Dec 18 2005

The Imploding Democrats

Published by at 11:18 am under All General Discussions,FISA-NSA,Iraq

Harry Reid’s performance on Fox News Sunday is a classic example of the death throws of the Democrat Party in the US. He had to deal with three subjects and he looked so bad on all three I almost (emphasis on almost) felt sorry for him. He had to follow Condi Rice and the comparison in positions and style were stunning.

Surveillance of Terrorists: The left and near left (since George Will was opining on the side of three democrats on ABC’s Sunday morning show) have decided that while they hate the terrorists, there is still a constitution in the US. This was Reid’s idiotic talking points he was trying to defend. He claimed he hated the evil terrorists, but domestic spying is not to be tolerated.

This is a very strange concept if you think about it and recall how the Able Danger purge in early 2000 possibly led to the loss of tracking on Atta and company when they were making their final plans in Malaysia and heading to the US. What Reid and the left is saying is if known or high probability Al Qaeda terrorist is contacting someone in the US we must ignore the US contact to protect our constitution, even if it leads to another 9-11.

Well, let me speak for myself on this. If a terrorist is contacting me and is possibly getting information or insight to make another attack without me knowing what is happening, the feds have permission to do what it takes to catch the terrorists, including reviewing my communications with them. If I was a hotel operator and I was getting a reservation from a terrorist, and answering questions on local events and sites believing I am assisting a tourist, then I would also allow the feds to review the conversations if they knew this person was tied to Al Qaeda. One reason is I have nothing to hide. The second is I don’t want another 9-11. So if my sacrifice to the war effort is the possibility I might be surveyed when a terrorist makes contact with me, I am can deal with that.

Back to Reid. All this logic went over his head. What he was saying is this was the President’s program and there was no passing the buck simply because Senators had been briefed. As far as I can see the President is not passing the buck anywhere and is doggedly standing by these life savings actions.

Chris Wallace asked Reid multiple times whether he had been briefed, and Reid’s dodges looked criminal as he kept repeating Bob Graham’s wild charges and talking about buck passing. The 3rd time he was challenged he had to admit he had been briefed at least once. It was a tragic effort on his part. He was seen as hiding his own responsibility while saying the war on terror could never extend to AQ agents and contacts here in the US.

How dumb are these national democrats? When did we agree to stop defending the homeland? When did it become the liberal policy to defend Al Qaeda agents once they reach our shores and now are in our midst – within reach of their bloody plans? What kind of risk does it take? If the FISA process cannot deal with all these situations in a timely manner, maybe Reid and his cohorts should find a process to codify Bush’s process.

Bill Clinton proposed monitoring all the internet traffic in the US in his second term, and that did not raise serious objections from his party. But now Bush’s program for monitoring communications between probable terrorists outside this country with people here in the US is now some kind of constitutional emergency? Gimme a break.

The Patriot Act was next and Reid tool pride in dismantling it. He wanted to know why it could not be extended for 3 months while the democrats try and make their case? The obvious response is why did they not make their case before now? It will pass if sent to the floor. The democrats want another mulligan on national security. This is insane. After years and years of Chicken Little screaming from the left we have seen no evidence of any misuses of its provisions. Provisions that have been long established when dealing with organized crime and drug dealers! But we have seen the effects of the Patriot Act on our safety.

Again, what do the Democrats think they are winning here? We can point to a host of foiled attacks and say these could have easily succeeded without a Patriot Act in place. The left screams due process, which is important. But it was foolish and useless due process which allowed the first 9-11 to slip through. And the left cannot wait to return to those times without a single, cogent reason as to why we need to.

Reid’s final flub came on Iraq. His comment was so bad it was embarrassing. When asked if the recent vote was not a clear indication of success, Reid said the last election was thought to be a success and 700 American soldiers had died since that election. It was terrible. Not only because a lot more than 700 Americans have died since the last election – just look at the annual deaths from the flu.

I must get on with the Holiday activities, so I will leave it to Mark Steyn to point out why the democrats are looking bad on Iraq as well.

