bush’s witch hunt
by Alan Moore
Published: March 28, 2008
“The Bush administration informed Congress on Friday that the government has “lost intelligence” because of the expiration of surveillance legislation caught in a political tug of war.” - “Bush admin: U.S. has ‘lost intelligence’“, Mike Allen, Politico.com
You can’t help but love our fair President George W. Bush some days. The lunacy of 1600 Pennsylvania makes you feel a little sorry for him on occasion.
Unfortunately, though, blaming Congress for lost intelligence follows the good ol’ fashioned American politics we’ve come to know and be nauseated by. Bush’s persecution and witch hunt bit, sending the blame for his failures to Capitol Hill, is getting a little old, though.
“We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress’ failure to act,” says an underlined passage of a six-page letter signed by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell.
According to Politico.com’s Allen, “The assertion is an effort by President Bush to ratchet up pressure on the House and Senate to pass a new version of the Protect America Act, which gave the government enhanced powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.”
What I find slightly disturbing and, quite frankly, annoying is that the Bush administration treats its new Democratic Congress like the source of all the world’s problems. During the 2006 midterm elections, I lost track of how many times we heard the cry that Democrats “have no patriotism,” or “don’t care about the safety of America.” Send a wake-up call to our friend George, and let him know that people don’t get elected to Congress by completely disregarding others. If Al Qaeda should jump back into action today and level Washington, D.C., all 535 members of Congress would go down. Ergo, Congress is in it together - Republicans and Democrats. Memo to Bush: by isolating your enemies for persecution you only isolate yourself.
According to Politico.com’s article, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a letter to Bush that he takes “strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program.”
I can’t really blame Chairman Reyes for taking offense. When the day comes that President Bush ceases his attempts to make Congress sweat like the proverbial adulterer in church, perhaps the White House will see that Congress isn’t out to make life difficult. Any maybe, just maybe, they’ll actually work together to get something done.
Unfortunately, it’s the political fighting and accusations we’ve come to expect. Chairman Reyes and the members of the House Intelligence Committee weren’t at fault. You don’t physically “lose” intelligence; you use it as a political power play and to go on a witch hunt against political foes.
But who knows - maybe Bush is right. Someone ought to toss Congress in the Potomac and see if it floats.
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