A more charitable reading is that Obama didn't lie, he was just an idealist and changed position when he was confronted with the realities of being President.

That's not to defend it, but I don't think Obama knowingly and cynically lied his way into office.

That's very charitable in my book.. but in no means noble or moral and not sure why you are defending him.

Let's give another example and stretch it a little bit. You are being promised a work of world peace leader, you love the idea you accept the job, the day you come into the work they tell you its all just public outlook, and in reality you are going to manage tanks and bombs factory.

Do you continue because you "changed position when was confronted with the realities" or you simply quit?? Nothing stops Obama from resigning given he was faced with the reality of the office. That's how you recognize a real man. He knows when the job is too big for him, OR when its against his views. If you change them as you go, you don't hold any integrity. But again, Obama changed his point of view and raped constitution too many times for me to expect anything else from him. He is best at entertaining masses at "The View" show or giving high-fives on women's NFL meetings.

> That's not to defend it, but I don't think Obama knowingly and cynically lied his way into office.

Saying "you have a right to your reading list and your library account not being scrutinized and searched through by government" during his 2008 election tour, while becoming President and doing nothing to stop that but heck going in the opposite direction and allowing the massive vacuum of the entire digital traffic channeling through US soil in the name of capturing couple bad guys does indeed prove to me he cynically lied and was never really interested to work in the name of american people. We could continue how horrible president he is but i fell like puking. It doesnt really matter because talking about all this won't change anything. We all need to pray for next 3 years that this man will do as little damage as possible and once done, whomever comes next (please have it NOT be Clinton) will clean up as much mess as possible.

That's just silly. I'm not trying to defend his actions but I do want to defend a sane persons option to change their mind in light of more evidence / information. You don't just quit. You re-examine your priorities and adjust your outlook.

Right. I think this is critically important- and rather than attribute it to Obama being a liar, I suspect the reality is far more interesting/complicated. What would cause a person to betray their values? Certainly, the moment you are elected President you are privy to a lot more classified intelligence information than you are as a private citizen.

Something tells me we won't find out until an autobiography decades from now (if we do at all), but we'll see.

Honest question: Does the president really have that much more access to classified information than US senators?

I, too, would really like to have an answer to that. My assumption based on very little evidence is that the Chief Executive should have access to all classified information held by the executive branch's agencies. That seems to be logical. I seriously doubt that the President would accept an answer from one of his chiefs that "that information is classified." Now, a more nuanced and interesting answer might be found by digging into not whether the President has access to all classified information, but whether the President chooses to interrogate that classified information. There, I assume a President should, because if s/he does not, that raises serious doubts about a President making thoroughly informed decisions.

The only way forward for solving this problem is for the People to collectively say, with full knowledge of the potential consequences, that they are absolutely not willing to compromise, and want their government to trade security for inviolable protection of their freedom.

The People did so collectively say: the Bill of Rights, which this president swore to preserve, protect and defend.

Far-fetched? No President could unseat Hoover. Why would any intelligence and surveillance apparatus be any less self-preserving?

This, despite Hoover's lifestyle (not that there's anything wrong with it, but there was then). Why do so many people scoff at the notion that the intelligence agencies of the US could be up to no good? I mean, it isn't disputed that Hoover was an SOB, a scoundrel who used his office's resources to extort basically anyone he could. That's conspiracy fact. And it went on for years.

I think people have misinformed notions about how much power the president really has. Obama's stated core focus was and has been on improving the situation for the poor/middle class. That's a big task on its own, I don't think you can expect one president to take on and dominate such variety of large tasks.

But now that things are in the open, support a candidate who in clear terms promises challenging these NSA programs for the next election cycle. Yes, Obama said he would do this in his own campaign trail, but it was unclear probably to him what he was up against exactly and how difficult it would have been to resist it alone. My optimistic take is now that we all know to a much greater degree what's going on, we're in better position to do something about it.

But he owes it to us to at least tell us that.

[0]: http://m.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/01/obama-closing-gu...

Is there any evidence of that?

> What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls and the NSA cannot target your e-mails.

Then The Guardian released a document several days later, signed by Eric Holder, authorizing numerous exceptions to that, with which they are allowed to spy on Americans.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-w...

Or are you just using "lying" to make a strong political statement, and you really see no difference?

Might not be his fault for creating it - but he definitely bears responsibility for continuing it.

If we really wanted to - he could call a press conference at any time & blow the lid off the whole thing. But instead, he goes the opposite route & prosecutes anyone who speaks out.

That's fine.

Will you blame the next president who does it?

Sounds like an Obamapology to me. Been hearing alot of those lately.

I don't think these stupid partisan catch-phrases have any place on HN whatsoever.

Politicians openly game the system. They poll, then they change the message based on the poll, then they win. Then they do whatever they want since the platform on which they ran was a total fiction.

In truth, the only platform that really matters is the party platform. A career politician ignores that at his great peril, as they risk losing the support of an incredibly efficient, effective political machine.

And this is nothing new. The new thing is that, in an effort to feel sophisticated, more mainstream Americans are pushing aside the initial feelings of disgust. They tell themselves the story I've told above, and they tell themselves that that feeling of disgust is naive. It would be like being disgusted by gravity - totally pointless. The same thing occurs in the private sector, when bank leaders commit fraud and walk away. The fraud is explained away "well, he was just acting in his own interest" and the walking away is explained away "well, powerful people look out for each other."

The simple truth is that we need to stop pushing aside that feeling of disgust. It's there for a reason. We have an in-built sense of fairness that our government, and our business leaders, ignore at their great peril.

That's a perfectly good justification, though: if you're feeling disgusted by people acting in their own interest, then you've designed the system of incentives (the thing that gives them interests to act in) wrong. To think otherwise is to be disgusted by the very concept of economics.

There used to be quite a lot of social value placed on people showing restraint. Having power, but not using it. Implicit in your argument is the assertion that you don't respect self-restraint. And when people stop respecting restraint, then people in power have no more reason to show restraint.

Reflexivity at it's best.

So, make that decision explicit. Would you prefer to live in a world where people with power restrained themselves? Or would you prefer to live in a world where people with power act with no more restraint than what is legal and in their interest? If the former then you need to stop using self-interest as justification for behavior.

The government works for the people - not the other way around. We should be at least as suspicious of them as they are of us.

For everyone for whom his war crimes, failure to fix healthcare, war on drugs, anti-transparency policies, support of the patriot act, legalizing the indefinite detention of Americans without trial, lack of action on climate change, failure to fix our infrastructure, failure to prosecute/reform wall street, illegal drone strikes, destroying freedom of the press, torturing whistleblowers, selling public schools to private corporations, war on religion, etc. weren't already enough.

As others have said, it's a large group of people complicit in this machine, you can't put all of your focus on one figurehead and blame him like a scapegoat.

Obama is at fault for continuing it, but Cheney would have had way more hooks into a Romney presidency to continue to push it further and further beyond what it is currently.

Also, I don't think anything short of pictures of Obama eating children would have changed the outcome of that race.

Politics is the mind killer. Partisanship is already interfering with many progressives' ability to evaluate this situation rationally; had it been released in the middle of a heated election battle, that problem would arguably have been much, much worse.

Right, Mitt Romney didn't lie about anything. Except of course every time he opened his mouth (many links, here's one with a pretty long list: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/12/14397013-chroni...)

Mitt Romney was an inveterate, habitual liar, on virtually every topic.