That's the story we are getting from former-CIA-analyst-turned-Agency-critic Ray McGovern. He claims that a "close friend" attended an intimate dinner party with Barack Obama. On that occasion, the President explained why he reversed his well-known campaign promise to shut down the prison at Gitmo:
And I know from a good friend who was there when it happened, that at a small dinner with progressive supporters – after these progressive supporters were banging on Obama before the election, Why don’t you do the things we thought you stood for? Obama turned sharply and said, "Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?" That’s a quote, and that’s a very revealing quote.First question: Do I trust McGovern? Frankly, yes -- at least in this instance. Your take on the guy may differ from mine, but I've always had a high opinion of him. (Although I did become concerned when he started palling around with some of the loopier 9/11 wackos.)
Second question: Can we trust McGovern's friend? Has this person reported accurately? Impossible to say, because we don't have a name. All we have to go on is the fact that McGovern trusts this source.
Third question (presuming that the source has spoken accurately): Did Obama reveal his true feelings at that dinner table, or did he say those words simply to force his fellow guests to stop asking hard questions?
Personally, I don't think that any president would give voice to so astonishing a sentiment unless he truly felt under pressure. I also feel that any president who said such words would probably regret them the moment they left his mouth.
Make no mistake: I have never been among those who consider Obama pure of heart. In my opinion, the Powers-That-Be compromised that man well before he first set foot in Chicago. On the other hand, history has given us a few examples of compromised individuals who, after attaining some measure of power, began to do the right thing -- or who began to show signs that they felt tempted to do the right thing. On such occasions, the whispered warning may define the limits of any one man's power.
So. How do you interpret McGovern's unnerving little anecdote?
19 comments:
A recent poll showed 44% of Republicans want to start a civil war. That is, they want to murder their political opponents and take the country by force.
Anyone who follows conservative blogs or news sites, or even neutral sites (e.g., YouTube videos, AP stories) knows that conservatives have been giving voice to their violent wishes since before Obama was even elected. From his first weeks in office, Obama has been subjected to a non-stop deluge of violent threats. It's just a constant, never-ending feature of living among conservatives in America.
Even the "tea party" is a metaphor for violent armed revolt. It's a direct allusion to the Boston Tea Party, a precursor to the American Revolution. Tea Party posters distributed in 2009 and 2010 were captioned "revolution is brewing" for the benefit of those too dense to get the veiled threat implied by "tea party."
Frankly, I'm a bit sick and tired of being told by conservatives that they wish they could water the tree of liberty with the blood of ... me, and my family.
For christ's sake: Sharron Angle ran for US Senate from Nevada and made constant, repeated threats on the campaign trail that if she and other Republicans didn't get elected, the proper recourse would be to start murdering America's elected leaders.
These people are deeply fucking sick, and we only know a fraction of it. Obama, as chief law enforcement officer of the nation, is undoubtedly aware of many more threats than the ones I see every day all over the internet.
So, do I believe he really said it? There's no way to know. But it would certainly be a reasonable concern.
Republicans are an out of control mob. They have their hands around the throat of this country and won't let go.
I'm sure I'm not the first to note that politics is war without bullets. If you're going to participate, you have to be willing to die just as a soldier is willing to die--and especially if you intend to take on the responsibility of ordering soldiers to their deaths you need to be ready to die.
There's no excuse for cowardice. Nobody held a gun to his head and ordered him to run for office. If you're not willing to die, resign and let a better leader lead.
Ray McGovern is very trustworthy.
I loved it when he called out Rumsfeld for lying about WMDs and Al CIA duh in Iraq at that little lie-fest D(umb)F(uck) was putting on in Atlanta, Ga in '06.
:youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZJWS1Sk36m8
As to Obama's comment if he actually made said comment:
Bill Hicks' "The Smokey Room.": youtube.com/watch?v=GK8lBbZg0K4
I've said it here before:
The last President who really tried to change things got his head blown off.
Every President since Kennedy knows they can be taken out, with impunity, if they really try to change things.
"Change things" meaning fucking with THEIR money - War Money, Financial Fraud Money, etc...
Think about it.
