Senate “Blatherings” Begin on Wiretapping

I’ve replaced the word “hearings” with blathering because it is more fitting. No one hears anything. The hearings or blatherings, whichever you prefer, are a joke and a mockery of a system that used to be honable and decent.

We now have people sitting in the back of the room yelling out calling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a facists and another wearing a t-shirt that says, “Enforce the Law: Arrest Bush”

Gonzales, from all accounts that I have read and heard, very accurately described the reasons why the Bush administration believes that one, the surveilence methods they are using are legal and two, why the methods are crucial to the domestic security of our country and aptly fighting the war on terror.

Patrick Leahy from Vermont asked a question that, in my opinion, pretty much tells listeners what his focus is on during these hearings – certainly not stopping terrorism. He asked Gonzales if this illegal authorization the President thinks he has also allows him to open mail that belongs to Americans.

If I were a Senator sitting in that room no matter my personal opinion of whether the surveilance was legal or not, I do believe I could come up with better questions. Maybe he could start by asking questions that the vast majority of Americans would like to hear. Say, “how many terrorist plots have been foiled through this activity that would not have been using FISA?” or “could you further explain to me the process the President would intend to take if we ended up in an American court of law to try one of these terrorists we listened in on?”. And that’s just off the top of my head.

But no, Leahy wants to use what works best in this country and he knows it – scare tactics. How long do you think it will take before people are running about telling others President Bush opened my mail?  There is always insinuation in asking questions.

Ted Kennedy employed the same Leahy tactics saying that America is taking a risk with national security and with the program Bush is using, it will actually weaken our National security and suspected terrorist will be set free because we didn’t follow the rule of law.

That will get some people nervous. We are going to have, according to Kennedy, terrorists running free throughout the streets of America and it is Bush’s fault. Perhaps if Ted Kennedy, and many of the others sitting in the room blathering to the television cameras because this is an election year, read and understood a little simple history, they would get it. War is different than during peace time. Tactics we use to secure our nation and protect our troops, intelligence personel and diplomats world wide, change.

As would have been expected, Gonzales refused to disclose particulars of the program out of fear of putting our people at risk and compromising the effects of the surveilence. But Diane Feinstein kept badgering Gonzales with an onslaught of hypothetical questions that had absolutely nothing to do with NSA or FISA.

As the Democrats on the Committee continue to ask their questions and perpetuate the same song and dance routines of protecting the terrorists at all costs, America is slowly waking up to the fact that the party of Democrats is so far gone, there may not be any hope for a return anytime soon.

More at 11:00

Tom Remington