| I'm not exactly sure what
Tom Daschle was trying to get across in his recent Washington Post
editorial (Power We Didn't
GrantFriday, December 23, 2005). Essentially he did nothing more than portray
the Democratic party to be even more dysfunctional than already thought.
While at the same time do the very thing most Democrats are trying to
avoid like a plaque on a warm August afternoon. Be portrayed as
soft on National security. No matter how the New York Times dresssed it,
it was blatantly obvious that there "Spying" story was printed as a way to
prevent the President and our soldiers from taking a victory lap. The
bombshell as it were was rather more of a firecracker with a short fuse.
Bush's poll number continue to climb and are now at 50%. Anyway, I am wondering if Tom Daschle has been living in a shed somwhere west of Nepal because the day after this story broke Nanzi Pelosi, and Harry Ried admitted being briefed and for signing off on it. It being the congessional vote. So here is the problem.Tom Daschle in his article said this: "As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel's office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up". So Reid and Pelosi signed off an something that never came up? What about Rockafeller? He apparently wrote a letter to Cheney expressing his concern over Warrantless wiretaps that even though the subject was never, according to Daschle brought up on the Senate floor. What makes this so un beleivable is Daschle claims this after other Democratic Senators admmitted having knowledge and involvement. " I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance".He is essentially calling Pelosi and Ried liars. This cannot be sitting well with the already embattled Democrats. Now as far as being soft on national security...Apparently Daschle didn't learn from John Kerry's not so stellar presidential campaign. This quote confuses me;"Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda." . Now the Time article states that the wiretapping that has taken place since the program started has been limited to Americans talking, via phone to suspected terrorists abroad. What exactly is Daschle trying to distance himself from? He just doesn't get it. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused." Democrats must be wincing after that statement. I guess Daschle was not aware that the Terrorists who attacked us were living within the US. They had drivers lisences and cell phones. how can we catch them in the US if we cannot track them? He just doesn't get it. What he is sugesting is that The president used the terrible events of 9/11 to attempt to sneak in provisions that would allow him to spy on innocent Americans. Pretty sick stuff from a pretty sick individual. One of the reasons he is an ex-Senator. The very rights that Daschle claims to have refused the president has kept us safe for five years. And judging by the latest poll numbers the American people know this. -BERT |