A Question…
…for those who are so sure Bush is in the wrong on this issue (and yes, I freely admit I continue to play both sides on this one – though I suspect sooner or later I’ll come across my position wandering around in the woods somewhere): why is Bush so adamant about the authorization? This is no cover-up, it’s an embrace.
That question would certainly be one I would like to throw at Jonathan Alter, who is practically giddy about the prospect of Bush’s downfall:
Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
Finally? Am I the only one who finds this much eagerness unseemly?
After all, even if you hate the President, he is OUR President – if the scandal is as serious as Alter thinks it is, isn’t it a bit tasteless to be eager for it? And Alter thinks it’s serious indeed – here comes that ‘I’ word:
If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced.
Yes, that may very well be true; it will be the end of the Democratic hopes for 2008, if so, but it may be true (I doubt the American public is going to enjoy the spectacle of a politically motivated impeachment proceeding during wartime).
Alter puts everthing in the worst possible light:
I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
Well, of course, Mr. Alter, another interpretation is that the President genuinely believed it was a matter of national security.
This is the kind of hack piece that will only hurt the President’s enemies – Alter makes a lot of assumptions on the way to the conclusion he was reaching for from the start. One reason I’ve jumped around on this story is the feeling that it’s not always necessary to form an opinion in the harsh light of breaking news. If this story is as serious as Bush’s opponents say it is, it’s not going to just drop overnight. I’m in no hurry, and I’m sure a lot of facts have yet to be revealed.
One final word to the President-hating Glee Club: remember Fitzmas? A bit of a dud, no? Perhaps a little more patience and caution might be in order…
Well, okay, one more cautionary note: this lame duck may not be so lame; in the words of the Washington Post, his approval rating has ‘surged’ as of late…not necessarly germaine to the NSA story, but let’s face it, there’s been a bit of piling on lately as the Dems sense blood in the water – it may yet prove to be their own…
Those who think the Adminstration has overstepped: on pre-war Intelligence, on detentions without trial, on torture, on …, may be forgiven for thinking that this time the Adminstration has done something so flagrantly illegal that no amount of spin will allow them to weasel out.
Perhaps that hope is overblown, but, for those who have been paying attention, it is not un-understandable.
I think we can safely put Alter in the same camp with Dionne and Fineman–they’ll keep predicting the political demise of George Bush until January 2009, when they’ll finally be right. It’s like the Rumsfeld thing–eventually you would think they would get tired of being wrong, but I guess the temptation is irresistable. And Jacques, I think a “journalist” has an obligation to at least attempt to remain impartial and report the story in a neutral fashion, no matter how he feels about other issues. Have we leared nothing from Mary Mapes? The validity of the story at hand is the issue, not the larger personal political agenda of the reporter. If Mr. Alter cannot contain his outrage over the other points you raise when writing about an issue like the NSA with vital ramifications for our national security then he has no place at Newsweek.
Clearly the administration is very confident on this issue–from what AGAG was saying yesterday they have quite a paper trail from the Justice Department. And it’s looking like yet another opportunity for the Dems to look soft on the war on terror, and they’re certainly embracing that.
It’s an opinion-piece. He’s a columnist (as opposed to a straight “reporter”). He’s supposed to be expressing an opinion.
On the contrary, Mr. Alter is a perfect representative of Newsweek – right down to their faux outrage over our despicable and disgusting Koran – flushing military, of course.
Even Ben Bradlee has ripped them new ones after their ridiculous performance this year – and of course, you only have to check out their subscription performance and newsstand sales to see where that type of reporting has gotten them this year.
I do find it amusing that Alter chooses to make a mocking comparison of Bush with Lincoln. I consider Lincoln our greatest president, and he faced the most serious crisis in our nation’s history, but in so doing he suspended habeas corpus and had members of the Maryland legislature arrested to keep them from voting for secession.
I mean, you can criticize President Bush on this stuff all you want, but skipping a nearly automatic judicial process to eavesdrop on phone conversations is small potatoes compared with President Lincoln’s sins against civil liberties.
Read Alter’s invocation of the “I” word, and throw in recent comments by Kerry, Boxer and others. If the Democrats get a congressional majority next year, they’re going to try to impeach Bush. I would bet the rent money on it.
It speaks volumes about the debasement of political discourse in America that anyone would have to take this possibility into account when deciding which candidate to vote for. It’s a threat that overwhelms the usual policy differences between two congressional candidates, and for that the Democrats have got no one to blame but themselves.
Think that’s a debasement of the political process? How about this (the 2nd of the 2 quotes from the NYT article)?
As much as I think Alter is a maniac, I’m also a little sympathetic. Bush has shown such a flagrant disregard for pretty much every rule on the books since he became president that calling for impeachment is not exactly beyond the pale. I would not call for impeachment myself, but if I were in Congress and he got impeached, I would have to consider voting for his removal.
