Helen Thomas, columnist for Hearst Newspapers, added to the pile of commentary assailing Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., for his responses to the White House’s warrantless wiretapping and use of prewar intelligence:
“The prospect of the Republican-controlled Congress carrying out its oversight role over the White House is far-fetched, especially with Roberts as ringmaster. Roberts, has made it clear when it comes to loyalty, the interests of party politics prevail over the country.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times’ editorial board took another swipe at Roberts Friday, complaining that he “continues to sit on” the prewar intelligence report and that he and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., can’t be trusted to investigate the wiretapping because they are “too busy trying to give legal cover to the president’s trampling on the law and the Constitution.” Ouch.
That chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which was within Roberts’ grasp in 2004, has to be looking mighty appealing about now.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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35 Comments
It is an election year after all… No one really knows the scope or effect of those wiretaps or even who they affected. Someone should probably figure it out because I don’t think that unitary executive authority is enough reason to cover this one. In summation, I agree that it is politics over oversight, because if the president is doing something unpopular Republicans break with him (Dubai ports deal anybody?) but if the public is apathetic/supportive then they generally stick with him.
So what else is new? Brown-nose Roberts will do everything he can to cover up for this administration.
They are really SLAMING the Bible to, as they did raise their Right hand, with their hand on the Bible and say they would up-hold the Constitution of the United States. Not only Roberts but all the rest of them throughout the U. S. that are not for investagating these Lies and Crimes of this addministration.
Old Rubber Stamp.
Well, after awhile, even to stall and stymie and stonewall isn’t going to work, as he’s finding out.
People are starting to think the worst . . . and they are right.
Old Rubber Stamp.
Well, after awhile, even to stall and stymie and stonewall isn’t going to work, as he’s finding out.
People are starting to think the worst . . . and they are right.
Roberts, has made it clear when it comes to loyalty, the interests of party politics prevail over the country
Ya, and just where do you think KANSAS falls in his priorities? A distant third?
Like I always say, if pat is bush’s senator, and sam is god’s senator…who represents Kansas?
I am chuckling here. I happen to have known Helen Thomas a number of years ago. I can tell you that no one with even a single working brain cell would want to be in her cross hairs. I love to see her play with snotty mcclellan like a toy mouse. And now she’s taking aim at pat? Hehe.
Give ‘em hell Helen!
Hopefully after November he will no longer be chair of the Committee. Then we can get a REAL investigation.
Hopefully after November we will have a Congress that is more concerned with the welfare of the people and the security of the nation than the party line lap dogs currently running the show.
Are you guys still trying to make a big deal out of the “wiretaps?”
I would have thought there would be something new for you to foam at the mouth about by now…
Helen Thomas? NYTimes editorial page? Well, so long as we’re dealing with press that doesn’t have an agenda!!!
Nathan, maybe the wiretapping doesn’t bother you and that’s fine….you’re entitled to your opinion. Some of us are very concerned, but we can’t get an investigation. It’s going to take an investigation to see if there’s been a crime. That’s the way the system works. Republicans are blocking investigations for purely political reasons…I think that’ll stop after November. We’ll have our investigations…if Bush has done nothing wrong, he’s got nothing to worry about.
Nathan,You’re too young to remember what J. Edgar did with wiretaps, bugs and agents provocateurs against the civil-rights and anti-war leaders, as well as the politicians of his day. He had files on nearly everyone with any kind of influence, and didn’t hesitate to use them to blackmail and/or smear anyone he disagreed with, or threatened his little empire, up to, and including presidents and congress. Do you really think this administration would hesitate to use such power if it could?
Jed: A more recent example are the FBI files obtained illegally by the Clinton administration.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9606/23/fbi.files/
Out,Quite true, but next to Hoover, Clinton was a piker.
Amusing – alleged wrongdoing over a decade ago used to justify wrongdoing today.
“So’s your old man!”
The only reform that shall be effective is the utter destruction of the rich by the working class! If this does not happen, you will just continue to be victims of the feudal lords.
Nathan,
It was good to meeet you the other evening.
