Top Republican raises impeachment over surveillance flap

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top US Republican senator for the first time mentioned impeachment in connection with President George W. Bush's authorization of electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cautioned it was too early to draw any conclusions as his committee gears up for public hearings into the growing controversy early next month. But in his appearance on ABC's "This Week" program, Specter insisted the Senate was not going to give the president what he called "a blank check." When asked what could happen if lawmakers find Bush in violation of the law, Specter answered: "Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy ... under our society is to pay a political price." He made it a point to clarify, however, that he was speaking theoretically and was "not suggesting remotely that there's any basis" for a presidential impeachment at this moment. The controversy erupted last month after the New York Times reported that Bush had repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to monitor overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court. Under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government can conduct such surveillance only for 72 hours as it seeks a warrant for continued monitoring. Bush has blasted the disclosure as harmful to national security and vowed to continue the wiretaps, arguing he had the right to authorize them under his constitutional war powers as well as a resolution passed by Congress in the wake in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The measure adopted three days after the strikes allows the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force" against those involved in them, but contains no specific language on surveillance. Specter said he disagreed with the contention that the resolution included an implicit authorization to modify the surveillance act. "If that's what the administration was relying on, I thought they were wrong," he pointed out. He added that the issue of wartime presidential powers was "a very knotty question" that "ought to be thoroughly examined." Specter assured he was prepared to listen to the administration's explanations, but warned, "I'm going to wear my skepticism on my sleeve." The chairman became the second Republican Judiciary Committee member to publicly question the president's rationale for authorizing the wiretaps. Senator Sam Brownback said last month he did not agree "with the legal basis on which they are basing their surveillance." The statements indicate the Bush administration will not be able to count on full support from the 10 committee Republicans when the hearings begin in early February. The judiciary committee also has eight Democrats, who have questioned the legality of the surveillance program. Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of the Democratic members, reiterated her doubts Sunday, saying, "I do not believe it's true that the president's plenary power would allow him to simply avoid the law." The fray was also joined by First Lady Laura Bush, who told reporters on the way to Liberia that the American people expected the president "to do what they can to make sure there's not an attack by foreign terrorists." The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 50 percent of Americans believe the administration was right undertaking these wiretaps, while 46 percent said it was wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find this to be very significant, that such an influential Republican would so publically raise the spectre of impeachment. Granted he quantified his statement to say that he is not personally calling for or endorsing such proceedings, but his very mention of it to me speaks volumes. I do believe I hear the distant sound of a falling house of cards. Let the minimizing begin.

Sigh. If I must, I'll start with the deserved minimizing of the Unhinged Left's Favorite Remaining Wet Dream that ain't gonna happen. Why, even the subject line -- TOP REPUBLICAN RAISES IMPEACHMENT yadayadayada -- that isn't exactly what happened, is it? Once I realized it was Arlen Single-Bullet Ira Einhorn is Innocent Former Defense Attorney Specter who was the Top Rep. "raising impeachment," it had even less meaning. Now maybe it would be useful to read the entire transcript of the Q&A interview. Perhaps the phrasing of the question had something to do with the answer which then becomes a happy headline?

Damn, I could get rich in here if someone would make some serious bets with me. Let's go with the impeachment fantasy, por ejemplo. My bet is there will not only be no articles of impeachment, there also will not be any hearings nor trials. Trust me on this one, Dave. You are barking up the wrong tree.

Please check out my post on "5 Pitfalls for Progressives to Avoid." Then add #6: Great Expectations Over the Imminent Bush Impeachment.

Just hate to see you let down when nothing of the kind takes place. Let's just harken back to those dark November days of the 2004 post-election. Allow yourself to reexperience that deep emotional malaise for just a moment. Okay.  Time's up.  Let's not set ourselves up for more of the same.

Now then...

Here's the way the NY Times frames "It's the Great Impeachment Story, Charlie Brown" based on the same TV show. Now don't make me have to purchase a transcript. Let's just be sensible. Arlen (I almost wrote Phil) Specter is not really bringing up, endorsing or suggesting that Bush be impeached. He was answering a leading question.

