Obama's BlackBerry tantrum & Hillary's emails

Seven years ago in Technocracy, I described Barack Obama as "our technology dictator," a man who seemed only too prepared to use and misuse the power of technology. Obama was a president who, on ascending the throne (as he sees it) of the presidency, wasted no time projecting his Orwellian visage on every screen imaginable. The full-court media press led some to experience, in so many words, "Obama fatigue." It quickly became apparent that Obama not only felt he deserved to rule us, but that we were miserable ingrates if we didn't agree. Forgotten amidst all that was the fact that one of Obama's very first acts as president was to demand to keep his BlackBerry smartphone – national security be damned.

Jeff Zeleny reported, in the New York Times in 2009, that for over two months, Obama waged "a vigorous battle with his handlers to keep his BlackBerry, which like millions of other Americans he has relied upon for years to stay connected with friends and advisers. … He won the fight, aides disclosed Thursday, but the privilege of becoming the nation's first emailing president comes with a specific set of rules. … [O]nly a select circle of people will have his address, creating a true hierarchy for who makes the cut and who does not. Second, anyone placed on the A-list to receive his email address must first receive a briefing from the White House counsel's office. Third, messages from the president will be designed so they cannot be forwarded."

Zeleny correctly pointed out, even then, that the issue was "fueled to a large degree by Mr. Obama himself, who mentioned it again and again. He would not take no for an answer. ... Throughout the transition, several of his aids talked openly about Mr. Obama's obsession with keeping his BlackBerry. And some of them, when speaking privately, said they were eager to have his device taken away so the case could be closed. … While lawyers and the Secret Service balked at Mr. Obama's initial requests to allow him to keep his BlackBerry, they acquiesced as long as the president – and those corresponding with him – agreed to strict rules. And he had to agree to use a specially made device, which must be approved by national security officials."

It's almost as if communications at the highest level of government – to and from the president or, say, to and from the secretary of state – are something that ought to be closely guarded because they represent a very real potential exploit of national security. There's a problem for Barack Hussein Obama and his precious BlackBerry, though, and that is that the company that makes it has been struggling financially for years. The United States Senate just announced that it is switching from the BlackBerry to the Android or iPhone (demonstrating just how in touch our government is with the rest of the American people).

"The reason, according to the memo: BlackBerry told telecom carriers Verizon and AT&T that production of all BlackBerry OS 10 devices (Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport and Classic) is being discontinued and future fulfillment can't be guaranteed," writes USA Today's Allana Akhtar. "… It's not clear what fate awaits the House's BlackBerry loyalists. [The device] has been a staple in Congress for a decade due to its long battery life, prominence of email and easy-to-use keyboard. It also has a reputation for being one of the most secure products available, as it has been fully encrypted for at least a decade."

Not mentioned in the article, of course, is the influence Obama's insistence on keeping his BlackBerry may have had on which devices were used in government. Essentially, Obama had a tantrum and insisted that technology be developed to properly secure the device he wanted to keep. National security, as it so often does for Democrats, took a back seat to what Obama wanted and what he felt he deserved. This brings us, of course, to the presumptive Democrat nominee for president in 2016 – none other than that wretched, corrupt hag, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Displaying a degree of duplicity usually reserved for Supreme Court justices rationalizing the constitutionality of Obamacare, FBI Director James Comey officially announced Tuesday that Clinton was off the hook for her private-email-server scandal. Perhaps because he has no desire to die mysteriously and abruptly of "natural causes," as so many who threaten the Clintons tend to do, Comey announced that, well, yes, Clinton and her staff showed remarkably negligence in their handling of classified data and, sure, someone else who did similar things could indeed be brought up on charges. He nevertheless invented an escape clause for Clinton that does not exist in the relevant law: She didn't intend to violate national security, so she shouldn't be prosecuted.

In other words, following the law is for you peasants, not for people like Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Further, like all good Democrats, these are progressives who have only the vaguest understanding of the technology they use. Hillary demonstrated a shocking ignorance of technology in the various hearings regarding her emails. Feigned or not, her inability to grasp what was happening and why it was a problem – much like Obama's refusal to give up his precious smartphone when ascending to the highest elected office in the world – bespeaks a profound stupidity on the part of liberals. They think of technology as a kind of black magic that can solve all the problems of the world – or be blamed for all of them – without regard for facts and without reference to reality.

Thus, Benghazi happened because somebody uploaded a YouTube video, Hillary's thousands of deleted emails weren't her fault, and her illegal email server wasn't a crime. Liberals hide behind their ignorance of technology as often as they use it to rationalize their schemes. They love it, they hate it, and they cling to it even as they blame it ... but in all things, they don't understand technology, and that is why they are so very incompetent.

Media wishing to interview Phil Elmore, please contact [email protected].