1. Specter was hard on Gonzales, even harder the second time around than the first. At one point he even basically called him a liar. Will he do the right thing and continue to push this forward? I don't know. Remember that in the Nixon Watergate hearings, it was an off the cuff and most likely accidental mention of the White House taping system that ultimately brought down the house. Gonzales should be just the first witness of many, including former DoJ officials including John Ashcroft. Today was just the first step.
2. Specter wasn't the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee hitting Gonzo hard. Give credit where it is due - Lindsey Graham was particularly forceful here. Again, this is just the first step.
3. What he said:
| Of the numerous questions facing investigators for the Judiciary Committee, the easy ones will concern the legality of the program. It was patently illegal under FISA and the only argument for letting the President get away with ignoring FISA is that he is prepared to make a fight of it. No committee headed by Republicans will do more than chide him on the law. The questions hardest to answer will be what the NSA actually did, and whether it served any useful purpose. A recent New York Times story contradicts the President's claim that the NSA program was "limited...to known al-Qaeda members or affiliates." Citing anonymous FBI officials, the Times claimed that the NSA flooded the bureau with "thousands" of names per month to check out for possible terrorist connections. Far from being a "vital tool," as described by President Bush, the program was a distracting time waster that sent harried FBI agents down an endless series of blind alleys chasing will-o'-the-wisp terrorists who turned out to be schoolteachers. And far from saving "thousands of lives," as claimed by Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2005, the NSA program never led investigators to a genuine terrorist not already under suspicion, nor did it help them to expose any dangerous plots. So why did the administration continue this lumbering effort for three years? Outsiders sometimes find it tempting to dismiss such wheel-spinning as bureaucratic silliness, but I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants. This it will never confess willingly. |
4. Also, What Digby said:
| I've been digesting this morning's hearings and I am dumbstruck by the totality of the Republicans' abdication of their duty. These men who spent years running on Madisonian principles ("The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse") now argue without any sense of irony or embarrassment that Republican Senators are nothing more than eunuchs in President Bush's political harem. They have voluntarily rendered the congress of the United States impotent to his power.
I've watched this invertebrate GOP caucus since 2000 as they submitted themselves to this lawless administration again and again, shredding every bit of self respect, every figment of institutional pride, every duty to the constitution. The look in their eyes, which is somehow interpreted as strong and defiant by the equally servile media, is actually a window to empty little men who have given up their manhood to oblige their master. The only reward they seek is unfettered access to the taxpayers money for their own use. We are looking at fifty-five of the most powerful people in the country. Collectively the Republican Senators represent almost a hundred and fifty million citizens. And they have allowed a callow little boy like George W. Bush along with his grey eminineces Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to strip them of their consciences, their principles and their constitutional obligations. What sad little creatures, cowardly and subservient, unctuously bowing and scraping before Karl Rove the man who holds their (purse) strings and dances them around the halls of congress singing tributes to their own irrelevance at the top of their lungs. How pathetic they are. Barry Goldwater is rolling over in his grave. |
Its as if these men, having risen to power, want nothing more than to hand it to someone else to wield. Why is it that they choose to do that in the areas that matter, but not in the ones that don't? They'll attempt to "save" Schiavo, but on matters of real national import they hand a blank check and a paper shredder over to the White House.
The Framers planned for all sorts of eventualities, but one they never foresaw was this: politicians who wouldn't want to preserve their own power. Unbelievable.
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