How was that? Minimal enough? Looking out for you always.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Susan,

When I read the original posting, I didn't think for a minute that Specter actually intended to pursue impeachment, nor that it will ever come to pass.  Rather, I took the article as a (rather healthy) example of the increasing skepticism with which some Republicans view the heavy-handed practices of the White House as the next election cycle rolls around.  

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm a proud life-long liberal, and I can fully see the irony in the fact that one strong element of the conservative agenda has for quite a long time been to shrink government and limit its intrusion into our personal and economic lives.   Those kinds of conservatives are likely losing patience with bigger and bigger government, more intrusion, nation-building, and a budget deficit that reflects the very opposite of fiscal conservatism.

That said, the President's social conservatism (much to my chagrin) is accepted (even embraced) by much of the American people and continues to my way of thinking to be the foundation of his political success.  Alas, this social conservatism fuels the very practices for which the Bush administration is now "under attack" (well, not really under atttack).  

I feel that you are over-reaching in your characterization of me. I don't like Bush, and I think he is a terrible president, which is a pretty clear stance of mine that is well known around here. While I like to see this administration called on their B.S., I am not as salivatory over the prospect of impeachment as you like to think. Would I support Bush's impeachment for any reason? No. Do I even know yet that impeachment would be a correct or viable action given the circumstances of Bush's many and varied scandals and/or offenses? Again, no. I would have to have some more definitive information on what exactly is lawful and what is not. This is why hearings on this issue will be very important. While I do like to see him hauled out in public to explain what seem to me to be heavy-handed tactics on his part, if he is able to show that his actions were conclusively warranted and lawful, I would not support his impeachment. I was simply voicing my surprise that Specter would so casually broach the subject, which to me seems to carry some significance. My dislike for Bush does get personal, because of my frustration with the scope and breadth of what I believe are his blatant abuses of power. I have real issues with this man, not just a childish and petty hatred with no reason or moral compass to guide it. Trivializing my concerns or vaguely alluding to my imagined level of salivatory glee is a lazy response to my viewpoint. If you don't feel that Specter's broaching the subject is significant in any way, that's fine, you may be correct. I feel that you may be seeing too much in black and white here, when making assumptions on what I'm getting at. I do feel that this COULD be the start of something very bad for Bush, and to me Specter's audacity may be indicative of some shifting attitudes toward Bush from within his own party.

gray - welcome.

You said: "Those kinds of conservatives are likely losing patience with bigger and bigger government, more intrusion, nation-building, and a budget deficit that reflects the very opposite of fiscal conservatism."

I can't agree more. Real Conservatives have been unhappy with Bush's Medicare plan but not for teh same reason Democrats didn't like it. Nation-building is a slightly different issue (you sorta have to fix it when you break it), but I agree with the budget deficit (don't get me started with regards to the transportation bill last year). The nice thing is that conservative grassroots has begun to speak louder and louder and I think you are seeing that loudness beginning to move many House of Representative Congressmen. It's the GOP Senate that is the problem in most cases.

With regards to the topic - it's amazing how Specter's comment like that can be turned into a type of story like this. But as we all know, the press doesn't have an agenda.

I stated at some point that if Bush did break the law then he should be impeached. I still go with that. HOWEVER, before we can even begin discussing the I word we need to start discussing whether or not a crime was committed here. Discussion of iimpeachment is putting the cart before the horse.  

Jordan .

Yay, Gray, another self-proclaimed liberal joining the fun! Good to meet you! Since you're new here I'll only briefly note that I too was a life-time liberal until about a decade ago, when I gave it up pretty much for good, though not cold turkey. But I did mange it without a patch!

That said, the President's social conservatism (much to my chagrin) is accepted (even embraced) by much of the American people and continues to my way of thinking to be the foundation of his political success. Alas, this social conservatism fuels the very practices for which the Bush administration is now "under attack" (well, not really under atttack).