If the Proletariat were to blow the head off just one corrupt Bankster in broad daylight on national TV do you think it wouldn't send a message to those cocksuckers that would last for years?
They, TPTB, hate and fear Democracy (i.e. the American People) and our Legal System, which is why they have been doing their best to pervert both for years lest they, too, have to earn votes and face justice.
Truth is they are scared shitless of us because they, like all RW authoritarian psychopaths, believe we are as evil as they are, and there are a hell of a lot more of us than there of them.
Little wonder they suppress and propagandize us every day to keep us fighting amongst ourselves over BS issues so we do not turn our eyes to them.
Dan, I actually wanted to reference that Bill Hicks riff when I first wrote this piece. But for some reason, the name "Bill Hicks" just remained inaccessible to my memory banks! Like a forgotten word on the tip of your tongue, knowhudimean?
Things like that start to happen when you pass the five-O mark. That's why I've decided to remain 39 (in Jack Benny years) for the rest of my life.
I believe it. I have tried to find the link where it was reported a few years ago that the CiC's day timer was left in a gutter, and some detached message reminding Obama to remember JFK.
Fuck him. JFK knew the depths of CIA and still told them he'd break them into a million pieces. He had a pair.
Ben
Unlike JFK's martyrdom, the same for this president has the potential to actually spark civil war and/or race war. (Remember American cities ariot when MLK, Jr. was slain?)
So he cannot 'bravely' seek out such a fate, given the likely denouement. Nor can he be criticized as cowardly for seeking to avoid an event of such enormity.
XI
Whether POTUS said it or not, I'm sure he's thought it. How could the man not consider the danger? First African American president, a Democrat swimming in a pool of sharks and a Republican party that has lost all semblance of reason, shouting nullification and violent insurrection on a daily basis. That mindset has drifted through the population as if crazy talk [treason by any other definition] is perfectly okay.
That being said, Barack Obama wanted the job, said he was up to it. Truth is he wasn't. I don't expect the man to be a martyr but this bipartisan crap ticks me off royally. You can't compromise with the insane.
Sorry, but we needed something more than an individual willing only to toe the line or tweak at the edges after the Bush&Cheney debacle. The powers-that-be are just waiting to put the next Romney clone into office, turning the the country into the holding company they've always believed belonged to them, the hell with the rest of the country. The Obama WH has simply given them eight additional years to prepare for the final assault on a tattered, crumbling Republic.
Peggysue [who is not very optimistic today]
I think the remark, if it was exactly as reported, was simply a defensive ploy on O's part. He must have expected questions about his failing to keep campaign promises, and had this one pat and ready, as one that could not fail to enlist sympathy and understanding.
Re O in general: I think there's a mix of ingredients at work: the fact that O was never the socialist-leaning leftist and pro-people person he projected in the 2008 prez campaign, but a mild conservative (at best); mixed with knowledge of past assassinations and need to protect his own skin and that of his family members; mixed with an innate narcissism; mixed with the fact that Powers That Be had their eye on him as an excellent follow-up to 8 years of GBW, to raise the US's profile on the world stage and the White House incumbent's at home. Messy mix, to be sure.
That 2:15 comment from Anonymous might be one of the stupidest things I have read online since the last time I went to the Brietbart site.
Obama says that he is afraid to do anything and the only way it gets out is that somebody, unnamed, tells McGovern? The story is just strains credulity. Even if Obama said something like what McGovern alleges he said, it is subject to various interpretations, for example, Obama could have been suggesting that King moderated his position to get something done.
If Obama wanted to gain a smidgeon of our respect, he could say "I promised to close Gitmo and to stop this country breaking the Geneva conventions, but I wasn't allowed to. I resign."
As the pigs flapped their way to the top of the Washington Monument, he could then mention, like, y'know, CPMAJO-AIPAC-ADL. Pundits could compare his speech with Eisenhower's about the military industrial complex.
Goodness knows what laptop he'd type his speech on when he was preparing it, or where he might talk to anyone about it beforehand, without being listened to and...prevented.
