The White House seems to be using the “executive powers” line to justify just about everything these days. Now in the investigation into the Hurricane Katrina response, the Bush administration is refusing to turn over a number of documents or make White House officials available for sworn testimony. The reason: confidentiality of executive branch communications. That’s the same line Bush officials are using to deny reporters information about the Jack Abramoff meetings and the one used to deny information about the Cheney energy policy meetings. Is “protecting confidentiality” code for “protecting our own hide”?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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30 Comments
“Badges?!? We don’t need no steenkin’ baaaadges!”
“We’re on a mission from GOD!”
Dear Melissa,
I am amazed, reducing Article 2 of the Constituion to “The execcutive excuse”. It would be one thing if the journalists were looking for truth, but all they do anymore is play gotcha politics.
If you ‘want to make a difference’ in politics, for God’s sake run for office. Otherwise, try just reporting the facts.
I watched the President’s news conference yesterday and the White House reporters are just disgusting. They come in with preconcieved notions and ask leading questions and are never satisfied with the answers.
Pathetic.
Hank
Hank,If the president didnt’ have anything to hide why would it even matter about gotcha politics.
If they received actual answers instead of skirting around the questions then they would be satisfied.
We now see how the energy task force is affecting our energy prices in the US.. Why shouldn’t we know who was at the meetings, what was discussed?
The executive excuse is getting threadbare. Couple that with the lame excuse that george is now king and doesn’t have to follow the constitution or the laws of the country and we’ve got serious trouble.
C’mon all you faithful, open up your eyes and think for yourself again.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting you fell for a con, .. the shame is letting it go on and on.
Sum1,Ya gotta feel for Hank. Being an apologist for the Bush administration is hard work and more than a full time job.
The government documents are locked up with his other SECRET documents from his satanic :Skull and Bones” transactions. Just take some cocaine as he has done and the stupid world will make a lot more sense! Welcome to the new World order! The bible tells us who is in charge of “Powers and Principalities”. Also, in the end days we are told of the GREAT deciever. We have a new scandle every week and the truth is slowly unfolding.
It has nothing to with hiding anything.
The President is not going to throw away the precident of executive privledge just to appease you bunch of whiney liberals.
Ooooh, Nathan the manly bad-ass puts us secrecy-hating liberals in our place!
Tell me, Nathan: who is it who’s pleading with Big Daddy Jesus Bush to please, please, PLEASE save us from the terrorists?!?
Ain’t me. Ain’t liberals. It’s bedwetting conservatives like you. Anyone willing to surrender his freedoms to somebody else is a coward. That would be you, Nathan. Quite consistent with someone like you who is a shilling hack for a President who’s trying to a king.
The rule of law: it’s so, like, for wussies and stuff.
CF,
I am having trouble finding what your point was with that post.
Just put on a sign that says:”I am very dense, please speak slowly”
I don’t mean to defend the traitor Bush but why were you liberals so silent when the traitor Clinton routinely hid behind “executive privilige”. If you leftists wish to be taken seriously you should try to be consistent.
President Clinton has fortified the perception of guilt by repeatedly stonewalling, delaying, and obstructing legitimate congressional investigations of alleged wrongdoing. He has made the broadest claims of executive privilege and attorney-client privilege in our nation’s history, surpassing even President Nixon, who fought his executive privilege claim all the way to the Supreme Court — and lost. By contrast, President Jimmy Carter waived all privileges when his brother Billy was under investigation. Likewise, President Reagan waived all executive privilege and attorney-client privilege claims during the Iran-Contra investigation, even providing his personal notes and diary entries to Congress.
The appearance of a full-scale cover-up has been materially aided by the fact that Attorney General Janet Reno repeatedly has refused reasonable requests from Congress to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the many serious charges of bribery and illegal campaign financing brought against the President, Vice President, and other members of the Clinton Administration. Even worse, she has impeded congressional investigations by opposing their proposals of immunity for key witnesses and by defying court orders demanding the release of documents. Her belated moves to reconsider appointing a special prosecutor came only when Congress threatened her with impeachment and after even much of the Clinton-friendly press began questioning her integrity in the matter.
It is evident from sources publicly available that a compelling case for impeaching President Clinton can be made on grounds such as abuse of public trust, negligence, perfidy, personal misconduct, usurpation, and other areas of concern mentioned by our Founding Fathers under the “high crimes and misdemeanors” rubric. However, the Nixon impeachment was not only enthusiastically supported by the major press, but was a media-driven event. And, as already noted, we have no such sympathy among the pooh-bahs of punditry today for any similar effort against the Clinton regime. While acknowledging that Team Clinton’s fundraising activities, for instance, were “tawdry,” “sloppy,” “sleazy,” “reckless,” “obscene,” “appalling,” and “outrageous,” the mediacrats insist, in the main, that these activities were not technically illegal. Newsweek’s Meg Greenfield writes, “They knew what they were doing was wrong — excessive, demeaning, grubby, greedy, and bad for the country,” but “the remedy for this is not … a criminal legal threat but a sense of proportion, decency and restraint.”
With the “watchdogs” of the media cartel thus virtually AWOL on the Clinton front, Democrats in Congress have been able to get away with claiming that every charge brought against the President and Vice President by congressional Republicans is purely partisan in nature. Besides, they contend, the alleged misdeeds were not illegal. But bribery is illegal and is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Certainly there is more than sufficient evidence to mandate that impeachment proceedings be initiated to investigate the numerous, credible charges of bribery, illegal fundraising, and influence peddling committed by President Clinton and his Administration.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no23/vo13no23_impeachment.htm
Bush can claim executive privledge all he wants, but the American people see it differently by a huge margin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012700335.html
This is what I like to call the self-perpetuated media cycle of propaganda.
