Republicans have their Clinton moment
What’s up with the Republican blogs out there? There is a serious issue wherein the president may have broken the law. Yet, they’re more content to poo-poo the NYT for printing the story or US News for getting a FOIA request. Sorry, folks, but you’re not doing anyone any favors with this stuff. The press reports. Everyone ought to be concerned about the fact the president may have broken the law. The only complaint that should be leveled against the NYT is waiting for a year to time the report with a book they were pimping. And, guess what. People know the US spies. It’s not news. The details of it are news but Al Qaeda knows we’re watching them. They’re not suddenly picking up the NYT and saying: Hey, Abu, did you know they can listen to our phone calls? Stupid, little great Satans. They knew that already.
These are serious allegations and the Republican blogs may want to address the issue instead of crowing about another made up issue.
December 30th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Frankly, the timing of the story is such that I haven’t really followed it too much (and hence don’t know the details of it) but my general impression is that the concerns I have seen raised (again, without digging too deep on my part) are mostly an over reaction to a red herring that while it appears to be illegal activity isn’t either illegal (in the sense that the “wiretapping” done was different than the usual notion of breaking in a home and placing a bug on your line – it was done at some central call monitoring point), involved foreign nationals as well as US citizens, and that in this day and age there really isn’t much of an expectation of privacy when placing on cell phone communications (since anyone can pretty much do the same thing the government did).
Again, I may be completely off base because as I said – I haven’t followed the issue with any detail – but thats my impression of it so far.
December 30th, 2005 at 10:42 am
I’ve seen enough from JJ and the Volokh folks to think that there may very well be nothing here. I mostly ignored the Plame thing for three years, and I’m glad I did, because the whole Plame story mostly went nowhere. I’m not going to spend a lot of time going down this rabbit hole.
December 30th, 2005 at 10:45 am
I’ve seen enough inconsistency in the defense by both JJ and some other folks to think this one may have legs. Until new info comes to light, I probably won’t spend any more time on it either.
It could be nothing but tentatively it ain’t looking good.
December 30th, 2005 at 11:09 am
IMHO, Les hit the nail on the head with Plame. We’ve heard “it ain’t lookin’ good” for the past five years.
From the “Bush stole the election in FLA” to “Bush KNEW about 9/11” to Abu Ghraib to “Bush Lied about WMD” to the plastic turkey to the Diebold machines to Plame to… it’s been a non-stop non-story all coldly calculated to hit Bush.
While Clinton could count on the media to bury stories, Bush has a different cover – the media is so eager to “get” him that they absolutely FLOOD the airwaves with the lastest Bush “shocker” that, once you dig into it a little, is a re-hash of a non-story that aired two years ago.
December 30th, 2005 at 11:51 am
I haven’t followed the story much either, but, from what I have seen in online sources I trust, it appears that Bush didn’t break the law.
It also appears that he did the same thing that Carter and Clinton authorized (with little national security effect and no WSJ editorial by Ted “Splash” Kennedy.
I oppose the Patriot Act and intrusions into civil liberties, but I haven’t seen much on this one which concerns me.
BTW, what is JJ?
Happy new year to all.
Keep them in the 10 ring.
December 30th, 2005 at 11:56 am
JJ is a political movement. JJ is a universal idea spawned from love and joy. JJ is the art of being.
Actually, I’m JJ. Just some short, chubby geek with bad hair. My only saving grace is my wonderful wife.
December 30th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
I feel he may be in some hot water over this incident, but as all in power know the waters soon become luke warm.
There are many other outside issues surrounding this such as the fact that as CIC he still does not have supreme powers and at any time congress can take those powers away.
Other issues now surrounding this are those that have to do with prosecutions that have already been tried may have to be retried if found that evidence obtained was through NSA wiretapping in order to convict. In other words if the NSA “terrorist” eavesdropping helped nab a US citizen in an illegal gun, drug, or any illegal deal, these folks will have to be retried as the wiretapping evidence acquired will be inadmissible.
Regardless if it was illegal or not the CIC will be in no more trouble than Bill getting his knob polished in the oval office, but there are many more side effects from this than simply dry cleaning a dress.
I agree with Uncle also on the aspect that the CIC has special powers when in time of war, but in order to obtain said powers we must declare war which has not been done. Also I find it funny that the right now attacks anyone that is not 100% pro-wiretap and pro-Bush as leftist communist. Takes me back to 9/11 when if you didn’t agree with everything the Whitehouse said you were non patriotic and should be charged with treason.
Fact is this is something that we in the United States that still give a damn about our Constitution want answers to. Hopefully what he did was legal and it will be a mute point, but if this turns out to be true then we need to make sure that the checks and balances are in place to keep everyone on a semi level playing field. I for one am very anxious to hear the outcome of the hearings and see what really happened.
BT
December 30th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
I find it highly humorous that people think “the Plame thing” is over.
