Calling It For What It Is...
I usually don't defend the President in this blog. My opinion of him, I've felt, is not a matter I want to blog about. If he or another President significantly curtails my liberty doing something stupid like expanding the power and cost of government, I criticize him. If he does his Constitutional job which is to lead the defense of the nation, I support him. Recently, he's done something in the middle. The latest revelation of the NSA spying on citizens' communications with suspect nations leaves me with mixed feelings. I understand that the NSA does this. They've done it since they were created in 1952. Nothing in their charter prohibits domestic surveillance that I'm aware of.
However, Bush might have more thoroughly involved Congress. He kept them aware of the program, but sought little advice from what we can see thus far. I think, and now we see why, he was afraid of too many leaks. He also should have consulted the court set aside for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was created for this very activity. That he did not has only opened him up to real criticism. The Attorney General's office has brought up legitimate points that this is a purely Executive matter and the court's blessing could have helped put those questions to rest. Not that I like the courts deciding every little thing, but part of their job is to decide if everyone is operating within the law and that's what this court could've told the Executive and Legislative.
But see, I really hate hypocrisy. I mean I really hate it. I try not to be a hypocrite myself (although we all are from time to time, aren't we?), but when I see someone exercising that bovine behavior deliberately, I have to call them out. I believe when you exercise rank and wanton hypocrisy for your own political agenda, then everything you say is suspect and every word out of your mouth is, to quote one of my favorite (and deceased) comedians, Bill Hicks, like a turd falling into my drink.
Enter the New York Times. In Webster's, there's a little picture of the "Pinch" Sulzberger next to the word hypocrisy. It's not a rarity at the Times. It's tradition. So now that the Times has "exposed" an NSA operation, Congressmen and Senators, most who had full knowledge of the program since its inception, are coming out of the woodwork to score political points.
Let's take this point by point. First, this was a classified NSA operation. I've actually read the National Security Act of 1947 and several follow-on pieces of legislation. I had to for a paper on the Church and Rockefeller Commissions back in the 70's. Remember those? That was when the CIA was reading people's mail in US post offices. This wasn't completely viewed as a Fourth Amendment violation at the time. It was seen, rightly so, as a violation of the CIA's charter, which prohibited domestic surveillance. The FBI was the leading critic of the CIA at the time, because primarily that was their job and they didn't like their toes getting stepped on. And boy did they get burned for violating their charter.
The NSA, on the other hand, has a much looser and broader function. They have, since their inception in 1952, been perfecting the art of signals intelligence and counterintelligence. This operation is part of their function. Legally, if they have to monitor US nationals conversing with potential foreign agents in potential enemy preserves, they have and will. Their actions are usually also at a much higher security clearance level than the bulk of Americans will have and penalties come out of the National Security Act and several later-enacted Congressional pieces of legislation for the exposure of their operations.
Setting aside the "outting" of a CIA agent who hadn't been in covert status for years thanks to the spy-traitor Aldrich Ames as a pathetic shadow of a real crime, THIS is a federal crime. Not the kind of crime where you spend a few months in Club Fed for laundering money or swindling stocks. This is a "spend time in a Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison" kind of crime. Shouldn't the Times, who was one of the loudest squealers regarding the Plame affair (and saw one of their journalists imprisoned for it), have had serious reservations about running with such a story instead of turning in the criminal who leaked it? Hypocrisy Number One.
Second, and this is public record stuff folks, the same technology was used by the FBI, which does need warrants, with no warrant-seeking of any kind in the 1990's at the behest of the Clinton White House. At the time, Echelon was used to gather economic and personal data on solely US citizens, many of which were guilty of no crime that is pubicly stated. It was known that this was a massive intrustion against citizens for no apparent reason, at least not a legal reason. The FBI was ordered to collect this information for what, we may never know and Clinton used the same executive authority Bush is using to invoke it. Always looking for the next Watergate at the Times? I guess only if a Republican is in the White House. Hypocrisy Number Two and Three.
The apparent timing of the news story also seems to coincide with two wonderfully coincidental benefits for the Times. One, they have a book on this coming out by their reporting staff, which they have every right to plug. However, sitting on a story for a year before releasing it, especially one as "explosive" as they are making it out to be, is about as suspect as if we'd found OJ standing over Nicole with the bloody knife. If the Times had wanted a book plug so badly, their own NYT Book Review routinely and fondly reviews Leftist hack drivel all the time. Why didn't they give a call over to that desk? And, of course, the election in Iraq threatened to send Bush's poll numbers back up. Can't have that if you're party to the Opposition and anyone who says the Times isn't a mouth organ for the Democrats needs to explain to me why they haven't endorsed a Republican for President since Ike. So, release a story, put the right spin on it, and pray his numbers go down to help your cause limp along a bit further. But now, perhaps I'm just indulging in conspiracy theory and we all know where that leads, conclusion without fact. But something can still be said for strong supposition. Hypocrisy Number Four and Five.
Even with all this, I'm not currently interested in debating the merits of Bush's Presidency. because the people who would want to debate it with me would never debate me on the merits (or lack thereof) of Clinton's Presidency. Left believes left and Right believes right. There's not much changing the real far-out members of either side. The soft middle needs to be educated on the little seemy underside, though, to help them decide which way to lean, and I saw no harm in pointing to the 800 lb. gorilla of the New York Times' ongoing and pathetic hypocrisy as they scream impartiality but lean so far left that Stalin's having to scoot over in his grave, if only to make room for Walter Duranty's Pulitzer.
