[autoexec]

> This doesn't really fit anything I understand about Obama or about the world.

The world should have taught you a thousand times over that politicians tell lies to get elected. If Obama was being honest, he would be the exception. Obama was a typical politician in a lot of ways. For example, he was bought and paid for by the RIAA and after he was elected he stacked the justice department with their lawyers and as a result his administration was extremely favorable to them. (see https://www.wired.com/2009/03/obama-sides-wit-2). That said, listening to him talk about ending domestic spying, I believed him.

It's worth mentioning that he also campaigned on promises of transparency and said that he supported whistleblowers, but he branded Snowden as a criminal and his ended up being the least transparent administration in history.

It's possible he was shown a lot of things that convinced him, but I can't think of anything that would justify the ongoing violation of our basic constitutional rights. He gave some lip service about improving transparency at the NSA but ultimately did nothing to increase accountability for the misuse of the data being collected. Misuse that we now know was commonplace (thanks to Snowden).

I'd like to think that if he did see some legitimate use that made him believe it was a necessary evil that he would have done something to minimize the number of people with access to that data, but instead he made it easier for that data to be abused and shared with other agencies. In the end Obama gave the NSA more power than they had when he entered office.

[ncmncm]

As Charlie Stross explained, he was "their man" from the outset.

You could see he was "their man" because they somehow arranged to get him a Nobel Peace Prize for, apparently, nothing. Recall Henry Kissinger, Woodrow Wilson, and Teddy Roosevelt got them too. (And Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. And Yasser Arafat.)

[arminiusreturns]

Rahm Emmanuel is the muli-presidency mover and shaker of the Obama admin nobody seems to talk enough about.

[autoexec]

> You could see he was "their man" because they somehow arranged to get him a Nobel Peace Prize for, apparently, nothing.

I have to admit that was weird, but I think a lot of people really thought Obama was going to turn things around for the nation and the rest of planet. Bush Jr. had a whole lot of people all across the globe very concerned about America. Some saw him as an idiot, and/or a literal war criminal, and he had pushed the US in some very dark directions. Suddenly America was doing some very very un-American™ things aggressively and right out in the open. Torture, preemptive war, voter suppression, direct interference with the media, the stripping away of civil liberties, increasingly oppressive/nationalistic rhetoric, he was basically the warm-up act to Trump's administration.

All the worry over the fast decline of America is why Obama's hope/change message went over so well. If Biden had been almost anyone else he probably would have been given awards one for saving the world from more Trump, but I don't think anyone had high expectations for Biden whereas the world was basically begging Obama to bring integrity and stability back to the US.

[ncmncm]

It was way beyond weird. You give somebody a legitimate Nobel prize after they actually do a thing, not just because you HOPE they will do some unspecified thing.

So, no, the fix was definitely in. "I'll be your President, but I expect a Nobel, and quick."

[V_Terranova_Jr]

Have you ever worked in or alongside the U.S. Federal Government? I have. It's pretty easy to pin all these unprincipled actions/inactions on deliberate lies and manipulation in service of power grabs. As several replies to you suggest, the reality is likely a lot less scurrilous.

There are very few truly principled people in Government. By this, I mean people willing to make big changes to hew to some "objectively right" principle even if it raises perceived risk, or causes any sort of new economic harm to some group, regardless of how short-term any of these may be[^]. On the other hand, if there is ongoing harm to some group, that doesn't typically generate enough support for change until you hit some inflection point in the zeitgeist, like what led to the "justice reforms" passed in the last administration.

Big changes that cause any kind of harm or perceived harm to a group need overwhelming levels of support, especially in political circles, to overcome the media seeding and political grandstanding that exact an inevitable toll. Obama was a profound disappointment to anyone hoping for any kind of structural reforms out of him, but the fantasy-driven ferociousness of the political headwinds he faced in office shouldn't be ignored. He was damned if he did or didn't.

Imagine you're in Obama's shoes and some Serious Intel Community Leader swears in classified briefings that if you undo any of what they're currently doing, there's high risk of "the next 9/11". Do you make a principled stand about the sanctity of the 4th Amendment despite their near-assurances that "Americans will likely be harmed on your watch if you do"? Probably not, because in the moment, you feel the ends are so overwhelming they justify the means. In the current Republican-leaning political environment, you don't want to risk feeding the claims that "by weakening the Intelligence Community, Democrats undermined America's safety, as they always do!".

It's easy to talk about principles until you have to pay the costs of being true to them.

[^] If you counterargue this using radical Trump administration actions, most of them cannot be categorized as "principled" or without ultimately fatal-to-the-administration consequences.