The White House on Monday rejected a call by more than a dozen House Democrats for a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program.
President Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said those Democrats should instead spend their time investigating the source of the unauthorized disclosure of the classified program, which "has given the enemy some of our playbook."
"I really don't think there's any basis for a special counsel," McClellan said.
Back in 2004, George W. Bush was caught on camera explaining very carefully that the government always requires a court order when "chasing down terrorists." Trying to sell the Patriot Act - which he wanted renewed but which was coming under increasing fire from all sides of the political spectrum - Bush was very clear that "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way." By that, he meant that neither the Patriot Act nor its ostensible cause - the 9/11 terrorist attacks - changed the absolute legal requirement for the government to get a court order before ordering wiretaps against suspected terrorists.
(One interesting side note: Bush continually refers to ordering wiretaps against "terrorists" - not suspects. This is highly revealing of his mindset: anyone who is suspected of being a terrorist automatically IS a terrorist. This mindset has permeated the entire military and security apparatus: that's why countless innocent people have been jailed and tortured around the world: because all suspects are regarded as guilty - no matter how shaky or specious or non-existent the basis of their capture.)
Bush outed himself as a liar. He has admitted - even boasted - of his secret spy program that operated without any warrants or any recourse to judicial oversight whatsoever - not even the FISA program which could have given him the broadest possible scope to order wiretaps and surveillance of suspected terrorists. Last year, before the election, Bush was insisting that wiretaps could be only issued by a court order; now, after the election, he freely admits that this is not the case.
In a letter released Monday, 18 House Democrats told Bush that Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales should appoint a special counsel. They said the surveillance of terrorism suspects in the United States must be done within U.S. law, but complained that their efforts to get answers to legal and factual questions about the program had been stymied, "generally based on the feeblest of excuses."
That's the way it is.
We can report, and discuss, and analyze, and live-blog this stuff until the cows come home and go back out again, and it won't make a bit of difference. You have got to quit looking to these chumps on the Dem side and the egregious, bootlicking toadies on the Republican side to do anything -- anything at all -- to stop the Katrina-like floodtide of authoritarian rule. They aren't going to do anything about it. And soon, they won't be able to do anything about it, even if they tried. We're now living in the P.D.A. -- Post-Democracy America.
As Dylan told us 20 years ago:
"Democracy don't rule the world/You better get that through your head./This world is ruled by violence;/But I guess that's better left unsaid."
It's certainly left unsaid in Washington, where the "opposition" puts on clownface and jumps into the center ring, waiting to be smeared with pies and sprayed with seltzer by the smirking, murderous ringmaster. But violence is ruling us now more than ever: violence to the Constitution, violence to our liberties, violence -- real, bloodsoaked, gut-shredding violence -- being done in our name all over the world. When the 2006 elections come -- wired, rigged, filled with "stunning upsets" that cement the Bush Faction further in power despite their deep unpopularity -- the game will already be over. And sitting there in a nice panelled room, in well-wadded chairs, asking "tough questions" of a torture-enabler who doesn't even have to pretend to give truthful answers is not the action of people who want to save the Republic from the vast ruin that hangs over us.
Looks like the site I built at This is Wiretap dot com is now obsolete.