May 12, 2006
Hotline After Dark -- What's That Tapping Sound?
Solving crimes on "CSI," solving the latest wire tapping scandal on cable.
The fallout from the USA Today story on the NSA's phone call database continued last night. NPR's Liasson: "The interesting thing to me about this story is that the New York Times must be feeling pretty bad today because this was -- they did several stories about this quite a while ago" ("Special Report," FNC, 5/11).
FNC's O'Reilly: "Now I have no problem with this personally. If the government was listening to my calls or secretly taping them, then I'd have a big problem. But simply trying to ascertain where the calls are going is no big deal to me" ("O'Reilly Factor," 5/11).
MSNBC's Olbermann: "The good news, if you lost Aunt Gertrude's number, or that of the girl you met, maybe the NSA has it in your file" ("Countdown," 5/11).
MSNBC's Scarborough: "Memo to the president and congressional leaders who signed up on this lousy program -- We don't trust you anymore" ("Scarborough Country," 5/11).
CNN's Cafferty: "We better all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter ... because he might be all that is standing between us and a full-blown dictatorship in this country" ("Situation Room," 5/11).
Plenty of pols were on talking about the issue. CNN's Koppel: "Reaction to this story from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle was fast and furious" ("Lou Dobbs Tonight," 5/11).
Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) kicked off the discussion on "NewsHour." Sen. John Cornyn was in the "Situation Room."
Newt Gingrich: "I'm not going to defend the indefensible. ... I'm prepared to defend a very aggressive anti-terrorist campaign, and I'm prepared to defend the idea that the government ought to know who's making the calls, as long as that information is only used against terrorists, and as long as the Congress knows that it's underway. But I don't think the way they've handled this can be defended by reasonable people. It is sloppy" ("Hannity & Colmes," FNC, 5/11).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): "It is an embarrassment to think that members of Congress didn't know, weren't brought into the loop, didn't have a basic understanding of what we are trying to achieve" ("PZ Now," CNN, 5/11).
Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) was on "Hardball," praising Qwest Communications for not participating. Qwest is headquarted in CO.
And several reports commented on Pres. Bush's quick response. FNC's Cameron: "Bush moved swiftly to reassure law-abiding citizens that they are not being spied on as part of the war on terror" ("Special Report," 5/11). Leahy: "I think the president was probably wise and well-advised to give the statement he did" ("NewsHour," PBS, 5/11). [EMILY GOODIN]
Posted at 07:19 AM
Comments
Doesn't anyone yet recognize that we are in a war to the death with militant extremists? Don't wars call for some TEMPORARY!!! suspensions of citizen's rights at times? Does not a time like this, when 3000 citizens were destroyed in one terrible terrorist incident, call for such measures in an effort to prevent such a thing from happening again while this war goes on? Have not key congressional people been secretly briefed over and over about all of these measures? And does this particular measure really violate people's privacy at all?
Can't anyone see that the president is forced to carry on these operations with only limited (not full) congressional disclosure? This is especially necessary because of the democratic bloc in the full congress's infamous propensity towards LEAKING TO THE PRESS!!! to try to make the president look bad. But such leaks only end up serving to unnecessarily and foolishly expose our wonderfully effective secret programs for the enemy to see so that they can further hurt us, duuuuhh!!
Come on liberals, give it a rest! Wait for something truly sinister to occur before becoming so inflamed with such blustery, righteous indignation against this good hard working honest president, puh-lease!
By the way, history will end up treating GWB as one of our great, far sighted, strong presidents and this period's democrats as a pack of desperate politicians (in the worse sense of that word) without any real program except to be an obstacle to the good goals of their opposition.
When we finally get to the point of dealing with IRAN isn't it nice that Saddam's regime is not in the way? Wasn't getting rid of him a far-sighted sighted move on GWB's part? Hello!!!
jim hanson | 05.14.06 09:48 PM
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Wait for something truly sinister to occur! The sinister has arrived!! Sinister is described as something that is stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable! Look around in this country alot of scheming minacious and potentially harmful people are entering our country, poisoning our "systems" from within. People talk about wars and we have rumors of wars and the most devastatated is not the wars but by the invasion of illegal aliens. Wake up! Our aggressive anti-terrorist campaign should be focused on the illegals entering our country.
Judy | 05.22.07 08:10 PM
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