This is a little vague for me. "Social conservatism" such as...?

Then it "fueling the very practices....etc"

Maybe an example or two so I don't misinterpret what you wrote.

Dave, Dave, Dave. Right you are -- I mean "correct" you are -- if you took the whole shebang to be an characterization of you. I know you are not the poster boy for the unhinged left. I recognize that you are an iconoclast. And I know you are a gun owner too which certainly distinguishs you from a leftie cliche.

When you wrote, "let the minimizing begin" it was Simba's raw gazelle meat for me and I sank my fangs into the exercise. After a long day of writing elsewhere yesterday and then popping into the Gazette, I was on a roll. I let loose with what I thought was a pretty light-hearted "attack" never looking back or rewriitng. I'm sorry to have encompassed you within the that described circle of Wacky Progressives. Maybe in the same way that you sometimes seem to link conservatives or Bush supporters to those Deliverance-type fiddlin' denizens of your local pub, I too sometimes link you to the (sorry-sorry-sorry!) Hollywood leftist conspiracy theorists I deal with each day. I hope you know I don't mean it maliciously and I appreciate a correction when I step over the line. Additionally, I have been trying to do my part being a little more provocative than usual in order to stir things up at the new Gazette.

______Now, then...

The gravitas of "hearings" sends shivers down my spine recalling each of the recent Supreme Court appointee hearings. You know just this morning I was watching a few minutes of CSPAN in between the fashion coverage from last night's Golden Globes and I caught some guy who was a rep for American lumber industry. He was discussing that subject Danwhy most enjoys -- the soft lumber Canadian trade issue. Anyway, besides seeming like an issue that most likely very few Americans even think about, it also seemed vaguely non-partisan. So, the announcer says to the call in audience, "If you're a Repubican, call ---, If you're a Democrat, call --- and if you're an Independent, call ---." And I thought to myself, is this really necessary??? Especially that "independent" category where the callers really cheat! It's the need for drawing dividing lines everywhere that bugged me. Geez. Lumber!?

Well, that's just what we'd have with public hearings. So fine. Maybe they will happen. Lots of sound and fury can be expected and lots of expert witnesses. Lots of predictablity too. But whatever. We are so caught up in our swirling "Era-ism" these days that it's difficult to see through so much smoke.

I still say:

1. Bush will not be impeached or indicted.

2. Many Democrats will be saddened by that.

3. The focus diverts Democrats from pursuing their own unique agenda apart from deriding Bush all the while knowing, with a Republican congress, no impeachment will take place anyway.

4. Me lazy??? Check out that post count, baby! You don't get to 3000+ being lazy.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I'm getting mine from the smiley face on the toolbar which I have only because I now use the Mozilla Foxfire browser. Jordan has all the old ones, I think, and then some such as this one which I'll never use!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Hi Susan,

1) I meant to make a distinction between a) the kind of conservatism that sees its primarly role as shrinking goverment in an effort to maximize personal and economic freedoms and b) the kind of conservatism that sees its primary role as imposing its moral (meaning here, religious) code of conduct upon others and in so doing intruding into issues of personal freedom in terms of reproductive rights, civil unions, etc. etc, etc. I should have defined my terms.  Sorry.

2) My explanation of your second item is a bit more controversial: I see as a motivation for the Bush adminstration's rush into war and the wiretap program a moral righteousness that is downright religious in nature. It is the hallmark of an educated person to question all settled ideas, but a president who embraces an evangelical conservatism that cleanly divides the World into the Saved the Damned is not interested in opposing points of view, complexity, etc.

-gray-

Jordan .

More than a few, actually, both personally and professionally.

-gray-

And all of them view the world as you described above ("cleanly divides the World into the Saved the Damned is not interested in opposing points of view, complexity, etc")?

I know they are out there (as you describe) but I think the generalization above is about as wrong as blanketing all Muslims as being Islamic-facists who follow Bin Laden.  

Jordan .

