Rockefeller, DiFi and the Patriot Act
December 20, 2005
Let's go to audio sound bite #1, because one of the big news stories that's out there today is Jay Rockefeller on "spying." A couple stories here. This is Katherine Schrader in the Associated Press. "Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisors that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings. Jay Rockefeller said, 'I feel unable to fully evaluate much less endorse these activities.'" Well, you already had! The bottom line is you already had two or three times. He said, "As you know I'm neither a technician nor an attorney." Okay, maybe we have here the first honest thing Senator Rockefeller has said in a long time. This statement in writing is shocking, because basically what he's saying is: I'm incompetent and I'm not up to the job of being a senator on the intelligence committee because I am neither a technician nor an attorney and I feel unable to fully evaluate much less endorse these activities.
And he's the leading Democrat on the intelligence committee. He's basically saying: "I'm not qualified. I'm incompetent. I'm not up to the job." This is written after being briefed on a top-secret program. This is a letter that he sent out. Everybody is going ape over this letter. "Rocky! Rocky! Rocky! You covered us, good! You sent out this letter." Well, this letter is written after being briefed on a top secret national security matter after 9/11? This sounds like a resignation letter to me. This sounds like Rockefeller saying, "I am not up to this job." He said he's weak. He's incapable of being part of the solution to the problems posed by the war on terror. He's admitting to being incompetent. That's how you have to read this note. He wrote this letter to cover his rear end, but the bottom line is when you look at it, this man doesn't deserve to be on the Senate intelligence committee. Here is a bunch of reporters. We have a montage of reports here from Andrea Mitchell, Kelly Wright, Suzanne Malveaux, Ed Henry, Randy Meier and Gloria Borger all reporting on Rockefeller's secret letter.
MITCHELL: Tonight, Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller released this letter he wrote to Vice President Cheney two years ago!
WRIGHT: Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller one of those briefed in secret released a letter.
MALVEAUX: Senator Jay Rockefeller, released a letter.
HENRY: In a very dramatic development tonight, Jay Rockefeller put out a two page handwritten letter.
MEIER: The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, Jay Rockefeller, has released a handwritten letter he wrote to Vice President Cheney in 2003.
BORGER: Senator Jay Rockefeller, today he released a note he wrote to Cheney expressing his concerns. He couldn't tell other members of his committee; he couldn't tell anybody on his staff; he couldn't even type an e-mail about it, which is why he wrote this handwritten note, put it in a sealed envelope, and saved it for a day like today.
RUSH: Uh-huh, and what did he say? "I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities. As you know, I'm neither a technician nor an attorney." Well, the precedents that we have cited on the first hour of this program today, if I can find them, Senator Rockefeller, who is the Democrat, leading Democrat on the intelligence committee, could certainly find them as well. He chose not to. (interruption) What, Mr. Snerdley? What (interruption) Well, I know, I (interruption). See, Snerdley, see, you can say that because you're the official program observer. You have no official tie or responsibility to utterances on the program. You observe. I utter. I speak, and Snerdley wants to (interruption). Okay, I'll repeat what Snerdley says because it is a valid point and I had the same thought, which is this. All these secret Rockefeller memos pop up all of a sudden, just magic. It's like magic, the right time we get these secret Rockefeller memos. We've got the secret Rockefeller memo outlining the strategy that's currently being played out by the Democrats; now we get this secret letter that he couldn't tell anybody about, handwritten. Was it postdated? How do we know? Have we carbon date tested it? Well, these are legitimate questions. This is awfully complete that "Rocky" would have this letter. Now let's go Hardball last night. Chris Matthews is on vacation, and the guest hostette, Andrea Mitchell, is talking to Senator Feinstein. The question: "Have you discussed this letter with him now since it's come out?"
FEINSTEIN: No. He won't discuss it with me, but I say, "Good for him."
MITCHELL: What does this do for relationships up there on the Hill, senator?
FEINSTEIN: No, I don't think that --
MITCHELL: You're colleagues. You're long-time friends.
FEINSTEIN: No, no, no, no! The point is he can't discuss it. You see, that's why it isn't proper oversight. This kind of thing, as I tried to point out in the earlier segment, should have come to us in writing, and we should have been able to review what the plan is.
RUSH: (sigh) I know the woman has a reputation of being bright and so forth, but she's not chairman of the committee, is she? And as such she's not the ranking Democrat of the committee, is she? No. So as such she's not entitled to it. What are we going to get here, everybody in Congress has to know this so one or two of them or five or ten can go to the New York Times and leak it? The whole point: He advised the relevant members of Congress, according to the law, at least a dozen times, he said. Now Dianne Feinstein, "We didn't know about that! We didn't know about this!" So the point is: "He didn't inform anybody! He didn't tell me," and now Rockefeller can't discuss it, which is true. I mean, he's not legally allowed to discuss it. I mean, he can release the letter, but he can't discuss it with anybody. (laughing) He doesn't have to discuss it with anyone. The letter speaks for itself as far as the case that the libs want to make. So the next question was, "Patriot Act. It's going to expire at the end of the year with a lot of what he and you would claim are legitimate protections the US citizens need."
