Newt Gingrich summarized the arguement with this piece.
It's hard to think of an action that has put as many lives at risk as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D.-Calif.) declaration of unilateral disarmament in the War on Terror last week.
By refusing to renew our ability to monitor terrorist communications overseas, Speaker Pelosi has put Americans at risk. She has blinded our counterterrorism capability and shut down America's most sophisticated defenses against the irreconcilable wing of Islam. As of midnight last Saturday, the law governing America's defense is totally inadequate to stop terrorists.
Why? Because the Democratic left believes lining the pockets of trial lawyers is more important than stopping terrorists.
The Dems have to know that their rep on national security is already shaky, and they have to know that protecting the homeland is one of the few areas that the folks still trust the Reps more than them. Why would the House leadership, in such an inexplicable and haphazard way no less, move to table this legislation until after a break? This was nothing short of reckless and self destructive politics on the part of the Democrats. Besides keeping their lunatic fringe happy there was nothing to gain by not moving forward with this legislation.
This is a lose and lose even more proposition for them. Their best case scenario is that the House comes back from break and passes the extension immediately. If they do that, the House leadership will admit playing politics and furthermore admit losing in their game. That is their best case scenario. If they drag this out, this program will become the front burner issue in the election cycle. Obama will have to continue to explain his vote against it, and Hillary will have to explain why she didn't even vote at all. The longer this goes, the more the Reps can paint the Dems as siding with the terrorists not to mention the trial lawyers. The Dems can try and make their theoretical civil liberties arguements if they like. During a war, those sort of arguements will fall on deaf ears.
The Democrats have already left themselves open as weak on national defense during war time. Focusing on civil liberties while evil zealots plot to kill us is misguided in my opinion, however without a doubt a foolish political strategy. If that strategy can further be tied to protecting a hated constituency like the trial lawyers, it will be a disaster for the Democrats.
Trial lawyers are a hated constituency? Is there significant evidence for this?
ReplyDeleteI am not exactly a hater of trial lawyers. However, I do not support law which specifically helps them get rich masquerading as do-gooders, which is how I view legal action against private companies aiding my government protect me against Islam, a tyrannical political system masquerading as a religion.
Hated might be too strong a word, but I don't think that trial lawyers will be on any top ten lists of well respected professions.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to get too wordy, however siding with trial lawyers is not much of a political strategy, whether or not hated is proper is one thing, but there is no doubt that folks aren't fond of them.
"Theoretical" civil liberty concerns? Yes, you're right...to the extent the Constitution and United States Law is theoretical.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are unbelievable.
Yes, in the constitution, the President,and the President alone, is the Commander in Chief. Crucial to warfare is the ability to spy on the enemy. The Commander in Chief, has never and must never, be overridden in their ability to spy on the enemy by anyone let alone a judge.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to speak of the Constitution, please know that the Constitution sides with the President on this one. The Constitution is what gives the President the authority to spy on the enemy and that authority is absolute. You are in fact implying that FISA should override the Constitution, and I furiously object to that.
Theoretically, the President can abuse that power and use his power to spy on the enemy to spy on innocents, however that has not been shown to have happened.
"The Constitution gives the President the authority to spy on the enemy and that authority is absolute. ... Theoretically the President can abuse the power, but ....that has not shown to have happened."
ReplyDeleteConstitution gives absolute authority to spy? No historical evidence of abuse? Er, uh putting Nixon and Hoover aside, and FBI wrongly issuing thousands of National Security letters. How do you even know, since what is being done itself is secret?
Unilateral disarmament against terrorism? Motivated by trial lawyers? Big winning thought in November?
Conservatives are this election's leading candidates for political Darwin awards. Maybe you should try a little thoughtful introspection about where you went wrong?
Let me clarify since we have some sticklers. There is no evidence that this President has used this program and abused it. There is all sorts of evidence that past Presidents have used spying and abused it.