Jordan,

You misunderstand my point.  I'm not interested in putting all evangelical Christians (or anyone else) in a neat little box. I recognize and acknowledge that there are many different types of adherents to a religion.  My point was that I see a connection between Bush's leadership style and a brand of religion that is intolerant of opposing viewpoints, etc.  Most I hope aren't; some are; I fear Bush falls in with the latter.

-gray- 

My point was that I see a connection between Bush's leadership style and a brand of religion that is intolerant of opposing viewpoints, etc.

again, you are branding a type of religious belief a certain way. On the surface, most (not all) Evangelical Christians may come across as viewing everything black and white, but that's well after they've already gone through a lot of thought and dealing with opposing viewpoints in coming to some those issues. Yes, there will always be situations in which an issue comes up, and you are going to have Christians who will always say "Well, the Bible says X and that's correct" but you have that on both sides of the aisle. Even the far left do similar things - they may not use the Bible but they do use something (usually their life experience - which isn't that much difference than someone who uses a religious text).   

However, I find it funny that you  brand Bush a certain way when you don't know what goes on behind closed doors, nor do you know his mind. Just because someone publicly looks a certain way doesn't mean they haven't had to deal with complex issues to make that issue. Bush gets a lot of criticism for viewing the world so black and white, and yet the left can't see they do the exact same thing when it comes to Bush (and Christians).

Gray, everyone else here knows this, but so you know - I grew up as a Pastor's Kid, and would be classifid as one of those "evangelical Christians." My experience has taught me that the majority of people who start pigeon-holing Christians really don't know Christians, or have very little experience with Evangelicals.   

Jordan .

Jordan,

I've been reading this board on and off for close to 5 years, so I'm familiar with your situation, but again you misunderstand me. For you to argue that some evangelical Christians are not intolerant is ridiculous, about as ridiculous as arguing that some Roman Catholics (which I am, by the way) are not intolerant. I intimately know that some Roman Catholics are intolerant, and I firmly believe that some evangelical Christians are as well, and my feeling is that Bush is one of them. This does not mean that you or your father or other evangelical Christians you know and respect are intolerant. It merely means that some are. Why intolerance of this kind often stems from religion is a question for scholars, but it is my observation nonetheless. This is a distinction that I'm sure you can understand. :)

-gray-

Of course I understand the distinction you made in your clarification. I admit that there are intolerant Christians. I'm not arguing differently. I'll say again - I'm not arguing that some Christians are intolerant - I know they are. I am arguing that your statements seemed to be a gross generalization of both Chrsitians and Bush.

I guess I'm being hypersensitive because I've been in situations in which it's obvious that people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to Evangelicals, esp when these same people see a bigger threat in right wing Christians than in Islmaic facist Muslims.

Bush often gets criticized by the left for viewing the world in a black and white fashion, and yet, often times, the left view Bush and Evangelicals in the same type of black and white sort of way.

Jordan .

Jordan,

I think we understand each other here, and I know that this is a sensitve issue. In my earlier posting I wrote: "a president who embraces an evangelical conservatism." By this, I meant a brand of (or version of) religious adherence. Perhaps you thought I intended that to be a blanket statement about all evangelicals. I did not, so that's all I'll day about this issue. :)

-gray-

I find it interesting that Gray has been reading for five years and not posting in all that time? That shows amazing restraint!

On another political website, I had a similar experience but couldn't resist occasionally logging on with my 2 cents. Needless to say, I was in disagreement with just about everything. After a while though I felt like I knew what each response would be to each daily news item so I stopped reading it. Not that much fun to be able to do either side of any dialogue.

"My explanation of your second item is a bit more controversial: I see as a motivation for the Bush adminstration's rush into war and the wiretap program a moral righteousness that is downright religious in nature. It is the hallmark of an educated person to question all settled ideas, but a president who embraces an evangelical conservatism that cleanly divides the World into the Saved the Damned is not interested in opposing points of view, complexity, etc."

I knew, as you must have also known, that Jordan would have some thoughts on this so I didn't comment right away.

