Right Wing Nut House

Trying to have any kind of a conversation with a liberal over the revelation today that a government insider informed ABC News reporters that the government was “tracking” their phone numbers is an absolute impossibility. They are in hysterics. They are bursting blood vessels, trying to outdo each other in coming up with adjectives to describe their outrage. Or, taking an opposite tack, they are assuring us that they knew it all along - Bush=Hitler.

They may be right.

Then again, they may be full of crap. The fact is, WE DON’T KNOW. And I know how hard it is for the lefties to admit to those three little words but if they were actually serious about discussing the limits of federal power (as I will attempt to do in this post), they would admit the following:

1. WE DON”T KNOW many of the technical details of any of the NSA programs revealed to date.

2. WE DON’T KNOW if any of those programs are illegal or violate the Constitution. We can guess. We can extrapolate from known facts. But until the actual details of HOW the programs work are released, only fools, little children, and liberals proclaim them to be beyond the pale.

3. WE DON’T KNOW if these latest revelations are true.

4. WE DON’T KNOW if legal warrants were obtained in furtherance of an investigation into the leaking of classified information. Not “politically embarrassing or “anti-Bush” information but classified information. You can spin it all you want to my lefty friends, but there are statutes on the books about giving that information to anyone - including reporters - with stiff penalties involved including jail time.

ABC’s outing of the names of the east European countries where the CIA’s prisons were located did so little damage to Bush politically but hugely damaged our foreign policy in ways that are shocking to contemplate. So much for the idiocy that going after the leakers in this case was due to the embarrassment caused the Administration. The reason for the leak is because some unelected, self-important lickspittle of a bureaucrat disagreed with the policy . It’s not about embarrassment or revenge; it’s about catching a criminal.

And anyone who can’t tell the difference between leaking parts of an NIE (that were in the process of being declassified anyway) and leaking information that causes enormous problems to allies who went way out on a limb to help us in fighting the War on Terror, is an ignoramus.

All this being said, what they hell is the government doing “tracking” the calls of newspeople?

Spook86:

The MSM will scream long and loud about this one, but let’s keep things in perspective. Under existing federal statutes, intelligence officials who divulge sensitive information to the press are likely in violation of the law. The unauthorized leak of such data results in a referral from the intelligence agency to the Justice Department, which launches a criminal probe. Federal prosecutors then have the right to gather and subpoena evidence in support of that effort, including phone records. If authorities discover a series of calls between the office phone or cell phone of an intelligence officer and Brian Ross of ABC News, well, that could certainly be relevant in identifying and prosecuting leakers.

But the phone records of reporters are protected:

In New York Times Co. v. Gonzales, 382 F.Supp.2d 457 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), the New York Times sought a declaratory judgment to protect the telephone records of two of its reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. Miller and Shenon had written articles in the aftermath of September 11th detailing how the government planned to block assets and search the offices of two Islamic charities.

Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to know who leaked this information. He argued that Miller and Shenon’s reporting tipped off the charities to the searches and increased the likelihood that evidence and assets were destroyed or concealed. As part of his investigation into the leak, he requested that Miller and Shenon voluntarily produce their phone records. They refused and eventually filed the lawsuit to determine whether their phone records were protected.

Judge Sweet ruled that indeed the phone records in that case were “protected by the qualified reporters’ privilege for confidential sources, which exists pursuant to the First Amendment and federal common law.” The government in that case was unable to overcome that privilege, so it could not have access to the phone records.

Does this mean that their phone conversations are protected? Their “phone records” (which should include telephone numbers of the type stored in the NSA telephone surveillance database)? Or is it monitoring of a sort of which we are currently unaware?

WE DON’T KNOW.

And neither does ABC News:

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

In short, the tens of thousands of words already written by lefty bloggers (and righties who have felt compelled to respond) may be a big waste of time.

ALL OF THIS MAY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NSA!

If it is a legal, authorized monitoring by the Department of Justice that is part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the illegal leaking of classified data, then no one has anything much to complain about.

However…

If it is an attempt by the Bush Administration to use the tools of data mining and the extraordinarily powerful technical collection apparatus of the NSA to spy on reporters (and political opponents), I daresay that the President would be in danger from many Republicans of having them fulfill the wildest dreams of the netnuts and agitate for his impeachment and removal from office.

Myself included.

There are limits to the power of the Federal government. There must be. “We are at war” may cover many, many situations that the civil liberty absolutists and Bush deranged leftists may find problematic but can be justified under the general rubric of “national security.” But using that excuse to harass journalists or intimidate political opponents is so far beyond the pale, so UNAMERICAN that I feel a little embarrassed even having to mention it. It should be as “self evident” as the truths found in the Declaration of Independence - that we have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; none of these is possible without some guarantee that opposition to government policies will not lead to retaliation by the government itself.