ReplyDeleteThe Constitution grants the President the power of Commander in Chief. Among the many duties of warfare is spying on the enemy. The President cannot and must not cede his power to spy on the ENEMY to any judge during war. Period.
The Commander in Chief role gives the President no extra-legal domestic powers. He may be do anything he pleases on non US soil, but he requires enabling legislation, like FISA, to spy on Americans on US Soil.
ReplyDeleteIt is likely that initial versions of this program were illegal. That is what the flap between Gonzalez, Mueller, and Ashcroft in the hospital was all about. Ashcroft wouldn't sign off on the program and Mueller threatened resignation.
The question now is whether the immunity sought for Telecoms is essentially a cover-up to head off discovery of illegal activities, in much the same way Mukasey cut off investigation into illegal waterboarding and destruction of evidence.
There is probably something to be said about turning the page on the Bush administration and moving on, but most good conservatives I know are deeply disturbed about how this extreme theory of Unitary Executive has been used to undermine the rule of law.
Perhaps its no accident that only former legislators are left standing in the Presidential race.
Not only is that non sensical but there is plenty of historical data that says otherwise. Here is what Wilson did during WWI with the Creel Commission...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information
"These groups spied, tapped telephones, and opened mail in an effort to ferret out "spies and traitors." The targets of these groups was anyone who called for peace, questioned the Allies' progress, or criticized the government's policies. They were particularly hard on German Americans, some of whom lost their jobs, and were publicly humiliated by being forced to kiss the American flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or buy war bonds."
FDR set up an office of Censorship.
Lincoln tried Confederates in Military Tribunals. FDR set up internment camps.
Warfare doesn't end at the water's edge, and you are Commander in Chief everywhere. The spies that were caught in WWII weren't tried in our criminal system.
If the enemy happens to be on our soil, they are still the enemy and rules of warfare apply everywhere.
First of all, the fact that former presidents have abused Constitutional prerogatives during a time of war does not make them right to have done so, and certainly doesn't remove the current president's obligation to honor the constitutuion.
ReplyDeleteAren't you the party of the "strict constructionsists"? Does the title "Commander in Chief" supercede every other aspect of the constitution? Does it allow the president to disobey the law? This becomes all the more significant considering the vague nature of the war we're in, which by just about every account (especially Republican accounts) has no end in sight. Is the constitution suspended until every last terrorist is dead?
"and they have to know that protecting the homeland is one of the few areas that the folks still trust the Reps more than them"
ReplyDelete.... um actually thats not true. Check the latest polls!
A few things here...first Presidents set precendent. Second, I never said any of these previous Presidents abused their power. They acted well within the powers vested to them by the Constitution in doing their duties as Commander in Chief. It seems that in order to make your arguement you seem to need to smear multiple Presidents, from multiple centuries and political parties. Either every President was abusing their power during war time, or you are wrong, and I will stick with the latter.
ReplyDeleteThird, I am reading the Constitution strictly. The President has the power of Commander in Chief. You are the one that is attempting to limit that power with some law that isn't in the Constitution. FISA is NOT in the Constitution. The President's power as Commander in Chief is. Any law that inhibits that power is unconstitutional if it is applied that way. The fact that this war will take a long time doesn't suddenly mean that the President won't be commander in chief throughout. Spying on the enemy is a crucial part of warfare. It is the President, as commander in chief, that decides when and how, not some judge. Any law that cedes that power from the Commander in Chief to any other party is unconstitutional at that moment. Period.
As to the polls, you can believe what you want, but I think most folks trust the President and the CIA over Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on the issue of National Security and this latest fiasco is NOT going to help the Dems image on the matter.
OK, I'll ask once again...The phrase "Commander in Chief" is (and was meant by the framers to be) three words granting the president unlimited power in times of war?
ReplyDeleteSurely you don't believe that. What safeguards would we then have against absolute dictatorship? Why would the framers, determined precisely NOT to vest unlimited power in one single individual, do precisely that.