It is unlikely that anyone could dissuade you of this belief now 6 years into the Bush presidency, if the paragraph above aptly states your understanding of the situation. But along with believing Bush's alternative motive for war and wiretapping as "religious righteousness," you have to design another trickier template to fit the rest of the players; that which would explain Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, and so on down the line within the president's inner circle. Then you could throw in the Jewish element with Wolfowitz, Perle and Kristol with their Evil PNAC. The generals such as the Arab-American General Abizaid would have to play some role. Now I've read alot of explanations that tie this whole enchilada together but I think it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of big government not to mention human behavior. In order to feel the need to construct such an edifice, you have to believe that Bush's entire initial premise is wrong. Or a lie. Or both.

It seems to me that those who have settled on the Evangelical Missionary Presidency explanation are actually the ones who are missing the complexity gene. The truth is every large issue has the capacity to be reduced to a "tagline" or the simple black and white explanation. But it radiates outward in rings of increasing complexity. If Bush's simple explanation for the War on Terror, let's say, is US = Force of Good vs. Islamo-Fascist Network = Force of Evil, myself, I'm still buying it.

Think of it like a novel, for example -- you should be able to give a one-sentence description that tells "what's it about?" From there you should be able to describe the beginning, the middle and the end. (in the real life case, the desired end) You should be able to give a description of all the major characters/players. What is going to happen -- plot points? Then the synopsis filled with more details. For the whole picture replete with its desired nuances and complexities, yo gotta read the whole damn book, which is more difficult for citizens as the events are ongoing, much is secretive, and the events are worldwide.

One more specific point: Let's pretend that Bush really is just a religious zealot out to Save the Damned. Along with this let's throw in the other bit of common wisdom of his minimal curiosity, his minimal intellect and his minimal complexity. Now let's be flies on the wall at any Cabinet meeting. Can't we assume that probably one or more of the people around that oval table ARE smart, curious and complex. Don't you think maybe one or more of them do NOT have Bush's evangelical missionary zeal? If so, how easy would it be to manipulate this jerk? And why wouldn't you if you had a deeper appreciation for complexity????

I think you would manipulate the so-called president, if this view is correct -- one which seems not unlike that which prevailed throughout the Reagan administration btw -- that the president is so stupid and so easily manipulated that the Real Guys in Power put him there just so he could do their nefarious bidding. We'll make him believe he's the boss and that he can avenge his daddy or bring freedom to the world! Meanwhile, we puppet-masters get control of the oil! Or whatever the case may be.

I don't buy it. I've watched business people -- corporate people -- in much smaller, less transparent situations trying to get things accomplished and I understand the complexity and the difficulty. I understand that the boss's son will NOT have the respect of the employees if he is not a leader and will be rendered completely ineffectual. It seems to me that the view you stated above is the oversimplication of a rationale taking the nation to war.

Have you read either of Woodward's books on the Bush administration? I think they give a pretty good sense of the head-butting that even seemingly like-minded Republicans encounter when faced with the type of high level problems of a post-9/11 world. I don't deny Bush is a simpler fellow than others but I'm not convinced his instincts are wrong. If he regularly prays to God and Jesus like probably every previous POTUS has done, I don't even begrudge him that indulgence.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Getting tot he issue of whether or not wiretapping is illegal in this case or not, here's an editorial from Mort Kondrake (a Democrat):

 NSA Data Mining Is Legal, Necessary, Sec. Chertoff Says
By Mort Kondracke

"I think it's important to point out," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told me in an interview, "that there's no evidence that this is a program designed to achieve political ends or do something nefarious."

He was talking about the National Security Agency's warrantless "domestic spying" program, and I couldn't agree with him more. Despite the alarms sounded by the American Civil Liberties Union, former Vice President Al Gore and various Members of Congress, "there hasn't even been a hint" that the program is targeted at domestic dissidents or innocent bystanders, Chertoff said. It's designed to find and stop terrorists.