This is not to say that I as an individual American citizen can’t call you a traitor or a treasonous lout if I disagree with you (something I rarely do). But it does mean that simply opposing government policies or trying to report what a journalist sees as the “truth” (subjective though that may be) should not bring the heavy hand of government down on the critic or the newsperson.

And if this is what the Bush Administration has been up to with the various NSA programs then the President will be able to look fondly back on the day when his support was in the low 30’s. And he will have presided over a political debacle as horrendous as the elections of 1974-76 when the Democratic congressional “Watergate babies” - all 72 of them - rolled into Congress and nearly destroyed the country.

There is no reason to call for an investigation - yet. But I am a little more amendable to Arlen Specter’s ideas about finding out some additional details on these programs including the Senator trying to get a better idea of exactly who they are targeting.

In the meantime, some words of wisdom from Josh Marshall:

I think part of the issue for many people on the administration’s various forms of surveillance is not just that some of activities seem to be illegal or unconstitutional on their face. I think many people are probably willing to be open-minded, for better or worse, on pushing the constitutional envelope. But given the people in charge of the executive branch today, you just can’t have any confidence that these tools will be restricted to targeting terrorists. Start grabbing up phone records to data-mine for terrorists and then the tools are just too tempting for your leak investigations. Once you do that, why not just keep an eye on your critics too? After all, they’re the ones most likely to get the leaks, right? So, same difference. The folks around the president don’t recognize any real distinctions among those they consider enemies. So we’d be foolish to think they wouldn’t bring these tools to bear on all of them. Once you set aside the law as your guide for action and view the president’s will as a source of legitimacy in itself, then everything becomes possible and justifiable.

I would take issue with Mr. Marshall’s blanket characterization of “the folks around the President” not recognizing any distinctions “among those they consider enemies.” But otherwise, his analysis should be taken to heart.

Just what are they up to?

UPDATE

Glad to see I’m not the only one on the right troubled by this.

Mark Coffey:

This doesn’t change my stand on the surveillance program or the phone database. It may (MAY, I stress) be an abuse of an otherwise useful tool. It’s important to note that we don’t have any proof for Ross’s allegations.

I’m troubled by the allegation, and I’m troubled by the leaks, and I’m troubled by just about everything associated with this entire subject. More than ever, I stand by my call for a new regulatory surveillance framework…

UPDATE II

Here is a rather cryptic update from ABC News:

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters’ phone records in leak investigations.

“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.

The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.

The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”

“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official.

“Backtracking” would seem to indicate something much less intrusive and less alarming; they would already have a suspect’s phone records that showed the ABC News phone number.

The FBI released a statement that sort of confirms that:

In a statement, the FBI press office said its leak investigations begin with the examination of government phone records.

“The FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information,” the statement said.

Officials say that means that phone records of reporters will be sought if government records are not sufficient.

In short, the government is not specifically targeting news organizations unless they have probable cause gleaned through a legal search of a suspect’s phone records. That would seem to be pretty standard law enforcement practice and no cause for alarm.

Then again, still, WE DON’T KNOW.

“Speak the speech, I pray you,
as I pronounced it to you–trippingly on the tongue;
but if you mouth it, as many of your players do,
I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.”
(Hamlet Act III, Scene 2)

Indeed, Hamlet’s advice to the actor regarding the importance of giving a good effort when delivering the lines he wrote that would implicate his uncle in the murder of his father should be taken to heart by the President as he goes before the people this evening to talk about immigration.

He must show a little passion and not a little eloquence. He must be forceful without being overbearing. And he absolutely must make a conservative case for immigration reform. Otherwise, we will be asking why the President bothered in the first place - perhaps not the “town crier” but a White House usher could have just as well delivered it.

If that sounds like a tall order for someone whose major speeches have sometimes fallen flat in the past, we should perhaps remember the President’s magnificent performance at the Republican convention. He seemed energized, emotionally connecting with both the audience in the hall and on TV. And the words themselves seemed to come alive with an eloquence all too often lacking in the President’s defense of the war.

Conservatives are already disappointed or worse, dismissing the address as little more than window dressing. To say that this makes the President’s task all the more difficult is an understatement. And despite what many conservatives are saying, this is one speech where “window dressing” or atmospherics may be as important as the words he actually speaks.

First and foremost, the President must sound like he’s defending the border, not treating it as a theoretical construct. A little nationalism please, Mr. President - not bellicose posturing but a good faith recognition that we are a sovereign nation and we have the absolute right to determine our own border policies without interference from Vincente Fox or anyone else.

