Giuliani said it’s no feat to make changes for the sake of change.
“Change is either good or bad. So I think people have to focus a little bit more carefully on, what is it that we’re promising, and what are we trying to do. Now, if the change is in the direction of lower taxes, less spending, giving parents choice over education, energy independence, these are things that are going to make a brighter future and a better America. But just the word ‘change’ doesn’t connote good or bad. You’ve got to get one step beyond that and start looking at the changes,” he said.
When the Democrats say they want “change”, it is very much like the “new direction” they campaigned on in 2006 – sounds nice, but it doesn’t actually mean anything. For someone like Giuliani, the Democrats talking about “change” has to sound a bit ridiculous – none of the top three Democratic contenders has ever had to make a decision to change anything – Giuliani has, and knows its not a magic incantation which just makes everything all right.
Take, for instance, one of the major changes the Democrats all say they want – universal health care. Fine and dandy – lets have it; but lets also have the details. And lets not tax them too highly – certainly not as highly as they plan on taxing us. We’ll start small: Hillary, John, Barack – under your universal health care plan, if there are ten people who need a colonoscopy today, and only 5 colonscopies can be done today, who decides who goes first, and who has to wait for later? If they can’t answer a simple question like that – and they can’t – then all their talk of “change” is just so much poll-tested fluff designed to sucker the credulous (ie, liberals) into voting for them.
I still haven’t settled on a candiate for 2008 (though with the caucuses just 9 days away, crunch time is coming), but in Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain and Huckabee, we have candidates who have far more experience in the practical difficulties of “change” than the three leading Democrats. In simple terms of knowledge and experience, the Republican field far outclasses the Democratic field – and I think that as November approaches, this will become decisive in voters’ minds.
Blogs For Victory 
Well, Diana, your computer (or ISP) must be faster than mine. Let me take these one at a time.
From you 2005 WhiteHouse.org link, I assume you’re referring to this:
Yup, sure sounds ominous to me. Grab the kids and lock the doors — YIKES!!
From your 2nd link (Gonzales’ testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee):
Nope, nothing there either. Next.
Well, it doesn’t seem to want to let me cite the appropriate language from that letter, but I’m not aware of any element/s of FISA that require a warrant for foreign surveillance by NSA. I reported directly to NSA (and even worked there on several occasions), and we NEVER, EVER got a warrant.
I still don’t see any “there” there.
I’m sorry, Diana; I don’t have the time or energy to play your little game any more. This is just senseless BS that’s been hashed and rehashed. This was going on before Bush was President and it will continue after he’s gone, no matter which party wins the WH. And you should thank God that it is, but if bothers you so much, take it up with your Senator or Congressman.
Oh oh… Spook has turned into a cut’n’paste junkie! Lol!
For the record, I personally don’t mind cutting and pasting — just so long as it’s sourced. But I also understand that this site makes links difficult, which presents a dilemma. I suppose that unless or until the administrators of this site solve their problems it will continue to contribute to the kind of Romper Room mentality that seems to be in ever increasing evidence here. Then again, maybe it’s just the election season that drives people alternatively wingnutty or moonbatty.
Geez, don’t any of you people work? If you worked for me I’d fire you all. Oops, did I sound like Mitt there? Sorry.
Anyway, neocon, to your comment “The forces attacking us in Iraq that Bush referred to was AQI. If you remember, AQ was responsible for 9/11,” don’t act stupid. You and I both know that AQI has no relationship to the people who attacked us on 9/11. Of course, the knuckle-dragging, bottom-feeding ignorant dopes believe (and want to believe) that there was a connection, thus Bush’s contention that there was/is. But only the truly stupid believe it. You ain’t one of them, are you neo?
Have a nice weekend, but first, back to work!
Phil
I think what will be clear in voters minds will be that tax cuts don’t matter if the private sector spends the money as wastefully as Bush does in Iraq.(ie subprime mortgage crisis. 2 million foreclosures and counting.)
How much US money must be spent in Iraq to help a homeowner avoid foreclosure?
How much US money must be spent in Iraq to avoid the Bush recession?
How deep does the Bush recession have to be before spending another 500 billion dollars on the Iraqi welfare program becomes politically unacceptable?
I just cant figure out how it got from Guliani to the Warrantless search though…..strange how that happens, eh?