"If you go back to the post-Sept. 11 analyses and the 9/11 commission, the whole message was that we were inadequately sensitive to the need to identify the dots and connect them," he said.

"Now, what we're trying to do is gather as many dots as we can, figure out which are the ones that have to be connected and we're getting them connected," he said.

While refusing to discuss how the highly classified program works, Chertoff made it pretty clear that it involves "data mining" -collecting vast amounts of international communications data, running it through computers to spot key words and honing in on potential terrorists.

A former prosecutor, federal judge and head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he convincingly defended the program's legal basis and intelligence value.

I asked him why the Bush administration can't comply with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to conduct "emergency" wiretaps for 72 hours.

"It's hard to talk about classified stuff," he said, "but suffice it to say that if you have a large volume of data, a large number of [phone] numbers you're intercepting, the typical model for any kind of warrant requires you to establish probable cause [that one party is a foreign agent] on an individual number."

FISA warrant applications are inches thick, he said, and "if you're trying to sift through an enormous amount of data very quickly, I think it would be impractical." He said that getting an ordinary FISA warrant is "a voluminous, time-consuming process" and "if you're culling through literally thousands of phone numbers ... you could wind up with a huge problem managing the amount of paper you'd have to generate." (Jordan's note: there goes the "it only takes 20 minutes to get a warrant argument")

What I understood Chertoff to be saying is that when data mining produces evidence of a terrorist contact, the government will then seek a FISA warrant to actually tap the person's phones or "undertake other kinds of activity in order to disrupt something."

As legal authority for the program, Chertoff cited a 2002 decision of the FISA Court of Review, which is one level down from the U.S. Supreme Court, holding that a president has "inherent [constitutional] authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."

"We take it for granted that the president does have that authority," the court said, "and, assuming it is so, FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional powers."

Chertoff also said that the courts have given wide latitude to the government in controlling and monitoring activity across international borders. All reports on the NSA activity assert that it's limited to international communications.

What about the assertion in The New York Times on Tuesday that virtually all of the thousands of NSA leads sent to the FBI in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led to dead ends or innocent persons?

Chertoff said, "You're going to bat well below .100 any time you do intelligence gathering. That's true even in conventional law enforcement. If you get even a small percentage of things to pan out, you've succeeded to a significant degree.

"What I can tell you is this," Chertoff said. "The technique of electronic surveillance, which is gathering information about who calls whom or intercepting actual conversation, is the most significant tool in the war against terrorism.

"If we didn't have it, I'm quite sure we'd have disrupted fewer attacks and identified fewer [terrorists]." (Joradn's Note - it was through this that we were able to stop that guy from possibly destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, and I wonder if it was the NSA wiretapping that got us the intelligence to bomb four Al Qaeda members last week?)

Buried at the bottom of the Times story were a number of cases where actual terrorist operations had been disrupted, apparently as a result of NSA eavesdropping, including efforts to smuggle a missile launcher into the United States, to cut Brooklyn Bridge cables with a blowtorch and an attempt to blow up a fertilizer bomb in London. (Jordan's Note - and let me see - what would people have said if these attacks had actualy happened? "We aren't doing enough?" I think would've been teh reply)

"I would rather move quickly and remove somebody when we've got a legal basis to do so, charge them with a lesser offense [than terrorism] or deport them, than wait till I have a big case with a big press conference. If we wait until people get operational, it's a failure. Somebody could get killed."

The idea that someone could bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch has been ridiculed, but Chertoff said, "People kid about the shoe bomber, but had the bomb gone off and 150 people were killed, I don't think a lot of families would be laughing about it."

Civil libertarians seem to fear that the government is collecting huge quantities of data that it can later use politically, but Chertoff said, "I don't think anybody has an interest in accumulating a lot of information. We can barely manage the stuff we care about for avoiding terrorism.

"I can actually make the case that the more intelligence we've got, the more we actually protect civil liberties. In a world without intelligence, where we don't have a good idea where the threats are, it means searching people, screening names, barriers and checkpoints, questioning people when they get on an airplane."

