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Gore confuses Bush with Clinton
If stupidity were painful, AlGore would have hospitalized himself yesterday.
I was disgusted to see the former Vice President taking Martin Luther King Jr. birthday as an opportunity to bash President Bush about the controversial NSA surveillance program. (video at The Political Teen) The irony and hypocrisy of his speech before the The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy showed either a psychological displacement of his own 8 years in the White House, or else a completely duplicitous misrepresentation of the same. I’ll just touch on a few items.
-”It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored.”
Glass houses, Mr. Gore. Remember “no controlling legal authority?”
-”…put aside partisan differences and join with us in demanding that our Constitution be defended and preserved.”
Oh, NOW you’re interested in defending and preserving the Constitution?
-”…the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens”
Huge numbers? How many is that? And are these your average innocent law-abiding American citizens, or are they residents of the United States with known ties to known terrorists abroad? And if it’s the latter, why do you have a problem with the NSA listening in on the conversations of terrorist operatives? Especially when we’re foiling plans for future attacks!
And you use the word “caught.” Well, I guess caught could apply if you mean to refer to an NSA program which has repeatedly been brought before Congress for approval.
As opposed to being “caught” obstructing justice and lying to a Grand Jury.
-”It is appropriate that we make this appeal on the day our nation has set aside to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who challenged America to breathe new life into our oldest values by extending its promise to all our people.”
Appropriate? *boggleboggleboggle* Huh? Wagging a finger at Presdient Bush for wiretapping terrorist suspects doesn’t connect with the peaceful struggle to establish equal rights for all Americans regardless of race.
-”On this particular Martin Luther King Day, it is especially important to recall that for the last several years of his life, Dr. King was illegally wiretapped-one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government during this period.”
Wiretapped by the Democrats. He kinda left that out. Must’ve slipped his mind, right? He must have also forgotten that Dr. King wasn’t a terrorist on the phone with known terrorists overseas, either. Just because he was wiretapped for political reasons by Democrats doesn’t make him a suitable puppet for a modern anti-Bush agenda.
-”Yet, just one month ago, Americans awoke to the shocking news that in spite of this long settled law, the Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on “large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States.”
Again, how many? How much is “large volumes?” And how many of these people being wiretapped are average Americans, or are these people with ties to terrorist groups and individuals overseas?
-”At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance.”
So why are you mouthing off about something you don’t know about yet?
-” What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.”
The President has continually kept Congress in the loop on what’s been happening. Bush is NOT breaking the law, and it’s slanderous for Gore to say so without concrete proof. John Hinderaker’s got an excellent post regarding applicable law, the Constitution and all controlling precents, and he presents a compelling argument for the legality of the NSA electronic intercept program. In his update to that post, he provides a link to the Justice Department rationale upon which President Bush relied. I’m still not 100% convinced, but I’m surely not in the camp of those whose mind is already made up that Bush broke the law. And I’ll continue to give the President the benefit of the doubt until I see otherwise.
-”A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.”
Kinda like having a convicted felon in the White House from 1993 – 2001? The voice of experience here!
-”An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution – an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free.”
Dead wrong. Where is the proof of this accusation?
-”In the words of James Madison, “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Or, when a single party is voted in by a plurality of voters in a democratic process, it’s the will of the people being governed. We can always count on certain Democrats to whine and throw out the damagogue words like “tyranny” when they’ve been voted out of power.
Funny, AlGore had a different view of warrentless surveillance back when he and Bill Clinton were in office: (h/t: Gateway Pundit)
“The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes,” Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, “and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.”“It is important to understand,” Gorelick continued, “that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities.”
Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against “a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power”…
…Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it “does not restrict the president’s ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security.” In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.
You bet your ass “when necessary.” Bill Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches in 1994, but not for fighting foreign powers:
In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.
On December 20th Glenn Reynolds noted this CATO Institute Report published back in 1997:
The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping……The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for “national security” purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president “has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” [51] According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place.
So, should Gore’s latest harangue fall under irony or hypocrisy?
Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
