Bob Scheer, in his new article here, is right that Hillary, in criticizing Edward Snowden (in response to pro-Snowden questions from the Guardian in interview portion of which video is posted here), is:
burnishing her hawkish credentials
…but not persuasive to me that the main takeaway should be that she is
either a fool or a liar.
...or even, as Scheer quotes Glenn Greenwald's response:
she is “like a neocon, practically.”
Instead, isn't it obvious that Hillary:
(a) Is no fool,
(b) Like every high-level politician, avoids truth-telling when she believes it necessary, and
(c) Like President Obama, assumes that achieving and retaining the Presidency requires kid glove handling of the surveillance-supercharged mutation of the Eisenhower-named “military-industrial complex”.
Most importantly, the main takeaway should be the need to:
• encourage and demonstrate a change in public opinion on government surveillance, which would
• enable and pressure actual and aspiring presidents, along with the Senate Intelligence Committee and other governmental institutions, to impose more checks and balances.
In 2014, the biggest progress on these goals can be made in the re-election campaigns of the following two Senate Intelligence Committee members:
• Strongly re-elect lead CIA torture report disclosure proponent CO-Sen Mark Udall, and
• Enable defeat of “moderate” apologist for CIA torture and NSA surveillance cover-ups ME-Sen Susan Collins, by her civil libertarian challenger ACLU veteran Shenna Bellows.
Reasons:
• Defeating or even scaring Collins would be 2-for-1 by heavily influencing the positions of her fellow Maine Senator and committee member Independent Angus King.
• Strengthening Udall would reward his risky leadership on CIA torture disclosure, and could catapult him into the ranks of credible Presidential candidates.