distrust that led to Donald Trump<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/section>\n
\n
by James Bovard, Opinion columnist<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Who cares if Obama belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability?\u00a0He should admit that he made the government more dangerous at home and abroad.<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Former president Barack Obama is back. He kicked off a series of campaign appearances last week with a\u00a0blistering attack on the Trump administration and said the Republican Party had \u201cembraced a rising absolutism<\/a>.\u201d President Donald Trump deserves plenty of harsh criticism, but Obama\u2019s indictment is akin to the kid who killed his parents and then sought mercy from the judge because he was an orphan.<\/p>\n

Obama\u00a0declared that\u201cthe biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism<\/a>.<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0He also called for \u201ca restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0But his eight years as president\u00a0fueled the distrust of Washington<\/a> that Obama now condemns.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How can Obama blame Americans for being cynical after repeating dozens of times his false promise<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cIf you like your doctor, you\u2019ll be able to keep your doctor,\u201d despite the dozens of mandates in Obamacare?\u00a0How can he blame Americans for being cynical after his 2015 assertion that \u201cit is\u00a0easier for a teenager to buy a Glock<\/a> than get his hands on a computer\u00a0or even a book\u201d?\u00a0How can he castigate cynics after he campaigned in 2008 on a peace platform and then proceeded to\u00a0bomb seven nations<\/a>? How can he complain about distrust after\u00a0he flip-flopped on illegal surveillance<\/a>\u00a0and unleashed the National Security Administration to target anyone\u00a0\u201csearching the web for suspicious stuff<\/a>\u201d?<\/p>\n

Obama created the problems he lists<\/h3>\n

Obama declared Friday that Americans are \u201csupposed to stand up to bullies<\/a>, not follow them.\u201d\u00a0But Trump won in 2016 in part because many Americans considered the federal government the biggest bully in the lan<\/strong>d.\u00a0Obama relied on \u201cbureaucratic bulldozing<\/a> rather than legislative transparency,\u201d according to\u00a0The New York Times, issuing 50% more \u201cmajor regulations\u201d than the George W. Bush administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of you don\u2019t remember a time before 9\/11, when you didn\u2019t have to take off your shoes at an airport,\u201d Obama told the students. Did they\u00a0realize that the Transportation Security Administration became far more punitive and intrusive during Obama\u2019s presidency?\u00a0Obama appointees brought in Whole Body scanners across the nation and\u00a0entitled TSA agents to aggressively touch travelers\u2019 genitals and breasts<\/a>.\u00a0But despite all that additional power, TSA remained the\u00a0poster boy for incompetence\u00a0and TSA checkpoints still failed to detect 95% of smuggled guns and bombs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy depends on transparency and accountability,\u201d Obama said, and \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don\u2019t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don\u2019t like<\/a>.\u201d But, despite boasting of\u00a0 \u201cthe\u00a0most transparent administration<\/a> ever,\u201d Obama expanded federal secrecy and prosecuted\u00a0more journalists and whistleblowers<\/a> than any previous administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Obama took office, the United States had the\u00a020th-most-free press<\/a> in the world, according to the Reporters Without Borders\u2019 World Press Freedom Index. By\u00a02016, it had fallen to 41st<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 worse than South Africa and barely ahead of Botswana. Obama appointees severely undermined the Freedom of Information Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel<\/a>,\u201d the former president said. Trump\u2019s declarations\u00a0a<\/strong>bout federal prosecutions<\/a> are appalling. But while the FBI was investigating the legality of Hillary Clinton\u2019s private email server,\u00a0Obama repeatedly publicly declared\u00a0that she had\u00a0committed no crime.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Inspector General report released in June revealed that, after a half-hearted probe,\u00a0the FBI planned to absolve Clinton<\/a>\u00a0unless she openly confessed to wrongdoing when FBI agents finally talked to her.\u00a0The stifled investigation of her\u00a0email shenanigans helped assure her the Democratic Party presidential nomination and, indirectly, paved the way to a Trump\u00a0presidency.<\/p>\n

Obama handed Trump a loaded weapon<\/h3>\n

Obama is correct that Americans should be on guard against any \u201cabsolutism\u201d from the Trump administration.\u00a0But don\u2019t forget that Obama administration lawyers asserted a right to kill U.S. citizens<\/a> who it labeled terrorist\u00a0suspects without trial, without notice, and without any chance for the marked individuals\u00a0to legally object. Drone strikes increased tenfold under Obama<\/a>, and he\u00a0personally chose who would be killed at weekly \u201cTerror Tuesday<\/a>\u201d White House meetings\u00a0which featured PowerPoint parades of potential targets.<\/p>\n

Americans should be alarmed at Trump\u2019s power grabs. But Obama helped establish an Impunity Democracy in which rulers pay no price for their misdeeds.<\/strong> As the New York Times noted after the 2016 election, the Obama administration fought in court to preserve the legality <\/a>of defunct Bush administration practices\u00a0such as torture and detaining Americans arrested at home as \u201cenemy combatants.\u201d\u00a0\u201cObama\u2019s failure to rein in George Bush\u2019s national security policies hands Donald Trump a fully loaded weapon<\/a>,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero lamented.<\/p>\n

Who cares if an ex-president belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability?\u00a0 Obama has never admitted how his policies made the federal government more dangerous at home and abroad.\u00a0Nothing that Trump can do or say should be permitted to expunge Obama\u2019s derelictions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Bovard,\u00a0author of “Attention Deficit Democracy,<\/a>” is\u00a0a member of\u00a0USA TODAY\u2019s\u00a0Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter:\u00a0@JimBovard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USA TODAY, September 13, 2018 Barack Obama’s return just reminds us how he fueled the distrust that led to Donald Trump by James Bovard, Opinion columnist Who cares if Obama belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability?\u00a0He should admit that he made the government more dangerous at home and abroad. Former president Barack Obama is back. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1709,904,887,327,1712,1711,137,1710,1445,708,76],"class_list":["post-12461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-absolutism","tag-aclu","tag-barack-obama","tag-cynicism","tag-drone-killing","tag-genitals","tag-george-w-bush","tag-republican-party","tag-transparency","tag-trump","tag-tsa"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA TODAY: Obama Fueled the Cynicism He Now Denounces - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/13\/usa-today-obama-fueled-the-cynicism-he-now-denounces\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA TODAY: Obama Fueled the Cynicism He Now Denounces - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"USA TODAY, September 13, 2018 Barack Obama’s return just reminds us how he fueled the distrust that led to Donald Trump by James Bovard, Opinion columnist Who cares if Obama belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability?\u00a0He should admit that he made the government more dangerous at home and abroad. 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