It may be too much to ask, but perhaps we can show as much respect for the rule of law as we show “compassion” for the people who break it. No mass deportations but at the same time, a ringing endorsement of the idea that our immigration laws are going to be enforced. If that means sending some businessmen to jail for flouting the law then so be it. And if it means making it harder for illegals to make a living then perhaps it will put a tiny dent in the flood of humanity who currently cross our borders with impunity.

I will part ways with many conservative here but by all means, go ahead and double legal immigration. Legal immigration is controlled immigration and that is what we seek - not a denial of entry to people who are truly interested in living and working and contributing to America with the hopes of one day becoming citizens.

You must make it absolutely clear that if you are going to use troops on “an emergency basis” to fill the support roles envisioned for private contractors as well as border security agents, that whatever compromise bill coming out of Congress has those provisions already in place so that DHS can get started training and hiring immediately. No one likes the idea of troops guarding our border. It smacks of something a banana republic needs to do, not a great nation.

And while extolling the virtues of immigrants and counting the contributions they make to the richness and diversity of our country, perhaps you could point out how important it was for immigrants in the past to learn English and assimilate into American society while still keeping their traditions and cultural heritage intact. There is nothing “racist” or “xenophobic” about asking people who want to live here to speak the language of our ancestors. You might want to point out that in a country of immigrants, about the only thing that unites us - outside of a love of liberty and a passion for justice - is the English language.

I may be dreaming about the President making a speech such as I’ve outlined above. But he could have much of his immigration package if he started to talk like, well, an American President and not like an English speaking echo of Vincente Fox. Making it clear that America controls its own borders is what conservatives want to hear most. And we want to hear it said forcefully and without apology.

A tall order, that. But he’s done it before. Perhaps he’ll surprise us tonight as he did that magical last night of the 2004 convention. At the very least, I hope we hear him out with an open mind.

UPDATE

This doesn’t sound promising:

The president’s plan could increase the strain with Fox, who has grown disenchanted with Bush’s failure to ease immigration rules as promised. Fox for years has pressured Bush to help the 11 million illegal immigrants now in the United States, many of them from Mexico, with little to show for it. In their 15-minute call yesterday, “the president reiterated to President Fox his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform,” Tamburri said.

That means the “guest worker” program is probably still alive as any “comprehensive” proposal would certainly include it.

And check out Allah’s roundup at Hot Air. The President’s pronuncimentos on immigration are becoming so hackneyed, that one could invent a drinking game to go with the speech tonight.

Beating Allah to the punch is this Hoft screamer of a post. Here are some ideas of Allah’s:

“Guests”/”guest workers” — one shot.
“Comprehensive immigration reform” — chug.
“My friend, Vicente Fox” — two shots.
“Mi amigo, Vicente Fox” — three shots.
If he overenunciates a Latino name — four shots.
If at any point he starts speaking Spanish — finish the six-pack.

Looks like I picked a helluva week to quit sniffing glue…

I was hugely amused at the celebrating being done by lefty blogs the last two or three days over what they perceive as signs that some righty bloggers are throwing in the towel and virtually conceding Republican defeat at the polls in November.

Being used to propagating fantasy, we shouldn’t be surprised at this latest bit of wishful thinking on the part of liberals. After all, these are the same folks who were so sure a military draft would be instituted, some of them had plane reservations for Canada. And who can forget “Merry Fitzmas” where a dozen or more White House aides were to be frog marched out of the west wing and into the courthouse after being indicted over the Plame affair.

The list of liberal idiocies is endless. Remember the 10,000 dead American soldiers who were to be lying in the streets of Baghdad following our attack? The million dead Iraqis from starvation and disease? The 500,000 refugees? The “quagmire” in Afghanistan? The civil war that has been predicted in Iraq seven times since May, 2003? Jeff Gannon/Guckert bringing down the President? Ditto Fahrenheit 911, Cindy Sheehan, and a host of minor political scrapes that the left confidently predicted would end up en either Bush’s impeachment or defeat?

So now a few righty bloggers are suffering from battle fatigue and we are supposed to believe that the entire conservative movement is suffering from a crisis of confidence?

Phooey!

I feel for people like The Anchoress, one of my favorite writers, who finds the sniping by the left and carping on the right irksome enough to take a break from writing about politics. And while there has been some discussion at some righty sites about conservatives “staying home” on election day, I can guarantee you that every time Nancy Pelosi opens her mouth, thousands of potential couch potatoes on election day are re-energized and recommitted not to let these morons get control of anything more important than the menu for the Congressional cafeteria.

This is the Republican’s secret weapon; the Democratic party.

