{"id":6546,"date":"2006-02-06T14:34:59","date_gmt":"2006-02-06T19:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6546"},"modified":"2006-02-06T14:34:59","modified_gmt":"2006-02-06T19:34:59","slug":"graham-takes-on-gonzales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/graham-takes-on-gonzales\/","title":{"rendered":"Graham takes on Gonzales"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m listening<\/a> to the warrantless-search program hearings — I’d live-blog if I could figure out how to listen, analyze, write, and publish at the same time — and there haven’t been too many surprises. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has been particularly strong following up on some of Gonzales’ previous comments<\/a>, while Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was particularly hackish reciting every GOP talking point imaginable and calling the Valerie Plame leak a “two-bit nuthin’.”<\/p>\n

The interesting exchange, however, came from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Looking back over the last several weeks, Graham has been one of a handful of Republican lawmakers to publicly criticize the domestic spying program, telling CBS<\/a> shortly after this controversy came to public light that he doesn’t know of “any legal basis” for the administration to circumvent FISA.<\/p>\n

Today, Graham was relatively conciliatory to Gonzales, but was more pointed than any other Republican on the Judiciary Committee in his questioning, noting, for example, that the administration’s interpretation of Congress’ 9\/11 resolution is, as he put it, “dangerous,” because it might make it less likely for future presidents to get similar resolutions in the future.<\/p>\n

For that matter, Gonzales’ principal talking point of the day — that Bush has “inherent authority” under Article II to do almost anything — also came under fire from Graham, who noted that Gonzales’ interpretation of the Constitution reflects a president with “no boundaries” in executing a war.<\/p>\n

Specter talked tough before the hearing, but predictably watered-down his inquiry once the hearing got underway. But Graham seemed genuinely troubled. Good for him.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>: Digby points out<\/a>, accuately, that Graham’s “concerns” aren’t worth getting too excited about. “This is his schtick. Going all the way back to the impeachment hearings, he has done this. He hems and haws in his cornpone way how he’s ‘troubled’ by one thing or another until he finally ‘decides’ after much ‘deliberation’ that the Republican line is correct after all and he has no choice but to endorse it.” That’s a good point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m listening to the warrantless-search program hearings — I’d live-blog if I could figure out how to listen, analyze, write, and publish at the same time — and there haven’t been too many surprises. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has been particularly strong following up on some of Gonzales’ previous comments, while Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) […]<\/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-6546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6546","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=6546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}