June 18, 2013: President Barack Obama listens to French President Francois Hollande during the G-8 summit at the Lough Erne golf resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. (AP)
“I’m no Dick Cheney,” sayeth Barack Obama. Now that he’s cleared that up, again, perhaps Obama can tell us who he is.
In his fifth year in the Oval Office, the president still defines himself by who he isn’t. Mostly, he reminds us he’s not George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. It’s a tiresome tic and doubly grating because of his insufferable air of moral superiority.
That was the gist of his defense of national security surveillance programs of the sort he denounced as a candidate.
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“Some people say, ‘Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he’s, you know, Dick Cheney.’ Dick Cheney sometimes says, ‘Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel,’” Obama said in a TV interview.
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