Obama vs. Apple and US

We have been given another little window onto the psychology of this president, a president many have compared to Nixon for his paranoia about leaks, about the truth. New York Times reporter James Risen has said that he thinks Barack Obama hates journalists. Read what the Times reports of Denis McDonough, look at the photo heading the article, and we must ask how many others in the administration share that contempt.

Evidently, the kinds of threats Pres. Obama and his administration have used to coerce agreement (or obedience) — including imprisonment in James Risen's case — didn't work with the CEO of one of the world's most successful businesses. They didn't with James Risen either. So Tim Cook and James Risen become champions of average Americans who for years has been treated with thinly-veiled contempt by an administration that pays little more than lip service to equality or fairness. For years, stories have floated about of Barack Obama's anger when subordinates disagree with him. Yet this is a president who takes without question the demands of authority figures, the petty idols he draws from institutions like Harvard (institutions that have far less to do with "veritas" than with imperium — the empire of belief).

This is an administration that has lied and coerced when it had nothing to gain by doing so. Not surprisingly, we now doubt its word. We need people like Tim Cook to make our case. Pres. Obama is too hostile to democracy to take the word of mere voters.