With Arlen Specter resolving to hold hearings on President Bush’s alleged use of warrantless spying on Americans, February might turn out to be full of fireworks especially if, as the senator ascertained, impeachment is a remedy.
It appears that the Bush administration is wary of this possibility. Via the The Huffington Post, Insightmag, is reporting that the White House has reason to believe that a coalition in Congress is being formed for the purpose of impeaching the president for illegally wiretapping Americans, in violation of two statutes, the Fourth amendment and the FISA laws of 1978.
Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush’s authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court.
The source concedes that the probe will most likely come from Republicans (supported by Democrats) and that they would likely vote against the president. Moreover, this appears to be an impending battle that wil be difficult to win.
“If we work hard, there could be a tie.”
Bush started his vigorous defense of electronic surveillance today, even coining a new name for the same crime: Terrorist Surveillance Program. Moreover, we get a glimpse into his upcoming strategy to confuse and difuse this constitutional crisis.
They said the president would begin with pressure on Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Bush would then point to security measures taken by the former administration of President Bill Clinton.
“The argument is that the American people will never forgive any public official who knowingly hurts national security,” an administration source said. “We will tell the American people that while we have done everything we can to protect them, our policies are being endangered by a hypocritical Congress.”
Once again, when in hot water, blame Clinton. Bush is a broken record.
That’s great to hear, thanks. The average American doesn’t think too hard about impeachment but they do seem to equate the word with guilty. Just conducting the process with the ‘I’ word in the news every night will have an impact.
Interview with Wolf Blitzer:
Interest for consistency doesn’t seem to be a factor anymore. From the link…
Either one or two of the alleged hijackers were living at one point in a home owned by an FBI informant in California.
This is all less relevant in the claim of those who say we should have had this prior to 9/11. They did have it and it didn’t help. Ashcroft, Bush, Rice and the whole lot of them were ignoring the terrorist threat by choice. At the time they said it wasn’t a top priority.
As early as Jan 2001 it’s been reported that orders came down from the WH to back off of bin Laden’s and other Saudi financial dealings of suspicious intenet.
All of this comes down to the argument that if it were legal then the process already established by law should have been followed.
It looks more and more like Bush won’t leave office willingly, regardless of the law or the will of the people.
And you know, if they’d had full warning, they’d have been able to prepare for those hurricanes in the Gulf too…
Oh…. Right. They did….
They just want more warning to start the coverup and spin, that’s all. It’s not about stopping terrorist attacks, it’s about managing the consequences so they can get the best possible spin out of it all.
I’m no history scholar but it sure looks like this attitude goes back to the Nixon days and cries of Never again! as others have noted. BushCo has developed legal criminal activity to an art.
Hey, how fortunate are we that we have a leader who can perceive threat where none exists?
Yes.. David Brooks on PBS’ News Hour (cough.. hack) did say that Specter liked to say things like that right before backing off – all the time.
I will continue my little sneak attack on the unwitting public by placing my little IMPEACH signs on store shelves. Plant the seed. Say the word IMPEACH every chance you get.
Me, too. Subliminal impeachment.
my color printer…oh well, there’s always Kinko’s…
Hey, there were stories in the news not long ago about how almost all printers made have a code that’s embedded on any page printed on it. It would be goos to warn others to keep this in mind if they think the signs are anonymous. It also helps explain why so many forgery stories have the documents made at Kinky’s or somewhere similar.
free pdf poster
as diaried here.
Combine the hearings on the wiretapping with the revelations in today’s WAPO regarding what was known in advance of Katrina making landfall (the subject of senate hearings starting today) and all the other stuff going on and Bush faces a brewing “perfect storm.”
Do I hear the elevated security alert claxons going off again? How convenient for W that Osama just happened to say recently that he’s still out there, like the “bear in the woods.”
Rummy has his hand up his back.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Impeachment? Man, can I have some of those drugs you guys are taking?
If the democrats won’t filibuster Alito what makes you think they have the guts to push for impeachment?
Here’s a little bet: there is a better chance Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman calls George Bush the greatest president since Lincoln than the Democrats push for impeachment.
Oh, the Democrats won’t do anything.
The Republicans may well impeach Bush to improve their standing for the run-up to the 2006 elections. He’s sort of a “monster in the closet” now, as it were. By tossing him out on his ear, they can make themselves look tough and principled, and distance themselves from his mistakes.
I fully expect the Democrats to oppose any impeachment proceedings, in a vain attempt to win the votes of the “law and order” and “imperial presidency” crowds.
Doesn’t that make our job a hell of a lot easier? All we have to do is find a way to convince Americans that HRH George W. has imperiled our national security.
On the surface of it, it seems like it should be easy, because it’s the truth. He not only took his eye off the ball and let ObL escape, he invaded the one country in the Middle East that didn’t pose a threat to the United States and turned it into the world’s biggest terrorist training camp and launched a firestorm of anti-American sentiment, not only among Arabs and Muslims but among countries who ought to be our allies. The military is stretched so thin that Iran and North Korea probably feel like they can do whatever they want vis-a-vis nuclear programs without any significant opposition from the US (except perhaps from Israel in the case of Iran, but that’s its own story). Shall I go on?
Unfortunately the Empire controls the media, which is going to make getting the message out much harder.