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The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it,” Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore write in Foreign Affairs.
“Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.
“Few U.S. officials think of their ability to act hypocritically as a key strategic resource. Indeed, one of the reasons American hypocrisy is so effective is that it stems from sincerity: most U.S. politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is. Yet as the United States finds itself less able to deny the gaps between its actions and its words, it will face increasingly difficult choices – and may ultimately be compelled to start practicing what it preaches.”


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The globe has long had surveillance states but what the U.S. has done is create a surveillance world.
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NSA Monitored Calls Of 35 World Leaders.
Remember when they were just tracking the metadata of suspected terrorists?
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Sloppy Seconds


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Former Spy Chief Overheard Giving Off-The-Record Interview From Acela Train.
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Outing Dissent
“Inside the National Security Council, most officials aren’t allowed to use or even look at Twitter, the popular social-networking service,” the Washington Post reports.
“But that didn’t stop some of President Obama’s top advisers from trying to identify the person responsible for @natsecwonk, an anonymous Twitter account that published a steady stream of personal and sometimes offensive attacks on White House and State Department officials.
“Three weeks ago, the group hatched a plan to trick the suspected NSC staffer into revealing himself. They would intentionally plant inaccurate, but harmless, information with him to see if it would pop up as a 140-character tweet, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the effort.”
This administration is out of control.
Obamadare
“Federal officials did not fully test the online health insurance marketplace until two weeks before it opened to the public on Oct. 1, contractors told Congress on Thursday,” the New York Times reports.
If only Obama would run government like he ran his campaigns.
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“While individual components of the system were tested earlier, they said, the government did not conduct ‘end-to-end-testing’ of the system until late September.”
That’s just astonishing.
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“An eerie familiarity attends the stories of warnings to Obama administration officials that the enormously cumbersome Affordable Care Act was having significant implementation problems and that the website about to be launched was in danger of crashing,” Charlie Cook writes for the National Journal.
“The disclosures are a metaphor for the history of this legislation, one that could be subtitled, ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.'”
Agreed.
Oh Noooooo!
The Tribune has created a photo gallery of Cubs managerial candidates. I’ll save you the time: They all look like this.
House Call
Today Show Tours Michael Jordan’s Highland Park Home.
Again, we’ll save you the time.
Home Alone
“Congressman-turned-convicted-felon Jesse Jackson Jr. will sell his town house in the nation’s capital to help pay a $750,000 forfeiture he owes, according to a court filing today,” the Tribune reports.
Sandi Jackson will finally forward her old aldermanic number back to a Chicago phone.
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Today in WTF CPS


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The Week In Chicago Rock
Check these out, people: Escondido, Kodaline, Kung Fu, Good Riddance, Janelle Monae, Mike Doughty, This City Falls, Imperial Savagery, Disclosure, Filter.
Beachwood Photo Booth: Orange Garden
Chop suey to take home.
The College Football Report: Boot & Rally
Oh, the pageantry!
Local TV Notes: Jenny McCarthy’s Splashdown
Plus: Kevin Trudeau’s Captive Audience, WGN’s Mystery Theme and a Denis Leary sighting.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Do or dare.

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Posted on October 25, 2013