The Inept Obama Administration Now Has to Answer to Allies About Its Spying

 The U. S. Excuse – We Are Spying on You, But Don't Worry, We Are Also Incompetent

Exactly what the United States has been doing with respect to its European allies and its NSA spying is not clear, but it is certain that whatever it has been doing it has been doing a lot of it.  And so European leaders, in part playing to their own political bases, are not happy. 

François Hollande, the French president, has demanded an immediate halt to alleged US surveillance of European allies, saying such action is unacceptable and signalling it could threaten recently launched EU-US talks on a new trade agreement.

“We cannot accept this type of behaviour between partners and allies. We demand that it ceases immediately,” Mr Hollande said.

Mr. Hollande of course is highly unpopular in France, being about as well loved as Two Buck Chuck would be at a French wine festival.  But other European leaders are also upset.

Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Angela Merkel, said that if proven true, “the bugging of friends is unacceptable. We are not in the cold war any longer”.

He said the question was top priority for the German chancellor, who would call President Barack Obama to discuss it. Berlin wanted to see “trust restored” between close friends and partners.

Mr. Obama’s explanation is that everyone is doing this

Mr Obama said that “we should stipulate that every intelligence service – not just ours, but every European intelligence service is seeking additional insight beyond what’s available through open sources.”

But of course he forgot to add that the United States is particularly bad at keeping what it is doing a secret.  And here we have just another example of how Mr. Obama and his crew are just not very good at governing, despite having the right policy ideas and good intentions.