Now Nathan I don’t know if you yourself say this, but many of the “nothing illegal about this” crowd on this matter also say “Well if you aren’t doing anyhting wrong you have nothing to worry about if your communications and activities are monitored”
So, wouldn’t it be fair to apply the same standard in THIS matter? Why the stall on the part of Roberts? If there is no harm no foul why not investigate?
Communications have changed a very great deal since the Nixon days. There is a potential for information technology to become a terrible hand of tyranny. I think we best err on the side of vigilance over how much control/surveillance of communications we allow our leaders.
Ben: I find the defense offered by Al Gore interesting.
“They can’t talk about the real matters facing America. They’re out of ideas . . . so they want to bring up all of these other matters and try to pretend that these are the matters of primary concern to the American people. They’re not,” Gore said.
Do you get the feeling that we are caught in a repeating loop?
I don’t like signing my rights away any more than the rest of you, but I’m not sure the “conventional wisdom” on this wire tapping issue is very well informed. I’ve read several different versions of who’s being tapped under what conditions, and then I look at the fact that Democratic Senators that actually knew about this like Daschle and Rockefeller never made a real peep about it until it landed in the papers. I don’t consider Rockefeller’s strange letter in a safe any real protest — if you read it, he’s just complaining that he needed help from his staffers to understand it. If democracy is really in danger, why didn’t these guys sound the alarm when they were told about this two years ago?
March 18, 2006
Consequences of a War Stateby Charley ReeseWar consists of killing people and destroying property. That’s all there is to war. Any honest soldier will tell you the same thing: His job is to kill people and destroy property. That’s true of all branches of the service.
The difficult question is, When is a nation justified in making the decision to kill other people and destroy their property? I think the rule is the same as it is for individuals. You are justified in killing only in defense of your own life or the lives of others for whom you are responsible.
By that definition, the U.S. has fought only one justified war in this and the past century. That was World War II. Putting aside the fact that the U.S. government provoked Japan into attacking, attack it did, and the U.S. had a right to respond. We were not attacked, however, in Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Lebanon, Panama, Grenada, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Iraq.
In Korea and Vietnam, we intervened in a civil war as two sides of a divided country fought for supremacy. We bombed Libya in a reprisal raid for a terrorist attack in Germany. Reprisals, in World War II, were considered war crimes. We weren’t attacked by Lebanon. In Panama, we attacked to change the government. I don’t really know why we attacked Grenada. The pretense was that it was building an airport that could handle Soviet airplanes. I suspect it was really a political ploy designed for domestic consumption.
I don’t know why we decided to bomb Yugoslavia. That, again, was a civil war that should not have concerned us. The now-late Slobodan Milosevic was only trying to do what Abraham Lincoln did – prevent the secession of states from Yugoslavia.
Our problem in Afghanistan was not the Taliban government. It was al-Qaeda. We overthrew the Taliban government but failed to destroy al-Qaeda. Only God and George Bush know why we attacked Iraq. That was clearly a war of aggression, no different from the German invasion of Poland in the 1930s.
It’s ironic that the president likes to claim to be promoting peace, when we are the most warlike nation on Earth and the one with the largest war-department budget. We are also the biggest arms peddler in the world. It seems there is no country on Earth that’s immune to U.S. officials telling it how to run its internal affairs.
The problem is that war, except in self-defense, is a total waste. Human lives are wasted. Accumulated wealth is wasted. The results of war are debt, taxation, human sorrow and human bitterness. The billions of dollars we spend killing other people and destroying their property are billions that can’t be spent on improving education, America’s infrastructure, the health of our people and preserving our land, water and air.
Wars also destroy truth and trust with their secrecy and propaganda. Instead of patriotism, which is a love of the land and the people, the war state substitutes jingoism, which is a love of the government and support of war. In America today, both liberals and neoconservatives have been corrupted by the imperialist war state. The liberals are too cowardly to oppose unjustified wars, and the neoconservatives instigate and applaud them.
It is a triumph of imperial war-state propaganda that people are afraid they will be called unpatriotic if they oppose their government’s foreign wars and their domestic consequences.
Well, a continuation of the present policy will eventually destroy America. We are already $8 trillion in debt. Most of the world views us as a rogue nation. Our manufacturing base is being depleted, not to mention our natural resources. Our education system is sick. Our culture is decadent. Our government is corrupt.