FEINSTIEN: There is substantial concern about two sections. The national security letters, and Section 2-15, the so-called library provision. Now, what's happened is over the years I think the credibility through Abu Ghraib, through the violation of the Geneva Conventions, conventions against torture, what just happened on electronic surveillance of Americans I think without authority has caused serious concern about how these two sections will be used, these provisions in the two sections.
RUSH: This is precisely why these people can't be trusted. None of this is true. None of this is true. We were not surveilling "Americans;" we were surveilling Al-Qaeda. There was authority. It has been long granted by the FISA court itself. "Without a court order" is frequently mentioned in the FISA statute. It's there. They choose to ignore because it doesn't serve their political purposes. By the way, Jay Rockefeller is all concerned now. He can't discuss this. He's gotta respect the rules of confidentiality. Isn't he the guy that leaked the story about our super-secret satellite program, he and Senator Durbin? Didn't Rockefeller say, "We've got problems with this, the budget and the money that was allocated," and nobody knew the program was there? He leaked that, so he's clearly got no compunction against leaking things. This letter is highly suspicious to me, particularly when its timing, but it's irrelevant anyway, folks, because these people while thinking they're at the beach are actually in quicksand.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We went back to the archives, and we found the story on Jay Rockefeller. It's from July 23rd of this year. Our old reliable buddies at NewsMax: "The justice department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin and Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret black ops CIA satellite program last December in a move that may seriously compromise national security. The CIA made a request to the justice department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three senators. This according to former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin."
He says: "My information is the information is ongoing. Media reports on the satellite leak last December indicated the Bush administration was concerned about public comments by Durbin, Rockefeller and Wyden, and that the CIA had requested a justice department probe," and then of course we have Pat "Leaky" Leahy, who leaked intelligence about plans to hit Libya and was kicked off the intelligence committee for it. So if these senators can't discuss these things, then I assume that they agree that this leak should be investigated. The NSA leak that led to the New York Times story on Friday, we need to investigate it. We need to find out who's leaking all this national security stuff because you're not supposed do it. Here's Rockefeller. He won't discuss this with anybody all of a sudden. Maybe it's because he is being investigated on this other leak. But regardless, it smells, folks, rotten in Denmark.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I want to go back to the audio sound bites. Let's go to #4 and #5. We've got one more Feinstein sound bite from MSNBC last night. Andrea Mitchell is guest hosting for Chris Matthews, and they're talking about the Patriot Act, and Andrea Mitchell says, "But won't it expire now with the House having gone home for the holidays? Won't it expire? The Patriot Act will not exist as a result of this debate, this filibuster?"
FEINSTIEN: The House said they would come into session, uh, on Thursday, if necessary, and certainly the leadership can come and, if there is an agreement, and the leadership of the House is willing to go along with it, that will settle that. The point is there's ample time to settle this now. There are probably some members of my party that don't want to see a Patriot Act. I am not one of them, and if I had any point in this, uh, feel that there's a disingenuous streak and that people are trying to kill the Patriot Act, I will not be part of that.
RUSH: Well, let's go back to her leader: Senator Dingy Harry. This is last Friday after the Senate voted down the Patriot Act, Senator Reid went over to party with a bunch of Democrats and said this:
REID: Think of what happened 20 minutes ago in the United States Senate. We. Killed. The. Patriot Act. (Applause.)
RUSH: Yeeees, and the Democrats applaud killing the Patriot Act! So what we have prior to 9/11, these same people whining and moaning about not "connecting the dots," now the president trying to connect the dots, surveilling Al-Qaeda types, not domestic spying on American citizens, suspected Al-Qaeda types -- and now the president is try to connect the dots, and they want to impeach him. Now they accuse him of spying. So protecting your country is now an impeachable offense! Protecting our liberty and security is now an impeachable offense. Preventing another 9/11 is an impeachable offense. So I guess if you don't adopt... I'll tell you whose policy that the Democrats have totally embraced is the ACLU. This is the ACLU front-to-back, from the beginning to current. When old Norman Thomas, the grandfather of Newsweek's Evan Thomas, when he founded the ACLU -- a big socialist, ran for president six times -- when they started that organization.
It's come full circle now, and the Democratic Party has simply embraced the total agenda of the ACLU, and if you don't embrace their pacifism and anti-Americanism, then it's an impeachable offense. By the way, speaking of impeachment, yesterday was a big anniversary. It was happy Clinton impeachment anniversary day! December 19th, 1998. We're going to start talking about impeachment. Maybe we need to lead a movement here about expulsion from Congress. After all, who is giving aid and comfort to the enemy these days? Who is it that's doing everything they can to prevent us from successfully waging war against this enemy? So if we're going to start talking about impeachment, let's start talking about expulsion from Congress, hmm? You know, go on offense. You don't have to accept the premise here just because it's a bunch of Democrats that offer it. Mike in Garden Grove, California, I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the program, sir.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush, from another mind-numbed robot. I was thinking that this all adds up to the Democrats trying to pull off what happened to Bill Clinton in his midterm elections, is turn over the Congress to the other party for balance of power. They're trying to make the case that, you know, the president's out of control. He's got all this power and he's misusing it.
