The Alligator

I am a supporter of Senator Barack Obama. I have made that clear through my pieces supporting him, and some of the pieces I have written criticizing Senator Clinton and defending Senator Obama.

Some Democratic bloggers have suggested a boycott or moratorium of blog articles that fuel the fire between the two Democratic Presidential nominees. Senator Obama has attempted to run a campaign based on a new type of politics- not politics as usual- no sniping, no mud slinging and no attacks. Those of us that support Senator Obama need to honor Senator Obama’s new politics. I pledge to honor Senator Obama’s lead.

I also think that bloggers, those supporting Senator Obama and those supporting Senator Clinton, must stop the sniping and keep our focus on defeating the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

In two days we will mark a dark anniversary- 5 years of a misguided war based on lies with, as of today, 3,990 Americans dead. We are in the midst of a horrible economy that the Republicans have once again created through their misguided economic principles and their dismantling of regulations that would have helped the country not to be in the mortgage crisis where we find ourselves today. We have an administration that is willing to bail out a big bank / brokerage house but is not willing to help the problems that every day Americans have. We have a President that has more interest in saving Wall Street and none in saving Main Street. Gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon. The price of gas isn’t just a hardship for filling up the tank, but it has raised prices on virtually everything like basic necessities such as food.

Senator McCain is running as a 3rd term of Bush’s misguided and destructive policies. President Bush has done amazing damage to this country in a little more than 7 years. Can you imagine the damage a 3rd term of the same policies would do?

Democrats, no matter who we support, should allow the campaigns in the remaining states to play out and try and have faith in the process. The media are feeding our consternation and our intra-party anger and division. We must not allow ourselves to be caught up in the media’s need to fill up 24 hour news channels and focus on the most inflammatory aspects of the primary campaign.

This is an historic election. We have an opportunity to make a change and to make history. The Democrats will certainly make history because our candidate will either be an African American or a woman. We should be proud of that. We should not be encouraging divisions in our party based on identity politics and pandering to our worst inclinations.

If party machinations play out in a way that would not honor a Democratic process, we should certainly speak out about that issue. But we aren’t there. We must not allow Senator McCain to sit back and watch months of the Democratic Party in discord.

When it was clear that this election might be very easy for the Democrats, I was concerned that our party has the knack of being able to lose an election that is handed to us on a silver platter. We must prove that premise wrong.

No matter who we support in the Democratic Primary process we should recognize that it is more important to have our party in the White House and in the majority in Congress. That is the only way real change can happen.

When I saw a clip of John McCain in April of this year joking about the need to bomb Iran- I couldn’t believe that it was real. Alas it was; the Arizona senator joked about attacking the sovereign nation during a campaign stop in South Carolina in April, singing, to the tune of the Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann”: “That old, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway.”

I am simply dumb struck by not only that twisted use of sabre rattling as humor, but also by the Bush administration and the Republican Presidential nominees (with the excpetion of Ron Paul) reaction to a new assessment by American intelligence agencies that concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.” Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.
Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the country had been effective.

With the new information about Iran made public, what did President Bush say today at his news conference? “I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program,” Bush said. “The reason why it’s a warning signal is they could restart it.”

Whoa that is some incredible spinning. If the American people or the media buy this spin- well we deserve whatever we get. 

In the his press conference President Bush also said that in August he had been told that there was new intelligence but he hadn’t been told until last week, what that intelligence was. 

Whoa again!  Is the President saying that he didn’t ask the question?  That is complete incompetence.  If he didn’t ask the question he is indeed the stupidest President in our nation’s history.  While I don’t think that the President is that bright, I don’t think he is that retarded.  So the alternative conclusion is that he knew- but kept fear mongering wih images of World War III anyway.  Does that remind anyone of the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud???

After all, Seymour Hersh wrote about this in the New Yorker quite a while ago and the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has been stating that Iran’s weapons program was not active quite a while ago.  So how could it be possible that the President of the United States didn’t know?  Quite frankly it isn’t. 

What about the Republican presidential candidates? The Republican side, candidates have been jockeying for months to appear toughest on Iran — even tougher than Bush. During a forum sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition not long ago, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said it was “absolutely necessary” to keep military force on the table, former senator Fred Thompson said he would “not allow Iran to become a nuclear threat,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said a military strike was not “some far-flung idea” and in fact “we are poised and ready to act.” And of course there is McCain’s inane “Bomb Iran” song.

After the new National Intelligence Estimate have the Republicans seen that the saber rattling is akin to the blundering that brought us into Iraq? Oh wait- they all think (with the exception of Ron Paul) that going into Iraq was a good idea.

The Republican side was particularly silent on the new NIE. Romney, Thompson and McCain issued no statements on the matter yesterday and spokesmen did not respond to e-mails requesting comment. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, the newly minted first-tier candidate in Iowa, likewise had nothing to say.

Only Giuliani responded to the development, although his statement made no mention of the salient fact that Iran’s nuclear weapons program evidently closed down four years ago, focusing instead on its continued enrichment program. “For years now, the Islamic Republic of Iran has defied and played games with every international effort aimed at persuading the country to halt enriching uranium,” Giuliani said. “Sanctions and other pressures must be continued and stepped up until Iran complies by halting enrichment activities in a verifiable way.”

I am sure that within the next few days the Republican campaigns will find a spin on this report. Unless they are in the same shape as the Scarecrow in the Wizard of the Oz- in search of a brain- they had better come up with better spin than the President’s inanity today. But what sort of a spin can one put on lying, deceit, war mongering and the heinous act of putting young Americans in harms way for political gain? I hope none; but with this crowd of ineptitude and demagoguery anything is possible.

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) is being drummed from office by his party. As I wrote in my last post- there is no doubt in my mind that Craig is a closet case, but I still feel that being arrested for making gestures that are associated with soliciting sex in a rest room but are not necessarily soliciting sex is absurd. Have we suddenly become a society where the thought police can arrest us- because they know what we are thinking? I thought that only the federal government with powers granted to it through the Patriot Act was the only entity that could arrest you for what you are assumed to be thinking. 

