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posted by n1 on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-and-no-means-no dept.

A campaign to pardon NSA leaker Edward Snowden, launched in combination with a fawning Oliver Stone film about him, hasn't made any headway. The request spurred the entire membership of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, 13 Republicans and 9 Democrats, to send a letter to President Barack Obama urging against a pardon. "He is a criminal," they stated flatly.

Obama weighed in on the matter on Friday. During his European tour, he was interviewed by Der Spiegel—the largest newspaper in Germany, a country where Snowden is particularly popular. After discussing a wide range of issues, he was asked: Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden?

Obama replied: "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves, so that's not something that I would comment on at this point."

Will the NSA's spying and Snowden's actions come to define Obama's legacy?


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:24AM (#431114)

    I was so excited when Obama first ran for office. His rhetoric and positions all sounded so good... then he came into office and it turned out to be a lie.

    In retrospect, Obama was a piss-poor choice. Unfortunately, the alternative would have been much, much worse. Like "Dick & Dubya" worse.

    It's not just the latest presidential election where the primary two choices were "really bad" and "even worse" (it's a tossup which was which); it's been that way for many recent elections. I think your whole system is broken.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:01PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:01PM (#431370)

    I disagree. You're right, the choices have never been all that great, at least in living memory. But to be honest, in 2008 Obama didn't seem that bad a choice, he was just an unknown in many ways because he didn't have much of a track record, but his rhetoric was nice and he was charismatic and represented change. And the alternative was much worse (warhawk McCain & bimbo Palin).

    But it's much much worse this year. The two choices were absolutely despicable, worse than any I can ever remember. Honestly, if McCain/Palin were back on the ticket, I would have voted for them over Hillary or Trump. Even GWB would be better.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:17PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:17PM (#431421)

      But to be honest, in 2008 Obama didn't seem that bad a choice, he was just an unknown in many ways because he didn't have much of a track record, but his rhetoric was nice and he was charismatic and represented change. And the alternative was much worse (warhawk McCain & bimbo Palin).

      Only for those who weren't paying attention. If you were, it was pretty obvious that Senator Obama was dangerous and nothing he has done since being elected shocked me or ever made me question that initial assessment. On the other hand, with the passage of time I regret my vote for McCain more and more. Obama is evil but McCain is insane, hard to call that one. 2012 was the scary election, that after seeing what Obama was people still voted for more vs the hopelessly vanilla but harmless Romney. That is when it was clear the Republic was finally done, because we were clearly no longer a People worthy of the blessings of Liberty. 2016 was the first post American election.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:30PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:30PM (#431463)

        You're going to have to explain why you think Obama is "evil" and Romney is somehow not as bad. From my perspective, they're both corporatist, establishment tools, but at least with Obama we were more likely to get things like gay marriage and no overturning of RvW, whereas with any establishment Republican you're more likely to get a rollback on civil liberties since they always try to appease the stupid religious wackos to get their vote.

        And how was McCain "insane"? Again, from my perspective, he's an establishment tool, and a war-hawk. All the establishment tools are war-hawks to some degree, Obama included, though he's been better than many others (namely Bush, and also Hillary).

        2012 was a fairly rational election: people voted for Obama over Romney because Romney simply didn't offer anything better than what we already knew we were getting with Obama. Incumbents always have a big advantage this way: the devil you know vs. the devil you don't. It's elections like this year's where things are really up in the air, because there's no incumbent (aside from one candidate being from the same party as the outgoing President and getting his endorsement). And if you look at history, there's been very few elections where the sitting President was not re-elected. The last was in 1992, where GHWB lost to Clinton, before that was 1980 where Carter lost to Reagan, and before that was 1976 where Ford (who never won an election anyway) lost to Carter. 1968 doesn't really count since LBJ didn't run, and you probably have to go back pretty far before this for the next example.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @07:18PM (#431422)

      but his rhetoric was nice and he was charismatic and represented change.

      You should never base your voting decisions on rhetoric, charisma, or feelings that a candidate represents change. If people had looked at his voting record, meager though it was, they would have seen that he was a corporate authoritarian liar.

      The two choices were absolutely despicable

      And what has the country learned from all this? Ah, yes: Continue voting for the lesser evil, which was what brought us this election in the first place. I hope most voters suffer excruciatingly painful deaths.