[Vision2020] Where Have Our Giants Gone (Molly Ivins)

[Art Deco]

Pat,

Do you really believe that mainline terrorists were unaware that they were 
being spied upon?

It is this kind of  hubris and egotistical underestimation of the 
capabilities of our enemies that precedes great losses.

W.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pat Kraut" <pkraut at moscow.com>
To: "vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Where Have Our Giants Gone (Molly Ivins)


> "Risen is the New York Times reporter who
> broke the story of the National Security Agency spying scandal."
> He should be arrested for treason!
> Tom you look at this stuff and see one thing and I look at it and see
> another. I bet the terrorists are laughing at us and our inability to keep 
> a
> secret.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
> To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 6:47 AM
> Subject: [Vision2020] Where Have Our Giants Gone (Molly Ivins)
>
>
>>From today's (February 10, 2006) Spokesman Review -
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Molly Ivins
>
> Where have our giants gone?
>
> February 10, 2006
>
> Once upon a time, in the middle of a nasty constitutional crisis in
> Washington, a most unlikely hero emerged - a Texas lawyer from one of our
> state's notoriously discriminated-against racial minorities. Think how 
> lucky
> we were.
>
> It is one of the most famous sentences in all of American rhetoric: "My
> faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total." But what
> catches the eye today is the sentence that followed that famous 
> declaration,
> the sentence that makes one so ashamed for Al Gonzales. Barbara Jordan's
> great, deep voice brought the impeachment hearings against Richard Nixon 
> to
> an awed silence when she vowed, "And I am not going to sit here and be an
> idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the
> Constitution."
>
> Thirty years ago, this state could produce Barbara Jordan - and now we 
> send
> that pathetic pipsqueak Al Gonzales. Enough to provoke a wailing cry of "O
> tempera, O mores!" even from the depths of Lubbock.
>
> As a New York Times editorial succinctly put it, Attorney General 
> Gonzales'
> Judiciary Committee appearance was a "daylong display of cynical
> hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling."
>
> How fortunate that Republicans running the committee did not insist the
> chief law enforcement officer of the United States take an oath before
> testifying. God forbid that he should actually be held to the truth.
>
> I realize it's a cliché for those of us who remember the Beach Boys to 
> mourn
> the days when giants roamed the Earth and all was on a grander and finer
> scale. But I knew Barbara Jordan, and I know Al Gonzales, and it is damned
> depressing - he's too lightweight to even be a mediocrity.
>
> It seems to me the trumpery excuse for a hearing raised graver issues than
> those of 30 years ago. Gonzales kept trying to frame the issue as a 
> question
> of whether or not a domestic spying program without warrants is illegal - 
> in
> fact, it is against the law.
>
> Gonzales maintained the law is superseded by some unwritten constitutional
> power due the president during war and further that Congress had 
> authorized
> warrantless spying when giving the president the authority to invade
> Afghanistan. Strange, so few who voted for invading Afghanistan recall
> having warrantless spying in mind.
>
> One problem of legal logic is to "define war." We have not been attacked 
> by
> another nation - in fact, we were clearly the aggressors against Iraq. We
> were attacked by a private group of ideological zealots led by a Saudi
> millionaire. This war - against no nation, flag or territory - can
> presumably last indefinitely, like our wars against drugs and crime.
>
> Impeachment, Barbara Jordan observed, "is designed to 'bridle' the 
> executive
> if he engages in excesses. . The Framers confined in the Congress the 
> power,
> if need be, to remove the president in order to strike a delicate balance
> between a president swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and
> preservation of the independence of the executive. . 'A president is
> impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.' "
>
> Nixon was accused, among other things, of misuse of the CIA. I highly
> recommend James Risen's new book, "State of War: The Secret History of the
> CIA and the Bush Administration." Risen is the New York Times reporter who
> broke the story of the National Security Agency spying scandal.
>
> Thomas Powers, an authority on American intelligence, reviewed the Risen
> book for the New York Review of Books and notes: "If the Constitution
> forbids a president anything, it forbids war on his say-so, and if it
> insists on anything, it insists that presidents are not above the law. In
> plain terms, this means that presidents cannot enact laws on their own, or
> ignore laws that have been enacted by Congress. .
>
> "In public life, as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no. We are
> living with the consequences of the inability to say no to the president's
> war of choice with Iraq, and we shall soon see how Congress and the courts
> will respond to the latest challenge from the White House - the claim by
> President Bush that he has the right to ignore FISA's prohibition of
> government intrusion on the private communications of Americans without a
> court order and his repeated statements that he intends to go right on 
> doing
> it."
>
> The time is coming when someone will have to say no. Sadly, I have a 
> vision
> of the impeachment panel, and I see Tom DeLay in the seat once occupied by
> the great Barbara Jordan.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Take care, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> ********************************************
>
> "In America, anybody can become president.
> That's one of the risks you take . . ."
>
> - Adlai Stevenson
>
> ********************************************
>
>
>
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