Barack Obama is the President!

It does not matter what President Bush did or did not do regarding domestic surveillance of American citizens. Obama owns these domestic spying programs.

Barack Obama is the President of the United States! I know this may seem very difficult to believe, but it is true. Obama was elected on November 04, 2008 and he was elected to a second term on November 06, 2012. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2009 and has been President every single day since then, bringing his total time in office to four years and almost five months.

A corollary to this astonishing fact is that George W. Bush is not the President and has not been shaping policy as President for the last four years and five months. This must be a shocking fact to many people in our great nation.

One would think that people would not need to be reminded of these facts, which should be common knowledge. But with the coverage of and debate over the government tapping into phone records - something that the Obama administration has defended - and allegedly snooping on Internet traffic through Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft, you would think it was still 2008 and candidate Obama was running for office and assuring us that he will respect civil liberties and change the course of the Bush policies.

So let us make something very clear. The snooping into our private phone records is an Obama program. The alleged snooping in our Internet activity is an Obama program. It does not matter what President Bush did or did not do regarding domestic surveillance of American citizens. Obama owns these domestic spying programs. Obama has continued these programs, the Obama Justice Department has ordered phone companies to turn over data on calls made, and the Obama administration has allegedly continued the "Prism" program to snoop on Internet activities.

No, this does not mean that history began on January 20, 2009. That is an argument made by petulant, childish trolls. What it means is that Barack Obama is responsible for his own policies. What that means is that it is dishonest and immature to whine that "Bush did it too!" What this means is that Obama is the only person who should be blamed for Obama's policies. That does not mean that Bush does not deserve criticism for the policies he implemented as President, but Bush is not the President. Obama is the President.

It is long past time for both Barack Obama and his defenders to take responsibility for Barack Obama's policies.