The Whirling Dervish of the White House

01/24/2006

Paul Munnis

It is interesting to watch the Bush spin machine working to try to get him off the hook for illegal domestic spying.

They start by renaming the program. It’s now called “a terrorist surveillance program.”

Next, they redefine the scope of the program. It has gone from “spying on the public,” to “surveillance of known terrorists.”

Then they deal with the number of people spied upon. It’s gone from “broad-based spying” to “checking on only a few people.”

They then make the point that it is necessary to have a program like this to fight terrorism. They say it has saved lives and is a needed tool.

They say that if we had it before 9/11/2001 it could have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

They then make out that if you oppose this program you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

By now they have the public psyched.

Here is the reality as we understand it:

President Bush has a needed program to fight terrorism. It was given him by the Congress to fight just this sort of terrorism with. It was authorized when he took office in January of 2000. It has some ground rules for operation. First, if he wants to spy on American citizens he needs to get a warrant from the FISA court that was set up to give him just such warrants. He can spy first and then get the warrants up to 72 hours after the event.

Mr. Bush has not used the FISA Court in all cases and has thus wantonly spied on American citizens without obtaining a warrant.

Mr. Bush has broken the law 36 times that he admits to. He advises that he intends to continue breaking the law in this matter.

Thus there is an open and shut case as we understand it. He is guilty of breaking the law.

All of the spin in the world doesn’t change that.

All the Kings horses and all the Kings men cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But they sure are trying and the GOP media is pushing the Bush propaganda for all it’s worth.

Now that the Justice Committee is free of the drag of the Alito nomination we can get to the needed hearings. It’s time for the truth to have out. Where will the truth lead Mr. Bush? Some are calling for impeachment, some demand his resignation, while still others want the case to be tabled until he is out of office and free of immunity from prosecution and then they want him arrested and tried. 

There are a number of other matters of inquiry too:

- What are these photos of Mr. Bush and Mr. Abramoff together all about? Spin, spin, spin.
- What about the Plume affair? Spin, spin, spin.
- What about Scooter Libby? Spin, spin, spin.
- How goes it in Iraq? Spin, spin, spin.
- What about GOP corruption? Spin, spin, spin.
- Why the torture and abuse of POW’s? Spin, spin, spin.
- Why the lack of body armor for our troops? Spin, spin, spin.
- Why is the Stock Market stuck? Spin, spin, spin.
- How will we deal with pandemic from the Burd Flu? Spin, spin, spin.

And so the beat goes on to the tune of a failed Administration that lies to the people of the world but acts as if they were a gift from God.

I don’t think so.