Just as a little note, I didn’t read Alter’s article as desirous of an impeachment. Rather, I saw it as saying something like, “As long as there’s going to be a scandal, at least it’s finally one that’s worth talking about.” Not “Finally we have a scandal.”
I’ve got to admit, I honestly don’t see this. It’s hard for me to think of a charge of presidential overreach by Bush that isn’t parallelled, and dramatically outstripped, by precisely similar and much more flagrant abuses of authority by other recent presidents from both parties. Certainly Waco, the Gonzales case, and the late-term pardons by Clinton seem to me to be much worse abuses of presidential authority.
It might be argued that the excesses of Clinton et al don’t let Bush off the hook. Possibly not, but it seems selective, to say the least, to call Bush a would-be dictator for failing to meet a standard of constitutionality so narrowly literal that every president since Washington would have flunked it. The charge seems particularly strange coming from people who generally oppose conservative judges for their narrowly literal reading of the Constitution. To me this looks like a case of “it’s not what you do, it’s who’s doing it.”
Yes, but where oh where were all these screamers when their boy (Clinton) was doing the exact same thing with the NSA?
It’s nothing but clear partisanship we’re witnessing here, amid the usual posturings.
Proof, dmac. Show me where it says Clinton did the same thing. Please.
Dmac seems to be otherwise engaged, Fargus. Probably actually doing his job, and hence contributing in some small way to the roaring engine of the Bush economy.
However, he may have been referring to Clinton’s claim that he had the authority to order searches without warrants.
N.B.: Clinton’s assertion didn’t rely on “hot pursuit” or “time of war,” either, both of which have been said to apply to the NSA surveillance. Doesn’t this strike you as a somewhat more sweeping erosion of civil liberties?
That’s a very funny article. The Executive Order authorizing such warrantless searches was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. The Clinton Administration agreed (after a tussle with Congress), in 1994, to rescind the Order.
NRO’s headline: “Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches”
Wanna try again?
Echelon was/is not “exactly the same thing.” Not by a long shot. I’d suggest reading up on it, before hurling that accusation.
And for a bit of perspective from the SigInt professionals, try reading this.
Jacques, thanks for the pointer to that link; I’m still trying to get my hands around this – I find the explanation that the reason to go outside FISA was because of a program using different techniques, technology,or methodologies to be persuasive, but not completely so…nevertheless, I’m trying to explore that angle, but there are only so many hours in the day, and there is so much material out there at the moment that it’s a bit overwhelming…but the Arkin link within your link looks promising…
I’m okay with it, Jacques. It supports my original point in this thread that (ahem)
I asked if anyone else could explain why this wasn’t a broader incursion on civil liberties than the NSA surveillance. So far, nobody’s done so. Also, I never claimed Clinton deserved to get impeached for this. On the Clintonian bill of impeachment, warrantless searches would definitely have to take a number.
See, part of the problem with laws (or statutes, if you will) is that they tend to be so damn specific, otherwise they risk being overturned by SCOTUS which has proven itself to look askance of those laws that are overly broad or vague.
If FISA was established and speaks to a specific set (however long) of circumstances and techniques and the circumstances (domestic person communicating with international person(s)) and technique are not on the list, then has the President actually violated the law?
Also, if the question of whether the Congressional resolution issued following 9/11 granted the President sufficient power to conduct these warrantless searches is not resolved until a SCOTUS ruling in the future – – assuming they rule in the negative – did the President break the law?
I feel like I should point out that under no circumstances was Clinton “my boy”. In fact, who in their right mind would accuse me of being anything but a Republican? Sure I hate most of the Republican delegation in Congress and I think the Bush administration is a bunch of hooligans, but that pretty much pales in comparison to my opinion of the Democrats. I voted for Bush in 2000 because he seemed to be promising a more responsible, more decent, and less burdensome government. I voted for Kerry in 2004 because he wasn’t Bush. Why exactly has the right been so resolute in defending a guy who was, at best, a lemon?
Now, before I get too far off topic, it’s worth pointing out what a crappy defense “Yeah, but Clinton did it too!” is. We’re supposed to be better than Clinton. We hated Clinton because he seemed completely unaware that there are limits to the power of the Oval Office. We’ve come a hell of a long way if we’re evaluating Bush by comparison to Clinton. Who’s next? Nixon? Hoover? Buchanan? Exactly how low can the Republican Party set the bar before we lose the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror?
Very true Ryan, the standard of comparison is the ideal (or negotiated) not the behavior of the last guy (or the guy before that). What Clinton did is irrelevant exceot in some legal sense where his actions may have established a precedent.
Ryan – I was referring to the people in the MSM who are all up in arms over this latest “scandal,” not to any of the commenters here. That’s the problem with this form of communication – intent and effect are often obscured.