Columnist Charles Krauthammer sharply criticized President Obama on Special Report for his flippant remarks earlier Thursday about the search for Edward Snowden, when he said he wouldn't scramble jets to find a 29-year-old-hacker and expected other countries to abide by international law.
Krauthammer called the remarks arrogant, particularly in light of Secretary of State John Kerry saying "people may die" because of what Snowden's leaks had revealed. Rather, Krauthammer said Obama was trying to "save face" and not have another embarrassing foreign policy moment while the Russians and Chinese continued to flout U.S. wishes:
KRAUTHAMMER: I mean, the arrogance, that he's of such Olympian stature, and then he pretends that it's just a 29-year-old hacker, when as you showed earlier in the show, the Secretary of State said that this could cost lives, and the head of the NSA had said it's extremely damaging. I mean, obviously he's trying to save face, but it's making it worse. Then at the end, he says the other reason I didn't is because I don't want to make this important enough that springing him becomes an issue on which I have to wheel and deal with the Russians and the Chinese. Well, has Obama ever been accused of wheeling and dealing successfully with anyone? How's the wheeling and dealing over the reset gone, over Syria and Iran and other issues? He says he doesn't want to be over-taxed. He's got other stuff to do as he tours Africa.
Fellow panelist Andrew Napolitano said Obama viewed Snowden like a bank robber whose whereabouts were irrelevant to avoid further foreign policy woes, and Krauthammer closed the segment by saying the situation was far more serious than Obama feared.
"Even as we speak, the president pretends it's just, as you say, a bank robbery case, they're scooping up every iota of information in his computers," he said. "A lot of stuff that we don't even know about now that could be extremely damaging. It is not a routine case."