Thank goodness for the Fourth Estate and its ability to hold our government’s feet to the fire of the first amendment, especially when the first amendment is what is being trampled by those piqued at being caught violating the fourth amendment.

President Obama’s promise to create the most transparent administration possible was central to the seductive branding of “hope and change.” That promise hasn’t been kept, not even close, yet those that elected him with that expectation are as disturbingly silent after learning of that betrayal as others were in finding out that “weapons of mass destruction” aren’t nearly as harmful as ignoring their payback at-any-cost fabrication. Rather than coming clean, Barack Obama, caught spying red-handed, now seeks to hound his own scapegoat, exploiting law to trump justice. The messenger of an inconvenient truth about clandestine governance must be destroyed. If a conscientious government employee is punished for revealing highly unreasonable search and seizure, secreted by a leadership entrusted with upholding freedom, how are we to remain free and safe? NBC’s recent interview with Edward Snowden was brilliant in its a-picture is-worth-a-thousand-words simplicity. One had no need to hear Snowden, at all, to ascertain that this individual, whatever one’s judgment of his actions, was telling the truth as best he could under the circumstances. Any lawyer preparing his defense would likely have advised him to say nothing, to wait until his day in court. But, Snowden isn’t seeking a court trial, or he would have never escaped U.S. jurisdiction.

In that sense, Secretary of State John Kerry is partially right in accusing Snowden of placing himself above the law, though placing himself outside the law would be more accurate. It is Kerry’s boss that resides above the law, so far. Kerry, absolutely livid in his protest, apparently to the interview taking place at all as to what was actually said, seemed as ethically disfigured by those revelations as Snowden was, in a very Harry Potter-ish cast, transfigured.

Kerry called Snowden a coward and traitor. Snowden called himself a patriot. One of them was wrong, and a telegenic truth seemed to heavily favor that it wasn’t Snowden.

I can readily recall when I was truly awed by John Kerry, returning from Vietnam, tossing his medals at the White House, and eloquently speaking truth to power. Some called him a traitor abetting our enemies. I thought him a hero. Not a returning hero, though he was that, but one born by those acts upon returning. Today it is Snowden who eloquently, rationally and reasonably argues his case against his government’s perversion of the constitution. The government of Kerry’s own defiance didn’t threaten him with imprisonment. That was reserved for Daniel Ellsberg. Unlike Snowden, Ellsberg submitted to prosecution and just barely escaped life in prison. Kerry recommends that route for Snowden, saying patriots “don’t take refuge in Russia” — implying Russia is still our enemy, even though Ellsberg says Snowden would never receive a fair trial. Ellsberg’s own trial wasn’t, even though he prevailed. Then it was a Pentagon insider against an illegal war. This time it’s a NSA insider disillusioned by another paranoid exercise — this one unending. Both wars turned our government against liberty.

Why should Snowden accept judgment from a government antithetical to what American justice is all about? How many “traitors” willingly alienate themselves from “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in order to protect those “unalienable” rights for others? Now, another Big Brother reality provides scant refuge to Snowden from the one he exposed, as those caught spying call him the betrayer.

I voted for President Obama, twice, and, if time was turned back, would do so again. However, it is Mr. Obama that should be facing charges, not a whistle blower to possible presidential criminality. The revolving door of unconstitutional enabling needs to be ended. Incoming presidents cannot continue sidestepping the prosecution of their predecessor. George H.W. Bush should be sitting in jail next to G.W. Bush, one for gunrunning from the White House basement and the other for cooking very public, but bogus, yellowcake. In between those crimes, Bill Clinton was impeached, as if private and consensual oval office pizza parties were equivalent to Watergate. Yet, Clinton, taking office, curtailed indictment of his predecessor, citing the need “to move forward”, and Obama’s “hope and change” brought about very little hope that any change towards holding a president accountable will ever be realized as a deterrent against the same old same old happening again and again.

The dilemma of Obama’s scandal is that Democrats simply won’t go “there” while the Republicans, otherwise out to get him any which way, refrain because they want similar privilege down the road. That is the real danger to our republic. If governance isn’t about justice, but a partisan interpretation of it permitting continued rationalized illegality, then heaven above will hopefully keep sending us Edward Snowden’s idea of patriotism because our permitted patriotism just isn’t cutting it.

Snowden shouldn’t be brought to trial, but rather his accusers.

———

Gary Anderson is a resident of Bath.