The media does nothing but report insinuations and attacks demanding the President release things for their fishing expedition.
Then the media polls the public on their opinion.
Probably 90% of those polled couldn’t even tell you where the precedent for executive privilege comes from or if it even exists let alone what it is or means.
Nathan,I guess if you have poll numbers like these according to USA Today, the only feasible defense is to claim the people don’t know what they’re talking about.
Brilliant, I wonder if your boy Bush will pick up on the brainy strategy.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-26-bush-sotu-cover_x.htm
If this was the Clinton presidency you right wing nut jobs would have an opinion that is 180 degrees around. You would be crying and complaining that the government is too secretive and should be open for the public to see. But since baby bush is in then we NEED to keep the lid on everything. There are big bad nasty terrorist lurking around every corner. If they find out which hand george wipes with it could spell doom for millions. You right wing fruits are a joke.
The media is ‘attacking’ dubya because he is a dishonest and crooked president. Everything he does gets classified because he doesn’t want the public to know how much he is screwing up. Executive privilege was intended to hide secrets from our enemies, not to hide incompetence or criminal acts.
A funny thing. The administration wants to see little people’s emails and google searches. Why shouldn’t “We the People” be able to see or hear the meetings between lobbyists and the representatives, or oilmen who meet with Dick Cheney to discuss energy policy that affects “We the People”?
Does anybody out there object to SYMMETRY? You look at mine, I look at yours? Consider a hypothetical example. Iraq has an estimaed 100 billion barrels of oil. In a few years, this will be worth 10,000 billion dollars. Suppose 100 people were enabled to capture this asset and share among themselves a mere 10% of this value. How easy is it to go after some crackpot dictator and capure this asset?
What do they have to hide about Hurricane Katrina? Does anybody find this totally unecessary that they are using executive privelige? We already know we were highly inefficient during this disaster.
Or did they really have some evil racist agenda they were pulling off?
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.” – Julius Caesar
Executive privilege? Bullshit! He wants to get his jollies listening to our phone calls and reading our mail; ain’t turnabout fair play?
I’m gonna suspend my ignoring Nathanhank to ask him/them a question.
Why not just skip all the nasty details and make bush KING? That seems to what you are promoting.
I don’t include all Republicans or Conservatives in my question. Plenty of them are just as worried as I am. Bob Barr…..no liberal introduced Al Gore for his recent speech asking questions of the president. Christoher Hitchens……also no liberal is asking questions as well.
So what say you bushies? How far is enough? bush himself said it would be easier for him if he were dictator. And just about now I’d bet even odds there will be no presidential election in 2008.
So why wave around the constitution or trouble yourselves with the rule of law? Advocate bush for KING!!!
Jed said:
“He wants to get his jollies listening to our phone calls and reading our mail;
Jed, I never thought of this before you mentioned it. But now that you brought it to our attention, I think we should all call someone outside the u.s. and have as much explicit phone sex as possible. Not only will we all be less cranky :) but it is our patriotic duty to see that the preznit is entertained.
“They hate us for our freedoms.”
Bush takes away our freedoms and then the terrorists don’t hate us any more.
This man is a GENUIS!
Hey Farm Gal,Don’t get too explicit, or some NSA agent will keep it all for himself and won’t pass it on to Bushllit!
Funny story here:
My Aunt is a bigbush supporter. She even shook hands with the shrub…..and nearly fainted.
Now recently she placed an international call; a fact that she mentioned in passing to my Mom.
Here is where it gets fun!!! My Mom acted concerned and alarmed and told her little sister, “You placed an international call??! DOn’t you know the NSA is monitoring those now??
LOL My Aunt is now scared to death that she is being monitored!!! My mom wants to reassure her and let her off the hook. ME? I say let her hide under the bed, look over her shoulder and sweat.
Oh and ksfarrmgrl??? CAPITAL IDEA!!!! I need to find me an international internet pal!
I once sent an email to Riverbend, a Baghdad blogger who doesn’t care much for Bush.
http://riverbendblog.com
I’ve also had e-mail exchanges with people in the U.K., Russia, and Hong Kong.
Smile! You’re on Candid Wiretap!
Hank, I would suspect I’ve FORGOTTEN more about the Constitution than you know. But do tell your splendid theory. I need a good laugh.
lkjfd
I just stubbled accross this page as I was looking for research material for class, and found the need and benefit from free speech. Except, I am astonished at the level of some of these individuals, how they can express their demeanor so vividly, which does not fall short of “Lonely, chump, who spends too much bloody time with a dictionary by his side, seaching for a new means of insulting the opposed and attacking his own.”
I am just out of high school and even I can sense the hypocracy coming from you pusillanimous half-wits, let your conscience catch up with you when the day comes, when you have realized that your emotions and insecurities have driven you to irrationality and stupidity. The only thing Im worried about is wasting too much time with you people. As you have at least assured me of your participation in the world, I feel failed as the elders above me have relinquished their title as “the people” but diluted themselves to the tainted antagonist.
Tell me to take a stand, and from this display here, i would take a stand on the right and would say to all those on the left, “I have reached the age, where if someone tells me to where socks i don’t have to.” – Albert Einstein
i believe in common sense and action taken with a backbone. Not a damn brokeback.
Travis,
Thanks for coming out!
Viva La raza Blanco!!
CF,
what movie is that from? I remember hearing that line from somewhere.
Melissa,
Yes.
“We’re making more terrorists than we’re killing.”Donald Rumsfeld- Secretary of Defense