{"id":6313,"date":"2006-01-11T15:24:49","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T20:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6313"},"modified":"2006-01-11T15:24:49","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T20:24:49","slug":"bush-endorses-hearings-on-warrantless-searches-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-endorses-hearings-on-warrantless-searches-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush endorses hearings on warrantless-searches – sort of"},"content":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes, the White House hopes the Senate Judiciary Committee will forgo hearings on the president’s warrantless-search program. In fact, Time quoted a GOP official saying that the White House is “going to lean on Specter very hard<\/a> not to hold hearings.”<\/p>\n

In front of the cameras, however, Bush has a different story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush said Wednesday that congressional hearings to investigate his domestic eavesdropping program will be good for democracy as long as they don’t give secrets away to the enemy.<\/p>\n

Bush was initially opposed to having the program investigated in a public format, but made it clear that he is resigned to open hearings that are scheduled to begin in coming weeks. […]<\/p>\n

“There will be a lot of hearings to talk about that, but that’s good for democracy,” he said. “Just so long as the hearings, as they explore whether or not I had the prerogative to make the decision I make, doesn’t tell the enemy what we’re doing. See, that’s the danger.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m glad the president thinks this will be “good for democracy,” a description we can’t use to describe the White House’s tactics, because Bush doesn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter. The White House can balk, but that won’t change the fact that Senate Dems and at least six Senate Republicans<\/a> want substantive hearings that will question the legality of the president’s conduct.<\/p>\n

I’m concerned, however, about Bush’s caveat — hearings are fine so long as they respect national security secrecy. Last week, Bush said a public hearing would “say to the enemy, ‘Here’s what they do — adjust.'” Scott McClellan said<\/a> a public discussion of the program “harm[s] our national security.” A few days prior, deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said<\/a> news about warrantless searches “has serious ramifications.”<\/p>\n

In fact, if the press briefings are any indication, this could be problematic in the hearings. Administration officials will answer questions, until they get difficult and\/or politically awkward, at which point the questions “undermine national security.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes, the White House hopes the Senate Judiciary Committee will forgo hearings on the president’s warrantless-search program. In fact, Time quoted a GOP official saying that the White House is “going to lean on Specter very hard not to hold hearings.” In front of the cameras, however, Bush has a different story. President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}