I’ll tell you, the most aggravating part of the past few weeks has been reading the news, watching the reports and noticing that the left seems to have absolutely no problem just lying there while the right stomps all over them. First the NSA issue was going for weeks without anyone saying a word outside of the blogs and a few obligatory mentions on the news stations, which prompted all of the usual mouthpieces to parrot the argument that Bush likes to make this into rather than what’s actually happening (meaning it’s an argument about whether or not spying on terrorists is good, not that he was breaking the law).
Then we got to wade through the Alito hearing which just amounted to Biden wearing a Princeton cap and babbling for a half hour, followed by a few little jabs about his judgement that he evaded without too much trouble. It was pathetic and the only beacon was Tedward Kennedy arguing with Specter about the investigation into the CAP involvement. When the only moment of light is when a dem fights about something that really isn’t of any relevance, that tells me we’re in trouble. No questions about strip-searching 10 year olds, nothing about shooting teenagers in the head just for running from the cops, nothing.
The Abramoff scandal seems to have fallen by the wayside in current news. Oh it’s still mentioned on the blogs and the internet sources, but in the news people mention it more as something to point at AS a scandal. Trent Lott I saw on Hardball saying “we need to know that we can trust our officials”, but that was it. The list of Abramoff recipients is a half mile long and it’s all republicans. It’s a clear-cut red issue (as Howard Dean happily noted to a dumbstruck Wolf Blitzer) and where was the call to arms from the left? Not there. Nothing. What did they do? They appoint James Clyburn head of the Clean House Team. Clyburn, you see, may have gone on a boat trip paid for by Abramoff. No proof anything illegal actually happened, or anything unethical, but that’s shooting yourself in the foot horribly.
Combine that with the impending war in Iran and I was waiting for Bush to use his “war powers” to turn the country into a “temporary” dictatorship a la Palpatine in Episode II.
There was a glimmer of hope with the aforementioned Dean shutting down Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition, but obviously that just isn’t enough. Dean is smart as hell, but he’s easy for the right to rip out the screaming video and suddenly no one pays attention. Al Gore then dropped his bombshell of a speech calling Bush a lawbreaker and that he was doing so repetitively. Things were on their way up. Even Attorney General Gonzales’s bullshit response couldn’t slow the guy down, as Gore later said:
“The Administration’s response to my speech illustrates perfectly the need for a special counsel to review the legality of the NSA wiretapping program.
The Attorney General is making a political defense of the President without even addressing the substantive legal questions that have so troubled millions of Americans in both political parties.
There are two problems with the Attorney General’s effort to focus attention on the past instead of the present Administration’s behavior. First, as others have thoroughly documented, his charges are factually wrong. Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton/Gore Administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law.
I call that an owning, my friends. Even the Associate Press got ‘em.
But at the time of the Ames search in 1993 and when Gorelick testified a year later, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required warrants for electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes, but did not cover physical searches. The law was changed to cover physical searches in 1995 under legislation that Clinton supported and signed.
Hillary Clinton going crazy aside, the best part of my day happened when watching Situation Room with the aforementioned Wolf Blitzer roughly five hours ago. Now, while I was a Kerry supporter roundabout 2004, I will readily admit he’s not the greatest assistance to the democratic party. I think the accusations that he’s a flip-flopper are weak, the guy is so moderated with his beliefs that he hardly has any room to flip-flop. So he was questioned about the potential for a war in Iran, the bombing in Pakistan, and his answers took a bare minimum five minutes a pop. He took the safest stances possible, no surprises (“Do you agree with the types of attacks that happened in Pakistan?” “Well, if all of our intelligence says so, and if it is verifiable by a bipartisan source, if the information is proven to be valid…”)
So then Wolf asks him “Do you think Bush has been breaking the law with his wire taps?” At this point I was ready to get a sandwich, come back and hear Kerry starting to say something. I didn’t get to move when Kerry looked at the camera and said “Yes.” That was it. One word. No hedging, no saying he agrees with the war on terror but we need to make sure the president is working within the law, just “Yes.”
There was a pause. Wolf looks, waiting for a longer response that doesn’t come. Unsure, he starts to ask for an elaboration, to which Kerry pops in mid-sentence and says “Yes, undeniably yes.”
I almost exploded right there, I couldn’t believe Kerry, the king of longwinded speeches, would answer so briefly. And that was when I started to feel like the left is growing some balls. Kennedy’s fighting Specter, Harry Reid and Dean are fighting over and over that no, there are still no democrats implicated in the Abramoff scandal. Gore comes out attacking Bush for his wire tapping and shuts down McLellan and Gonzales’s arguments that Clinton in any way did the same lawbreaking, and now we’ve got Kerry of all people taking a firm stance. The AP is reporting the truth, I can’t believe how quickly things are turning around.
I’ll tell you, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It looks like the left is going to start fighting.
