The White House’s approach being criticized has blunted the ability of political enemies to beat up on the President for being soft on crime and leading our nation into weakness and chaos (even if not really true had the President been average). He cannot be tagged as weak. This is a particular concern of Democrats, who tend to be more comfortable avoiding wars more so than Republicans (eg, with the exception of Paul and few others) and focusing domestically. The administration already inherited a financial collapse and tanking economy and two costly wars, providing lots of opportunities for mistakes so to have political enemies tag the administration as a catastrophic administration that jumped on naive “Democratic” methods. Further, as a result of this approach of picking select cases showing horrible subjective decision-making by prosecutors, the dialog has become one of a need to fight government attack on citizens: defense of liberty from government rather than defense from enemies within or outside the US. This is also arguably a form of reverse psychology to get the conversation into what it should be. The many that dislike you will tend to see the gray in the cloud and go in opposite direction by reflex. At the same time, the government has almost secured a loss in court. It also, not accidentally, has sent a message to troublemakers looking to make trouble not to get confidence and think you can walk all over the administration. At a minimum, be prepared to be harassed.

While it’s not necessarily clear this has been their strategy, we have some evidence. One, they would be taking a surprising about face and being rather out of character and extreme (6 now vs 3 prior all time, say). Two, the prosecution has been incompetent over and over and the cases have frequently been weak. Three, attacking troops or the military system during war is bad for morale and for Obama. Sabotage/mutiny/etc is also a concern throughout various parts of governments. Obama already has to deal with balancing act with foreign nations and prosecution of some soldiers. I think I saw discussion of a Manning mistrial as well as for some other cases. Four, this approach by prosecutors would be consistent with other policy areas where the ugly unpopular happened first and the popular has been increasing as election time approaches and perhaps also as the political enemies have adopted a position that can be accepted much more easily by the administration or else went way off the deep end doubling down. Five, they have claimed to have enough powers with current law even if they don’t. While this can be seen as negative, it does also help reduce pressure on Congress to avoid passing more draconian laws. There has been success in this area, I think.

I admit this can be argued differently (either as pure incompetence and/or ill-will towards citizens and whistleblowers), and I am very short on specifics and may have misread things. Assuming anyone reads this, I would like to hear the other side of the coin and also support for this view if any. Even if this comment were flawed in various ways, I think it has some truth to it.

Also, there is justification for most of these actions. Many people do fear whistle-blowing effects on morale and order, for example. It’s always debatable how much might be subterfuge or politics by the administration and how much is incompetence (as many might want to believe).

Finally, remember that we are in a different era than in times past. Internet power is relatively new. Wikileaks.. what was that 100, 50, 20 or even 10 years back? It’s also post 9/11, a moment when our capital was attacked and our defenses penetrated in ways many would not have believed possible and dangerously close to home to those who work in DC. Computers are way advanced compared to even 10 years ago. Etc. etc.