I usually don't defend the President in this blog. My opinion of him, I've felt, is not a matter I want to blog about. If he or another President significantly curtails my liberty doing something stupid like expanding the power and cost of government, I criticize him. If he does his Constitutional job which is to lead the defense of the nation, I support him. Recently, he's done something in the middle. The latest revelation of the NSA spying on citizens' communications with suspect nations leaves me with mixed feelings. I understand that the NSA does this. They've done it since they were created in 1952. Nothing in their charter prohibits domestic surveillance that I'm aware of.
However, Bush might have more thoroughly involved Congress. He kept them aware of the program, but sought little advice from what we can see thus far. I think, and now we see why, he was afraid of too many leaks. He also should have consulted the court set aside for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was created for this very activity. That he did not has only opened him up to real criticism. The Attorney General's office has brought up legitimate points that this is a purely Executive matter and the court's blessing could have helped put those questions to rest. Not that I like the courts deciding every little thing, but part of their job is to decide if everyone is operating within the law and that's what this court could've told the Executive and Legislative.
But see, I really hate hypocrisy. I mean I really hate it. I try not to be a hypocrite myself (although we all are from time to time, aren't we?), but when I see someone exercising that bovine behavior deliberately, I have to call them out. I believe when you exercise rank and wanton hypocrisy for your own political agenda, then everything you say is suspect and every word out of your mouth is, to quote one of my favorite (and deceased) comedians, Bill Hicks, like a turd falling into my drink.
Enter the New York Times. In Webster's, there's a little picture of the "Pinch" Sulzberger next to the word hypocrisy. It's not a rarity at the Times. It's tradition. So now that the Times has "exposed" an NSA operation, Congressmen and Senators, most who had full knowledge of the program since its inception, are coming out of the woodwork to score political points.
Let's take this point by point. First, this was a classified NSA operation. I've actually read the National Security Act of 1947 and several follow-on pieces of legislation. I had to for a paper on the Church and Rockefeller Commissions back in the 70's. Remember those? That was when the CIA was reading people's mail in US post offices. This wasn't completely viewed as a Fourth Amendment violation at the time. It was seen, rightly so, as a violation of the CIA's charter, which prohibited domestic surveillance. The FBI was the leading critic of the CIA at the time, because primarily that was their job and they didn't like their toes getting stepped on. And boy did they get burned for violating their charter.
The NSA, on the other hand, has a much looser and broader function. They have, since their inception in 1952, been perfecting the art of signals intelligence and counterintelligence. This operation is part of their function. Legally, if they have to monitor US nationals conversing with potential foreign agents in potential enemy preserves, they have and will. Their actions are usually also at a much higher security clearance level than the bulk of Americans will have and penalties come out of the National Security Act and several later-enacted Congressional pieces of legislation for the exposure of their operations.
Setting aside the "outting" of a CIA agent who hadn't been in covert status for years thanks to the spy-traitor Aldrich Ames as a pathetic shadow of a real crime, THIS is a federal crime. Not the kind of crime where you spend a few months in Club Fed for laundering money or swindling stocks. This is a "spend time in a Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison" kind of crime. Shouldn't the Times, who was one of the loudest squealers regarding the Plame affair (and saw one of their journalists imprisoned for it), have had serious reservations about running with such a story instead of turning in the criminal who leaked it? Hypocrisy Number One.
Second, and this is public record stuff folks, the same technology was used by the FBI, which does need warrants, with no warrant-seeking of any kind in the 1990's at the behest of the Clinton White House. At the time, Echelon was used to gather economic and personal data on solely US citizens, many of which were guilty of no crime that is pubicly stated. It was known that this was a massive intrustion against citizens for no apparent reason, at least not a legal reason. The FBI was ordered to collect this information for what, we may never know and Clinton used the same executive authority Bush is using to invoke it. Always looking for the next Watergate at the Times? I guess only if a Republican is in the White House. Hypocrisy Number Two and Three.
The apparent timing of the news story also seems to coincide with two wonderfully coincidental benefits for the Times. One, they have a book on this coming out by their reporting staff, which they have every right to plug. However, sitting on a story for a year before releasing it, especially one as "explosive" as they are making it out to be, is about as suspect as if we'd found OJ standing over Nicole with the bloody knife. If the Times had wanted a book plug so badly, their own NYT Book Review routinely and fondly reviews Leftist hack drivel all the time. Why didn't they give a call over to that desk? And, of course, the election in Iraq threatened to send Bush's poll numbers back up. Can't have that if you're party to the Opposition and anyone who says the Times isn't a mouth organ for the Democrats needs to explain to me why they haven't endorsed a Republican for President since Ike. So, release a story, put the right spin on it, and pray his numbers go down to help your cause limp along a bit further. But now, perhaps I'm just indulging in conspiracy theory and we all know where that leads, conclusion without fact. But something can still be said for strong supposition. Hypocrisy Number Four and Five.
Even with all this, I'm not currently interested in debating the merits of Bush's Presidency. because the people who would want to debate it with me would never debate me on the merits (or lack thereof) of Clinton's Presidency. Left believes left and Right believes right. There's not much changing the real far-out members of either side. The soft middle needs to be educated on the little seemy underside, though, to help them decide which way to lean, and I saw no harm in pointing to the 800 lb. gorilla of the New York Times' ongoing and pathetic hypocrisy as they scream impartiality but lean so far left that Stalin's having to scoot over in his grave, if only to make room for Walter Duranty's Pulitzer.
posted by Rob Beck | 1:18 AM
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