| Saturday, February 18, 2006 |
| All the president's bag men |
 A New York Times editorial on Friday opens with the following damning question:
Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up? The answer, if you've observed Roberts much, appears to be "no." (The editorial as aptly titled "Doing the president's dirty work.")
After making independent sounding noises about the Bush domestic spying program for about a day, Roberts has trying mightily to squirm out of his earlier contention that the NSA spy program should be brought under the supervision of the FISA court, where the law, by the way, says it should have been all along.
Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spends most of his time these days trying to find a way to forestall the "phase II" investigation of the administration's use of pre-war intelligence on Iraq -- something he has been promising for nearly a year to begin. Now, along with another Bush bag-man, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine, Roberts seems poised to do as the president wishes: to establish, after the fact, the legality of the domestic eavesdropping without a warrant. Says ABC News:
Roberts told the Times that he does not believe much support exists among lawmakers for exempting the program from the control of the FISA court. That is the approach Bush has favored and one that would be established under a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.
White House officials have said their bar for agreeing to any legislative changes would be high. They have signaled they are open only to legislation that would "further codify" in law the authority the president insists he already has without Congress' approval, something officials believe would be accomplished with DeWine's proposal. Question for the Bushies: why would the Congress need to "further codify" something already true under the law? Answer: Because there is no warrantless spying authority in the law. Get it?
Bottom line: whatever comes out of the Roberts committee can't be good for the Fourth Amendment, or for the basic civil liberties of the American people. Roberts is a hack who apparently hasn't enough respect for his own branch of government to act as anything more than a trussed up lackey for the president. He and his fellow court jester, DeWine, should be laughed out of committee and preferably, sent packing by their constituents in favor of Senators who actually want to serve in a co-equal branch of government with the executive.
Tags: politics, News, Bush, national security, NSA, government, spying, president, hearings, Senate |
posted by JReid @ 9:51 PM   |
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