Alberto Gonzalez and Lindsey Graham, among others, want to start ferreting out what they're calling "fifth columnists" from the populace
Bush's Mysterious New Programs
Well, I get no greater pleasure than helping out a Bush program in need, so I'll step up. I'm a Fifth Columnist, Georgie! Right over here! See me waving? Easy enough, now just send the brownshirts over. Mrs. Max is baking cookies.
More on the flip, including a bit more about the nature of "fifth columnists."
Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the administration's domestic operations -- Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the enemy.
"The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements," Graham, R-S.C., told Gonzales during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6.
"I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that," Graham added, volunteering to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat.
"Senator," a smiling Gonzales responded, "the President already said we'd be happy to listen to your ideas."
-- from Nat Parry's column
So who exactly are they looking for? If they're talking about terrorist sympathizers who are building fertilizer bombs in their basements, then they can safely skip me. I love my country and wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone interested in hurting this country. In fact, like most Americans of whatever political stripe, I wouldn't hesitate to pick up a gun or a brick and defend my country if the need arose.
But I don't think that Gonzalez and Graham, and certainly not Bush, Rove, Cheney, etc, are talking about terrorists and their sympathizers when they talk about "fifth columnists." I think they're talking about people like me and possibly you, honest, patriotic Americans who feel that the biggest threat this country currently faces is not from some diabetic Saudi bastard hiding in a cave in Pakistan, but from the traitorous fascist sympathizer strutting around the White House.
Why are all these new, spiffy detention centers being built in areas all over the country? Who's going to be lined up and marched into them? All the thousands of terrorists infesting this country like cockroaches? I don't think so. I think the majority of those cells are going to be filled with people who commit the heinous crime of dissent, of questioning authority, of daring to mount Constitutionally-based opposition to the tyrants currently running this country. If those are the kind of people that Bush and his ilk are characterizing as "fifth columnists," then I'm proud to be counted among that number.
Who will be the first to get busted by the new "federal police force?" Who's being surveilled by the NSA and, now, the Defense Department? Who's in the TIA databases? Is everyone a fifth columnist? Are we all subject to being classified as "enemy combatants" if we open our mouths one time too many?
I've never been shy about standing up and being counted. How about you?