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Wow. Just when I thought Obama's DoJ couldn't come off looking any more amateurish. They're really an embarrassment.

by beedogs 11y ago

wyager 11y ago
At the risk of violating Hanlon's razor, this seems more a case of the DoJ being malicious than being amateurish.
- Semiapies 11y ago
  This sort of behavior is the essence of "professionalism".
ddp 11y ago
Oh, come on. You're not really surprised are you? Obama kept all of the questionable Bush appointments even though he could have fired them. Just like he kept the entire national security team and all of the Goldman Sachs mafia that's running Treasury and the Fed. You were expecting change?
- spotman 11y ago
  I wish you weren't right, but I agree. smoke, mirrors, and consistency. sigh.
- jpreiland 11y ago
  how foolish to expect change from someone whose campaign slogan was 'change'
  - CWuestefeld 11y ago
    ... or to decry gag orders from what was promised to be "the most transparent administration in history".
    - tobylane 11y ago
      Do we know he wasn't the most transparent? All we know is that he wasn't very transparent.
      - CWuestefeld 11y ago
        Granted, it's hard to quantify. But we do know specific issues of transparency that were promised but never delivered. Most egregiously, he promised that he'd post for 3(?) days, every bill passed by Congress, prior to signing it into law. This is something that he could have done unilaterally, it was - and still is - entirely his own decision. Yet that promise was abandoned within the first week of his presidency. That the promise was so quickly and thoroughly broken, even in cases for which there's no apparent special circumstances, is sufficient evidence to me that the promise was nothing but pandering, without any good faith behind it.
        ddp 11y ago
        This was 2.5 years ago. It hasn't gotten any better since: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/under-obama-administration-freedom-information-act-still-shackles https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/under-obama-administra...
        jongraehl 11y ago
        Since there's no real reason to break this promise, I'm guessing it's a symptom of speechwriter/teleprompter politics. I guess you can't expect that most of the words from a politician even made an impression as he orated them from the scroll/earpiece, less that they'll be remembered, less that they reflected any authentic intent or belief.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      I'm starting to think that I should vote for someone in the next election who promises to maintain every status quo and aggressively obfuscate government activity, in the hopes that all politicians do the opposite of what they say they'll do.
ajkjk 11y ago
I don't know the word is for what you've done in the way you phrased this post but I don't like it, especially on HN. You very-intentionally call it "Obama's DoJ". While in some sense it 'is his', I'm pretty sure you just call it that to associate it with a bundle of things that we are supposed to blame Obama for. It's what Fox News/GOP propaganda does when they want to build a narrative that everything involved with Obama is horrible. Examples: https://www.gop.com/obamas-epa-is-at-it-again/ https://www.gop.com/obamas-epa-is-at-it-again/, almost everything on https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=%22obama%27s+DoJ%22 https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&... which is largely published by NationalReview, ACLJ, etc, which are all conservative publications. This phrasing obviously is correct but it's always loaded and should be avoided. You just post a comment of outrage ("wow, this is so amateurish"), pretending like there's no debate to be had around this and not opposing positions involved, and not arguing in defense of this. You pretend like there's no debate on the subject and lead us to agree with you. You pretend like this is one instance in a long trend (without examples), leading us into a narrative that we actually have no reason to believe. You write as though you're in a crowd of people who are mad about the same thing, and therefore by appealing to the collective outrage that we're supposed to share, you reinforce the position and your solidarity with the crowd. Does this kind of pandering-to-a-position have a name?
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Well ... It is his department. And his track record of not abusing power (or any executive power) is very poor. Prosecution of whistle blowers, lack of transparency and so on ... even if he inherited it - he did nothing to change the culture.
  - ajkjk 11y ago
    There you go, saying all these things like they're obvious. I don't know that I believe you on any of that. I don't know that you could know the internals of it either. But it doesn't matter, because I wasn't arguing with the claim at all (and definitely don't feel qualified to). I just wanted to be very clear that I wasn't falling for, and was not tolerating, posts that pretend like we all agree that Obama's terrible and, god, what an embarrassment. That's not rational or effective discussion at all.

