Yesterday, the left was beside itself with joy when a poll conducted by American Research Group showed that a narrow plurality of voting age adults - 48-43 - favored passing a resolution censuring the President. Since there was a margin of error of plus or minus 3%, that would make opinion on the matter just about evenly split.
Here is the exact question:
Do you favor or oppose the United States Senate passing a resolution censuring President George W. Bush for authorizing wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining court orders?
If a pollster asked me a question like that, I would probably answer in the affirmative.
But of course, the question has little to do with what the NSA intercept program was actually about. First of all, as I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions, there is a difference between authorizing “wiretaps” (listening directly to conversations) and the way that we think that the NSA intercept program worked. That’s because as I’ve also written numerous times (and will continue to do so till the cows come home) 1) we don’t know how the program worked and 2) the NSA program apparently captured thousands of private communications at a time, sloughing off the overwhelming numbers of them without ever having examined them. What was left over were conversations or other communications that either originated or ended up overseas. As for whether FISA warrants were sought and granted for these specific conversations is still, to this day, not clear.
While the Bush Administration has argued they don’t need warrants for these conversations, they have not said whether or not they got them for all the targeted communications. And from a purely practical standpoint, the idea of being able to listen only to the overseas portion of these calls is ludicrous. Equally stupid would be to forgo listening to these communications altogether given that the entire reason for the program is to listen in to suspected al Qaeda communications between their operatives in America and their overseas contacts.
The question asked was loaded. By not mentioning the national security aspects of what the President was doing as well as using the misleading term “wiretaps,” all the question reveals is that Americans don’t like the idea of a President spying on Americans (or, more accurately, people who are visiting or residing in America for it is not clear at all whether those intercepts were from American citizens) for no good reason. Neither do I.
I find it interesting that even with a loaded question like this, that the country divides pretty much as it has for the last 6 years - right down the middle. At bottom, the question reveals a polarized electorate that appears not to be in the mood to unite on anything anytime soon.
7:11 pm
The people asking the loaded questions and the left wingers without enough brains to know they were answering a loaded question will get millions of people killed in this country. It’s coming and the sooner the better. People in this country seem to only learn a lesson the hard way. Maybe when half the country loses numerous members of their family they will wake up. Now we have a nutty left winger out preaching that the president will nuc one of the ports and blame it on Iran. Someone catch this kook and lock him up, he has the ‘chicken’ flu and it’s killed his brain. Where is the he** did all of these stupid people come from, I’ve read that the most dangerous people in the country are college professors (first as traitor will be the first hanged, and that is coming to). Let a major attack happen and at least 50% of the people will know who to blame, the traitors one the left. A hundred nut doctors couldn’t help people like Feingold, too far gone.
8:28 pm
correction! A new poll has found that the electorate is not polarized at all, and that they are very united in thier opinion that bush is in this order: incompetant,an idiot, and a liar. I for one am calling for this website to begin distancing itself from their neoconservative dream of a fascist state, and return to old conservative roots which included trying to help the middle class from time to time. Lets get back to our roots, and then get down to the hard work of impeaching and incarcerating the bush crime family.
1:13 pm
Russ Feingold has no idea what he is talking about. He’s just dazzled by the same lights that usually tan Chuck Schumer’s face. Fiengold has admitted as much that he had not viewed any prior judicial rulings regarding THE SPECIFIC NATURE of these wiretaps, nor has he done his homework regarding the Executive’s Constitutional right to do it.
Overall, Russ is a typical moonbat left-wing nut-job with a slightly slower pulse rate than his wacked-compatriots.
2:43 pm
steve: Whether Bush is “incompetant(sic),an idiot, and a liar” and whether he is impeached and locked up, we are still left with the problem of protecting ourselves, as scrapiron’s post suggests. Maybe you will agree that bringing down Bush will not make this problem go away. What would you suggest the next administration do?
4:39 am
Censure and the NSA Surveillance Program By the Bear
The whole crux of the Feingold Resolution to Censure the President is a liberal view that the President acted illegally and was eavesdropping on American citizens. I have come to the conclusion that the program is legal based on the numerous legal opi…