The Democratic Party have contrived to get themselves into a situation where bad news from Iraq is good for them and good news from Iraq is bad for them. And as there’s a lot more good news than bad these days, that puts them, politically, in a tough spot — even with a fawning media that, faced with Kerry and Murtha talking what in any objective sense is drivel, decline to call for the men with white coats but instead nod solemnly and wonder whether Bush is living “in a bubble.”

History was made and the march to peace has taken huge steps forward in a region that has not experienced democracy. And this is now bad for democrats!

More on the end of the left can be found with Dr Sanity, Michelle Malkin, Alexander McClure at Polipundit and Stop The ACLU.

UPDATE:

Adding this link to the lead story from Memeorandum.

6 responses so far

6 Responses to “The Imploding Democrats”

  1. Larwyn says:

    GIVE BACK ALL THE HOMELAND SECURITY $$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!

    TO: DEMS & RINOS AGAINST THE PATRIOT ACT AND
    MONITORING COMMUNICATIONS BY THE NSA:

    PUT YOU $$$$$ WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!

    If you do not think that the risk to the United States of America
    is not so great that we need to extend the Patriot Act then you
    have taken U S TAXPAYER $$$$$ under fraudulent circumstances.

    RETURN THEM NOW!

    Not one cent of any additional HOMELAND SECURITY funds will
    be appropriated to your states.

    This includes the RINO’S states of Senators Hagel, Craig, Murkowski
    and Sununu.

    Sorry, ties in this case (1 senator for 1 against) still result in the
    immediate return of HOMELAND SERCURITY $$$$ and not one
    cent more to any of you! We won’t fall for that ploy.

    WHY WOULD YOU NEED IT – YOUR SENATOR DOES NOT THINK YOU
    ARE AT RISK?

  2. Snapple says:

    The article you linked by Mark Steyn is great. The last line says, “Wait till the WMD turn up.”

    Here is an article that says that Saddam’s WMD may have been stashed in Syria.

    http://www.nysun.com/article/24480

    SNIPS

    “Saddam Hussein moved his chemical weapons to Syria six weeks before the war started, Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom says.

    The assertion comes as President Bush said yesterday that much of the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was incorrect.

    The Israeli officer, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, asserted that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. “He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria,” General Yaalon told The New York Sun over dinner in New York on Tuesday night. “No one went to Syria to find it.”

    From July 2002 to June 2005, when he retired, General Yaalon was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, the top job in the Israeli military, analogous to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the American military. He is now a military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He made similar, but more speculative, remarks in April 2004 that attracted little notice in America; at that time he was quoted as saying of the Iraqi weapons, “Perhaps they transferred them to another country, such as Syria.”

    An official at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, Entifadh Qanbar, said he believed the Israeli general’s account, but that the Iraqi government is “basically operating in the dark” because it does not have its own intelligence agency.

    An Iraqi politician, Mithal Al-Alusi, whose sons were both assassinated in Iraq last year, told The New York Sun’s Eli Lake last month that his party would press the Iraqi government to renew the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Al-Alusi said he believes Saddam clearly had the weapons before the invasion. “They will find the weapons, I am sure they will,” Mr. Al-Alusi said.

    When, during an interview with the Sun in April, Vice President Cheney was asked whether he thought that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria, Mr. Cheney replied only that he had seen such reports.

    An article in the Fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an appearance on Israel’s Channel 2 on December 23, 2002, Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon stated, “Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria.” The allegation was denied by the Syrian government at the time as “completely untrue,” and it attracted scant American press attention, coming as it did on the eve of the Christmas holiday.

    The Syrian ruling party and Saddam Hussein had in common the ideology of Baathism, a mixture of Nazism and Marxism.

  3. I think the moment when Reid admitted he had been briefed on the NSA program “some months ago” was the moment when that story died. Good for Wallace for following up.

  4. MerryJ1 says:

    Of course they were briefed on it. They were briefed on all of the stories that have been leaked. Sometimes, apparently, just minutes before they were leaked.

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