John Kerry is apparently channeling his inner Kossack by repeating a contention often seen here, that revelations about NSA spying on the leaders of friendly foreign governments--including tapping the personal cell phone of Angela Merkel--are somehow less damaging and less significant because the snooping wasn't personally authorized by Barack Obama. From The Guardian:
The president has ordered a full review into what we're doing. People understand that the president didn't order all these things, this happened over a long period of time, it's been an evolutionary process, we now need to define it more effectively and that's what the president is setting out to do.
I'm perfectly willing to believe this. I just find it less than comforting. We're left with two options: either Mr. Kerry is being disingenuous and Mr. Obama
was in fact aware of this latest example of NSA overreach, or the President indeed had no idea this was going on.
Rephrased, with some conclusions drawn: either Mr. Obama has fully embraced the metastasizing of the American surveillance state (and Sec. Kerry has fully embraced the culture of deceit), or the President is himself being deceived by a rogue agency with its own, profoundly undemocratic agenda.
Honestly, I don't know which option is worse.