Obama’s disagreement with an Intelligence Advisor
It’s noteworthy that former CIA official John Brennan thinks telecoms should get immunity for illegally wiretapping, including the ‘inadvertent’ wiretapping of innocent Americans. It’s more noteworthy that Obama is not swayed by his adviser, Brennan’s position.
In the past half century, two young presidents stepped into messes created by military and intel advisers. The first was the Bay of Pigs. JFK said ‘no way’ and his instincts proved correct. Castro’s government saw it coming, US air cover wouldn’t have prevented the debacle, but ever since, conservatives labelled it a failure of Kennedy’s. In fact, it was an attempt by the CIA to railroad the president into doing something he’d already decided against.
Had the CIA prevailed, it would have been a hijacking of the presidency.
Another young president put forth a bold plan to end discrimination against gay people in the armed forces. The military advisers resisted, the president backed down and the compromise produced the cruel joke known as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’
It’s important to have commanders in chief who seek advice from experienced hands. But it’s also critical that they be capable of weighing that advice so they can make sound decisions - including rejecting advice they consider to be flawed. Obama is already demonstrating he can reason independently on the issue of retroactive telecom immunity, choosing Constitutional support over the thin argument that telecoms thought they were acting legally.
The only compromise available is if the government assumes the liabilities of the telecoms and takes the legal consequences that someone should bear for the illegal actions it instigated. And Obama has chosen to remain on the right side of the law, which is an attribute I applaud him for.
