Imperial Presidency

[Mr.B]

<p>I will be the first to agree that the President needs more and better intelligence. After all he has us fighting a war in the wrong country. I certainly don’t trust “his secret sources” to be a justification for taping phone conversations without judicial oversight. </p>

<p>

The problem with the left is that they equate anything other than what is specified by the Geneva convention as “torture”.

Fundingfather why do you think the Vet’s organizations oppose torture. Why do you think the Republicans thought this law was necessary?</p>

<p>Fundingfather, I don’t think any of us, not even you, would be “relieved” to see our children humiliated as the prisoners of Abu Ghraib were. Of course it would be better than death, but relieved to know they were treated like that…I don’t think so.
Abu Ghriab was not our finest hour…nor are the other sites where this type of treatment occurs.</p>

[driver]

<p>An interesting article for you Wile E. Coyote Dems to read. Kind of surprised someone else didn’t post it before, since it’s from Time Magazine.

But these concerns pale before the importance of the program. It would have been a scandal if the NSA had not been using these tools to track down the bad guys. There is evidence that the information harvested helped foil several plots and disrupt al-Qaeda operations.</p>

<p>There is also evidence, according to U.S. intelligence officials, that since the New York Times broke the story, the terrorists have modified their behavior, hampering our efforts to keep track of them—but also, on the plus side, hampering their ability to communicate with one another.</p>

<p>Pelosi made clear to me that she considered Hayden, now Deputy Director of National Intelligence, an honorable man who would not overstep his bounds. “I trust him,” she said. “I haven’t accused him of anything. I was, and remain, concerned that he has the proper authority to do what he is doing.” A legitimate concern, but the Democrats are on thin ice here. Some of the wilder donkeys talked about a possible Bush impeachment after the NSA program was revealed.</p>

<p>The latest version of the absolutely necessary Patriot Act, which updates the laws regulating the war on terrorism and contains civil-liberties improvements over the first edition, was nearly killed by a stampede of Senate Democrats. Most polls indicate that a strong majority of Americans favor the act, and I suspect that a strong majority would favor the NSA program as well, if its details were declassified and made known.</p>

<p>In fact, liberal Democrats are about as far from the American mainstream on these issues as Republicans were when they invaded the privacy of Terri Schiavo’s family in the right-to-die case last year.</p>

<p>But there is a difference. National security is a far more important issue, and until the Democrats make clear that they will err on the side of aggressiveness in the war against al-Qaeda, they will probably not regain the majority in Congress or the country.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1147137,00.html[/url]”>http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1147137,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[system]

<p>The article says liberal Democrats are way off the mainstream; however, according to the latest poll, most Americans think wiretapping should NOT be done without a warrant.</p>

<p>"56% want court OK for wiretapping </p>

<p>January 8, 2006</p>

<p>BY KATHERINE SHRADER
WASHINGTON – A majority of Americans want the Bush administration to get court approval before eavesdropping on people inside the United States, even if those calls might involve suspected terrorists, an AP-Ipsos poll shows.</p>

<p>In the last three weeks, President Bush and top aides have defended the electronic monitoring program they secretly launched shortly after Sept. 11 as a vital tool to protect the nation.</p>

<p>Yet 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when the communications are thought to be tied to terrorism.</p>

<p>Agreeing with the White House, about 42 percent of those surveyed do not think the court approval is necessary."</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-spy08.html[/url]”>http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-spy08.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[driver]

<p>That poll had a fork stuck in it early this morning. If you read the internals, you’ll find that the sample was 52% Democrat, 40% Republican. Nothing like the real electorate, a classic example of agenda polling. But that’s really the least important thing you should have gleaned from the article, which was written by a liberal Democrat, anyway.</p>

[waiting06]

<p>just thought i’d mention that this is a really big coincidence.</p>

<p>i’m actually doing a paper right now on Arthur Schlesinger’s The Imperial Presidency…</p>

<p>so…i click on new posts, and what’s the first thread to come up? this one.</p>

<p>kind of freaky.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>driver, the PRESIDENT himself said he would wiretap only with a court order or did he lie to us then?</p>

<p>he did indeed and to what if ten percent what a court order, that is the law, and he has up to 15 days after the wiretapping to get approval, but he didn’t, sp what does that tell you, that he wants to hide even from a secret court who he is watching</p>

<p>and “bad guys”- very sophiscated speak from the leader of the free world</p>

<p>and how long do you want our freedoms to be eroded before you say enough is enough, when we win the war? </p>

<p>Okay. what is victory? We have made more terrorists in this war…when does it end?</p>

<p>please, give me a clue what winning means</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>

and how long do you want our freedoms to be eroded before you say enough is enough, when we win the war?

I haven’t seen any rights being eroded. But, I can easily flip the question and ask you, “how many Americans have to die at the hands of an enemy who has clearly stated their mission to destroy us before you say enough is enough?” </p>

<p>There are already more than 3,000 dead as a result of us not taking the declaration of war from the radical Islamists seriously and there are now US civilians alive who would not be had we not started to take the threat seriously. How many of them would you have been willing to sacrifice to make sure that the 9/11 mastermind was never asked more than his name? To provide an intellectually honest answer, you would have to assume that one of those spared was your daughter - because certainly the ones who have been spared are someone’s son or daughter.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>Um, right of privacy, right to a trial, right to legal representation, right our fourth amendment rights</p>

<p>and what enemy- Saddam and the Iraqi people, sorry, but they didn’t attack us</p>

<p>tell me what enemy- the ones we are creating in Iraq</p>

<p>what enemy</p>

<p>and even Bush said that he doesn’t really give much thought to the mastermind of 9-11…remember that, if he don’t care…well</p>

<p>and to intellectually honest, you would talk about the torturing of your child by a foriegn government, that torturing your son is just fine with you</p>

<p>and McCain a man who was tortured said it doesn;t work, we get bad information</p>

<p>Intellectually, you have avoided the subject of thte torture of your child. It would be okay with you then. And don’t make the excuse he has done nothing wrong. </p>

<p>And who killed the 3000. Was it Iraqi’s. It was Saudis, but we aren’'t in Saudi Arabia are we. Not those torturers and oppressers are our friends.</p>

<p>So, again, who attacked us? Who? What Iraqi attacked us?</p>

<p>And if Bush doesn’t care if we ever catch Osama, the mastermind you seem to be referring to, but whatever</p>

<p>If your son was arrested and had no lawyer, no trial, no contact, that is okay with you?&lt;/p>

<p>Guess so’</p>

<p>Your phone is tapped without a warrant? Your wife photographed and spied on while exercising her right to protest</p>

<p>Yep, we haven;t lost any rights at all.</p>

<p>Please read our constitution. Any rights we lose or are eroded is enough.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>Interesting you STILL make the connection between Iraq and 9-11. Even your President admitted there was none, even though now he tries and tries to convince the stupid there was.</p>

[weenie]

<p>Such a slippery slope for our good country. </p>

<p>Power hungry politicans who simply won’t stop at anything to stay in power. </p>

<p>Endless lies lies lies; spying; torturing; launching an illegal war; manipulating a “free” press; deficit spending; illegal campaign shenanegans; turning a blind eye to real Americans’ problems like health care and retirement; stroking countries who take our jobs and build huge militaries; courting illegal immigrants to do work Americans should be getting paid fairly to do; spoiling our environment to line the pockets of some fat cats; turning back the clock on civil liberties, women’s rights, voters rights…the list of shame goes on and on.</p>

<p>One of my grandparents escaped from Hungary during WWII dressed as a little old man. He always said, “Out of a Democracy came Hitler. All it took was one person and one party in control and a climate of fear.”</p>