I’ve said before that I want the hypocrite to squirm and I am not unhappy to see him go from the Senate although who knows what nut bag yahoo Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-ID) will name as the new Senator. You can bet we won’t be seeing a re-make of “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”! Otter’s voting record when he was a member of Congress is pretty much what you would expect from an gun totin’ red neck – a loyalist to President Bush. Progressive is not an adjective one would associate with Otter. So- the chances of a decent replacement are pretty slim.

But I don’t think that Craig should have been drummed out of office by his GOP pals. I reiterate- he didn’t do anything that rose to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Although Craig’s behavior was suspicious- do we arrest people for suspicious behavior? Apparently we do!  But if this had gone to court I don’t think it would have passed the laugh test. In these circumstances the police tend to bully people into pleading- playing on their fears and insecurities. I find this sort of police work reprehensible. I would hope that the police have better things to do with their time than men’s room sting operations unless they assume that a pedophilia ring is operating out of that particular location.

Yet- one after another GOP members of the House and Senate and the party’s presidential candidates called for Craig to resign. Mitt Romney had to come out (no pun intended) and say something, no matter how ill thought out or how inane because he has to position himself as a social conservative. Quite frankly I don’t think Romney has any particular compass to lead him on social issues other than the wind. He’ll say anything he things people want to hear in order to get elected. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was quick to say that his call for Craig to resign had nothing to do with Craig being gay rather- if a member of a senate pleads guilty to a crime- than he should resign.

Sorry Senator McCain, I just don’t buy that. I could be wrong- but I think that visiting a prostitute is considered a crime. Senator Vitter (R-LA) admitted to that act- but he wasn’t drummed out of the Senate.  He wasn’t even reprimanded- as was Congressman Barney Frank in 1990 when he admitted to receiving the services of a male prostitute. Although his actions were creepy, technically Representative Tom Foley did nothing illegal- but he too was forced out of office when it was divulged that he had written suggestive messages to Congressional pages and former pages all of whom were older than the age of consent.

If the GOP is drumming out elected officials because they are hypocrites and their personal life is inconsistent with their policy positions – there would be few members of the GOP – but there would certainly have been pressure for Senator Vitter to resign.  If they sought resignation from elected officials for being guilty of a crime- then Vitter should have been terminated as well.  Although he didn’t technically plead guilty to a crime in a court of law or to a police officer, he did admit his guilt to the world  Is there really a difference?

So why is it that Craig must go and Vitter can remain? Two reasons come to mind.

First is that that Republican Party is the party of homophobia. It is okay to have sexual peccadilloes if you are not gay or if you aren’t named Bill Clinton. Just look at the homophobic positions of the GOP presidential candidates. They hate gay people- pure and simple. There is no debate- the GOP does not welcome gay people. I give credit to the Log Cabin Republicans for trying and trying and trying to get an invitation to a club that clearly doesn’t want them (thank you Groucho Marx).

Second is pure politics- cynical ugly politics. Vitter is from a state that has a Governor who is a Democrat. He would likely appoint a Democrat and giving a wider margin of majority to the Dems. Craig is from Idaho where there is no chance in hell that Governor “Butch” will appoint anything but some Republican from the Neanderthal wing of the party.   So there is nothing to lose by asking Craig to go, while there might have been a lot to lose by booting Vitter.

Is any of this surprising? Sadly it isn’t.

Senator Larry E. Craig (R-ID) is guilty of being a hypocrite. There is little doubt in my mind that the man has been picking up men in public restrooms for quite a while. Rumors have swirled around the conservative senator from Idaho for years. “The Idaho Statesman” has been painstakingly researching the veracity of allegations made by gay blogger Mike Rogers before the 2006 midterm elections.

In an interview on May 14, a full month before the Senator was arrested, Craig told “The Idaho Statesman” he’d never engaged in sex with a man or solicited sex with a man. The Craig interview was the culmination of a Statesman investigation that began after Rogers accused Craig of homosexual sex in October. Over five months, the Statesman examined rumors about Craig dating to his college days and his 1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with underage congressional pages.

The most serious finding by the Statesman was the report by a professional man with close ties to Republican officials. The 40-year-old man reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington’s Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig “cruised” him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise. The Statesman also explored dozens of allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable.

Senator Craig’s sexuality would normally be none of my business if it involves two consenting adults. It isn’t my place to peek through the bedroom windows (or in this case under the bathroom stall) of elected officials- if they do their job then I do not care. But when that elected official is deceitfully engaging in a behavior that he is publicly vilifying than his private sex life does become my business. It is completely unconscionable to me that a man who is having gay sex (whether or not he defines himself as gay doesn’t really matter) would support a Constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage AND civil unions. Obviously the man has some deep seated issues- and is a self loathing man with severe internalized homophobia. Whether or not he wants to address those issues with a therapist is up to him- but when his personal self loathing plays out on the stage of politics and policy that is just clearly unacceptable.

I am not someone who is a fan out “outing” people, but when hypocrisy enters the picture- they must be held accountable.

The problem for me is that while I believe that Senator Craig is a self-loathing latent homosexual who clearly hates himself and spills out his self loathing in the public square, I don’t think the man did something for which he should have been arrested. As a gay man – I am very familiar with tea rooms (for those of you who do not have a gay lexicon handy, a tea room is a men’s room where gay men go to pick up other gay men).

Cruising “tea rooms” was common in the days before gay men had other places to go. There were particular men’s rooms that were “notorious” meeting places for gay men (I guess they still exist). Cruising these places was not about picking up straight men or boys- just a place to “hook up” with other gay men. The word got out about which men’s rooms were “active”. Often police knew which ones were active and had sting operations- not unlike the one that got Senator.

There’s an entire ritual or etiquette to picking someone up in a tea room- and foot tapping is in fact part of that etiquette. To be clear – the reason for all of this signaling is to ensure that the party you are cruising is in fact there for the same thing and is also interested. You tap- he taps back… its non verbal communication that says – “yup, I think we are here for the same thing”. But usually this is just the beginning of all the signaling before you actually connect. It’s really all designed about making sure you aren’t trying to connect with someone who isn’t interested.

As much as I would like to see this hypocrite squirm, I honestly don’t think he should have been arrested. If all he did was “signal” that really isn’t something that is an offense that merits arrest. I believe he was cruising- but I don’t think he should have been arrested for this offense. His guilty plea tells me that he was terrified that his life would be outed.

