Hypocrisy? Fugghedaboutit....
I wish I could live in Dave's world. Where things aren't actually what conservatives say they are. Where George W. Bush is the "peace president," clear-cut forests are "healthy," and the events of the past week inolving Ted Kennedy and Al Gore illustrate them as being "hypocrites."
Dave doesn't even try with this column- he's just dialing it in. It reads like he spent a half-hour flipping back and forth between Rush Limbaugh and Lars Larson, heard some choice bits, and condensed them into a column. But if you examine his arguments for more than two seconds, as usual, they fail to make sense....
First, Dave chastises Ted Kennedy- who else?- for giving Sam Alito grief for being a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, while Kennedy was a member of the Owl club, a social club at Harvard. Never mind that CAP was a reactionary club, created to promote an agenda to block the acceptance of women and minorities, while the Owl club was created before Harvard was a co-ed school, and was pretty much one step above a fraternity. Although conservative critics point out the fact that the Owl club didn't accept women members- which eventually led to Harvard severing ties with the club- it should be pointed out that fraternities typically don't allow women members. Nor did the Owl club proactively lobby against admitting women and minorities to Harvard.
The true shame here involving Kennedy is that he felt forced to resign from a club that he had a 52-year affiliation with, dating from his days as an undergrad, thus providing ammunition for conservative critics to write lousy columns about. I am a firm believer that clubs- particularly social clubs- can be exclusive of their membersip. Should a lesbian solidarity club, for example, be forced to admit a neo-nazi male? If I formed a chess club, and someone I knew was a crackhead wanted to join, I'd have every right to not allow him in my club. So Kennedy was a member of a men's club. Somehow- as Dave alludes, throwing his fans a bone, given Kennedy's history with women- this is "sexist." It's not. And it absolutely in NO WAY can be connected with Kennedy's questioning Sam Alito's memebership in the morally repugnant CAP.
Now, onto Al Gore. On Monday, Gore gave a speech pointing out the fact that Dubya has consistently broke the law that he threatened "the very nature of our government." What, exactly, is the nature of our government? Remember that first day of civics class- right, I know they don't teach civics any more, just bare with me- and the teacher drew a triangle on the chalkboard? The three sides of the triangle were to represent the three branches of government: the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, designed in such a manner that they were to check and blance each other.
Checks and balances is the "very nature of our government" that Gore was referring to. However, when you have an executive who side-steps laws he doesn't approve of, avoids receiving warrants from the proper courts to domestically spy on Americans, states that he has "inherent" powers from the Constitution (which he refers to as a "goddamn piece of paper") that Congress did not allow, signs a "signing statement" when signing an anti-torture stating the law didn't actually apply to him, stacks the courts to allow him to act in such a manner, and with the Congress standing idly by, it is quite clear that the checks and balances- the very nature- of our government sure seemed to be threatened.
The apologists for the President have begun to use the term "unitary executive", which is simply a more wordy way to say "dictator." Didn't we invade Iraq to remove a dictator? Yet, Dave and his ilk don't bat an eye as a dictatorship replaces the model of democracy America has championed for over two centuries. After all, its happeneing with Republicans in charge, so it must be good.
Again with that fantasy world that Dave lives in....
At any rate, Dave accuses Gore of being a hypocrite for attacking the NSA's warrantless wiretapping. Gore is a hypocrite, according to Dave, because the Clinton-Gore administration approved of a program that had absolutely nothing to do with warrantless domestic spying. Dave points out the tired conservative argument that Clinton's Deputy Attorney General had argued that the president had the inherent power to conduct physical searches in foreign intelligence cases. The fact is that case dealt with physical searches of foreigners detained by intelligence agencies overseas, not the domestic surveillance of Americans. I can see where Dave could get confused- perhaps its an after-effect from living in Bizzaro Conservo World for too long...
But, what about the NSA Echelon program reported on by CBS's "60 Minutes" program during the Clinton-Gore administration? Dave points out this program picks up electronic signals from around the world- including cell-phone conversations, fax transmissions, and ATM transfers, the mesh of electronic static and noise that comprises the "chatter" that the intelligence agencies sift through for a fine grain of information. Having a program that captures billions of electronic beeps and "ones and zeros" is a far cry for placing wiretapping on specific phones, cell phones, or watching specific emails. Especially without warrants allowing these specific targets to be listened to by the government.
Yes, it is factual that individual cell phone conversations were recorded by Echelon, but more than likely, they were snippets of conversation that you sometime catch on your radio- "...something for din...." How that compares to the Bush administration tapping the phone of a journalist fails to compute. But, as we have traveled to Dave's fantasy world, in today's column that should be expected....