December 30th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Les — Keep telling yourself that the Plame thing is over. Eventually, it will be. Capiche?
As for the NYT’s sitting on the story, it can also be seen as the ultimate refutation of the Know-nothing argument that “Big Media” is a liberal bastion blah blah blah. What if the Times had dropped this juicy bit during the election? You can make the National Guard thing go away, but committing a crime while sitting as President? That’s a tough row to hoe and I don’t know if he has any ‘political capital’ left to spend. The NYT obviously had the story and sat on it and was willing to continue to sit on it, until a book that would have scooped them came along. Journalists don’t let other journalists scoop them. If not getting scooped is part of your job, can you blame them? Bush brought that shithead Sulzberger in and “asked” him to not run the story. The President of the United States begged a newspaper publisher for mercy.
December 30th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Brittney and metulj: Fitzmas has come and gone. Sorry you didn’t get what you wanted.
But, hey, maybe I’m wrong and three more years of investigations will produce something.
December 30th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
apparently George can do no wrong according to some of you guys.
December 30th, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Big media has no remaining remaining street cred, unless you belong to the Green Party, Move On, etc.
Whether it’s Jason Blair faking stories or NBC staging doctored automotive tests.
THe NYT sat on this “story”, which may or not be true (but involves virtually identical conduct to what Clinton and Carter authorized on their respective watches) in much the same way that NBC sat on the Juanita Broderick rape story until after the Senate impeachment trial.
Nothing more than professional courtesy to its buddies in the DNC.
December 30th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
I might be able to get worked up over if not for the fact that Eschelon has been up and running for 30 years without anyone in the media getting bunched panties over it. I made my peace with the idea that anything transmitted via radio anywhere in the world is going to be filtered by a computer at the NSA. Don’t like it? Don’t transmit.
I’m much more worried about feel-good measures that either do nothing to improve security or actually hurt it (TSA, ATF, DEA) than I am about agencies that actually get results.
December 30th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
I mostly ignored the Plame thing for three years, and I’m glad I did, because the whole Plame story mostly went nowhere. I’m not going to spend a lot of time going down this rabbit hole.
This is a fine demonstration of how partisanship neuters otherwise sensible people. For all the lip service conservatives give to small government, individual rights, liberty and freedom, few of you seem to have any clue how the powerful exercise influence. You don’t understand how top-dollar lawyers delay investigations and drag out trials. You don’t understand how spin doctors breed confusion and give credibility to bullshit. You don’t understand how money and connections tilt the playing field. You don’t understand how ownership and advertising influence news.
Les, you are proud of your ignorance! The idea that Carter and Clinton did the same thing Bush did is transparently wrong to anyone who bothers to examine the facts. If you use partisanship as a filter for which facts you acknowledge and which you deliberately ignore, you make a great dupe for the powerful and useless defender of liberty.
December 30th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
Pers, if Bush did something wrong then I’m interested. But frankly, sifting through all of the partisan BS from Bush’s detractors to separate the truth from the hyperbole is a full time job. If this controversy doesn’t pan out, it’ll just be something else.
If you get the goods on Bush and impeach him, I’m sure I’ll hear about it. I’m just not going to pursue it in too much detail when it’s controversy #527 in a series, especially when the mainstream media and the left-wing blogosphere is already beating it to death. It’s a free country, and I choose to pursue stories (like the NO floodwall story, or municipal wi-fi) that aren’t getting enough coverage to suit my tastes.
January 1st, 2006 at 11:33 pm
[…] Say Uncle reports on the Republican’s Clinton moment. […]
January 2nd, 2006 at 8:18 am
Hey guys — I just found this site and am a first time poster so please forgive me if I cover something covered elsewhere.
I really don’t see a correlation between the reporting of Bush’s interception of communications and the moonbat who, as was so eloquently pub previously, polished Clinton’s knob in the oval office.
If the first place, we really do not have the facts of whose communications were intercepted and under what circumstances and I have no doubt that is going to make a huge difference in whether Bush’s actions were appropriate or not. But there’s no doubt in my mind that whoever’s communication was intercepted and for whatever reason, that person whose rights may have been violated would not be in a position to blackmail the president over that information.
Which takes us to the moonbat scenario. I personally could care less what Bill Clinton does with his personal life — except when it is going on while he is president of the United States. Why in the world would the most powerful man in the world (and the president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world) put himself in a position (every pun intended) of embarassing information being available for sale to the highest bidder? We know he would have lied publicly about it — he did, and under oath no less. So why shouldn’t we be concerned that somehow his desire to keep his indescretions discreet would make him susceptible to some sort of blackmail?
George Bush wasn’t concerned that this leak of his actions made him look bad — he was mad because he considers it a breach of national security. Again, I don’t know the particulars of whose communications were intercepted or under what circumstances so whether he behaved illegally, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this folks — I read the 911 Report from beginning to end and the criticism that rang throughout was that intelligence wasn’t getting where it needed to get to prevent what happened. If this action is routing Al Quaeda words to GWB’s ears with no layers of beauracracy in between, then I say go for it.
