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amulI've been spending most of the day reading up on the wiretapping thing. As near as I can tell, and this is after about five solid hours of reading news articles and interviews, the argument goes something like this:
The Law: You cannot wiretap a US citizen without a written court order.
Nixon: Well, that's only for the FBI. I hereby empower a new branch of government to do the exact same thing as the old branches, but without all those messy legal complications.
The Law: Nice try, but you still can't tap a citizen's phone without an expressly written warrant stating who, why, when, and for how long.
Reagan: Well, what if I try to buy you off?
The Law: Then I'm just going to have to nominate a subcommittee to watch both of us and make sure we don't become corrupt.
Clinton: But it'd be really nice if we could.
The Law: See, there's this little thing called "due process." We kind of founded an entire country based on the fact that we didn't have it before.
George W: Fuck that noise. I'm just going to write a law that says I can.
The Law: You can't do that. You're not the Legislative Branch.
George W: ....and then I'm going to create another FBI-like group to watch over the FBI and the NSA and do all the things that my shiny new law lets them do.
The Law: No, you don't understand. You can't do that. That's an impeachable offense. It says so, right here.
George W: Nonsense, you get impeached for blowjobs, not crimes against the country. Hey, guys, look! I made a law!
Telecoms: Ooooooh. Pretty.
Pardon me if that version seems a little biased to you.
The Law: You cannot wiretap a US citizen without a written court order.
Nixon: Well, that's only for the FBI. I hereby empower a new branch of government to do the exact same thing as the old branches, but without all those messy legal complications.
The Law: Nice try, but you still can't tap a citizen's phone without an expressly written warrant stating who, why, when, and for how long.
Reagan: Well, what if I try to buy you off?
The Law: Then I'm just going to have to nominate a subcommittee to watch both of us and make sure we don't become corrupt.
Clinton: But it'd be really nice if we could.
The Law: See, there's this little thing called "due process." We kind of founded an entire country based on the fact that we didn't have it before.
George W: Fuck that noise. I'm just going to write a law that says I can.
The Law: You can't do that. You're not the Legislative Branch.
George W: ....and then I'm going to create another FBI-like group to watch over the FBI and the NSA and do all the things that my shiny new law lets them do.
The Law: No, you don't understand. You can't do that. That's an impeachable offense. It says so, right here.
George W: Nonsense, you get impeached for blowjobs, not crimes against the country. Hey, guys, look! I made a law!
Telecoms: Ooooooh. Pretty.
Pardon me if that version seems a little biased to you.
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no subject
Date: 8 Feb 2006 04:04 (UTC)False. It's been confirmed that Iraqi WMD's were moved to Syria before the invasion.
fucking up severely (Katrina),
False. He offered aid several days prior to the hurricane's impact and was flat-out refused by Governor Blanco.
and breaking the law (domestic spying).
Currently under investigation, the facts are not yet clear. It appears that you may have this one but it's not time to call yet.
The fact that nothing is likely to happen to Bush speaks volumes about what a charade the two-party system is. And people wonder why I don't vote.
Well, it certainly is a charade. We have the Party of Stupid Idiots and the Party of Stupid Jerks.
When it comes down to a world in which people are trying to kill us, I'd rather have the Party of Stupidly Killing All The People Who Are Trying To Kill Us rather than the Party of Stupidly Trying To Figure Out Why They Want To Kill Us So We Can Give Them What They Want (It's to KILL US, moron).