I have known a number of men who cruised tea rooms (heck I did too when I was coming out in my late teens and was terrified of the idea of a gay bar) and they were not there to do anything harmful and they were not interested in engaging in activity with disinterested parties; yet a number of these men were arrested by police stings that entrapped them for behavior that was not in fact illegal but was perceived to have a motive that may be more prurient. It is patently wrong for these men to be arrested for foot tapping or any behavior that the police deem to be moving in the direction of a “public nuisance” infraction. I am long past the age and the fear of being outed as gay to even remotely be interested in a tea room, but if I was sitting in a bathroom stall listening to my iPod and tapping my foot to the beat of the music- could I be arrested? For that matter could any of us be arrested for that? It is absolutely ludicrous.

So yes, Senator Craig’s behavior should be outed because he has projected his internalized homophobia into public policy positions. But Senator Craig never should have been arrested for making gestures that the police deemed suspect.

Folks- there have been more than 100,000 people murdered in this country since September 11, 2001. Don’t the police have anything better to do?

The formation of Madrasahs can probably be traced to the early Islamic custom of meeting in mosques to discuss religious issues. At this early stage, people seeking religious knowledge tended to gather around certain more knowledgable Muslims; these informal teachers later became known as the shaykhs; and these shaykhs began to hold regular religious education sessions and while Madrasahs are not by founding or tradition breeding grounds for terrorism and extremism- many of them have become exactly that.

Due to administrative mishandling, radical political indoctrination of students and adoption of a more conservative view of the simple teachings of Islam, especially in certain Muslim countries such as Pakistan, madrasahs nowadays are frequently deemed as ideological and political training grounds for hatred against the West.

The west has been horrified by these Madrasahs – especially the conservative Christian fundamentalists in the United States. But after watching “Jesus Camp” and exploring the “Kids In Ministry” web site- Becky Fischer and her ministry have created a Christian Madrasah in the worst interpretation of that word. They openly indoctrinate children through fear, emotional manipulation, quashing an open mind and free thinking, and create, to borrow a phrase from Christiane Amanpour, “God’s Christian Warriors”.

A few scenes were absolutely horrifying to me but what struck me the most was the indoctrination of children about abortion. These are children of an age who probably have not been given any education on sex or, given the thinking of their families, never will have adequate sex education. Yet these children were told horrific things about the killing of innocent babies in the wombs of mothers. They were shown plastic figurines that theoretically showed a fetus at various points of development and what was striking was that the fetus did not look any different at age 7 weeks than it did a later stages of development- it was just smaller. A fetus at 7 weeks is about 5-6 mm is length and while there are distinct features to it that may look like a human baby – it hasn’t fully formed those features – and to show it only getting bigger rather than maturing and developing is wildly misleading. Especially for impressionable children who are being horrified and told that they might have a lot of other friends if they hadn’t been murdered in the womb.

Let me be clear- I am not pro-abortion but I am pro-choice. I know women who have had abortions and in all cases it was a painful decision- but one that they felt was necessary for them.  The rhetoric about using abortions as a regular form of birth control for women is wildly misleading. If young women, especially from low income backgrounds, had accurate sex education as well as information and access to contraception there would be fewer abortions among women who feel that they are not in a position to bring a child into the world. Interestingly enough the same people who would eliminate a woman’s right to choose are the same people who want to make access to contraception for young women impossible and sexual education banned.

But I digress from my point here. How can you talk to children about abortion and not about sex? The answer is that you cannot and that unless Ms. Fischer was conducting a sex ed class before her rants about abortion to her campers, she was doing nothing but brainwashing young minds. Ironically enough- the young girls in this camp- who probably will never get adequate sex education or information and access to contraceptives are the same young women who will probably be the prime candidates for unwanted pregnancies and potential abortions in the future. And of course with the guilt and horror instilled in these young women they will need to be rushed to a therapist too.

The language of war and the political indoctrination of these children was shocking. A phrase oft repeated in the movie “reclaiming the country for Jesus” keeps haunting me. I did not know that Jesus ever “claimed” this country. While the founders may have been men with a deep faith in God they created a country that clearly defined the church and the state and tried to enshrine that among these two never the twain shall meet. To teach children that this country is a Christian nation is to defile the constitution and the tenants of the nation’s founding.

Let’s not forget the scene in the film where the children welcome President Bush and pray over him. Okay – it’s a cardboard cut out, but it sure seems like political indoctrination to me. Maybe a little idol worship thrown in for good measure.

And then there is “speaking in tongues”. For a brief moment in time as a teenager I visited some charismatic ministries and they explained to me that speaking in tongues was letting the Holy Spirit speak through you. OK- I’ll play. But what if I don’t feel God moving my mouth, tongue and vocal chords to make those noises of that Holy language which often eerily sound Semitic? I was informed that it was just fine to start “in the flesh” and the spirit would take over. In other words- start making nonsensical noises sounding like you are reciting Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and then God will do the rest. That sounded absurd to me as a teenager and sounded absurd again when I heard a similar instruction given to the children in “Jesus Camp”.

The next time any fundamentalist Christian criticizes the indoctrination of Islamic boys in Madrasahs in Pakistan and elsewhere- let them look in their own back yard or even better yet at the “Kids in Ministry” website.

There has been a drum beat around the country lately to put pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin the process of Impeachment against President George W. Bush. There are interesting reasons to consider this and actually REAL reasons that have to do with protecting the country’s future than in trying to bring down a President through a “legal coup”.

No real discussion of impeachment can really occur unless the pink elephant in the room is addressed first” The impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. So let’s do a brief synopsis:

The charges arose from an investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Originally dealing with the failed land deal years earlier known as Whitewater, Starr, with the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno, expanded his investigation into Clinton’s conduct during the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former Arkansas government employee, Paula Jones. In a sworn deposition for this case, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” or a “sexual affair” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. At the deposition, the judge ordered a precise legal definition of the term “sexual relations” that Clinton claims to have construed to mean only vaginal intercourse.

