Barack Obama Compares Protecting Civil Liberties to Doing the Dishes
[There was a video here]
In a lengthy press conference this afternoon, President Obama touched on everything from Russia's codified homophobia to Edward Snowden to Al-Qaeda. The strangest moment, however, came when Obama started in on a metaphor about his wife not trusting that he did the dishes, and how that is kind of like Americans not trusting their government's surveillance programs. Maybe he just needs to show everyone the dishes, you know? See how that works? No? Well, he tried.
Besides an inelegant metaphor about stricter oversight for NSA programs, Obama used his speech to announce that it's time to "reassess where it is that Russia’s going," citing increasingly icy relations with the nation and Russia's intolerance toward its gay citizens. The president recently canceled a September meeting with Vladimir Putin over Russia's decision to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Regarding Snowden, Obama said, "I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot," adding that he himself called for a review of America's surveillance operations well before Snowden made his now world-famous leaks. The president then asked Snowden to return to America to "appear before the court ... and make his case."