Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog

Bush's Snoopergate

The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times' eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper's editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn�t just out of concern about national security.

I don't think I've ever read anything as scathing as this from the mainstream media. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter lays it on the line and spells out a damn good case for impeachment, which I suspect is what he intended.

Here are some samples, but please read this entire article and pass it around:

President Bush came out swinging on Snoopergate�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.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act....

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story�which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year�because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had �legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.� But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing �all necessary force� in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism....

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason�and less out of genuine concern about national security�that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.
This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason�and less out of genuine concern about national security�that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

Bush had his "I AM NOT A CROOK, moment when he said "I am not a dictator!" I don't know if he quipped, "But I play one on TV."

That's the one that goes in the history books.

Senator Byrd Just Gave the "Fuck the King" speech

THE PRESIDENT IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW.

Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous President. It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution.

I continue to be shocked and astounded by the breadth with which the Administration undermines the constitutional protections afforded to the people, and the arrogance with which it rebukes the powers held by the Legislative and Judicial Branches. The President has cast off federal law, enacted by Congress, often bearing his own signature, as mere formality. He has rebuffed the rule of law, and he has trivialized and trampled upon the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizures guaranteed to Americans by the United States Constitution.

I am reminded of Thomas Payne's famous words, "These are the times that try men's souls."

These astounding revelations about the bending and contorting of the Constitution to justify a grasping, irresponsible Administration under the banner of "national security" are an outrage. Congress can no longer sit on the sidelines. It is time to ask hard questions of the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the CIA. The White House should not be allowed to exempt itself from answering the same questions simply because it might assert some kind of "executive privilege" in order to avoid further embarrassment.

The practice of domestic spying on citizens should halt immediately. Oversight hearings need to be conducted. Judicial action may be in order. We need to finally be given answers to our questions: where is the constitutional and statutory authority for spying on American citizens, what is the content of these classified legal opinions asserting there is a legality in this criminal usurpation of rights, who is responsible for this dangerous and unconstitutional policy, and how many American citizens' lives have been unknowingly affected?