A much-quoted statement from Clinton’s grand jury testimony showed him questioning the precise use of the word “is.” Clinton said, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement”. Linda Tripp, one of Lewinsky’s confidantes, provided Starr with taped phone conversations in which Lewinsky discussed having oral sex with Clinton. Based on these tapes, Starr concluded that Clinton had committed perjury.

There are several defenses: Lewinsky may have exaggerated her testimony, or Starr may have coerced it. Another possibility, implied by Clinton himself, is that he did not touch her with “an intent to arouse or gratify.” He may have been “hands on,” but it might have been for his pleasure, not hers. In that case, his answers are still legally accurate. Again, this may make him sexually selfish, but that is not illegal. For critics to prove perjury, they must somehow enter Clinton’s head and prove that he did not intend to sexually gratify Ms. Lewinsky. Which, of course, is clearly impossible. Clinton may have even made a mistake by interpreting the definition too narrowly, but that is not the same thing as lying. The bottom line is that the definition crafted by the Jones’ team was deeply flawed, and allowed Clinton to make legally accurate answers in spite of what actually happened. And therefore he was not guilty of perjury in this writer’s estimation.

It is clear that an investigation that began to look into alleged questionable business dealings in a failed deal which went no where and ended up looking into the President’s bedroom was the work of an overzealous prosecutor and a coterie of Republicans who were determined to bring down the President at any cost. Pure partisan politics at its core and an abuse of Congress’s Constitutional duty to impeach for high crimes and misdemeanors. “Lying” about a sexual liaison and it is debatable that Clinton’s statement was technically a lie, does not rise at all to any serious or grave enough level intended by the founders to have impeachment to address. The proceedings against President Clinton were clearly political and were clearly not constitutional.

So the real question that arises is, after such a blatantly political abuse of the power to impeach would the nation be circumspect of new impeachment proceedings against President George Walker Bush, even if those proceedings were completely justified. Is the nation weary of the politics of impeachment and would the very serious matter addressed in an impeachment proceeding against President Bush have the effect of diminishing their troubling and heinous nature by relegating them to the dustbin of partisanship- which clearly the American people have developed a pronounced ennui.

Is there some sort of immunity from impeachment that President Bush has because he and his administration know bank on the fact it is unlikely the American people would want to live through 2 Impeachments within a decade? I fear it may be so.

But let’s look at the reasons that impeaching President Bush makes sense:

Recently a segment on the PBS Bill “Moyers Journal” was devoted to the subject of impeaching Bush. Conservative legal scholar Bruce Fein, an official in the Reagan Justice Department, and John Nichols, the chief Washington correspondent for The Nation come from different points on the ideological spectrum, but agreed that the Founders intended impeachment less as a punishment for officeholders than as a protection against the dangerous expansion of executive authority.

If abuse of the system of checks and balances, lies about war, approval of illegal spying and torture, signing statements that improperly arrogate legislative powers to the executive branch, schemes to punish political foes and refusals to cooperate with congressional inquiries are not judged as high crimes, the next president, no matter from which party, will assume the authority to exercise some or all of these illegitimate powers.

Let’s look at those abuses and actions that the Bush administration took within the legal context of Fein’s and Nichols rubric.

The U.S. Constitution provides for impeachment of any President or Vice President who commits “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

This applies to any serious abuses of power, whether or not they are actually crimes, but President Bush and Vice President Cheney have clearly committed numerous specific federal crimes while in office.

Let’s first focus first on a Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371).

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is a specific federal crime prohibited by Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. Put simply, it is an agreement to use deceit and misrepresentation to “obstruct or impair” the normal functioning of government. It has been charged numerous times, including against defendants in the Watergate case and the Iran/contra scandal.

Let’s go through this step by step:

How do you prove a criminal conspiracy?

A criminal conspiracy is defined in the law as simply an agreement to commit a crime, but you don’t have to show that people wrote out an agreement or even explicitly said, “let’s do this criminal act…” Conspiracies are proved by evidence of what people do and say, both publicly and behind the scenes.

Isn’t that “circumstantial evidence?”

Yes it is and, as judges tell juries in courtrooms around the country every day, circumstantial evidence is just as important as direct evidence.

What does it mean “to defraud?”

To defraud means to attempt to influence people to go along with your proposal by using deceit. The attempt does not actually have to succeed. The crime is complete once a person uses misrepresentation with the intent to provide a false picture. “Fraud” includes deliberate misrepresentations, outright lies, half-truths and statements made with reckless disregard for the truth. Bush and Cheney used all of these methods to convince the public and Congress to agree to their plan to invade Iraq.

What are some examples of Bush’s and Cheney’s misrepresentations?

Bush, Cheney and their top aides made hundreds of misrepresentations to deceitfully convince people to accept their plan to invade Iraq. Here are a few examples:

1. Deliberate Misrepresentation- The linking of Iraq and 9/11

A deliberate misrepresentation is a statement or set of statements that might not be false in and of themselves, but are presented so as to give a false impression. In the case of the Bush/Cheney conspiracy to defraud, the best example of this is their repeated linking of Saddam or Iraq to the “lessons of 9/11.” The Bush administration used this device so often that it’s clear that it was a calculated and deliberate effort to provide a false impression that the two were linked — even though, as Bush has admitted, they knew there was no link. It is no defense to a charge of fraud based on deliberate misrepresentation that the person’s statement was not literally false.

2. Outright Lie- “Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in.”

Before the war, and as recently as March 21, 2006, President Bush said we invaded Iraq because “Saddam would not let the UN inspectors in.” That is an outright lie. The UN inspectors reported to the Security Council on March 7, 2003 that, although the process was not perfect, Saddam Hussein was cooperating with the inspections, the UN team thought the process was working, and they wanted to complete it. President Bush told the UN inspectors to leave within 48 hours on March 16, 2003.

3. Half-truth- “Saddam’s son-in-law told us about biological and chemical Weapons.”

One of the half-truths most often repeated by Cheney, in particular, was that “we” (the U.S.) knew there were biological and chemical weapons, because Saddam’s son-in-law, Kamel Hussein, told U.S. agents about them when he defected. Apart from the fact that Kamel made these statements in 1995, so they proved nothing about the existence of weapons in 2003, Cheney only told half the story. The other half was that Kamel had said that they had destroyed the weapons, a fact confirmed by U.N. and U.S. inspectors.