And you say I am "smearing" past presidents. Not smearing, just saying that may have misused power. I consider FDR to be one of the top 3 presidents, but I have no problem saying that the internment of the Japanese-Americans was one of the most egregious wrongs in the country's history. Presidents (and nations) make mistakes. Those mistakes should not then become "precedent".
Not unlimited, just ultimate powers to wage war. What about that can't you understand? You seem to think that spying on the enemy, a crucial part of warfare, should be ceded by the Commander in Chief to a judge.
ReplyDeleteCongress always does and continues to have the power of oversight. It is Congress' job to make sure that this program as well as every program is used for the purpose of war making, and not some other dubious purpose, and in fact, the President has briefed the appropriate people in Congress on multiple occasions.
Do you have any idea how much hubris you exhibit when you purport to brush multiple Presidents and suggest that all overstepped their bounds during war. According to you, all Presidents over stepped their bounds during war. In other words, you know better than every single President faced with war. Maybe just maybe, it was the Presidents and not you that knew what they were doing.
Now, let's try this again. If the President is acting as Commander in Chief, then his power is absolute because the President, and the President alone, is Commander in Chief. If the President is using his power as Commander in Chief for purposes beyond warfare, then the President is abusing that power. Thus, if you show me an incident in which this warrantless wiretapping program was used for other purposes besides spying on the enemy, then I will be with you. However, you want to limit that power, totally unconstitutional, before the President abused it.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe entire point here, Mike, is that no one will ever be able to prove that the powers were used for anything one way or another, because the plan you and the republicans are trying to ram down everyones throats takes oversight out of the equation. As it is the current law permits pre-emptive spying for up to a year without a warrant. That liberal rag THE WASHINGTON TIMES agrees that the current scaremongering is unwarranted: http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NATION/847451166/1001
ReplyDeleteAs for the other part of your argument--the "unlimited warmaking" powers of the president. How does one define "War"today. Surely we all agree that it is no longer men in uniforms with rifles, necessarily, and this very argument makes clear that you believe that it may involve permitting spying on Americans without warrants or other oversight...so where does that end? Where does "unlimited warmaking power" become unlimited power?
And finally, I can not understand the republican obsession with the belief that this country is and always has been perfect. A responsible, powerful nation, as we are, should be able to admit that we have in our history made mistakes. That does not necessarily tar the people who made those mistakes (unless they purposely did so nefariously).
Perhaps you're right on the political implications of this debate, I don't know for sure. But I do know that this is yet another example of republicans using fearmongering as a bludgeon rather than having an intellectually honest discussion about the merits of the point, and the LEGITIMATE concerns of the other side.
Let's slow down with the accusations. I am not ramming anything down anyone's throat. I posed a piece that analyzed the politics of the situation.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats gave a six month fix to warrantless wiretapping, and then sat around for six months and did nothing with the legislation. They had six months to come up with something that they could live with and instead they let the law expire and took away a vital tool of spying and left our country vulnerable. That is the reality.
I don't care what the Washington Times says and I am not impressed with name dropping of a newspaper that purports to support your arguement.
If Congress felt as though they needed more oversight, then that is exactly what they should have demanded, through legislation and through proper committees. Instead, they sat around did nothing and let the law expire and then screamed about a lack of oversight, which they themselves failed to create.
Now, let's try this again. Spying on the enemy is a crucial part of warfare. If an American citizen joins up with the enemy during war, they are still the enemy and must be spied on and no judge can cede that power. If the President uses spy making power to spy on regular citizens that have nothing to do with the enemy, then they have overstepped their bounds, however there is no such case on record. If a President does that then that is an impeachable offense, however the President's power to spy on the enemy is not limited prior to being abused.
I didn't say that our country has always been perfect. You impugned multiple Presidents from multiple eras, mutiple parties, all who served during war, and it was done in a cynical attempt to advance your arguement. It is weak. These Presidents weren't wrong, and it takes hubris of the biggest kind to suggest that multiple war time Presidents all abused their power just to impugn the current one. That, I will not accept or let go.
