Consider Where the Buck Stops and Who Cares

“The buck stops here.”

Doesn’t that statement apply to all our presidents?  When a president’s administration takes a particular action, it is the president that is ultimately responsible.  That was as true for the Obama administration as it was for his predecessor administrations and his successor administration. 

So, when we learned yesterday that President Trump’s transition team had been “under surveillance” by the Obama administration and that individual names, including names of  Trump team officials, had been unmasked by the intelligence community serving under then President Obama, it is appropriate to say that then president Obama was ultimately responsible for those acts.  That is, President Obama had Trump’s transition team under surveillance.   Now, while we have no proof of an actual “wiretap” of Mr. Trump by Mr. Obama, it is reasonable to assume that the surveillance of those close to Trump may have included wiretapping and certainly may have, perhaps unintentionally, collected information and conversations of Trump himself.   So, then, it is not really so far-fetched for President Trump to allege that he was wiretapped by Mr. Obama. 

The surveillance may have been done legally.  But that does not change the fact that those not under legal surveillance were incidentally surveilled and then unmasked.  There is evidence that senior officials in the Obama administration may have been involved in the unmasking.  Again, the ultimate responsibility for that unmasking rests with then President Obama.  And, it is not unreasonable to think that Obama himself may have viewed the unmasked information.

And, there was clearly a leaking of that classified information to the press; perhaps there was even collusion with the press to reveal that information.

This is serious business.  We have evidence that the administration of a sitting president was surveilling at a minimum those close to the candidate and then president elect of the opposing party.  We have evidence of unmasking of individual names, including that of the new president's pick for National Security Advisor.  And we know that the information was leaked to the press.

Yet, how do the democrats respond to all this?  First, by picking apart President Trump’s tweet so as to find a way to call him a liar or not credible.  He said Obama wiretapped him – they cry “false.”  Well, technically they may be right – it was the Obama administration (but, remember that phrase, “the buck stops here.”).  They say there was no wiretap.  Well, again, technically they may be right – it was “surveillance,” a broader term than wiretap which might or might not include wiretapping.  But, are their minds not able to grasp the underlying concept here – that a sitting president’s administration (an administration that was highly political) surveilled and unmasked individual names of an opposing party’s candidate team?

That alone should be highly troubling to all Americans, but the democrats instead find a way to turn it into a way to attack the president because his language is not technically precise (because he speaks like a real person).  They attack the fact that the President presented his claim in a tweet.  Now, I happen to think that the tweet was not the best way to present this information, but to make this about the tweet, rather than the serious and troubling surveillance itself just shows how desperate the democrats are to grasp any and everything that they can to attack President Trump.

The democrats attack from many fronts.  In addition to the specific language and media used to make the claim, they imply that it may have been Trump’s own people who did the leaking.  They attack the House Intelligence Chair for providing us with information about the surveillance.  And, they ramp up their allegations of collusion between Trump, his team, and the Russians, even though democrats themselves and members of Obama’s intelligence team have stated with certainty that no evidence of such collusion has been found.

What is clear from the democrats’ response to the troubling information of unmasking of names and leaking of classified information to the press is that they are more concerned with finding ways to attack President Trump than in actually investigating known illegal acts and serious wrongdoing. 

What we should be focusing on is first, the illegal leaks to the press (leaking of classified information is a serious crime!), second, the surveillance of the Trump team and whether any information obtained (either from actual targets or incidentally) was used for political purposes, and thirdly, who unmasked the individual names collected in the surveillance.  We should not be afraid to pursue any of these investigations simply because of where or to whom they might lead.

But, then, the democrats’ failure to face reality and to focus on what is really important should not surprise any of us.  During the campaign, rather than focus on the sometimes damning information in the emails from the hacked DNC, they focused rather on the troubling fact that it was leaked and on finding who did it (or on pushing the narrative that the leakers were the Russians in collusion with Trump).  How ironic that now they are not interested in finding leakers, but only in using leaked information to attack President Trump and his administration. 

I understand that many democrats continue to have trouble accepting the fact that there were enough people who view the world and its priorities differently to successfully elect President Trump.  I also understand that rather than facing this reality and examining it, it is easier to simply attack it – if they can destroy Trump then they will not have to face the reality that he represents.  And what of the people and their concerns and their values, the things that caused the electorate to stand against the democrats and their policies?  I really don’t think the democrats give a damn.  Because, what their actions tell me is that they care only about themselves and their power, not about this country or its people.