4. Reckless Disregard - “Iraq is a Grave and Gathering Danger”

In criminal law, statements made with reckless disregard as to whether they are true or false are considered fraudulent. In other words, the law imposes a duty upon people who are trying to influence others to make important life decisions — such as investments, large purchases, medical decisions, or, of course, agreeing to a war — to make assertions only if they are actually backed up by facts, especially when the people speaking are seen as authority figures, such as the President and Vice President. So every time Bush and Cheney made statements such as “Iraq is a grave and gathering danger” or “We know there are weapons of mass destruction,” they were speaking with reckless disregard for the truth. If they had done their due diligence and examined the reports of our own intelligence community, they would have known that these statements were seriously in question, if not outright false. If they did not complete any due diligence before making the statements, they were speaking with reckless disregard for the truth. Either way it’s fraud.

Does it Matter Whether Bush and Cheney actually believed there were WMD?

No, in criminal law it is not a defense to fraud that a person subjectively, that is, in his own mind, believed that the scheme would all work out, if he makes fraudulent misrepresentations in order to get people to go along with it. In other words, you can’t trick people into going along with your ideas, just because you think the ideas are good.

How was government “impaired and obstructed?”

Bush and Cheney’s fraudulent misrepresentations about the true state of affairs in Iraq was designed to convince the public to believe that Iraq presented an imminent threat. They needed to convince the public that there was a dire emergency in order to convince Congress to authorize funds for the war. This scheme of misrepresentation obstructed the workings of government in a critical way — it caused the most serious of governmental decisions to be made upon false information.

Second let’s look at violations of US Law and International Law- most specifically- violations of the Geneva Convention by condoning torture.

On 6/22/04 Bush said “We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.” Is that true?

The evidence below shows that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales are guilty of violating “Federal Torture Act” Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention by ordering and condoning the use of torture. Many prisoners have died as a result.

1. 1/25/02 - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo advising the President of “the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act,” a federal statute, for torturing prisoners. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality –declaring detainees in the “war on terror” to be outside the Geneva Conventions –which, he said, “substantially reduces” the chance of prosecution. Gonzales was later promoted to US Attorney General. [Nation]

2. 2/7/02 - Bush took Gonzales’ advice and signed an order declaring that members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not covered by the Geneva Convention. The memo requires that “detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” While seeming to call for humane treatment, it is carefully worded to allow for violations of the Geneva Convention when necessary.

3. Bush moves prisoners to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and holds them for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. This is ruled illegal by a Federal Judge on Jan 31, 2005.

4. Bush sets up secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries to escape US laws against torture. Rice claims European countries supported this plan. [Washington Post] [CNN] [FindLaw]

5. 9/26/02 - Canadian Maher Arar was arrested at JFK airport and sent to secret prison in Syria for torture under “extraordinary rendition” program. He was released a year later without charges. He sued the US government but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge David Trager on 2/17/06 citing the need for secrecy. He wrote, “One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar’s removal to Syria.” Thus the reason for the secrecy is not for national security but simply to avoid embarassing guilty parties in government. This sets a dangerous precedent that may allow Bush to kidnap and torture anyone he pleases. On 1/26/07 the Canadian government apologized and awarded Arar compensation. [Wikipedia]

6. Dec ‘02 - Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy, tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. His 2004 memo details his unsuccessful struggle with the White House to stop the torture. [New Yorker]

7. 12/31/03 - German national Khaled al-Masri says he was abducted by the CIA arrested in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. He was then tortured for five months and released. CIA has admitted making a mistake in this case.

8. April 2004, photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison make headlines around the world. Low ranking soldiers are convicted of torture charges, falling on their swords for the White House. [Wikipedia] [New Yorker]

9. 5/24/04 - Seymour Hersh releases article detailing how Rumsfeld’s program encouraged torture. “President Bush was informed of the existence of the program, the former intelligence official said.” [New Yorker]

10. October 2005, Senator McCain adds an amendment to a defense bill that would outlaw torture by the United States. Bush and Cheney fight this tooth and nail to block this amendment but eventually give in after the McCain amendment is weakened by the Graham-Levin amendment. When Bush signs the bill he adds a signing statement that basically says he can ignore the prohibition against torture under his powers as “unitary executive” and “Commander in Chief “.

11. 6/29/06 - Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.

Now let’s look at illegal wiretapping. While the US Congress has recently expanded the President’s powers to continue this practice in a short term 6 month authorized bill, the President had no such authority before this legislation was enacted.

Bush has admitted to authorizing the NSA, a secretive spy agency, to conduct warrantless wire taps on American citizens. The spying even extends to postal mail. The NSA has also been collecting phone records in an attempt to build a database of every phone call that is made.

1. The Bush wiretaps violated US law because he was required to get approval from FISA. He can start a wiretap of a suspected terrorist at any time but must then seek approval to continue within 72 hours.

2. Attorney General Gonzales claims HJR114 gave Bush authority to conduct the wiretaps. But HJR114 only grants use of the “Armed Forces”. HJR114 does not explicitly suspend the Constitution. Also HJR114 requires “The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3″. Congress was not notified of these wiretaps. [HJR114]

3. Bush may have bypassed FISA because he wanted to listen to and analyze all international signals, not just those of suspected terrorists. He knew this was blatantly illegal so he hid it. Bush says “We use FISA still. But FISAs is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect.” Then later “There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it’s important to note the distinction between the two.” The distinction is that “detecting” requires listening to lots of calls with a computer to see if someone says certain keywords like “bomb” in Arabic, or maybe even “impeach Bush” in English. Monitoring is listening to a specific suspected terrorist. The problem with detection is that you have to listen to all calls, including yours and mine. [This NY Times article confirms this interpretation. Also CNN.]