January 2nd, 2006 at 9:23 am
K2, it looks like Bush may have broken the law. Obviously, it will take an investigation to determine that. But the rather shoddy defense of the spying by a lot of folks seems a bit disingenuous.
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:20 am
Uncle — I respectfully disagree that we have any inkling whether he broke the law or not. Interception of communications does not equate with breaking the law. I think we need to wait and see what the facts are before we reach any conclusions.
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:34 am
FISA’s pretty clear that intercepting communications of US Persons requires a warrant (obtained after the fact). Bush didn’t do that. Now, there may be other precedent that could say that’s OK but I’ve not found any precedent that’s convincing. And given the low denial rate of these warrants, it indicates laziness on the part of the administration if nothing else.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:22 pm
The question is whether FISA ever had the ability to override the President’s executive war powers as spelled out in the Constitution. My understanding of the issue is whether it would be unlawful for the President (or someone acting under his direction) to, without a warrant, intercept calls made into or out of hte United States when the call was to or from someone with known ties to Al Qaeda. To my knowledge, to date the United States Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue of whether the President has such authority but several lower courts have stated tht he has (authority not limited to Al Qaeda operatives but any foreign agent).
FISA does require warrants for wiretapping enemy agents in the US and the warrants must be obtained from the secret court we’ve heard about. Just because Congress passed this act, however, does not automatically mean that it can trump the authority given to the President by the Constitution. Apparently, all of the Presidents since FISA was passed believed it did not restrict their ability to do what they feel they need to do when faced with potential threat from a foreign enemy. This is the classic push-me-pull-you exercise that the executive and legislative branches of our Federal government have played since the days of Marbury v. Madison. It’s also what keeps our country great — that we have this kind of tension that keeps both branches somewhat in check.
But again, I don’t think there is by any means any clear dunk call that the President committed any crime. At best, he set the stage for the show down that may have been inevitable — whether Congress has the right to limit the power given to the President by the Consitutiton.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
You’ve just confessed to the problem:
See, when congress makes a law, the president does not decide if it passes constitutional muster. The courts do. As such, the prez may have violated the law. We do not violate laws just because they may be wrong. There are ways to challenge them legally. That was not done.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Uncle — how do you think the question gets to the court in the first place? One of the requirements of a federal court exercising jurisdiction is that there must be a case in controversy. Somebody can’t just ask them a question (like “hey — can FISA trump the Constitution?”) and get an answer.
But I respect our respective rights to disagree and we’ll see how this plays out.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:40 pm
So, you’re basically stating that the we get rid of a branch of goverment? The executive can ask congress to review, or the court to decide without breaking the law. The fact that it was also fairly easy to comply with this particular law makes it even more questionable.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:48 pm
I’m not at all saying that we get rid of a branch of government. What I’m saying is that Congress has the right to do what it thinks it can. The Executive branch has the right to do what it thinks it can (such as, in this case, operating in a way that, according to the Executive branch, does not break a law because, according to the Executive branch, the Congress has no authority to abridge the war powers of the Executive branch). And when, as here, there is a controversy about what either can do, someone can bring it to the attention of the third branch, the judicial, to determine who is right. All I am saying is that the federal courts don’t decide these things in a vacuum (or very quickly either for that matter). A situation needs to be presented to it.
But I also respectfully disagree with your comment that compliance with FISA was fairly easy. I will have to go back and find my sources for this tidbit, but my understanding is that the process for applying for the warrant is incredibly daunting and it was fairly difficult to convene the panel of persons who were to do the reviewing. Would you like me to find my sources on that?
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:50 pm
So, we seem to agree that legality of the issue has not been decided? As for the process, i meant easy in term of the fact that so few of these requests were denied.
There’s also the issue that we have not had a declaration of war.
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Well, it’s Congress who declares war, not the President, and it is very difficult to declare war in this case because terrorism transcends conventional geographical barriers. Against whom would we declare war?
But Congress did give the President a use-of-force resolution, one that many scholars have believed really was not necessary but at least temporarily avoided the exact argument that’s going on here. That resolution authorizes the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Now, this resolution came AFTER FISA. So even if his inherent authority would not allow him to do what he has done, this resolution certainly gave him very broad powers to “prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
I’m also going to find the article that explained the process that had to be followed to obtain a warrant under FISA and then you’ll see what I’m talking about.
But I am enjoying our discussion immensely. I should be working but this is a lot more fun.
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Exactly, we’ve not declared war hence no war powers. Doesn’t sound like a defense to me.
I ain’t buying and it’s something the courts will have to take on.
BTW, for some reason, you keep tripping spam filters so if a comment doesn’t show up, let me know.
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I feel contaminated — why would I trip spam filters? Do you want to see the info on the process for obtaining the warrant?
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Sure. Let’s have it.