These Presidents all acted well within their powers as Commander in Chief and so is the current one and the current one has used his own power significantly more conservatively than previous ones.
We weren't going to win WWII if all sorts of anti war propaganda was allowed to filter through our airwaves throughout WWII, and that is why FDR created an office of Censorship. The same is true of WWI and that is why Wilson created the Creel Commission.
Our war making powers would have been stunted if every single Confederate Soldier was tried in criminal courts, and thus Lincoln created military tribunals.
It is very easy to sit back now and proclaim that these fine Presidents overstepped their bounds, given that you are not left with the responsibility of actually winning the war. Actually winning the war is much harder, and thus they used their powers as Commander in Chief liberally to give themselves every opportunity to win the war, since winning the war is ultimately the most important thing.
Do you agree with the internment of Japanese-Americans? The Alien and Sedition Act? I'm not saying that everything presidents have done during wartime is wrong, but there certainly have been examples that were.
ReplyDeleteAs for your "There is no case on record"...this is precisely the problem--if there were we'd never know, that is the flaw with the legislation, it is precisely what we're arguing about. You ask why the democrats simply didn't add oversight--everytime they try Bush threatens to veto. And why is one full year of unobstructed tapping not enough time to put together a warrant?
I agree winning the war is important...I'm less convinced that it's more important than upholding the very freedom that republicans consistently claim to be defending. It seems to me that if we keep pulling back from the very definition of American liberty, we allow a bunch of lunatics with a few bombs, an absurd ideology and outsized rhetoric to defeat us without having to actually to a damned thing.
I don't know about internment, I wasn't there and I don't know the complexities of the situation. I give FDR the benefit of the doubt since it was his responsibility to win the war. I agree that propaganda had to be censored.
ReplyDeleteWe can know, and if the Congress really took their oversight responsibility seriously, they would investigate whether or not there is any abuse of this power. This is nothing but demagoguery on your end that the President can spy on anyone and get away with it without anyone knowing it. That would only happen if Congress ceded its responsibility for oversight. The Congress has been briefed regularly on this program, and if they wanted to make sure that the program didn't abuse its power, they had plenty of opportunity to use their oversight powers to do it. What you are proclaiming is nothing more than a red herring.
If you don't understand that during war, winning the war is the most vital thing then that is because you live in a fantasy world that is void of reality. If we don't win, there is no freedom. Whatever theoretical freedoms you think you have lost, they are nothing like the real freedoms the terrorists thirst to take away from you.
If you think internment camps were bad, you should envision a world in which the axis ruled. If you think Military tribunals were bad, imagine the South continuing with slavery.
This is typical nonsensical liberal theoretical thinking. Since you have no responsibility for winning the war, you are quick to point out theoretical abuses of power. You don't know what it takes to win the war, so you proclaim that we must hold to a criminal standard in prosecuting it.
The terrorists are not criminals. They are our enemy in war. They have rules that are totally different than a robbery, murder, or other criminal suspect.
"If you think internment camps were bad, you should envision a world in which the axis ruled. If you think Military tribunals were bad, imagine the South continuing with slavery."
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the problem with you people. "We have to be allowed to do whatever we want, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional because if we don't the terrorists will win!! " What a load of nonsense.
And you don't know about internment? You don't know the complexities of the situation? Thousands of American citizens were put into camps on no other basis than the fact that they were of Japanese origin. You didn't have to be suspected of collaboration, or anything of the sort. If, in order to maintain your argument, you are seriously going to say "Maybe Roosevelt was right, I refuse to judge because I wasn't there," than what historical event does not fall under this spurious lack of an argument? Where's your vaunted conservative morality? Is there nothing in our National morality that is more important than stopping a suicide bomber. Is throwing out our standards the only way to protect ourselves? Were the Japanese right to waterboard our soldiers? Surely they had reason to fear for their national security.