4. More evidence that Bush wants to listen to all signals is in Bob Woodward’s book “Bush at War,” on page 303. ” Bush summarized his strategy: ‘Listen to every phone call and close them down and protect the innocents.’” [WaPost]

5. James B. Comey, acting Attorney General, refused to sign an authorization for the NSA program because it “did not comply with the law”. On March 10th, 2004, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card tried to bypass Comey be getting a disoriented John Ashcroft to sign an authorization from his hospital bed. Comey rushed to the hospital to stop them. On March 11th, Bush intervened personally to get the Justice Department to authorize the program. [NYTimes]

6. Investigators may have found that Bush applied for an expansion of wiretap capability from FISA, was rejected, and then went ahead and did it anyway. [FindLaw] [FAS]

7. Bush claims going through FISA is too slow but legal emergency wiretaps helped capture terrorist Mosquera.

8. According to a report in USA Today, the NSA is collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans - most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders. The stated goal is to be able to identify who is involved in a network of terrorists. But this same technique can be used to determine who is involved in a network of political activists who might, for example, oppose the Bush administration. Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers’ calling habits. All of the major telecommunications companies cooperated with this program except for Qwest. Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, was troubled by the fact that there was no FISA approval and that the program was so pervasive.

9. 8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.

There seems to be a grassroots swell for impeachment making it very different that the “in side the beltway” game that the Republicans played with President Clinton. More and more local jurisdictions are voting for resolutions calling for impeachment. This is the people talking, not the Washington insiders and the punditry.

The burgeoning movement for impeachment is a rational response to a moment when polls tell us that roughly three-quarters of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. This administration has not just let Americans down; it has frightened them. A great many understand, intuitively or explicitly, that we are experiencing a constitutional crisis and that impeachment proceedings are the proper tonic. Unfortunately, key Democrats continue to mistake the medicine for the disease.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still keeps impeachment “off the table”; she and her advisers fear that if they allow Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to open impeachment hearings, it will rally the Republican base in defense of Bush and Cheney. History suggests she’s wrong: Opposition parties that have pursued impeachment in a high-minded manner have, in every instance, maintained or improved their position in Congress and have usually won the presidency in the next election.

Pelosi should step out of the way and let her colleagues restore the rule of law. More than a dozen have shown their desire to do so by co-sponsoring Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Cheney.

Clearly, impeachment is not just around the corner; even Sen. Russ Feingold’s “relatively modest response” to the crisis — censure resolutions against Bush and Cheney –faces an uphill struggle. At this late stage, it will be difficult to turn the need for accountability into action on Capitol Hill. But even an impeachment effort that falls short lays down a historical marker; it tells Bush and Cheney and all those who succeed them that an executive branch that imagines itself superior to Congress and the rule of law will arouse popular fury.
Let’s face it the Republicans are the sultans of spin and know the right buttons to push to scare the American people. You have heard the arguments from them about impeachment— partisan (excuse me? do you remember the Clinton impeachment) and a diversion from the real business of the American people.

I’ve already addressed the partisan issue. Republicans using this argument should just be ashamed of themselves- or they have suddenly developed Alzheimer’s. But let’s talk about the “real business of the American people”. Sure Congress needs to tackle issues like health care, terrorism (in a way that makes sense- not Bush’s strategy), the economy, the ever increasing violence in the country, and a myriad of social ills that should be addressed. But I posit that none of these issues can truly be addressed appropriately unless the Congress does it’s duty to protect the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.

In my desire to be a pragmatic Democrat I have looked at impeachment talk as unrealistic and politically dangerous. After all in 2008 I would like to see a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House. Would impeachment compromise the possibility of that dream? A year ago I would have said yes. Now I say no. The American people are hungering for leadership and for a way out of the mess. With an approval rating of 18% what does Congress have to risk?

The people are craving action and it is time for our leaders in Congress to do the right thing, show some backbone and hold the President accountable. There is a tightrope politicians walk in politics- how vigilantly do they hold to their convictions and how much are they willing to compromise those convictions to get something done. Governing is often seen as compromise and that is fine most of the time. Compromise has its own sort of accountability to the nation. But there are times when compromise is just a cop out and is a sign of weakness and is dangerous for the nation. This is one of those times.

It is time for the United States House of Representatives to do the right thing- it is time for Speaker Pelosi to put the impeachment option back on the table. After all there is nothing less than the future of our Constitution at stake.

Dear Karl,

You have given us an America that terrorists and other’s that would destroy the American way of life would not need to dismantle because America is becoming the very thing that those who hate America are- hateful, uninterested in individual rights, obsessed with power and on the road to dictatorship.

You have been called Bush’s brain. But you not only take the place of the organ that is supposed to reside in the cranium of the President, you have ensured that the heart of the President, which we were told was that of a compassionate conservative, was transplanted by one that is as healthy as Dick Cheney’s heart- clogged with the cholesterol of hate, fear mongering, partisanship and dismantling of the Constitution. Of course this statement would mean that there was a heart there to begin with- but whatever the case is there is certainly heart damage and the Presidency had cardiac arrest quite a while ago.

You have been the architect of political power achieved through fear and governing through blatant partisan politics. You have been a master of twisting and spinning. Both parties have individuals that are talented in spinning. What you have done is spun with hate and fear.

My dear Karl- you worked for a President that says that he and his administration didn’t listen to polls and governed from a sense of what was right for the country. Whenever you are interviewed- I have never seen anyone so conversant in polling numbers— rather odd if you aren’t paying attention to them! Of course- the sense of what was right was right for the right and not for the rest of us.

Oh Karl- You silly guy. You had so much fun- like a little gossipy school girl whispering to anyone who would listen- exposing a CIA operative. “I know something you don’t know!” Boy that must have been fun. You didn’t just show how important an “insider” you were – but it had the added bonus of hurting the career of the spouse of one of your most ardent critics. You got to gossip and be a bitch too! Wait – I didn’t know you were a teenage girl!

Of course you have tried at every step of the way to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV and it was successful for a while- but Ambassador Wilson has certainly been proven to be correct.

As a gay man- I want to thank you so much for the strategy that you used in the 2004 election- using the fear of gay marriage to get voters out in every state.  It was a master stroke of wedge politics that vilified an entire group of people, played on ignorance and fear and rallied the troops of those groups that believed that some fantasy “Leave It To Beaver” world once existed and the fantasy was threatened. Should I mention that you and some other far right icons like Senator Jesse Helms and Reverend Jerry Falwell always reminded me of my stereotype of what a child molester looks like?  I probably shouldn’t, but I just did!