Did you ever figure out how to circumvent the Constitutional power of the Executive Office Diana? You really cant keep going backwards on this forever ya know.
Oh oh… Spook has turned into a cut’n’paste junkie! Lol!
Yeah, Rico, I did kinda get carried away, but alleged abuse by and misuse of the intelligence community is something that tends to get my dander up, particularly when the sole motivation (of the alleged abuse) is protection of American lives. I’m really surprised that a former law enforcement officer (Diana) feels the way she does. Surely she had to have seen innocent people die during her 30 years on the force because some egotistical judge required unreasonable probable cause before issuing a warrant.
Retired Spook,
If my motivation hasn’t been clear, then it is my poor writing that is to blame. The attacks of 09/11/01 may or may not have been detected beforehand in a way that allowed them to be disrupted IF the government had been executing the program or programs that President Bush has stated he authorized after the attacks. If for no other reason, I would have had those attacks prevented, if possible, because of how close they came to killing my oldest brother at work at the Pentagon that morning.
IF the President’s motivation for authorizing the program or programs in violation of FISA was because of FISA’s limitations, then I could easily understand and forgive such a step if, at the same time, the President had requested the Congress (then led by Republicans) to modify FISA to accommodate the program or programs. The reason FISA was enacted in 1978 was because of the history of Executive Branch abuses under both Democratic and Republican presidents documented by the Church Committee. However, it can always be amended to make it better.
For reasons known only for a certainty by the President himself, he did not ask for changes to FISA until after the revelations from the New York Times. However, given what we know about Vice-President Cheney’s expressed feelings about what he views as the dilution of Presidential authority since the resignation of President Nixon, it seems highly plausible that a primary motive was to push back against that dilution by claiming a Constitutional basis for rejecting Congress’ ability to regulate this kind of activity. It is this claim that awaits a full judicial review ala Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. One can only wonder at why, since the Executive Branch has argued so forcefully that it has such a Constitutional basis, that it hasn’t eagerly sought such a review by the Chief Justice Roberts-led Supreme Court.
The fact that you were an honorable member of the intelligence community and never knew any members who didn’t seem to be honorable is no more a rationale for assuming no abuses will occur than it would be to argue that because I never encountered a Richardson police officer abusing the Fourth Amendment that we shouldn’t have a Fourth Amendment. It’s all checks and balances. From Lord Acton to President Reagan, the observation has always been that power is corrupting. In fact, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General reported last March that “the FBI used NSLs [National Security Letters] in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies.” No system of laws is perfect. However, no system of men is perfect either and simply because a system of men has truly good intentions does not mean that they should be blindly trusted to always do good. Conservatives have long understood that in other contexts. It’s puzzling that they don’t understand it in this one.
Diana,
But you still have yet to tell us just why you think President Bush decided to, as you believe, violate the law. It is my contention that President Bush violated niether the letter nor the spirit of any US law in the NSA’s signals intelligence program – it is your contention that he did.
Why?
If you can’t provide us a hard and fast answer to that question, then please just drop the matter as you’re getting rather tiresome about it.
Mark,
My opinion, as stated above, is that the violations were conscious push-back against what the Vice-President has persuaded the President to believe, or perhaps the President already believed, were encroachments on the inherent powers of the office. The attacks of 09/11/01 simply happened to become a rationale for exercising those beliefs against the fact that Congress was limiting the authority of the Executive through FISA. Those beliefs have been articulated as the Unitary Executive Theory. However, that theory is not even accepted by all conservatives, as witness the formation of the American Freedom Agenda (http://www.americanfreedomagenda.org/About/default.html) by Bruce Fein, Bob Barr, John Whitehead and Richard Viguerie. In all seriousness, did that answer your question?
I can’t offer more than my educated guess as to President Bush’s motivations because I lack the ability to read minds and he hasn’t said. However, as I stated in my longer post, the fact that people hold or believe they hold pure motives does not mean that they shouldn’t be subject to checks and balances. That was a profound wisdom of those who founded this nation.
Diana,
Not really – your link to AFA just brings up their litanry of alleged abuses, none of which are backed up by fact, some of which are clearly just pulled from the land of anti-Bush make-believe more usually inhabited by leftists.
As I try to keep up on current affairs, I know why some people and groups believe all the things you state about President Bush – but I’m curious to know why you think President Bush would do such things. I’m not asking you to mind-read – but you must have thought on the matter and reached some sort of conclusion as to precisely why President Bush has, in your view, committed impeachable offenses. One doesn’t do such things for light or transient causes – one does such things in the service of specific goals.