You are now making arguements that are more and more tangentially related to the piece. Whether or not internment was or wasn't a good idea is very unrelated to the current debate on warrantless wiretapping. I set out examples of past President's use of their power as Commander in Chief and you turned that into a referendum on FDR's use of internment camps.
ReplyDeleteThat said, you have not only twisted what I said but frankly have totally misrepresented my perspective. I didn't endorse internment camps. I just refused to condemn FDR for their use. Unlike you, I understand that it is much more difficult to prosecute a war, than it is to criticize the prosecution decades after. FDR did what he felt was necessary to win. That isn't enough for you. You want him to hold himself to a nebulous utopia of policy making and to defeat the Nazis. That's easy for you to say, since you had no hand in actually defeating them. He was the one responsible for winning the war and I will give him the benefit of the doubt despite whatever civil liberties you think he removed. Those things are a lot less important than winning the war. Period.
Again, that is frankly quite of little relevance to this discussion whatever your opinion of internment camps. You also brought up waterboarding which I haven't even talked about.
Your perspective is fairly representative of why the Dems will lose this debate. You are far more concerned with protecting the civil liberties of our enemy than you are with defeating them. that is the crux of this debate, and you have fairly represented why your side is going to get crushed on it.
They may be tangentially related to the exact topic, but it is all of a piece--your view is that we are in such mortal danger that the Contitution (as was said of the Geneva Conventions) is a "quaint" document that shouldn't be taken too seriously when put up against the risk of utter annihilation, a risk that has been and still is continually overblown by this administration.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to "We have nothing to fear but fear itself?" Do you honestly believe that this is the greatest threat America has ever faced? Must we all cower under our desks for fear we'll be bombed by terrorists any given moment?
The civil liberties I seek to maintain are not our enemies, but our own. And though waterboarding and such may only be tangentially related, I'll ask again--were the Japanese right to do so during WWII?
As I said earlier, you may be right about how this all works out politically. But even if it does, it is just another example of a morally and intellectually bankrupt Republican part that has become far more concerned with winning debating points through fear and demagoguery than having an honest debate about the merits of the issues. If Barack Obama tries to say, as I have in this post, that yes, we should take terrorism seriously, but no it is not a mortal threat to our existence, he will immediately be lambasted for "not understanding the post-9/11 world," just as Rudy Giuliani tried to force Ron Paul to apologize for daring to suggest that the root of terrorism might not be "they hate us for our freedom" but that it might actually have something to do with out foreign policy. Whether you agree with him or not, shouldn't we be able to freely discuss it? Not with the Republican party of today.
Now, you have spun off into the world of gibberish.
ReplyDeleteFirst you attribute all sorts of things to me that I have never said like,
"your view is that we are in such mortal danger that the Contitution (as was said of the Geneva Conventions) is a "quaint" document that shouldn't be taken too seriously when put up against the risk of utter annihilation, a risk that has been and still is continually overblown by this administration."
and
"Do you honestly believe that this is the greatest threat America has ever faced? Must we all cower under our desks for fear we'll be bombed by terrorists any given moment?"
I have long defended warrantless wiretapping on constitutional grounds. It is you that has tried to make your point using things such as FISA, and now apparently the Geneva Conventions.
I have said from the beginning that the President has Commander in Chief Powers to spy on the enemy. Those powers are drawn from the Constitution itself. You have just tried to make not only a misguided point but an arrogant one at that.
I have never said that the President should do anything but what the Constitution grants him.
Furthermore, I haven't compared our current struggle to any other one. The only think I have pointed out is that WE ARE AT WAR!! That is apparently something that you are unwilling to accept.
Then, you say this
"we should take terrorism seriously, but no it is not a mortal threat to our existence, he will immediately be lambasted for "not understanding the post-9/11 world,"
I will lambast you for coming up with a vague, nonsensical point. What exactly does it mean to take terrorism seriously but not as a mortal threat? I, frankly, don't think that Obama would share that vision with you.
Your arguement at this point is incomprehendible and I am only left to quote Billy Madison...
"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."