Setting the record wrong, again

January 23, 2006

It should be quite a week for the debate over Bush’s warrantless-search program, as the White House kicks off what can only be described as a “political campaign” this week. The president will defend the surveillance program in a speech today in Kansas, followed by remarks from Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, on Tuesday, and a speech from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the same day. Wednesday, Bush will visit the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland as part of the public-relations offensive.

Will the Bush machine have anything new to say? It’s unlikely. The White House unveiled a campaign-style fact sheet on the president program yesterday, and like the last one on the controversy, it didn’t make a lot of sense. From the talking points:

* “The NSA’s terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States.” — True? It’s hard to say without internal understanding of the program, but according to the FBI, the program may target terrorists, but it ends up monitoring innocent Americans. Regardless, the claim intentionally misses the point — the administration should intercept every terrorist-related communication it can; it should also honor the rule of law and allow for some oversight in the process.

* “Senate Democrats continue to engage in misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9/11 Commission said we needed to do – connect the dots.” — The White House hasn’t pointed to any specific “outlandish charges,” — I’m sure they’ll find one sooner or later — but the “connect the dots” claim is particularly unhelpful. Again, the FBI, to which the NSA leads are directed for investigation, has said warrantless searches haven’t produced life-saving, terrorist-catching intelligence; it’s produced a flood of useless tips. In bureau field offices, the NSA material is viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more “calls to Pizza Hut,” one official, who supervised field agents, said. And, again, the claim misses the point of the controversy — go ahead, collect and connect dots, just follow the law.

* “It defies common sense for Democrats to now claim the administration is acting outside its authority while their own party leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times.” — Ah yes, the infamous congressional briefings. Those would be the same briefings the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found to be illegal. For that matter, these are also the same briefings in which lawmakers’ concerns were ignored. White House spin notwithstanding, there was no oversight, and the “briefings” were little more than cursory, incomplete notifications to a handful lawmakers whose concerns were rendered irrelevant.

* “The President Has The Inherent Authority Under The Constitution, As Commander-In-Chief, To Authorize The NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program.” — No one outside the Bush administration seems to think so.

* “The Congress Confirmed And Supplemented This Authority When It Passed The Authorization For The Use Of Military Force In The Wake Of The 9/11 Attacks.” — Member of Congress, from both parties, have insisted that this is total nonsense. The non-partisan CRS said the same thing.

* “The NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program Provides The Speed And Agility Needed To Prosecute The War On Terror.” — The FISA process allows the administration to engage in surveillance, and get a warrant 72 hours later. That sounds like quite a bit of leeway for “agility.” For that matter, if Bush found the legal process too slow, the answer is to change the law, not ignore it.

If ever there was a time for a Dem rapid-response effort, this is it. The Bush gang is in the process of trying to turn their law-breaking into a political asset. To do so, they’re going to have to play fast-and-loose with the truth. I hope Dems are ready to call them on it.

“I hope Dems are ready to call them on it.”

Sadly, not likely.

How come Democrats and journalists are never prepared to counter the dishonesty that comes from the administartion, the RNC, and the Republican leadership? It’s like they still do not realize that the Republicans are not playing by the same rules.

  • they aren’t. dems think politics is a gentleman’s game. the republicans just lie and, thus, get away with it, the dems taking them at their word.

  • So, it’s okay for the excutive branch to break laws as long as it’s politically popular to do so. I thought these guys were supposed to favor “strict constructionism” over legal relativism. Silly me. 9/11 truely did change everything.

  • Perhaps we could figure out some way to get a debate going as they say these things. What I really hate about political “discourse” in this country is that the people foisting this crap on the public are able to cherry pick their audience, who roars in applause to the lies and propaganda while noone is even allowed in who can defend the truth or themselves from a smear. This to me is the totally unacceptable point our country has reached.

  • No Democrat should be without a copy of the Bill of Rights at any press conference/ whatever. THAT’s what we need to be waving around. Hit the amendments which have already been encroached upon, and remind people that the 2nd Amendment is more likely to be hit, as it is increasingly the outlier.

    Democrats are “soft on security”? How about “Republicans are ‘soft’ on Freedom”?

  • Al Gore should consider taking on the Dem mantle for rebutting this Bush scandal. He did a good job rebutting the Bush attack on his speech with facts from his own time during the Clinton years. He knows better than any executive other than WJC himself about the details of what happened in the Clinton Administration regarding the FISA laws, revisions and secret surveillance.

    Unleash the hound!!

    Then again, it’s the Dems…

  • You can fool some of the people some of the time, but how come there are so many red state voter who can be fooled over and over?
    How anyone can still support the Bush administration? This makes me scratch my head in wonder. It is incomprehensible to me . It must be the way that Arabs and Jews feel when they try to fathom the each others position.
    This must be what they call polarization.
    A gift from that great Texan who would be a unifier..not a divider.

  • I’ll follow my own advice in previous posts by repeating myself. It’s not enough to think like an academic. Your audience isn’t a graduate seminar. Just because you have the facts on your side doesn’t mean you’ll be listened to. It’s not enough to spell it out at one time and place. (Are you listening, Al Gore? Your talk was inspiring, but had little impact beyond your immediate audience.)

    You have to do as the Republicans do, at least in this respect: get your thoughts into a clear and simple set of talking points. Then have many Democrats, in a variety of venues (talk shows, letters to the editor in local papers), repeat those talking point over and over and over again. Republicans create imaginary fear and loathing (gays, loss of gun rights or religion); we can emphasize things we really do fear (NSA snooping in our private lives, a one-party state, losing jobs) and loathe (Republican crimes, waging a very costly unprovoked war of conquest).

    Such a strategy may seem offensive to Democrats who have been used to power from 1932 to1994. Get over it. It’s what politics is all about.