Keeping with the tone of Dave's column, I will present Dave with the Golden Globe for Best Journalistic Hack....
Dave doesn't even try with this column- he's just dialing it in. It reads like he spent a half-hour flipping back and forth between Rush Limbaugh and Lars Larson, heard some choice bits, and condensed them into a column. But if you examine his arguments for more than two seconds, as usual, they fail to make sense....
First, Dave chastises Ted Kennedy- who else?- for giving Sam Alito grief for being a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, while Kennedy was a member of the Owl club, a social club at Harvard. Never mind that CAP was a reactionary club, created to promote an agenda to block the acceptance of women and minorities, while the Owl club was created before Harvard was a co-ed school, and was pretty much one step above a fraternity. Although conservative critics point out the fact that the Owl club didn't accept women members- which eventually led to Harvard severing ties with the club- it should be pointed out that fraternities typically don't allow women members. Nor did the Owl club proactively lobby against admitting women and minorities to Harvard.
The true shame here involving Kennedy is that he felt forced to resign from a club that he had a 52-year affiliation with, dating from his days as an undergrad, thus providing ammunition for conservative critics to write lousy columns about. I am a firm believer that clubs- particularly social clubs- can be exclusive of their membersip. Should a lesbian solidarity club, for example, be forced to admit a neo-nazi male? If I formed a chess club, and someone I knew was a crackhead wanted to join, I'd have every right to not allow him in my club. So Kennedy was a member of a men's club. Somehow- as Dave alludes, throwing his fans a bone, given Kennedy's history with women- this is "sexist." It's not. And it absolutely in NO WAY can be connected with Kennedy's questioning Sam Alito's memebership in the morally repugnant CAP.
Now, onto Al Gore. On Monday, Gore gave a speech pointing out the fact that Dubya has consistently broke the law that he threatened "the very nature of our government." What, exactly, is the nature of our government? Remember that first day of civics class- right, I know they don't teach civics any more, just bare with me- and the teacher drew a triangle on the chalkboard? The three sides of the triangle were to represent the three branches of government: the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, designed in such a manner that they were to check and blance each other.
Checks and balances is the "very nature of our government" that Gore was referring to. However, when you have an executive who side-steps laws he doesn't approve of, avoids receiving warrants from the proper courts to domestically spy on Americans, states that he has "inherent" powers from the Constitution (which he refers to as a "goddamn piece of paper") that Congress did not allow, signs a "signing statement" when signing an anti-torture stating the law didn't actually apply to him, stacks the courts to allow him to act in such a manner, and with the Congress standing idly by, it is quite clear that the checks and balances- the very nature- of our government sure seemed to be threatened.
The apologists for the President have begun to use the term "unitary executive", which is simply a more wordy way to say "dictator." Didn't we invade Iraq to remove a dictator? Yet, Dave and his ilk don't bat an eye as a dictatorship replaces the model of democracy America has championed for over two centuries. After all, its happeneing with Republicans in charge, so it must be good.
Again with that fantasy world that Dave lives in....
At any rate, Dave accuses Gore of being a hypocrite for attacking the NSA's warrantless wiretapping. Gore is a hypocrite, according to Dave, because the Clinton-Gore administration approved of a program that had absolutely nothing to do with warrantless domestic spying. Dave points out the tired conservative argument that Clinton's Deputy Attorney General had argued that the president had the inherent power to conduct physical searches in foreign intelligence cases. The fact is that case dealt with physical searches of foreigners detained by intelligence agencies overseas, not the domestic surveillance of Americans. I can see where Dave could get confused- perhaps its an after-effect from living in Bizzaro Conservo World for too long...
But, what about the NSA Echelon program reported on by CBS's "60 Minutes" program during the Clinton-Gore administration? Dave points out this program picks up electronic signals from around the world- including cell-phone conversations, fax transmissions, and ATM transfers, the mesh of electronic static and noise that comprises the "chatter" that the intelligence agencies sift through for a fine grain of information. Having a program that captures billions of electronic beeps and "ones and zeros" is a far cry for placing wiretapping on specific phones, cell phones, or watching specific emails. Especially without warrants allowing these specific targets to be listened to by the government.
Yes, it is factual that individual cell phone conversations were recorded by Echelon, but more than likely, they were snippets of conversation that you sometime catch on your radio- "...something for din...." How that compares to the Bush administration tapping the phone of a journalist fails to compute. But, as we have traveled to Dave's fantasy world, in today's column that should be expected....
Keeping with the tone of Dave's column, I will present Dave with the Golden Globe for Best Journalistic Hack....
posted by true_slicky at 8:00 PM
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