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that level headed constitutional lawyer bald facedly lied to his nation about his inability to pardon Snowden without trial, knowing full well what Ford afforde

that level headed constitutional lawyer bald facedly lied to his nation about his inability to pardon Snowden without trial, knowing full well what Ford afforded Nixon. If the wire tapping ensures a Clinton presidency, which most expected, there would 100% be no blowback. I'm anti-Trump but let's acknowledge Obama was a shady figure

aleeds 10y ago
You know, the sentence "I cannot pardon Snowden without a trial" does not necessarily imply it is physically impossible. He was saying "I choose to not choose to pardon him"
- elmerfud 10y ago
  Lawyers don't confuse the words can't and won't. So he was either lying about what he could do, ignorant of the presidential pardon power or purposefully manipulative in his word choice.
- reddytowns 10y ago
  "Cannot" now means "choose not to"? I've never heard of this.
  - chrisoverzero 10y ago
    "I can't leave the house without my phone." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a malfunctioning or misguided proximity-based home security system, probably using Bluetooth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. "I can't eat peanuts." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a sophisticated and unbypassable filtration system in front of the speaker's mouth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. Obama's statement isn't unambiguous, but not using phrasing such as "lack the power to" or "Constitutionally prohibited from" carries inferential weight, too.
    - reddytowns 10y ago
      The meaning of a statement depends on who the audience is. In your examples, logically they are both lies. But, the meaning that is being transmitted is something more akin to: there some obvious, if unmentioned, reason why an action would be undesirable. And, this meaning is pretty clear to an average person in both cases. Obama has logically lied. There is no question about that. But of course, we aren't talking about whether he lied, but whether he implied something untrue. Given his response, "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves", it's pretty obvious that an average modern American would at least assume the implied meaning is that something outside of his control is preventing him. Therefore, your contention that he could have been implying "I can't because I choose not to", could not be correct, since he knew who his audience was, and having decades of practice as a career politician communicating with that audience, knew very well the meaning they would take from that.
maxerickson 10y ago
Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
- koolba 10y ago
  Your comment reads more nicely, IMHO, with "he" (President Obama) emphasized: > Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
RodericDay 10y ago
I love HackerNews. People are clinging really hard to the idea that Obama was a great guy or whatever. I'm going to take my little -3 point soapbox and lead anyone who wants to understand how bad Obama's presidency was to this reading list by left-wing writer Emmett Rensin: http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 The era of Obama is over. Now the majority of Americans may see it clearly for the first time. Over the past eight years, it has become apparent that President Obama's presence in office was a distortion. His calm demeanor and steady optimism seduced liberals into thinking that they were living in good—if occasionally dull—days, at war with an intransigent Congressional GOP, but blind to the breadth and power of the reaction brewing below. Liberals were often frustrated by the slow progress under Obama, even offended by the indifference and injustice that persisted in the practice of American power, but the White House and its boosters in the respectable media always had their rebuke: Don't worry. We're getting there. Trust the process. That calm is over and for many, the sudden chaos of the political situation comes as a shock. What happened? When did the country become so precarious again? But there is no "again." None of this is sudden. It is only that, in the absence of President Obama, every cruelty that persisted or grew under his stewardship has come fully out into the open. Some of this was the former president's doing. Some of it was not. But none of our problems are concealed by the veneer of steady progress anymore. Obama was a bad president, Clinton was a bad candidate, and the Democrats are the main group to blame, since their failure gave an odious Trump the presidency, no matter how much saber-rattling tries to pin it on Russia.
- mcphage 10y ago
  Then I'd rather have 8 more years of a Clinton/Obama "bad presidency", with improving economies, decreasing joblessness, improving environment... rather than the 8 years of George W Bush or whatever shitfest we're getting under Trump.
- pharrington 10y ago
  This is jibberish. Like, if you're going to say Obama was a bad president, at least focus on the actual bad shit he was directly responsible for like the ramping up of drone strikes and the Fast & Furious scandal. Don't destroy your own argument by drowning out the signal with correlated noise.

aleeds 10y ago

You know, the sentence "I cannot pardon Snowden without a trial" does not necessarily imply it is physically impossible. He was saying "I choose to not choose to pardon him"

elmerfud 10y ago
Lawyers don't confuse the words can't and won't. So he was either lying about what he could do, ignorant of the presidential pardon power or purposefully manipulative in his word choice.
reddytowns 10y ago
"Cannot" now means "choose not to"? I've never heard of this.
- chrisoverzero 10y ago
  "I can't leave the house without my phone." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a malfunctioning or misguided proximity-based home security system, probably using Bluetooth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. "I can't eat peanuts." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a sophisticated and unbypassable filtration system in front of the speaker's mouth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. Obama's statement isn't unambiguous, but not using phrasing such as "lack the power to" or "Constitutionally prohibited from" carries inferential weight, too.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    The meaning of a statement depends on who the audience is. In your examples, logically they are both lies. But, the meaning that is being transmitted is something more akin to: there some obvious, if unmentioned, reason why an action would be undesirable. And, this meaning is pretty clear to an average person in both cases. Obama has logically lied. There is no question about that. But of course, we aren't talking about whether he lied, but whether he implied something untrue. Given his response, "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves", it's pretty obvious that an average modern American would at least assume the implied meaning is that something outside of his control is preventing him. Therefore, your contention that he could have been implying "I can't because I choose not to", could not be correct, since he knew who his audience was, and having decades of practice as a career politician communicating with that audience, knew very well the meaning they would take from that.

maxerickson 10y ago

Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.

koolba 10y ago
Your comment reads more nicely, IMHO, with "he" (President Obama) emphasized: > Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.

RodericDay 10y ago

I love HackerNews. People are clinging really hard to the idea that Obama was a great guy or whatever. I'm going to take my little -3 point soapbox and lead anyone who wants to understand how bad Obama's presidency was to this reading list by left-wing writer Emmett Rensin: http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 The era of Obama is over. Now the majority of Americans may see it clearly for the first time. Over the past eight years, it has become apparent that President Obama's presence in office was a distortion. His calm demeanor and steady optimism seduced liberals into thinking that they were living in good—if occasionally dull—days, at war with an intransigent Congressional GOP, but blind to the breadth and power of the reaction brewing below. Liberals were often frustrated by the slow progress under Obama, even offended by the indifference and injustice that persisted in the practice of American power, but the White House and its boosters in the respectable media always had their rebuke: Don't worry. We're getting there. Trust the process. That calm is over and for many, the sudden chaos of the political situation comes as a shock. What happened? When did the country become so precarious again? But there is no "again." None of this is sudden. It is only that, in the absence of President Obama, every cruelty that persisted or grew under his stewardship has come fully out into the open. Some of this was the former president's doing. Some of it was not. But none of our problems are concealed by the veneer of steady progress anymore. Obama was a bad president, Clinton was a bad candidate, and the Democrats are the main group to blame, since their failure gave an odious Trump the presidency, no matter how much saber-rattling tries to pin it on Russia.

mcphage 10y ago
Then I'd rather have 8 more years of a Clinton/Obama "bad presidency", with improving economies, decreasing joblessness, improving environment... rather than the 8 years of George W Bush or whatever shitfest we're getting under Trump.
pharrington 10y ago
This is jibberish. Like, if you're going to say Obama was a bad president, at least focus on the actual bad shit he was directly responsible for like the ramping up of drone strikes and the Fast & Furious scandal. Don't destroy your own argument by drowning out the signal with correlated noise.