"No tolerance for even a hint of scandal." -- just a sad reflection

[Case Closed]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Phonying up evidance to drag country into war?

[/ QUOTE ]

What part of "As opposed to trumped up, unproven allegations by the anti-bushies)." don't you understand?

[/ QUOTE ]

I love this logic. Someone dislikes bush which means they are not capable of being rational in their accusations of him. People hate Bush because of the stuff that he did while in office. So because they don't like him for what he did they are irrational and can not be trusted.

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]


But this a hijack to a debate on the war, not whether a pledge regarding tolerance for "scandals" was kept or not. I still havent seen anything that demonstrates it wasnt kept.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if Bush said "No tolerance for a hint of scandal", certain something that is "generally accepted" provides a "hint of scandal", doesn't it? And can you say that Alberto Gonzales has not generated "a hint of scandal" by his own doing?

Doesn't this statement suggest that Bush was going to have no tolerance for the appearance of scandal? If you really think he has done that, you're living on a completely different planet.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


But this a hijack to a debate on the war, not whether a pledge regarding tolerance for "scandals" was kept or not. I still havent seen anything that demonstrates it wasnt kept.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if Bush said "No tolerance for a hint of scandal", certain something that is "generally accepted" provides a "hint of scandal", doesn't it? And can you say that Alberto Gonzales has not generated "a hint of scandal" by his own doing?

Doesn't this statement suggest that Bush was going to have no tolerance for the appearance of scandal? If you really think he has done that, you're living on a completely different planet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, and if that ISN'T what Bush meant, then what a stupid, useless pledge. He will have no tolerance for rigorously proven, deeply invasive scandals that all are forced to acknowledge? WOW. Thats just fantastic. His pledge sounded like he was, say, going above and beyond what might be expected re: scandals, not the bare minimum that anyone would be expected. But now Copernicus demands an entirely different level to somehow skate by on this pledge?

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
In light of the news that Bush is calling for executive privilege again to stop ANOTHER person from giving likely damaging testimony before Congress... I just remembered the big promise made by Bush what seems so long ago... when he was first running for the Presidency Bush campaigned that they were the people to restore honor and decency to the Whitehouse. No more scandals.

"No tolerance for even a hint of scandal," he promised. I can't help but wish someone played this back for them every time they appear to covering up for one disaster or another (and its happened enough times to be embarrassing) by preventing testimony. We passed "a hint of" scandals years ago.

[/ QUOTE ]

OMG a politician making campaign promises they can'/don't keep. Get rid of em I say.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
Major is quite an exaggeration, and I don't seem to recall GWB condoning Libby's actions, only a belief that the punishment was too severe

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't delude yourself here. Libby served 0 time. Bush essentially said that any prison time was too much (i.e. that there was no crime.) Because of the no timed served commutation (is that even the right word???) it was much more like a pardon than a commuting of Libby's sentence.

[pokerbobo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Phonying up evidance to drag country into war?

[/ QUOTE ]

What part of "As opposed to trumped up, unproven allegations by the anti-bushies)." don't you understand?

[/ QUOTE ]
Is it not generally accepted in America that the governments of US, Britain, etcetera relied on selective intelligence data which supported the existence of WMDs in Iraq - even though the much more reasonable conclusion was that they didnt exist?

This isnt contradicted even by the pro-war lobby over here (in Australia).

[/ QUOTE ]

Even Clinton thought they had WMDs.... it was not a bush scandal. Billy even made a speech after he bombed Iraq... that he didnt know if they hit 10%, 50%, or 100% of Saddam's Wmds.

[DING-DONG YO]

What frightens me the most about the Bush administration is the fact that they feel like they are above the constitution. The warrentless wiretaps, Cheney's ridiculous attempt to exempt the VP's office from oversight and what the OP is talking about.

They don't seem to have any concern for a lot of what is in the bill of rights and consider themselves above the checks and balances that are the bedrock of our system of government.

very very very scary. This is how facist regimes start out. Take the rights and power away from the people while at the same time taking yourself out of any oversight process.

[qwnu]

[ QUOTE ]
What frightens me the most about the Bush administration is the fact that they feel like they are above the constitution. The warrentless wiretaps, Cheney's ridiculous attempt to exempt the VP's office from oversight and what the OP is talking about.

They don't seem to have any concern for a lot of what is in the bill of rights and consider themselves above the checks and balances that are the bedrock of our system of government.

very very very scary. This is how facist regimes start out. Take the rights and power away from the people while at the same time taking yourself out of any oversight process.

[/ QUOTE ]

Case in point - today CNN reports:

[ QUOTE ]
In a related development Wednesday, the Bush administration and Democratic congressional leadership struggled to agree on a proposal to broaden the government's ability to eavesdrop on foreign suspects abroad.

The administration is pressing Congress to act before it leaves on its August recess at the end of the week, citing concerns about a heightened terror threat.

McConnell and Congressional Democrats have been exchanging proposals that would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). One of the sticking points involves the interception of communications in which one person is in the United States and the other abroad.

The Democrats want the FISA court -- the special panel that has to approve any wiretaps involving people in the U.S. -- to oversee the eavesdropping and authorize warrants when there is a pattern of calls from a foreign target to the United States.

The administration wants the attorney general to oversee the surveillance.

[/ QUOTE ]
In other words, the administration wants to completely remove the process from judicial oversight.

Although the administration now wants us to believe that FISA is outdated and a relic from the 70s (and journalists are happy to allow them to get away with this implication), it is false. FISA was extensively updated as part of the Patriot Act in 2001. At the time, the President assured us that these modifications were giving them all the tools they needed to fight evil, while simultaneously ordering the NSA/FBI to violate the law and conduct warrantless surveillance.

After the program was exposed by the NYT in 2005, Republicans in Congress invited the administration to let them know how to change the law so that he wouldn't be so flagrantly violating it. The administration refused. They seemed, for whatever reason, more interested in establishing their authority to violate the law, than in working with lawmakers to change the law to their liking.

Now, another about-face, as the administration again wants to modify this "archaic" laws to allow them to better fight the evildoers. Now the crucial point seems to be removing all that burdensome, pesky judicial oversight and keeping the authority within the executive branch by giving it to...wait for it...the Attorney General.

And yet there seems to be no reasonable reason why they would make this demand. FISA was enacted in response to gross abuses in domestic surveillance during the 60s and 70s. See Church Committee. It seems to have worked pretty well. It's not like the FISA judges require a huge burden or are overtly hostile to the administration. They have essentially never denied an application to conduct legitimate surveillance. The only reason the administration could possibly want to take them out of the loop is that they want to conduct surveillance (or data mining) operations that they know the court would never sign off on.

[DING-DONG YO]

[ QUOTE ]
The only reason the administration could possibly want to take them out of the loop is that they want to conduct surveillance (or data mining) operations that they know the court would never sign off on.

[/ QUOTE ]

yup, that is what scares me and quite frankly, should scare the living hell out of every man, woman and child in this country.

People seem to think that a totalitarian regime is an impossibility in this country because

a) it's never happened in the US
b) We are not in a conflict with some big facist super-power and haven't been for almost 20 years (nazi germany, soviet russia, etc.). Too many people seem to think it something gone forever and a piece of history. Soon they will discover that is not the case.

People have very short memories.

and nice post, BTW.

[AzDesertRat]

didn't he have another quip of "bringing integrity back to the White House"?

<<<---adding fuel to fire