Lordy, this is funny! It's just one whip-saw after another with the Goopers. The latest is this controversy over White House senior staff testifying to Congress under oath. This is where perception turns in the favor of justice, and it's the words of the Ultra-Wrong that help it along.
How many times did we hear after the NSA domestic spying revelations, "If you've got nothing to hide, it shouldn't bother you!" from the Little Brains on the right. Well, how about these apples:
Communications with physicians and therapists
Communications with attorneys
Communications with accountants
Communications with clergy
Communications from sources to journalists
Communications using credit information
Communications using identity information
Communications containing business and trade secrets
Communications from abused individuals and runaways
Communications from informants and undercover agents to law enforcement
These, along with the personal business Americans transact more and more using remote and electronic sources, not to mention political strategies of opposing parties, are among the trillions of exchanges that happen every year in what we believe to be a free society that carries with it an expectation of privacy. There is absolutely nothing wrong, morally, ethically, or legally in the vast majority of these conversations and communications, yet so many were willing to sacrifice even this modicum of privacy in our goldfish bowl society to be "kept safe" from marauding Jihadists.
Poppycock! Little Brains indeed!!
But Oh Sweet Justice: Now the Bush Maladministration finds itself on the other side of the equation. The same rationale put forth to support the "new KGB's" domestic spying is slapping them in the face like a salmon surging upstream to spawn.
"If you've got nothing to hide, it shouldn't bother you!"
The delicious irony of it all! And as this stinking miasma of corruption and deceit rolls on through the weeks and months, the more Americans of all political stripes will conclude:
"Mr. President, you've got something to hide."
Personally, I hope the White House fights this tooth and nail. I don't want to see this go off the radar screen any time soon. What they're REALLY afraid of is being caught in a lie by a mistake, an informant or, better yet, a subsequent Democratic administration.
"If you've got nothing to hide ... "
Well, yeah, they do, and even though they are quite willing to lie about it, we're near the endgame. BushCo is going deep into self-preservation mode -- and that's good because the more they work on keeping themselves safe, the less time they have to put us at risk.
"If you've got nothing to hide ... "
Day by day the pressure grows. We will look back on this time as the beginning of the end, when all the walls started to strain and groan, when the secrets about Gitmo, Iran, energy policy, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," Hurricane Katrina, NSA spying, the US Attorney purge, doctoring of scientific documents, the full scale of the Abramoff mess and so many others that I can't even count them started to unravel.
I'm all for a strong GOP, but I want the GOP of Eisenhower, Dirksen and Danforth, a GOP of statesmen and stateswomen who truly put country above party and managed to put the brakes on the crazier Democratic schemes without perverting the Constitution they were sworn to serve.
I can feel it coming -- there's more than spring in the air. And every barb aimed at Tony Snow is like a new bud on a branch.
"If you've got nothing to hide ... "
Keep it up, Tony. Keep it up.