Thank you for the work you and Alberto Gonzales have done to politicize the Department of Justice- using the power of US Attorneys like a machete against Democrats and an all access pass to Republicans.

Is there any part of governing that you decided shouldn’t be politicized? I understand that all leaders are politicians but most administrations seem to have enough regard for the Constitution and our nation to realize that there is part of governing that should never be the purview of politics.

This morning on “Meet the Press” you trashed Hillary Rodham Clinton about her vote against the Medicare Modernization Act.  I cheered when she voted against that legislation.

You made it sound like she was not interested in helping elderly and disabled Americans. MMA was nothing but welfare for health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Karl- I was actively involved in policy advocacy around Medicare – and that bill had little to do with helping Medicare beneficiaries- that’s a side bonus (when it happens). If it was meant for people- it would have allowed Medicare to negotiate prices and would not have included some absurd construct called a “Donut Hole”.

AARP begrudgingly signed on to support for that bill because they thought it was better than nothing. Sure it probably was- but be real- it was fatally flawed and as this Congress has found out fatally flawed legislation is difficult to fix. Wait didn’t you use the term “fatally flawed about Senator Clinton’s candidacy?

You and Dick Cheney use 9/11 as an excuse for going into Iraq. When asked about Dick Cheney’s very astute observation in 1994 of what would happen if President George Herbert Walker Bush (41) had overthrown Sadaam in the first Gulf War- you said everything changed after 9/11. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??

Mr. Cheney’s analysis in 1994 that there would be chaos and Iraq would be a quagmire had we taken down the regime was dead on. Even if the Bush administration had been right about the WMD argument- which was specious at best- it would have been their duty to reveal the dangers that had been assumed in a post-invasion Iraq. 

This 1994 analysis of going into Iraq was not discussed as part of the lead up to the war- it is simply unconscionable that their was inconvenient amnesia. 

But of course when you say everyone thought that Iraq had WMD’s you are forgetting about one small group that said that Iraq did not have WMDs. Oh those pesky UN Weapons inspectors! Why should we have relied on their “on the ground” information when we could have dummied up satellite imagery?

Thank you for your War on Terrorism. Our approach to terrorism hasn’t been terribly successful has it Karl? We are less safe- we have emboldened terrorists thanks to our arrogance in Iraq and our diversion from Afghanistan.

Why haven’t we taken the lead of two countries that have long histories of dealing with terrorism? The United Kingdom dealt with decades of the Irish Republican Army and of course Israel has become an expert on terrorism. In both cases they treated terrorism as criminal actions. But no- we have to go to a “war footing”. Of course – in WW II a war footing meant that all of our citizens shared some pain. In this “war” we are told to go shopping.

But Karl, I digress. How silly of me to think about adding to the nation’s burden dealing with criminal actions. After all you and your NRA pals have done so much for us to deal with criminal acts! With 100,000 people murdered in this country since 9/11 I guess you guys have done a bang up job.

I know you are leaving public life. But I do have a suggestion. We, the American people, woke up a little from our slumber and slapped you and Bush around in the 2006 election- you have not been able to dismantle the Constitution as much as you would have liked (although you have made remarkable headway).   As you pointed out on “Meet the Press” this morning- there is a separation of the three branches of government in our Constitution. You forgot the other part of that- “checks and balances”. I know, I know— it is so annoying to have Congress looking down your shoulder and actually doing their “oversight” duty. Boy that Constitution is annoying isn’t it? It’s a damned shame that you weren’t able to fulfill your dream of single party rule for perpetuity. But Karl- never fear, there is a government- and it’s not too far away that believes in changing their constitution at a whim and will soon ensure that it’s leader will have lifetime rule. I’m sure they’d love to have you!

The country- Venezuela; the leader- Hugo Chavez. Viva Rove!

Thanks again!

The American People

Yes- I am late blogging about Barry Bonds’ historic home run. Maybe I just wanted the historical histrionics to be over too. Face it- I only once wrote about sports on this blog. It just isn’t my bag. The last time it was about French footballer Zindaine and his bad behavior in the 2006 World Cup. This time- oddly enough it is also about questionable behavior but it is also more than that. It’s about a city, my home town, that seems more and more a city of contradictions.

Let’s get the steroid thing out there straight off. A statement that “I never knowingly took steroids” is an absurd statement. Sports journalist Bob Costas made an excellent point that someone as fastidious and obsessive about disciplining his body as is Bonds would never have been so careless as to ingest anything “accidentally”. So as political journalists call it- there you have your “non- denial denial”. Everyone with half a brain knows that Bonds took steroids. His super human abilities got better as he aged where most non-bionics actually decline as they get older. But really it is his own statement about not knowingly taking steroids that tells the real story. Oh yeah – there is also the fact that his best friend and trainer- Greg Anderson is sitting in jail rather than giving testimony that might implicate Bonds. If it wouldn’t implicate Bonds- I doubt he’d be sitting in jail. I sure hope Bonds gives him half his Giants salary for being his fall guy. Roman Emperors rarely had a Praetorian guard that would have so completely fallen on their sword.

So yeah – the record is tainted. Yes even this tainted record is admirable- but one can never be sure which home runs we should cheer and which ones were juiced. We’ll never know- because Bonds will never come clean. Besides Mr. Bonds just doesn’t seem like a the “role model” that so many sports heroes were in my childhood. True my heroes were more in the realm of opera than baseball- but I had friends OBSESSED with baseball heroes. Bonds is just one of a series of professional athletes disappointing us. True steroids aren’t as bad as murder, dog abuse and rape- but it isn’t lofty and bottom line- “drugs is drugs is drugs” and cheating isn’t a good thing either.  But these guys should realize that part of their job is PR and being a role model.  They seem to resent that- but too bad— that’s part of what you signed up for when you signed some obscenely high paying contract. 

But let’s get back to that “record”.  Actually Mr. Bonds is only the questionable home run king in the United States, he does not hold the world wide record.

There is another baseball player who has actually hit more home runs in professional baseball. Sadaharu Oh is a former baseball player and manager of the Yomiuri Giants in Nippon Professional Baseball and is the current manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He holds the professional baseball record for home runs, having hit 868 in his prestigious career. How US-centric that we conveniently forget about baseball in other countries!