RUSH: Well, I think that may be one of their campaign techniques. I mean, they're already alluding to that. They're running around saying, "This is what..." and Feinstein herself is saying, "This is what you get with one-party rule." Well, if you Democrats don't like one-party rule, there's a way around it in this country. It's called: win elections. You stop complaining about hanging chads and doctored voting machines and go out and get an agenda that a majority of Americans support and will vote for. Until you do that, you are going to be a whining, nattering bunch of negative pessimists. You're going to be part of the doom-and-gloom crowd, and your propaganda-oriented in that direction is going to seal your fate even further. "One-party rule," as though somehow the Republicans have come in and stolen and created a coup d'etat? This goes back to the Democrats. It's a birth entitlement to power. They are entitled to it because they're liberals, and when that doesn't happen, there's something wrong, and it's hanging chads or it's voting machines that are screwed around with.
It can't possibly be that they're doing something wrong that the American people are rejecting, it just can't be that. Then they have this radical egalitarianism. This is one of these arguments that drives me up the wall. Let's say in a room of ten people, eight of them believe X; two of them believe Y. The liberals happen to be the two who believe Y. They will try to deny the eight who believe X because there are two in there that don't, and they will say, "Well, what about all the people that don't agree with you?" Well, it's a democracy. It's a representative republic. It's called go win elections. "What about the people who are opposed to this policy or that?" Screw 'em! Until they win the majority, we can feel sorry for them; we can worry about them or that sort of thing but in terms of let's go the tyranny of the minority turn things upside down it's simply ridiculous and that's where we are now. We've got a minority of Democrats in the House and Senate getting together with the New York Times, packing that paper full of lies -- and I'm sure the New York Times eagerly participates -- in order to essentially handcuff our ability to wage war against this enemy, and it's nothing but lies.
I spent the first hour of this program reading to you from the FISA law itself, quoting Jamie Gorelick, quoting Jimmy Carter, and then Bill Clinton on all the times they did exactly what Bush is doing -- and what's stunning to me is that these are people who are informed. They clearly say they're informed. They say they're educated. They've been to college. They've got degrees. They have spent their lives in the news business. They've spent their lives in academia. They've spent their lives in think tanks. It is amazing what they don't know. It is amazing what they purport not to know. It's amazing to them how history seemed to begin in January of 2001. None of this is new! None of this is unprecedented, and in fact, perhaps the precedent that's being set is we are actually at war when these process are being used. When Clinton did it, we weren't really at war. He hadn't declared war. We had the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, but Clinton was out there solely interested in himself.
The erection of that wall was to make sure we couldn't find out what we needed to know about illegal campaign contributions coming from China. It served the purpose of letting Clinton also say he was tough on terrorism, but there wasn't any war on terror back then. Under Clinton we were pulling out of Mogadishu. We were cutting tail and running everywhere we could where we were being attacked, Clinton wouldn't want to deal with it because he didn't want his approval ratings to come down. He was worried about that constantly. So he wasn't willing to take on any hard, tough issues. But it's all there if you go look if the record. But, man, the New York Times come out and says something, the rest of the media just gobbles it right up, doesn't question it, not curious, doesn't go look to history, doesn't find out, "Is this really unprecedented?" Don't go read the FISA law? Don't find out all the occurrences in the FISA law itself, quote, unquote, "without court order"? It's all there. I can find it. I can find it on my little Mac. Well, I have a big Mac, but I can find it on my computer. Countless others of people like me can do it, too. Why can't they in the mainstream press? Why can't they at the New York Times? Well, the fact is they can well, and when pointed out, this thing, these things, if they are pointed out, they will pooh-pooh them.
"Oh, you're just being partisan. Oh, that's not relevant. Oh, this is far worse! We are trying to protect our civil liberties."
Wrong-o, dummkopfs! We are trying to protect to save lives. Your civil liberties are worth dirt, your civil liberties are worth zilch if you are room temperature. It doesn't matter what your civil liberties are if you're dead. That's not why wars are fought. We don't go to fight wars because two out of ten people are unhappy. We don't go try to save the country because two out of ten people don't like what's going or four out of ten, whatever the number. This radical egalitarianism coupled with everything else about liberalism is going to end up paralyzing the country on virtually everything. But we're not talking here about Social Security reform or tax cuts or Medicare. This is national security, and for the first time in my lifetime we have a major political party which has now chosen sides -- and the side they've chosen is defeat of the United States of America.
Now, they will deny this. "Oh, no, no, no! We're trying to protect civil liberties. We're not acceding defeat."
I don't care what your intent is. The result of your actions is what is dangerous and poses the threat and can't be tolerated under any theory -- radical egalitarianism, rights of the minority, or what have you.
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
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