Don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen cracks in Obama’s idealism since he was sworn in as president. It is typified in the fact that prisoners – 166 of them – are still detained at Guantanamo Bay despite Obama’s promises to close the prison swiftly after he took office.
But this week was one head-shaking moment too many for me, and it appears from the president’s sinking approval rating that others – including some who gave Obama a real chance – are with me. As a registered Republican, I thought long and hard about whether to vote for Obama, but I crossed party lines, as did many of my young peers. I wanted a more transparent and accountable government. I wanted America to make a very different statement after the Bush years.
Yet even setting aside Benghazi and the IRS conservative targeting ordeal, which is a big set aside considering reports now suggest that officials in Washington were very much involved, there’s still plenty that makes Obama’s presidency eerily reminiscent of the Bush administration, especially when it comes to these “trust us, this is in the name of national security” kind of statements…
No, this isn’t in the league of weapons of mass destruction that don’t exist. But add the AP overreach to the Obama administration’s stance on drones, inaction on Guantanamo and the continued push to expand military and intelligence powers and you get more of the same old White House power grabs.
