President Bush, in a televised speech to the Nation, September 20, 2001.
We are in a Fight for our Principles, and our First Responsibility is to Live by Them
Illuminating the stark contrast between those words, and President Bush's policies:
It really is hard to imagine any measures which pose a greater and more direct danger to our freedoms than the issuance of threats like this by the administration against the press. If the President has the power to keep secret any information he wants simply by classifying it -- including information regarding illegal or otherwise improper actions he has taken -- then the President, by definition, has complete control over the flow of information which Americans receive about their Government.
This is also the President, who stated, again back on September 20, 2001 with respect to fighting that same terrorism threat:
I ask you to uphold the values of America.
Did these values include the U.S. Constitution, the same one that right wing conservatives love to wax rhetorically and honorably about all of the time? The same document upon which our country was founded, and upon which our system of government has rested, and not waivered from, for over 200 years?
As noted here:
The system of checks and balances which our Constitution was written to institute, is thrown right out of the window. Under this contorted reasoning, the executive branch can do whatever it wants under the auspices of national security (secretly, too, to boot, and, prosecute any whistleblowers or press members for reporting it), prevent any review if there is a difference of opinion, and prevent the rest of the country, even Congress, from knowing about it.
The administration's argument for the program in the first place, takes the Constitution and turns it on its head. Yet now the administration, of all things, is also arguing that this decision as well can not be reviewed. This is somewhat incredible for an open democracy based upon a system of limited and checked government powers.
President Bush also told the Nation, on September 20, 2001:
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful.
.
Fearful enough to accept the beginnings of
big brother that the Bush Administration has
initiated, under the guise of "protecting us," rather than letting it be our choice, as the Constitution was written to guarantee?
This is a far right wing administration. It won reelection despite fairly fundamentally establishing itself among the worst (I(would argue the worst) in history, and it is supported by a largely far right wing Congress.
How did this happen? Why did this happen? The answer is not nearly as simple as september 11. We haven't secured our ports, secured our borders, secured unsecured fissile materials (our most critical mistake), caught Osama Bin Laden, or al Zirqawi, and we have spent several hundred billion dollars in Iraq in order to see it possibly devolve into long term civil war, and if a fairly credible John Murtha is to be believed, have started to drive our soldiers mildly crazy. And this administration fell asleep on September 11 in the months leading up to it, despite strong evidence suggesting the compelling need to do exactly the opposite.
So what is it? Simple. It's a failure to recognize exactly what the far right wing is doing (in its communications with a majority of Americans), and how to counteract it (let alone the importance of counteracting it, and turning it around). This extremely important "rescued" diary provides an illustration of exactly what the far right wing does. I mention it because it serves as a classic example of something which itself, rather than the manipulated story which the far right presents via it and similar methodologies, needs to be turned into THE STORY.
This diary, which received even less attention than the aforegoing before it was aptly rescued, pulls it all together, and shows the patterns that have led to the right wings' ability to mischaracterize both the issues, and their opponents. Most of all, it shows the democrats critical role in all of this. After all, that is the only part that can be controlled, right?