There again, various political leaders even since Eisenhower have criticised little bits of stuff when they retire, or afterwards, when it makes absolutely fuck-all difference. Thinking of those such as former Brit Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
Obama was always full of shit, saying he was going to close Gitmo. This was the same guy who before he was elected said Jerusalem was the undivided and eternal capital of Israel. You can't have it both ways. There isn't any 'war against terror' (i.e. military support for Israel) which is oh so clean and opposed to war crimes.
If the US is not to be a law unto itself, how about allowing US servicemen to be prosecuted at the Hague? Hardly a side issue, if the issue is obeying the laws of warfare.
Maybe Obama will say something after he's left office, when it's too late, à la Jimmy Carter. As Ben said, fuck him.
If the Proletariat were to blow the head off just one corrupt Bankster in broad daylight on national TV do you think it wouldn't send a message to those cocksuckers that would last for years?
Don't worry, Mike Bloomberg is doing everything in his power to insure that never happens. With the assistance of much of the self-proclaimed "Left", I might add.
Yeah, Dan, but JFK also knew he was a doomed man REGARDLESS of what the various Langley Nazis, Zio-nuke boosters, crazy generals, southern segregationists, Cuban fanatics and murderous mobsters might eventually do to him.
Kennedy's dual, terminal-condition afflictions (his bound-to-be-exposed sex addiction and his incurable Addison's Disease) meant that his days of Oval-Office power were to be few -- and he was bound and determined to use whatever time he had left to oppose and strike down every evil faction his fascist father had covertly promised that his sonny boys would assist.
Perhaps it was daddy's bitter realization that he had been snookered by his own progeny (and was therefore the stooge in a collossal bait-and-switch) that brought on his crippling-and-silencing stroke (if that's REALLY what happened to the old devil).
JFK was a child of steroids. Look at the pictures of the skinny, geeky waif he was before he started the steroid treatments.
So what exactly is the Wuss-in-Chief afraid of?
Is he afraid that some nut with a gun will shoot him when he steps out on a motel balcony? Or is he admitting that MLK was taken out by a well-funded and well-connected conspiracy?
Every President since Kennedy knows they can be taken out, with impunity, if they really try to change things.
"Change things" meaning fucking with THEIR money - War Money, Financial Fraud Money, etc...
Ah yes, the myth of the peacenik JFK!
That doesn't jibe with my personal recollection of the candidate who ran on the "missile gap", and I don't exactly see a precipitous decline in defense spending from 61-63 in this chart, either:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/08/csbachartmon.png
Kennedy just had better speechwriters (Sorenson and Schlesinger).
Actually, this chart (defense spending as % of GDP) makes Kennedy look even worse:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1960_2013USp_14s1li0181404_551cs_30t
If you were conspiring to increase defense spending, it looks to me like assassinating JFK would be downright counterproductive.
Isn't Comverse the company hired to install cell phone service inside of the US capital back around 2000-2001? It seems a little odd that we'd have a foreign company handle something so sensitive. Sort of makes you wonder who's the client and who's actually calling the shots, doesn't it?
As far as Obama being concerned about suffering the same fate as MLK, I would think that's a pretty valid concern. Although the powers-that-be haven't needed to publicly execute anyone in a while, thorns in the side of the deep state still frequently suffer convenient deaths.
Paul Wellstone comes to mind, as does Mike Connell. Deborah Jean Palfrey, the DC Madam, conveniently pulled a 180 and decided to hang herself (or be hung, more likely) just before she was set to give a deposition on who within the DC power structure had utilized her services. Pat Tillman made no bones about his displeasure with the Iraq War and was planning on not only campaigning for Kerry, but also leading the anti-war movement. They could discredit Cindy Sheehan, but Pat Tillman's bona fides were so pure he would have wielded tremendous influence and could have shifted the election in 2004. He was rewarded with three rounds within a 2" diameter on his forehead from inside of 10 meters.
The point is, it's going to take a lot of spilled blood to unseat the criminal enterprise pulling the strings behind the scenes in this country, and Obama may just care too much about preserving his and his family's safety to move the chains on this fight.
jack at 2:01, I'll suppose you think it's realistic and sophisticated to think that our leaders should be cowards with no principles. If we don't demand better, we certainly won't get it. We get the leadership we deserve, and those of you defend the unacceptable are degrading our country just as the Bushbots did before you.
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