Wednesday, February 22, 2006
NSA scandal and Portgate - a perfect match
When this port controversy erupted yesterday, I thought that it might be prudent to wait a few days before activating the focused, state-based campaign designed to influence the NSA investigations which Jane Hamsher and I described a couple of days ago. I originally thought that with the media attention focused for the time being on the Administration's growing port problem and seemingly intractable dispute with Congressional Republicans, it might be difficult to induce people to pay attention to the NSA scandal until the port dispute settled down a little.
But after thinking about it more and talking further with those who have begun to participate in our project, I actually think the reverse is true -- that the serious split between the Administration and their formerly compliant Congressional allies is, for many reasons, the perfect framework in which to press for real Congressional investigations into the NSA scandal. Both the Congress-White House wedge which has arisen, as well as the distrust of the White House which the port controversy is generating, lay the perfect groundwork for agitating for Congressional investigations.
The principal argument which has been invoked by the President's apologists for suppressing investigations -- namely, that we should trust the Administration and that Congress has no business investigating the President's decisions concerning the "war on terror"- is entirely obviated by the port controversy. It will ring intuitively false for any Republican Senator to claim that Congress has no role to play, or that the Administration should be trusted with no oversight, when it comes to making decisions about how to defend the nation.
After all, the spectacle playing out in front of everyone's eyes is precisely the opposite -- namely, Congressional Republicans are insisting that they need to intervene in the decision-making process of who will control our ports precisely because the Administration has exercised such poor judgment and cannot be trusted to operate without Congressional oversight. In many ways, this conflict between Congressional Republicans and the Administration is the perfectly constructed antidote for the noxious excuse we've been hearing (from Pat Roberts, among others) that Congress should not bother the White House about any decisions which the President makes relating to defense of the country.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/nsa-scandal-and-portgate-perfect-match.html
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