Wow. Just when I thought Obama's DoJ couldn't come off looking any more amateurish. They're really an embarrassment.

by beedogs 11y ago

Wow. Just when I thought Obama's DoJ couldn't come off looking any more amateurish. They're really an embarrassment.

wyager 11y ago

At the risk of violating Hanlon's razor, this seems more a case of the DoJ being malicious than being amateurish.

Semiapies 11y ago
This sort of behavior is the essence of "professionalism".

ddp 11y ago

Oh, come on. You're not really surprised are you? Obama kept all of the questionable Bush appointments even though he could have fired them. Just like he kept the entire national security team and all of the Goldman Sachs mafia that's running Treasury and the Fed. You were expecting change?

spotman 11y ago
I wish you weren't right, but I agree. smoke, mirrors, and consistency. sigh.
jpreiland 11y ago
how foolish to expect change from someone whose campaign slogan was 'change'
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  ... or to decry gag orders from what was promised to be "the most transparent administration in history".
  - tobylane 11y ago
    Do we know he wasn't the most transparent? All we know is that he wasn't very transparent.
    - CWuestefeld 11y ago
      Granted, it's hard to quantify. But we do know specific issues of transparency that were promised but never delivered. Most egregiously, he promised that he'd post for 3(?) days, every bill passed by Congress, prior to signing it into law. This is something that he could have done unilaterally, it was - and still is - entirely his own decision. Yet that promise was abandoned within the first week of his presidency. That the promise was so quickly and thoroughly broken, even in cases for which there's no apparent special circumstances, is sufficient evidence to me that the promise was nothing but pandering, without any good faith behind it.
      - ddp 11y ago
        This was 2.5 years ago. It hasn't gotten any better since: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/under-obama-administration-freedom-information-act-still-shackles https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/under-obama-administra...
      - jongraehl 11y ago
        Since there's no real reason to break this promise, I'm guessing it's a symptom of speechwriter/teleprompter politics. I guess you can't expect that most of the words from a politician even made an impression as he orated them from the scroll/earpiece, less that they'll be remembered, less that they reflected any authentic intent or belief.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    I'm starting to think that I should vote for someone in the next election who promises to maintain every status quo and aggressively obfuscate government activity, in the hopes that all politicians do the opposite of what they say they'll do.

ajkjk 11y ago

I don't know the word is for what you've done in the way you phrased this post but I don't like it, especially on HN. You very-intentionally call it "Obama's DoJ". While in some sense it 'is his', I'm pretty sure you just call it that to associate it with a bundle of things that we are supposed to blame Obama for. It's what Fox News/GOP propaganda does when they want to build a narrative that everything involved with Obama is horrible. Examples: https://www.gop.com/obamas-epa-is-at-it-again/ https://www.gop.com/obamas-epa-is-at-it-again/, almost everything on https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=%22obama%27s+DoJ%22 https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&... which is largely published by NationalReview, ACLJ, etc, which are all conservative publications. This phrasing obviously is correct but it's always loaded and should be avoided. You just post a comment of outrage ("wow, this is so amateurish"), pretending like there's no debate to be had around this and not opposing positions involved, and not arguing in defense of this. You pretend like there's no debate on the subject and lead us to agree with you. You pretend like this is one instance in a long trend (without examples), leading us into a narrative that we actually have no reason to believe. You write as though you're in a crowd of people who are mad about the same thing, and therefore by appealing to the collective outrage that we're supposed to share, you reinforce the position and your solidarity with the crowd. Does this kind of pandering-to-a-position have a name?

venomsnake 11y ago
Well ... It is his department. And his track record of not abusing power (or any executive power) is very poor. Prosecution of whistle blowers, lack of transparency and so on ... even if he inherited it - he did nothing to change the culture.
- ajkjk 11y ago
  There you go, saying all these things like they're obvious. I don't know that I believe you on any of that. I don't know that you could know the internals of it either. But it doesn't matter, because I wasn't arguing with the claim at all (and definitely don't feel qualified to). I just wanted to be very clear that I wasn't falling for, and was not tolerating, posts that pretend like we all agree that Obama's terrible and, god, what an embarrassment. That's not rational or effective discussion at all.