In honor of the first snowfall in Washington DC this winter, it seems appropriate to recognize recent DC “snow jobs” that recently blanketed the nation with a fine layer of obfuscation:
1. The John Warner, Susan Collins, and Norm Coleman “Snow Job” – Yesterday, these 3 illustrious (or is that blusterous?) Republican senators joined the Democrat chorus singing longingly for an end to President Bush’s attempt to liberate an oppressed people and help them along the path toward a stable representative democracy. According to these three, the President’s strategy for a surge of troops and renewed efforts to secure and hold Iraqi cities is flawed and doomed to failure.
They are simultaneously disappointed with the current situation, opposed to the idea of a troop increase, and politically petrified of casting senate votes to end the funding of the war and bring the troops home, as anti-war activists desire. What a quagmire these Republican ship jumpers find themselves in! What policy will achieve the goal of representative democracy for Iraqis and renewed American credibility as a formidable preserver of freedom? Victory! What is it Americans want to see, at least the half that place national security and America’s credibility over a desire to embarrass President Bush? Victory! To bluster about any other outcome being satisfactory is a “snow job” that must make Iraqis despair of ever achieving success and safety. Neither will occur unless America fights to win.
2. The Maxine Waters “American Money is too Precious to Give to Anyone but Americans Snow Job” -Radio host Jerry Doyle made a profound comparison during yesterday’s show. Doyle pointed out that Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-CA, is co-sponsoring a resolution to gradually end funding for the Iraq War because America is allegedly not winning the war and thus it is a waste of taxpayer money. By that same logic, Doyle argued that the government should cut off federal funding of all gang task forces in Waters’ Los Angeles district, since millions of dollars have been spent to end the gang problem there but recent statistics indicate there are over 40,000 known gang members in Los Angeles, and those numbers are growing along with the violence and financial crimes they perpetrate.
If Waters favors pulling our troops out of Iraq because we cannot win there, and leaving the cities and nation for the terrorists to plunder, Doyle suggested, America should do the same with Los Angeles. The city will never solve the gang problem, so why try? Los Angeles residents should be forced to pull out and relocate (like Democrat suggestions for our troops to be “redeployed”). Thus the anti-gang strategy, like Waters alleges of Bush’s Iraq strategy, is a failure not worth further expenditure. Gangs that infiltrate and intimidate Los Angeles, like the terrorist thugs threatening Iraqi citizens, are not worth fighting. No expenditure of taxpayer money for programs that yield negative results can be justified in Waters’ opinion.
Instead of using the tired excuse of wasted taxpayer money to obscure her true objection to the war, Waters should propose a Congressional resolution declaring that Iraqi freedom from a murderous tyrannical dictator and an attempt to protect a fledgling democracy until it can sustain itself is unworthy of our national affluence and largesse. According to Waters’ previous statement to Congress, we should stop spending money to help a constitutional government in the Middle East and use it only to benefit our own people. She made the following Ameri-centric statement: “This conference report throws billions of dollars into the sands of Iraq, while at the same time this Administration and the Republican Congress call for drastic cuts to dozens of vital domestic programs. This is immoral and wrong. We should be investing in schools and health care for all Americans.”
I think all Americans would agree our schools are better and safer than those in Iraq and that the health care options available to Iraqis, where terrorists are detonating IEDs near hospitals, are a tad less comfortable than what we enjoy in America. Waters is very generous with precious American taxpayer money when she brings millions of dollars in federal funding to her pet causes in Los Angeles, such as failed public schools, failed gang task forces, and failed government welfare programs. Yet money to protect a democracy besieged by terrorists is too precious to share with non-Americans. Civil liberties, it seems, are only for Americans in Waters’ narrow vision of our world. For an avowed civil rights activist, that is quite a “snow job.”
3. The Tony Snow “Snow Job” – In a previous post this site railed against the Bush Administration’s decision to place the NSA domestic surveillance program under FISA court monitoring. Later that day on his radio program, Sean Hannity interviewed Tony Snow briefly about this decision and Snow responded in a very dismissive manner, as if Americans should not be concerned with this development. Snow assured listeners that the President would never give up any tools available to him in the Global War on Terror, and that the President continued to retain the power to legally authorize electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists in the US under exigent circumstances. The truly deep “snow job” came when Tony Snow denied that the FISA monitoring decision was a response to political pressure. According to Snow, the FISA situation was under review for two years and the administration was satisfied with the alleged reforms to speed and flexibility implemented by the FISA court review.
This begs the question, “what will the President do if the FISA court denies an application for surveillance but the President and his intelligence advisors are convinced the suspect must be monitored?” Unfortunately Sean Hannity did not ask this question. Instead he took Snow’s response at face value and then moved on to the upcoming State of the Union Address. If the President retains the power to legally authorize surveillance utilizing the NSA domestic surveillance program as Snow asserted, then why apply to FISA at all? If a FISA court denies an application for surveillance, the President can ignore that judgment and authorize it under his Constitutional powers as Commander in Chief, as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and other war time Presidents have done, only with less sophisticated surveillance methods.
If the FISA court judgment can be ignored under exigent circumstances, then ALL FISA court judgments are moot, since by definition, a war is an exigent circumstance and thus the President holds exclusive authority to approve monitoring of US citizens suspected of communicating with the enemy, which is the precise purpose of the NSA domestic surveillance program. Thus, if the President holds the legal power to authorize such programs, what motivations, other than political pressure, prompted this administration to reform and utilize the FISA courts which it has intentionally, legally, and justifiably circumvented since the Global War on Terror began? Snow’s dismissal of public concern over this decision signaled discomfort with the situation and a desire to move on to other issues in the interview. A “snow job” from Snow was understandable given the expected duties of his position, but it was disappointing nonetheless.
Technorati: Iraq War Global War On Terror NSA Bush Administration FISA Maxine Waters Tony Snow Sean Hannity John Warner Susan Collins Norm Coleman Jerry Doyle Los Angeles Gangs
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