Forward (Power) vs. Backward (No Power)

I wrote this last month, but I neglected to post it. I feel so strongly about the President's double standard of looking forward for those in power, but looking backward to those who threaten those in power (or not in the inner circle of American Exceptionalism), that I just had to post this, albeit belatedly.

I urge everyone who reads this to listen to (or read) what Obama says about forward/backward looking. There is a glass ceiling. Above it, why, you're part of the forward moving crowd, not to be held accountable for past transgressions. Below the ceiling, and those in power will viciously go after you.

If the transgression is so egregious it can't be ignored, why those in power will just find "nobodys" low on the totem pole to take the fall (see the low ranking military guards from Abu Ghraib who got nailed while those "in power" overseeing the prison got a pass, promoted and such).

But on to the post:

Last month, President Obama has achieved the dubious distinction of "pursuing leak prosecutions" more than any other President. His latest target is the indictment of Thomas A. Drake for contacting a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Mr. Drake was concerned about the "squandering hundreds of millions of dollars on failed programs while ignoring a promising alternative. "

He tried every avenue without success. Ultimately, he took it to the press. In addition to the persecution of Mr. Drake,

...in May, an F.B.I. translator was sentenced to 20 months in prison for providing classified documents to a blogger; this week, the Pentagon confirmed the arrest of a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst suspected of passing a classified video of an American military helicopter shooting Baghdad civilians to the Web site Wikileaks.org.

After Obama's letting the Bush Administration officials off the hook for human rights, privacy and secrecy violations by using the "look forward not back" rationale, he decides to look backward at those who tried to prevent the abuses and nail them to the wall.

On April 15, 2009, when a Spanish court was "threatening to investigate former Bush officials for their complicity in torture," the President said this (Emphasis mine):

"I'm a strong believer that it's important to look forward and not backwards, and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there..."

In March, 2010, during an interview with an Indonesian reporter, he had this to say (Again, emphasis mine):

Reporter: "Is your administration satisfied with the resolution of the past human rights abuses in Indonesia?"
Obama: "We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can't go forward without looking backwards . ."

It appears that his "looking forward, not back" platitude only pertains to the Washington, D.C. political elite and insiders. Looking back for condemnation is perfectly fine for the rest of America and the world. It is tragic to me that the general populace doesn't appear to be a bit concerned about this egregious (and obvious) double standard. Somehow, it's just completely ignored.