Scandal-less

Oh, man.  The horror of having to talk to people about politics.  I stand in one place for most of the day at work, so I can't get away from it sometimes.  But the stupidity... the stupidity... (Say it like Kurtz: "The horror.  The horror.")

"Edward Snowden seems like such a nice guy.  Surely he didn't do anything wrong.  He had to flee the country, he was afraid for his life."  Yeah, I would be too after exposing secrets.  But he's much safer in prison here than in an airport, hotel, wherever, whether it's in Russia, China, Venezuela... If we want to off him, we'll do it over there.  Once he's in custody here, that would be embarassing...

And really?  He's a nice guy?  Like, say, Dahmer?  Going to places like Russia and China doesn't exactly make him look nice.  Or innocent.  And even if he doesn't hand information over to them, they'll probably steal it from him anyway.

This whole thing is silly.  I knew about this kind of program years ago.  Even if you didn't, you had to know we were doing stuff like it.  And you know that if this had happened in 2002, conservatives would be screaming for his head.  Now, they seem confused and divided.  As do liberals.  What it comes down to is that he stole secrets.  He's not a whistleblower.  He's a spy.  Maybe he's not doing it for money.  Maybe he believes what he's saying.  Plenty of spies before him have said the same kinds of things, and believed them.

So, no surprises, no scandal.  But everything has to be a scandal.  Obama goes to Africa- "How can he justify spending $60 million when we have the sequester?"  Uh, $60 million is pocket change anymore.  Do you know how much planning and equipment is involved in presidential trips?  And it's not like he's going on vacation to cut brush down.  It's a diplomatic trip.

Where are the scandals?  Where is the wrongdoing?  Republicans keep trying to gin up scandals, to make mountains out of molehills, molehills out of pebbles.  There's nothing there.  The IRS "scandal" is based on nothing- all sorts of groups were investigated, not just Teabaggers.  Benghazi was a bad scene, but not a scandal.  If people had the slightest awareness of history (heck, of reality,) they'd realize there's nothing controversial about any of this.   Can we please talk about real things for a change?