President Bush clearly isn't used to people disagreeing with him. The White House is filled with sycophants and yes-men. Speeches are made in front of handpicked audiences from whom any dissidents have been carefully weeded out. Too much of the Washington press corps is so scared of losing their all-important "access" that they don't dare say out loud what is obvious to everyone, that the emperor has no clothes.
Which is why he is having such a hard time with the House's refusal to pass the Protect America Act, the bill which would let the White House and telecom companies off the hook for illegal spying. In his press conference this morning, the Decider was in high dudgeon and larding up the fear: "I guess you could be relaxed about all this if you didn't think there was a true threat to the country. I know there's a threat to the country." And once again lying about how FISA is still very much in effect, he said that "the American people expect our Congress to give the professionals the tools they need to listen to foreigners who may be calling in to the United States with information that could cause us great harm."
He hit all the usual buttons - 9/11, terrorism, al Qaeda, etc - in trying to browbeat the nation into going along with his fear-and-loathing program. (Anyone playing Buzzword Bingo would have won the game within seconds.) For the most part, the White House press corps let him get away with it - with one exception.
CBS' Bill Plante clearly hadn't read the memo and asked dryly, "You can get the Congress to protect telecom companies from lawsuits, but then there's no recourse for Americans who feel that they've been caught up in this. I know it's not intended to spy on Americans, but in the collection process, information about everybody gets swept up and then it gets sorted. So if Americans don't have any recourse, are you just telling them, when it comes to their privacy, to suck it up?"
Bush's response was to smirk, chuckle, and say, "I wouldn't put it that way, if I were you, in public."
In other words, yes - we should suck it up and stop whining about all this namby-pamby freedom we're losing.
So he really thinks we should just grin and bear it? Ignore the government's wholesale snooping on our private communications and take one for the team? Toss aside just on his say-so the freedom for which we've fought for centuries? If we find ourselves in a Kafkaesque nightmare because the government spied on us with no warrant and no cause - well, that's just too bad?
No, I don't think so. Benjamin Franklin was entirely right when he said that, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
if we willingly give up our freedom in the face of demagoguery, we may never get it back.
Which is why he is having such a hard time with the House's refusal to pass the Protect America Act, the bill which would let the White House and telecom companies off the hook for illegal spying. In his press conference this morning, the Decider was in high dudgeon and larding up the fear: "I guess you could be relaxed about all this if you didn't think there was a true threat to the country. I know there's a threat to the country." And once again lying about how FISA is still very much in effect, he said that "the American people expect our Congress to give the professionals the tools they need to listen to foreigners who may be calling in to the United States with information that could cause us great harm."
He hit all the usual buttons - 9/11, terrorism, al Qaeda, etc - in trying to browbeat the nation into going along with his fear-and-loathing program. (Anyone playing Buzzword Bingo would have won the game within seconds.) For the most part, the White House press corps let him get away with it - with one exception.
CBS' Bill Plante clearly hadn't read the memo and asked dryly, "You can get the Congress to protect telecom companies from lawsuits, but then there's no recourse for Americans who feel that they've been caught up in this. I know it's not intended to spy on Americans, but in the collection process, information about everybody gets swept up and then it gets sorted. So if Americans don't have any recourse, are you just telling them, when it comes to their privacy, to suck it up?"
Bush's response was to smirk, chuckle, and say, "I wouldn't put it that way, if I were you, in public."
In other words, yes - we should suck it up and stop whining about all this namby-pamby freedom we're losing.
So he really thinks we should just grin and bear it? Ignore the government's wholesale snooping on our private communications and take one for the team? Toss aside just on his say-so the freedom for which we've fought for centuries? If we find ourselves in a Kafkaesque nightmare because the government spied on us with no warrant and no cause - well, that's just too bad?
No, I don't think so. Benjamin Franklin was entirely right when he said that, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
if we willingly give up our freedom in the face of demagoguery, we may never get it back.
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