  • NPR’s Morning Edition had a great story today about W’s first speaking stop to defend the spying program. The noted that the last President to speak at K-State was (drumroll) Richard Nixon. He went to the bastion of milk-toast and flag waving to denounce anti-war protests and defend Vietnam. I know the Bush/Nixon comparison has been done but it has seemed to been moved to the back burner. Now Bush is following Nixon’s lead and speaking at K-State. I’m OK with Bush intentionally following in Nixon’s footsteps. Let’s just hope he ends up as Nixon did.

    Any thougts on why Rove would do this on purpose? Seems odd to me.

  • Exactly Ed, and I hope your health is improving, and thanks for reupdating your chart on the war casualties. This is more of my point of how low we have sunk in this country. It’s like in school where the teachers must sink to the lowest common denominator and teach to the morons in class. Unfortunately, if they dont, they end up under review because someone feels victimized by them. In politics, its similar. If you talk eloquenty or thoughtfully to little minds, they resent you and follow your opponent, especially if your opponent knows just how to pander to these people’s fears. Normally, I would say “stay the high ground” and do what is right, on principle, but I feel we are slipping further into the abyss, or the black hole, and I just wonder if we havent passed the point of no return. To that end, I implore the Dems to act against their instinct and do what they must do to win, because the cost of losing again, now, is far too great. That said, I do not condone they go as far as the other side in terms of the lies they spread. Some principles are work keeping.

  • The reason, MNProgressive, is that they need a very safe audience. Once it is on TV news, if FOX propaganda can even be called that, they will have what they want to have, which is a bunch of hot air wafted continually over the populace.

  • I’m with you, Ed. Make it simple and repeat, repeat, repeat. This isn’t that hard. They can easily get the authority from a judge, before or after the fact. Our security is the same either way. The fact that they don’t want to bother shows that they have something to hide–an excuse to spy on average Americans. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

  • Dick Cheney: the program has “saved thousands of lives.”

    FBI: warrantless searches haven’t produced life-saving, terrorist-catching intelligence; it’s produced a flood of useless tips.

    Oh, whom to believe, whom to believe.

  • Ed has it right and that is what I was referring to. It can be done, however, while still adhering to principle just make the repated points and rebuttals factually accurate and true statements of principle.

    When the other side attacks, don’t defend against the false and scurillous attacks, jst say “There they go again, making false charges/distoring the truth/whatever statement is applicable”, then repeat the either positive massage on factually accurate critique. Then repeat, repeat, repeat.

    While those of us interested in actually helping the country by solving problems are interested in honest, intellectual debate to discover how best to tackle the problems, the current republican party/leadership/lobbysists.pundits are not so those discussions cannot occur. The dem leaders need to stop pretending that what they say is an intellectually honest point.

    For example, When a Repub talking head, eg Mehlman says, “Some democrats don’t want us to spy on Al Queda”. The response is, “there he goes with the same nonsense trying to shift the debate. This is about the President deciding he is above the law and the Congress. Do you believe the President is not bound by the laws made by Congress – yes or no?”

  • Wednesday, Bush will visit the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland as part of the public-relations offensive.

    There may be another purpose for this visit as well: intimidate current and future whistleblowers.

  • Any thoughts on why Rove would do this on purpose? Seems odd to me.
    I think one possibility is that Rove is baiting the opposition into making the Nixon comparison because he has a ready made defense against the charge that the extra-FISA spying is equivalent to Nixon’s domestic spying.

    Here is and exchange between Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas in USA Today in which Thomas employs that that defense:

    Bob: Cal, the wiretapping of American citizens without court orders is outrageous. The president has been quick to put opponents of the program on the defensive, but I’m not biting. I was in the White House group in 1978 that worked to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA was in response to President Nixon using the National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA to monitor U.S. citizens. Bush can try intimidation all he wants, but the fact is he is violating FISA.

    Cal: The Nixon wiretaps were conducted for domestic political reasons, Bob, so that the president could spy on and discredit his enemies. President Bush says his administration’s eavesdropping has been strictly limited to those suspected of communicating and plotting with terrorists to kill us. Has politics so clouded liberals’ vision and their joint responsibility to protect us that they can’t see the difference?

    I think Rove is itching to use this defense, but first he has to get the opposition to make the comparison . This is why I have been advising everyone to hold their speculation about Bush using the NSA for political purposes. It will play into Rove’s hand.

  • Rege,

    While I agree with you that we should hold our speculation about Bush using the NSA for political purpsoses, the argument could be made that FISA is set up to make sure that spying on political enemies isn’t occurring and that’s why the President should not purposely bypass it. If his spying program is strictly limited to suspected terrorist plots, then why bypass the FISA court?? In doing so, he raises the suspicion that he could be using the wiretaps for purposes other than those stated. It’s not the other way around.

  • If his spying program is strictly limited to suspected terrorist plots, then why bypass the FISA court??

    Gridlock, I agree with you, but it is wrong to convince ourselves that our suspicions are facts; we need answers. Turn Bush’s argument in defense of his program back on him. If his motives were pure, then he should have no objections to a Special Prosecutor looking into the matter. He should want to put the American public’s mind at ease that they weren’t spied on for political reasons.

  • The American electorate hasn’t got the ability to make the kind of connections a thoughtful person like Rege is suggesting. Most of them don’t remember Nixon’s crimes, just that he left office before his term was up (if they even remember that).

    I say hammer the Repubs with everything they give us. Just say Nixon broke the law on wiretapping and Bush is going much further than that (library checkouts, phone calls, emails, etc.). And, on top of that “high crime” Bush lied to us about it, for four years.

    I do sincerely hope that Bush winds up where Nixon did.

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