Lurking and diaboloical enemies... who writes this crap?!
Fri Dec 16, 2005 at 12:21:13 PM PDT
Here is George W. Bush's
response to allegations that he authorized the NSA to spy on Americans without a warrant, "we do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country. And the reason why is that there's an enemy that lurks..." Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez responded with this dire warning, "We are dealing with a patient, diabolical enemy who wants to harm America." I know many of us have commented on the 1984ishness of comments coming from the Administration in their pathetic 5-year reign, but it is beyond 1984-like now... this is just like some bad fiction.
That we now have news that our government is spying on us, moves the subject beyond the tinfoil hat territory to the even more scary reality of out in the open. The reason this is more scary is that when it was just a conspiracy theory, we could always choose to block it out and believe it didn't happen. Now, we lose that security blanket.. in the name of security I guess. Now we have to face up to it and talk about it as a nation. And, most importantly, decide if we are going to demand a stop to it. Within this serious context, the administration finally had to answer some questions and they responded with lurking and diabolical enemies. Is this just surreal moment #1,247 in the last five years or what? How do we have a serious conversation as a nation when our leaders are shelling out crummy pulp fiction?
Then there's the other element to the administration's response - in a perfectly choreographed three-headed answer, Gerogie, Condi and Alberto..ie all responded to the question of why the President broke the law by allowing domestic spying by stating they wouldn't respond. Except to say, that the President didn't break the law. "I'm not going to comment on intelligence matters, but (President Bush) has always said he would do everything he can to protect the American people, but within the law." So said Condi Rice. No... wait... so said Alberto Gonzalez. No.. wait.. Bush actually said that himself. No... sorry... I think that was an exact quote from all three actually. Scotty McClellan uses that trick all the time. I won't answer your question or give you any reasons. I'll just say that your question is wrong. How do they get away with that in the United States of America?? Sometimes we get snippets of these exchanges between reporters and the administration and we can see the ridiculous pattern, but why don't these reporters ever go to the trouble of writing a piece that says here is a pattern of avoiding important questions and it has to stop! Bush et al., are spying on us, and they won't talk about it when we want to know why or how or what the hell do they think gives them the right?
I can't take it. I'm certainly no great writer... as you have figured out by now... but I sure recognize bad writing when its really really bad. Lurking enemies is bad writing. Why won't our press corp call out the administration on this pattern of bad writing?
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