George Bush: Master Spy

[barb162]

http://villagevoice.com/news/0602,hentoff,71587,6.html

George Bush: Master Spy
Unilateral president exposed in his ignorance of Constitution he's sworn to protect

by Nat Hentoff
January 6th, 2006 4:53 PM

"The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws. Thomas G. Donlan , "Unwarranted Executive Power," Barron's, page 1, December 26

William Kristol, usually a reasonable conservative—staunchly defending the president's authorization of the National Security Agency's warrantless spying on telephone calls and e-mails into and out of the United States—declared in the January 2 Weekly Standard, of which he is the editor:

"Was the president to ignore the obvious incapacity of any court to judge surveillance decisions involving the sweeping of massive numbers of cell phone and e-mails by high-speed computers . . . the threat of imminent new attacks?"

Kristol ignored the fact—as the president continually has—that the law creating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court permits the NSA to conduct its massive searches without first going to the FISA court in an emergency. The NSA then has 72 hours to go to the secret FISA court and get the warrant. Moreover, as John Riley reported in the best single analysis of this action by the master-spy president ( Newsday, "Eavesdropping Tests Legal Limits," December 26), "Even longer periods are permitted in wartime."
snip

[MADem]

1. Kristol is clearly TOTALLY bought and paid for

He's not just dancing around the margins, grabbing large crumbs from the tablecloth. He's seated at the table, and getting a fine meal...how else could he justify such crap? This actually IS a conservative issue--don't tread on me, home is castle, and so forth...

[barb162]

2. Yyeah, Kristol is bad news

Only once did I ever see him disagree with Bush policy and it was a few months back on the Plame matter.

[flordehinojos]

5. isn't he one of the signatories to the PEOPLE FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

I think i read somewhere that he is one of those original PEOPLE FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY.
though, i can't recall just where i may have read it.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Not exactly ...

"Bought and paid for" suggests others give him marching orders. Quite the contrary. William is the son of Irving, the so-called "godfather" of neoconservatism, and one of the chief intellectual designers behind much of what is taking place today. William, like his father before him, "advises" those in power on what they should do, and they listen to him.

[Mind_your_head]

3. There is NO LEGITIMATE reason for the president

NOT to go through the FISA court. Yet, he doesn't do it and hasn't even tried. Reason therefore dictates, that the ONLY reason he doesn't go through the courts, is that he is doing something ILLEGITIMATE!

[punpirate]

4. Hentoff is getting a bit old and letting his...

... libertarian tendencies get the better of him. Kristol is not a "usually reasonable conservative." He's been in the background of every goofy conservative Christian goal in the last two decades (a whole helluva lot of people forget, perhaps including Hentoff, that William Kristol was Dan Quayle's chief of staff...).

Kristol's also going to be found to be one of Abramoff's principal money launderers (skimming off the top while moving money to Ralph Reed).