Current Events

Apparantly, the "liberal blogosphere" is still rumbling about Sen. Feingold's attempt to censure the president for his illegal NSA snooping program. As a nominal member of that tribe, I feel a certain responsibility to weigh in — but doesn't that issue seem so last week?

First off, I suspect even Sen. Feingold recognized how quixotic his motion was. Granted, an increasing number of Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the president; but none are going to go on the record as censuring the de facto leader of their party. And since Republicans are still in the majority, there's no way a censure measure could have passed.

With this bit of political theater, Sen. Feingold has positioned himself as being in the brave, and liberal, wing of the Democratic party. Whether his bravery will translate into votes remains to be seen.

As for the snooping, there's no question in my mind that it was illegal. Further, given the nature of the FISA statute, I wonder why the administration felt it was necessary. The existing FISA statute makes it possible to wire-tap someone for 48 hours without a warrant.

In other words, NSA could start wiretapping my phone right now, sans warrant, and wait 48 hours to obtain a warrant. Additionally, the FISA court has never yet denied one of these post-facto warrants.

Part of the argument is the administration couldn't afford to wait to wire-tap various folk. But FISA doesn't make them wait. The government can wiretap anyone at anytime and ask for forgiveness 48 hours after the fact.

This snooping is just the latest example of Presidential over-reaching in the B*sh administration. So far as the Prez is concerned, if he says so, it must be true. If he says he has the power to do something, he must have that power.

The folks at Talking Points Cafe have been debating whether B*sh is the worst president ever. I've recently been wondering whether Georgie Porgie is more like LBJ or Nixon.

It's become fairly commonplace to compare Iraq with VietNam. And, with GWB's faux-Texas accent, he could occasionally sound a little like LBJ. In fact, I heard a GWB soundbite on Saturday wherein his voice did sound eerily like Johnson's, and he was making an argument for staying in Iraq which sounded extremely similar to LBJ's reasoning for staying in VietNam.

While VietNam is significant black mark on Johnson's presidency, the Civil Rights Act almost outweighs it. His administration achieved other accomplishments which make it more effective — and less destructive overall — than the current regime.

The administration's love of secrecy is closer to Nixon's, though. Many refer to the current regime as an "imperial presidency", because B*sh seems to think his "political currency" gives him imperial powers. Many also perceived Nixon's term as "imperial", because of his love of pomp and his perception of the reach of executive power (and priviledge).

Perhaps B*sh is just the worst of Johnson and Nixon combined, with none of the redeeming qualities of either.

Post #1476