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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Paul Kern who wrote (7079)12/16/2005 5:15:17 PM
From: michael97123  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 542195
 
Nixon had an enemies list. It was very personal. J. Edgar Hoover was a far greater offender.
Bush on the hand was looking for actual terrorists who would he believed try to do another 9/11. We cant be sure that some operations werent prevented. Both liberal and conservatvie pundits back then were sure other attacks would follow. I remember all this very clearly because i was there that day. I for one will never forget and fully understand the motivations of this president on this issue. Talk impeachement all you want--this is just more of the impeach bush hysteria from the left wing of the democrat party.
I will however support inquiries to see if there were any abusee in this process. For instance if they were deliberately checking the phone calls of leading politicos then you would have a nixon moment. Mike



To: Paul Kern who wrote (7079)12/16/2005 7:31:30 PM
From: stockman_scott  Respond to of 542195
 
At the moment, there is the howl of outrage about the spying on US citizens. As of now, few are discussing the political and legal implications. The enormous importance of this news is hidden in the details or being glossed over:

(1) After the 60's and Nixon, the NSA was prohibited from spying on US citizens within the US by law (Congress passed, President signed).

(2) The Administration's legal justification and rational for secretly ordering such spying was set out in a legal memorandum authored by John Yoo, a Gonzales protege. Yoo - the same Yoo who wrote a Justice legal opinion defining torture so narrowly that even the Administration publicly disavowed it.

(3) The US Justice legal memorandums claim to justify domestic spying by an agency prohibited from doing so on the grounds that the Congressional resolution authorizing action against Afganhistan and al Quaeda gives them the power to do what ever they want. How is that for a sweeping and loose interpretation?

(5) If the Executive order directing such spying was done in violation of the law prohibiting such spying.... Sort of a grown up version of breaking into steal documents over a political campaign.

(4) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R) has said that his committee will (not might, but WILL) be holding hearings over this. McCain is definitely not pleased.

What's this mean? My husband (also a retired lawyer) was a student of Tony Scalia and tends to define issues and results narrowly in the area of constitutional law. He finished reading the reports and said "That's it then. If the evidence supports the reports, it is high crimes and misdemeanors and an impeachable offense. It's not then a question of whether impeachable offenses have been committed but whether the elections will change the House makeup enough so that he will be impeached. This would make Nixon look like a jaywalker by comparison."

Posted by: broccolli on December 16, 2005 at 02:00pm

huffingtonpost.com