Yes- baseball is “America’s past time” but as ball players behaving badly has become the norm here, it is actually respected more in many other countries- Cuba and Japan specifically. The Japanese are probably more baseball obsessed than Americans. Yet in our world where apparently the world revolved around the USA and others do not exist “at our rarified level” we do not recognize Oh’s record. It seems even the venerated Hank Aaron gave some sort of nod to Oh- in 1988 Oh and Aaron teamed up and created the World Children’s Baseball Fair (WCBF), to increase the popularity of baseball by working with youngsters.

So yes- the record is questionable because of steroids and it isn’t a worldwide record anyway. But here in my city by the bay- I could be tarred and feathered if any body heard me say something remotely negative about Barry Bonds (I should have used a pseudonym for this blog!). San Franciscans are blinded by this record. Bonds is their hero. For goodness sakes- City Hall has been lit up like Linus’s Giant Pumpkin for the past few weeks. It’s an homage to the Giants- since their colors are orange and black. I guess they decided it wasn’t a good idea to light the city hall rotunda black.

San Francisco is a city that is OBSESSED with fairness and openness. The city’s sunshine ordinance insists on a level of “openness” in government that is seen very few other places. But we don’t seem to want to see the man behind the curtain where Bonds is concerned.

Maybe it’s because Balco and other steroid producing shops are the product of neighboring Silicon Valley that San Francsicans don’t balk at bionic prowess -after all San Francsico is just lousy with Silicon Valley millionaires and they invented this crap.

But I really think that San Franciscans want the rest of the country to like us- and see us as regular guys who, like middle America, love baseball. And not only do we love baseball we have the baseball King here!

Nope- we ain’t  a buncha latte drinkin’, wine sippin’, foie gras eatin’ pansy-assed liberals here!  We love hot dog, beer and baseball! F’ing A! But truly you can get some pretty good eats (the garlic fries are too die for!) and some vintage wines at AT&T park (shhhhhh- even baseball in San Francsico is prissy!).

But alas- Mr. Bonds isn’t giving San Francsico the opportunity to be seen as one of the guys. I am proud of being a liberal (latte drinking and all) and don’t feel the necessity to show the rest of the country that we have as much testosterone as they do even if it is out of a syringe.

Come on San Francisco! Get with it- celebrate who we are. Part of who we are has always been to expose those who are hypocrites. Why are we celebrating one of the all time biggiest bypocrites in the annals of sports?

I think Barry Bonds should sign right now to guest star on the upcoming TV series the “Bionic Woman” - after all they are perfectly matched!

I couldn’t be more disgusted by the Democrats than I was when they caved into President Bush on warrantless spying that circumvents the FISA court. As usual the New York Times was correct in the editorial when they stated that it was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

I am embarrassed to be a Democrat right now and I want to slap my Congressional representative- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Where the heck is the moral compass? Where the heck is that bravado that was at play in the 2006 election? How can I assume that the Democrats can lead the country out of a paper bag if they cannot stand up to a President who has ratings somewhere at sewer level? I gave them a pass when they voted to fund Bush’s war a few months ago- because there was the risk that not approving that funding could have caused harm to men and women serving in our armed forces even if they are in a cesspool of a war that Bush created by his own incompetence. After all- they don’t deserve to suffer, he does. But I never imagined or dreamed that they would cave in on protecting basic civil liberties.

My gosh- they used to talk about Tony Blair being Bush’s poodle. Well it seems that the Capitol Rotunda is nothing more than a marble poodle cut!

The votes in the House and Senate were supposed to fix a genuine glitch in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The court charged with enforcing that law said the government must also seek a warrant if the people are outside the country, but their communications are routed through data exchanges here — a technological problem that did not exist in 1978.

Instead of just fixing that glitch, the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill railroaded Congress into voting a vast expansion of the president’s powers. They gave the director of national intelligence and the attorney general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is a “reasonable belief” that one party is not in the United States. The new law all but eviscerates the 1978 law. The only small saving grace is that the new statute expires in six months.

A New York Times analysis of the Democrats Debacle quoted Caroline Fredrickson, a top lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Ultimately, it was the Democratic leadership on the Hill that rolled over to this demand. Instead of standing strong and standing on principle, they panicked and gave the administration not only what it has been asking for, but more.”
Democratic officials in the House and the Senate say they understand the dismay that greeted the measure’s passage and point out that most Democrats opposed the bill, including the four senators seeking the party’s presidential nomination. But they say that given classified security briefings and the approach of the recess, Democrats had little choice. Isn’t that just so convenient!

When will the Democrats get over their fear of being called wimps on national security?

From the Senate: “Everyone who heard the briefings from the administration agreed that the intelligence community did not have what it needed,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “Both Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that going home without addressing this issue was not an option.”

From the House: “We agreed with the administration that there was a problem with FISA that needed to be fixed,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “We thought we had a bill that protected civil liberties and addressed their problems, but it did not have the votes on its own.”

Are these folks more interested in being in power or in governing? What use is it to have allies in power if they don’t use that power for something positive?

Some are already talking about primary challenges for Democrats whom they consider enablers of Mr. Bush, like moderate Blue Dogs who formed the core of Democratic support for the eavesdropping proposal in the House. On the Web site Open Left, the blogger Matt Stoller accused the Blue Dogs of one of their “standard betrayals.”

“The upside,” Mr. Stoller wrote, “is that organizing is beginning already around fixing the FISA legislation, and a campaign to destroy the brand of the Blue Dogs is not far away.”

Normally I would disagree with the idea of challenges to Democrats from more liberal corners and would view this to be problematic. I am a Democrat but a political pragmatist- so I see the value in not going too far left (see what happened with the Senate race in Connecticut in 2006?) but my pragmatism only goes so far. When political pragmatism compromises moral integrity and the values embedded in our Constitution it is selling out- oure and simple. And for what- fear of being branded a coward by an inept and unpopular President? No, the New York Times got it right- the game is about job security and keeping power- even if you don’t use that power.

It’s time to shake up the Democratic Party.  If you don’t use your power for good- you don’t deserve the power.