Oh, Snap!

Glenn Greenwald has the goods on the Specter bill. Harry Reid said on a conference call that - if it makes it to the floor - it will be fillibustered hard and rode home wet.

If you have the time you can read the bill (pdf) here. I've spend some time punching through it trying to see if the clearly unconstitutional retro-active application of the changes to FISA was still included but one passage from "findings" section where Specter is outlining the necessity of the bill really struck me. He is using the failure to nail Zacarias Moussaoui by the FBI as proof that the FISA law is to restrictive as stands.

"For days before September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspected that confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a commercial plane. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, could not meet the requirements to obtain a traditional warrant or an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to search his laptop computer (Report of the 9/11 Commission 273-76)" (emphasis mine)

Specter sure makes it sound like the FISA court denied the FBI's request for a warrant, doesn't he? If one took the bill at face value and assumed the 9/11 Commission Report said exactly what they said then one would certainly be left with that impression.

I didn't. I read through the pages of the report covering Moussaoui and found this-

This set off a spirtited debate between the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters and the CIA as to whether the Chechen rebels and Khattab were sufficiently associated with terrorist a organization to constitute a "foreign power" for the purposes of the FISA statute. FBI headquarters did not believe this was good enough, and its National Security Law Unit declined to submit a FISA application."

Say it ain't so. Arlen "magic bullet" Specter isn't shooting straight in his FISA reform bill?

Next thing you'll tell me Brittany Spears is a bad parent or Colin Farrell has an anger management problem.

Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

From Matt at the The Great Society who takes up Glenn Greenwald's recent charge-

What I find incredibly mind-boggling, is that right-wing bloggers introduce very little to political debate and yet they are met with praise and television time. If anything, they are partly responsible for the devolution of political discourse to its current state of frothing accusations of “treason” and “anti-Americanism.” They fling ridiculous charges of a “War on Christmas.” They falsely accuse Democrats of conjuring up a phony memo attributed to Republicans during the Terri Schiavo fiasco. A claim that was completely without merit and one that was pushed even after a Republican aide confessed to writing it. Charges that a major American newspaper, the New York Times, is actively working in collusion with terrorists — even plotting to have U.S. leaders assassinated. Yet no one in the corporate media will call them out on their steaming pile.

I don't see what's so confusing. The right-wing bloggers are only threatening the physical safety of mainstream journalists. The left-wing bloggers are threatening their self-image by expecting them to do a better job. It goes without saying as to what is the bigger threat in their eyes.

I am so smart. I am so smart, s-m-r-t... I mean s-m-A-r-t.

Once in a while it's not such a bad idea to venture over to the other side of the blogsphere and take a look at what "Right Thinking" Americans are up to. Or, as in the case of the above linked site, Jawas. Extremely conservative Jawas. But short, lizardlike Jawas.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford (in the made-up name department I outrank him as a Dean of a fake school) has a real problem with American Research Poll showing that a plurality (46%) of Americans supporting censure of President Bush and with Glenn Greenwald for citing it. Shackleford proceeds to meticulously and logically dismantle both the polling organization ARG but put Greenwald to shame in the process.

Just kidding.

Shackleford writes-

I don't know anything about The American Research Group or about Dick Bennett, who runs the New Hampshire polling firm, but the numbers seem very odd to me.

Either explain why the pollsters are biased or why their methodology is wrong or shut up. Don't allude...

Either these numbers are WAY OFF, or every single Senate Democrat (with the exception of Russ Feingold) has lost their sense of the direction as to which way the political wind is blowing.

Ya think? Try actually having to be a constituent of these clowns. They have all the political acumen of a baked potato and they absolutely LOATHE their base.

I don't find it hard to believe that 70% of Democrats would want Bush censured, but 29% of Republicans? Unless, of course, Andy Sullivan is still calling himself a Republican, I just don't buy it.

I'm right there with you. Hard to believe there are still 29% of Republicans that still BELIEVE in the constitution after what we've witnessed these last few years.

The same poll claims that 47% of independents want the President impeached. So, more independents want the President of the United States impeached than censured? What the hell kind of logic is that?

I dunno. The kind of logic that assumes that if the President broke the law he ought to get more than a slap on the wrist?

The Left, as expected, are soiling their panties over this one. They smell blood in the water and are pouncing. What is so interesting about the Left, which usually prides itself in its epistemelogical relativism, is how they claim to know reality as it really is. Glenn Greenwald makes the assertion that what the wiretapping program is breaking the law, as if that were an objective fact, and then advises: Go forth and censure.

Greenwald doesn't just "make the assertion" that the wiretapping is illegal. Greenwald has written pages and pages on his blog explaining why the wiretapping program doesn't even begin to pass legal and constitutional muster. He's a 1st Amendment lawyer as well so he knows what the hell he's talking about. He didn't just pull it out of his ass, Jawa-boy.

But really what leaps off the turnbuckle and and drives Shackleford into the mat is the very actions of Republican Senators themselves. Today Senator DeWine introduced a bill explicity making the warrantless wiretapping legal. The tacit admission, the 500 pound gorilla in the room, is that this means it's not legal now for the administration to bypass FISA and spy on Americans. But we all knew that already.

At least those of us that don't spend the majority of our time in a sandcrawler hunting droids.

Sweep the leg.

Glenn Greenwald caught Bill Frist (aka the Amazing Karnak) threatening to break the rules if he doesn't get his way with the Senate Intelligence Committee. On Friday Karnack informed Harry Reid that any attempt to investigate the NSA spying scandal will force him to reorganize the 30 year old committee shifting the balance of power towards Republicans and away from any possiblity of hearings. Please read all of Greenwald's piece. It's another one of those "I thought I'd reached the limit of my outrage but then this came along" things.

Greenwald quotes part of Karnack's letter to Reid:

I am increasingly concerned that the Senate Intelligence Committee is unable to carry out its critically important oversight and threat assessment responsibilities due to stifling partisanship that is exhibited by repeated calls by Democrats on the Committee to conduct politically-motivated investigations. . . .

I'm intrigued by the politics of this, however, and what I think it signifies. From a purely strategic standpoint it seems to me that the hearings were not much of an immediate threat to the Republican party. Such hearings by their very nature would most certainly be held almost entirely in closed session and remain classified. Likewise any findings of the committee would take years to see the light of day. I think the possibility that we'd see a report on findings before the looming mid-term election, much less the next presidential election, to be pretty darn small.

So why is Karnack feeling so threatened? Are his amazing powers of prognostication making his Spidey Sense tingle? Does he see what the results of the hearings could mean to Republicans five years down the line? Is Terri Schiavo alive and pole-dancing at a strip club called "Big Daddys?"

Not bloody likely.

The adminstration is scared. They aren't scared of the results of the hearings since, as I've already mentioned, they do little to affect their own political fortunes. They are scared of the hearings themselves. They're scared that the mere fact that the hearings were taking place by itself would highlight that the adminstration had done something untoward.

That's why they've pushed Karnack into a position where he has to cheat on their behalf. Just picture the heated conversation on the sideline:

ROVE: "Sweep the leg."

Karnack looks incredulous.

ROVE: "You have a problem with that?"

KARNACK: "No, Sensei."

All that's left if for Harry Reid to employ the Crane Technique that is closing Senate business until the committee, as it's currently comprised, votes on hearings. Judging by the Democrats complete lack of cajones this election year I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.