It’s no longer a question of supporting or not supporting any particular administration. It’s a question of survival. Those who value liberty and the rule of law and believe that foreign policy should be based on the Golden Rule had better assert themselves now.
Find this article at:http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8726
In Korea and Vietnam, we intervened in a civil war as two sides of a divided country fought for supremacy.
This is because YOUR fat-cat capitalistic pig countrymen were determined to stop the spread of the ideal marxist society in which everyone is equal! America is the richest nation on earth, therefore it constantly fights to ensure the survivability of it’s financial assets! The bottom line is: Your government sends your sons to die so “American interests” are preserved. WHat exactly do I mean by American interests? Here’s a clue: $$$
DEATH TO AMERICA!!!
It should be obvious to anybody with half a brain that the Republicans of today are totally a bunch of liars and crooks and that, within a few years, they will bankrupt the country if they are not stopped. I agree that the Clintons are also corrupt but not even Nixon would come close to these guys!
Without question the GOP suks, but what do Democrats have to offer? As the months go by, I see less and less that I like about Democratic leadership. Being “not Bush” isn’t enough. I’d like to see some alternatives. Reid, Pelosi, and Dean aren’t really doing anything. They’re sure not standing up to republicans. I’m not sure that a party that’s spent the last 5 years cowering in the corner has much to offer.
XXX good point. I think the fear factor worked on them as well. But they are all bought and paid for by the same big money interests, so why are we surprised?
Maybe the real threat to democracy is lack of choice because the two major parties have a lock on the system. Corporate candidate a, or corporate candidate b? Yeah, real choice.
Well a third or more parties would address the problem. But KFG just told us the reasons that aint gonna happen.
In “Stupid White Men” Michael Moore postulated that we have 2 parties. The GOP will simply F… you. The DNC will say “I love you” and then f… you.
Communism is the solution!
Maybe it’s time to get corporate financing out of elections. Probably too late. Business has bought itself a government.
Outlander, note the article states that the investigation into the files was added to Ken Starr’s list of things to investigate. You’ll never see a true investigation by the Republican govt. as long as they’re in power.
public finance of elections is our only hope of taking back the country and have representation for the real people who live in it. Not the 13% or so that control the puppet strings.
Sum1, that’s not fair. Big business paid good money to buy our government. Next, you’ll be saying weird things like “government by the people for the people”.Sheesh, where do you Libs get these crazy ideas? You’d think it was in the Constitution or something.
The GOP will simply F… you. The DNC will say “I love you” and then f… you.
OMG JR, I forgot about that. How funny.
Seems I am not the only gay person having this struggle of conscience with the democrats. I bet other issue activists are having the same problem.
Great article here:
http://www.planetout.com/news/feature.html?sernum=1324
XXX ya know, we used to say that Louisiana had the best government money could buy. You could always count on the Louisiana pols to remain true to the statement that “once they were bought, they stayed bought!”
I guess we saw how well that “best gummit money can buy” arguement worked during Katrina.
- The Chairman of the Senate Cover-Up Committee
The Progress Report – http://www.progressreport.org
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico PitneyAmanda Terkel and Payson Schwin3/9/06
INTELLIGENCEThe Chairman of the Senate Cover-Up Committee
Earlier this week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), voted along partisan lines to avoid a clash with President Bush over his domestic spying program. The New York Times writes that theintelligence committee has become “so paralyzingly partisan that it could not even manage to do its basic job this week.” By voting down a sensible proposal offered by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) to comprehensively review the spying program, Roberts failed once again to demonstrate he has the leadership to conduct the required oversight of the Bush administration. As Rockefeller said, “This committee is basically under control of the White House.” It was “no surprise that Mr. Roberts led this retreat;” he has been doing the”president’s dirty work” repeatedly over the past few years in his efforts to stonewall investigations into important national security matters.
The Progress Report has compiled a comprehensive report detailing how Roberts and his Senate Cover-Up Committee have obstructed investigations into the Bushadministration’s use of pre-war Iraq intelligence, the administration’s complicity in acts of torture against detainees, and the White House’souting of a former CIA agent, among other issues.
For the complete American Progress Report, see:
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/s/custom.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=598395