What are the goals?
Diana,
On your longer post (#55), you stated the following in reference to not asking for modifications to FISA:
“One can only wonder at why, since the Executive Branch has argued so forcefully that it has such a Constitutional basis, that it hasn’t eagerly sought such a review by the Chief Justice Roberts-led Supreme Court.”
I think you may have answered your own question. If one branch of government wants to reclaim power from another branch of government, why should they let the third branch decide?
Assuming your rationale is correct, I don’t think Bush/Cheney would want to involve the Supreme Court. They would not want the Supreme Court or Congress interfering with what they feel would be the sole domain of the executive branch. This would be especially true since many conservatives feel that the Supreme Court is now the most powerful branch (“separate but equal” has obviously been more like a seesaw over the past 200+ years)
Mark,
What are the President’s goals in ordering acts that I and others view as grounds for impeaching him? The obvious answer is simple. As he’s forcefully said many times in a variety of ways, “My job is to protect the American people.” (In his 09/11/06 interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer he came close to poking Lauer in the chest as he said, “…my job is to protect you.”) If the President believes this to be true, which I’m completely certain that he does, and he believes that FISA is an unconstitutional encroachment on the presidency then why would he not ignore the law in service of what he views as his higher individual calling of protecting America?
This is his obvious goal which is supported by his affirmative statements. However, although I am in no way a psychological professional, the nature of the work forces police officers to consider human motivations in many kinds of contexts. So, in addition to the President’s obvious motivation, I can speculate about other possible influences on his behavior:
1 – The President has a particularly complex relationship with his father which is unavoidably colored by President H. W. Bush’s many accomplishments as (at the time) the youngest ever naval aviator, recipient of multiple combat decorations during WWII, successful campaigner for the U.S. House, ambassador, CIA Director, Vice-President and President (including success in prosecuting the 1991 Gulf War).
2 – The President may have suffered or may suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with symptoms of survivor guilt as a result of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Part of the evidence for that speculation is the President’s failure to respond in a reasonably timely manner when informed of the attacks.
3 – Despite denying the term “alcoholic” as applicable, the President’s statements that he drank “too much” prior to 1986 may indicate he is a recovering alcoholic. Recovering alcoholics, especially those who deny an ongoing alcohol problem, are prone to rigidity in their thinking patterns. In fact, a feature of the President’s behavior often cited approvingly by his supporters is his firmness in holding to his positions regardless of changing circumstances or public approval. Additionally, the President’s self-described religious views, while not specific to any denomination, are widely approved among Christian evangelicals who view Scripture as both inerrant and literally true.
4 – The President has a history of, at minimum, having rules follow him rather than the other way around – 1966: arrest for disorderly conduct with the charge subsequently being dismissed, 1968: acceptance into the Texas Air National Guard despite his minimum pilot aptitude score and lack of other qualifications for flight training, 1972: failure to take his Air Force flight physical and lack of sanction beyond his being removed from flight status two years short of completing his service obligation, 1972: transfer to a unit in Alabama after his request was initially denied by the Air Reserve Personnel Center, 1976: arrest for driving under the influence. In addition to formal rules, the President has demonstrated his willingness to apparently disregard less formal social and cultural rules. In his September 1972 request to perform “equivalent duty” directed to his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, 1st Lt. Bush casually signed the document “George”. More recently, the President obviously startled and produced a grimace on the face of German Chancellor Angela Merkel by grabbing and squeezing her shoulders while walking into a public G-8 summit meeting in July 2006.
5 – The President has a complex and unprecedented relationship with Vice-President Cheney who is older, has more Washington experience and is inextricably linked to the success of the 1991 Gulf War. The Vice-President is widely known for his desire to reassert presidential power after Watergate with James Baker’s handwritten notes from a meeting with Cheney in 1980 including the phrases “Pres. seriously weakened in recent yrs.”, “Restore power & auth to Exec Branch – Need strong ldr’ship. Get rid of War Powers Act – restore independent rights.”
The five areas I’ve cited above are speculative to one degree or another as to how much they influence President Bush’s decision-making. However, given the known facts about his history and plausible inferences that can be made, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the President would choose to violate a law that he may well view as completely unconstitutional.