To me, the bottom line of the NSA spying case is this: Congress should investigate whether President Bush has authority to conduct anti-terrorist data mining. And, if he doesn't, Congress should give it to him - with legislative oversight. (Joradn's Note - right on, Mort)

As Chertoff told me, "the name of the game here is trying to figure out, with all the billions of pieces of data that float around the world, what data do you need to focus on? What is the stuff you need to worry about?

"If you don't use all the tools of gathering these kinds of leads, then you're leaving very valuable tools on the table." And, if and when another 9/11 occurs, the first question that will be asked is: Why?

Jordan .

There is also lot's of editorials that go the other way.  Here's a recent poll:

  New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Passion 4 Impeachment - A Scintillating new film by Oliver Stone!

Sorry. There's no passion for impeachment beyond the usual suspects. If Zogby asks a question, "IF the president blahblahblahed, WITHOUT A JUDGE'S APPROVAL do you think it's worth considering...yada? As I've mentioned before, I used to be employed as an LA Times pollster so I know a thing or two about asking questions of Americans. The questions need to be answered yes or no or no opinion. In the world of poll-taking "No Opinion" is to be avoided like Re-elect Dubya in '04 bumpersticker at a Barbara Streisand Earth First fundraiser. So a compound question with the "IF" and the "WITHOUT A JUDGE'S APPROVAL" along with the sinister sounding "wiretapping American citizens" is going to take your interviewee down a certain path. Then you throw in the "CONSIDER" impeachment. Come on! Get serious.

It's pretty easy to frame a series of questions in such a way as to get the answers you'd like.

Now for reality. A pollster like Zogby (argh) is one thing. A NY Times reporter who wants to sell a book is another thing. The Bang a Gong, Make Noise to Drown out Bush during the State of the Union Stop the Evil Bush Regime NOW types have spent the past 6 years trying desperately to do a doppelganger impeachment to even the Clinton score. So every week it's some new half-baked Fascist Abuse they're breathlessly uncovering.

Reality is the antidote! Try out this link from CSPAN and watch and listen to what General Michael Hayden has to say about the NSA eavesdropping on Al Qaeda suspects program. If you have an hour to listen, I think you'll have a different slant than that which most journalists tend to regurgitate. It's very informative. Hayden's rage over the accusations is bubbling just beneath the surface. My fave moment is when the guy in the yellow jacket challenges Hayden to debate him as a representative of the anti-war movement. It's laughable.

http://www.c-span.org/Search/advanced.asp?AdvancedQueryText=Michael+Hayden&StartDateMonth=&
StartDateYear=&EndDateMonth=&EndDateYear=&Series=&ProgramIssue=&QueryType=&QueryTextOptions=&
ResultCount=10&SortBy=bestmatch

To me it is a marvel that a leftist organization was the one to come up with the expression "Move On Dot Org" when that is precisely the advice they should be following.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

I looked at the raw data of that poll and found a couple of things that were interesting.

Not only was the question, as Susan mentioned, totally loaded and not your average poll type question, but when you study who they spoke to, they did speak to about 10% more Democrats than Republicans if I remember right.

Plus, I probably would've said yes to this question too. As I've said, if Bush broke the law, I'd support impeachment. This question infers that doing wiretapping without a court order is breaking the law which is the crux of the discussion.

And as I keep saying (and will continue to beat the dead horse), courts have continued to upheld the Executive Branch's power to do thse types of things in the name of national security. As one of the editorials above says I believe, the court just under the Surpeme Court said that such a program is within the Constitutional boundaries of the Executive Branch's powers.

Bush made a joke yesterday here in KS when he spoke to the college kids (and I'm not talking about the Brokeback Mountain joke). He said something along the lines, "If people think that I was breaking the law, then why was I informing the Congress about the program?" It's not like he did something in secret like Nixon, or for personal political gain like Nixon. Bush very well could've broken the law, but up to this point, the Courts continue to say that Bush has these powers under the Constitution.

Jordan .