Saturday, December 17, 2005

Yes, we knew, but we were deeply concerned!

Mark Kilmer notes that Nancy Pelosi knew about the NSA eavesdropping and “expressed her strong concerns.” Tom Maguire isn’t buying it:

Oh, she had expressed strong concerns at the time! That's why she was asking for Congressional hearings, and sending cryptic letters to the White House and the Justice Department, letters she will no doubt produce in due course. (No, I can't think of a reason in the world she has not produced them already - maybe her staff has been busy with their holiday shopping).
Former Senator minority leader Tom Daschle used to have an affection for the adverb “deeply” – he was “deeply disappointed” or “deeply concerned” all the time. South Dakota voters expressed their strong concern over this empty blather by booting him from office. Now he’s deeply unemployed.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, yes, that's what this story is about. What did Nancy Pelosi do? (Deflector shields... UP!)

George W. Bush has a funny word he likes to overuse, too: appreciate. Whenever he's about to refuse to answer a direct question, he tells the asker how much he appreciates its being asked. Something tells me Georgie's about to be very, very appreciative......

Eric said...

What a dumb comment.

Bush came out today and all but said: "Yeah, I did it. The AG cleared it, the law permits it, and Congress knew about it."

Of course, thanks to the NY Times, now the phone tap-ees know too, so they're going to clam up. Super.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday, when the story broke, Bush and crew said that they would not comment on it. After 24 hours, Bush suddenly remembered that not only is warrantless spying on Americans more than okay, but he's proud of it. That's strong and steady leadership.

The trouble is the law doesn't permit it, no matter what New-Bush says. Your kneejerk comment against the Times is ungrateful too, since the paper sat on the story for a year...Otherwise, it might be President Kerry dealing with this crime. And Senator Flip-Flop certainly couldn't have been any shakier than Mr. "I stonewalled it before I bragged about it."

Brian said...

Bush handled this brilliantly in his speech today, especially by going live instead of the usual tape.

I blame Karl Rove. He leaked this story so that Bush would get one day of bad pub while the Democrats who knew about it get grilled for weeks.

Eric said...

I'm no legal scholar, but there's an enormous debate brewing over whether this statute covers Al-Qaeda:

50 USC 1802:
(a)
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year[...]

Based on what I've read, it sounds like uncharted legal territory.

Anonymous said...

She is a twit. I'm so glad we here in Oakland have reasonable, sane representatives like Barbara Lee