Friday, February 17, 2006
Independent Branch?
Cowardice.
This is what we have from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rank, stinking, traitorous cowardice.
Yesterday the Senate Intelligence Committee deflected Sen. Rockefeller’s attempt to even start an investigation along the usual party-line vote, with senators Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel caving into White House pressure.
Gone are the calls for an investigation. Now, instead, the Senate Intelligence Committee will be “briefed” on the nature of the program.
Please. You need to subpoena documents and put witnesses under oath, not be “briefed” by the most deceptive administration ever to occupy the White House. This is absurd.
As if, offensive as it is, this NSA program isn’t transparently illegal, the Senate isn’t even going to look into the possibility that it might be illegal.
Adding insult to injury, we have Pat Roberts reminding us that “The details of this agreement will take some time to work out.”
In the immortal words of Macenroe, you have got to be kidding me. Was Roberts smiling nastily when he said those words? Pat Roberts is asking for more time?
Start the carnival music now. This has passed into surreality.
In other news, the House Intelligence Committee will conduct a review of the program in closed hearings over the next few months. Of course, what kind of accountability will there be when a republican gang member is chairing the investigation behind closed doors?
The only truly good news is that a federal judge ruled recently that the administration must turn over its NSA program-related documents within 20 days—or explain why not. I see a loooong game of stalling ahead of us here. No administration has been as secretive as this one, as Senator Byrd said recently, and as John Dean has written about recently. This White House wouldn’t even release its energy policy sources, for God’s sake.
Chairhack of the Partisan Apologetics Committee Roberts also is in on the Hagel “fix the law around the actions of the president” policy writing workshop.
As an aside, we got robbed. American Evan Lysacek ripped off the best long program I have ever seen in men’s figure skating and was still surpassed by a Russian jumping android and a Swiss and a Canadian who both skated on their asses for a time in their long program. Me no understan skating scoring.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 5:06 PM 