With Pelosi frantically trying to backtrack this weekend from her smirking pronouncements about investigations of the President leading to impeachment, it’s clear that the Democrats realize they are their own worst enemy. Try as they might, however, they will be unable to muzzle their base of netnuts who will make Ken Mehlman’s job of getting conservatives to the polls ridiculously easy. Calling for the President’s head on a pike for transgressions big and small (real and imagined) on a daily basis is the only thing that will energize just enough Republicans to march to the polls on election day and hold their noses to vote for the big spending, arrogant SOB’s who have temporarily hijacked the conservative movement for their own selfish purposes. And by just enough, I mean that a loss of half a dozen House seats and 2 or 3 Senators is probably about the best that the GOP can hope for at this point.

While that may sound like a backhanded endorsement of the congressional wing of the GOP (actually more like a closed fist uppercut to the chin), it is not in personalities nor in electoral success where the fire in the bellies of the right burns. Much more than the left, conservatives continue to be energized by issues. Discussions and debates about the serious issues of the day still largely take place only among conservatives because the left has abandoned debate, ceding the battleground in favor of name calling, conspiracy theorizing, and a childish petulance about not getting their way that extends from the outcome of elections to the confirmation of judges.

Foot stomping and tantrum throwing may be personally gratifying for the three year olds who run liberal websites but as far as engaging in meaningful political debate on issues such as taxes (”helping the rich get richer!”), the War (”No blood for Haliburton!”), immigration (Republicans are racist xenophobes!”) or civil liberties (”Bushhitler!”), they leave much to be desired.

This is reflected in the curious, almost cute way in which Duncan Black actually posted something longer than “Bush Sucks! Open Thread,” and tried in that earnest, simple minded way in which liberals tend to approach everything to define what issues today’s liberal Democrat should be supporting.

Basically, it takes the United States back to January 19, 2001. And that’s all you need to know about it. September 11? Never happened. Iraq? Out now! And the rest of the usual lefty ideas about spreading the nice, warm blanket of government control over your lives.

The problem for Black is that national Democrats don’t stand for those things. Their simple strategy to take back Congress is to call Bush and the Republicans names and hope against hope that the economy goes south and something bad happens in Iraq. This strategy proved a real winner in 2004 and while some of the dynamics have changed in their favor, the fact is it is still a long way to November. And of course, no matter how low Bush’s numbers go, he’s still the President and can pull all sorts of rabbits out of his hat to undermine the Democratic cause.

Yes, there are some conservative’s who may have abandoned the GOP congressional party. Some, perhaps permanently. But there’s plenty of time for conservatives to take a deep breath, revitalize their intellects, sharpen their arguments (and their vitriol), and storm the battlements once again. As John Podheretz pointed out here, the consequences of staying on the sideline are too terrible to contemplate:

If a more sober reckoning of political reality does not intrude here, the Right will hurtle headlong toward schism, division, a third party and all sorts of other “pox on all your houses” actions. The cost of this is what I detail in the direst parts of my book Can She Be Stopped? — the easy transfer of power on Capitol Hill and the White House to the Democrats, and particularly to Hillary Clinton.

The potential for self-destruction is terrifying. The potential for grave national harm is worse. Please, you guys, pull back from the edge.

And Ed Morrissey (in a follow up to a post here) puts the choice matter-of-factly:

Declaring all choices as “evil” provides false justification for abdication of that responsibility. In this case, once the primaries have determined the candidates for office, voters are presented with two candidates (in most cases) with realistic chances for victory. They rarely turn out to be philosophical or policy twins and/or uninspired candidates, but if that happens, the parties they represent have real differences, and the choice made in this one race will impact the ability of both to push their national agenda. When voters of either party refuse to vote, the absence of the vote has a negative impact on that national agenda.

By all means, if faced with a choice between Hitler and Mussolini on the November ballot, I would choose to write in Winston Churchill. However, the notion that we face that kind of choice is really nothing more than an expression of anger resulting in futility. It’s eminently understandable, but it results in disaster. The only evil that we likely face is that the American electorate has grown so dismissive of the political process that it may squander its birthright. People across the political spectrum need to stay engaged in the process through the vote in order to get a government that most truly represents us — and if we don’t like the final choices presented us, then we must work harder in the next cycle to ensure that the final choices improve.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that. And this is why all that celebrating done by the left over the imminent demise and crack up of the right is just a tad premature. In the end, conservatives will come home.

This morning, dozens of lefty blogs were buzzing with the news; Karl Rove would be indicted Monday morning by Patrick Fitzgerald for perjury.

In a very detailed article at the hard left site Truthout.org, Jason Leopold tells a story of marathon meetings between representatives of Fitzgerald and Rove, apparently trying to hash out a plea agreement as well as a meeting between Fitzgerald himself and Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin:

Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

The grand jury hearing evidence in the Plame Wilson case met Friday on other matters while Fitzgerald spent the entire day at Luskin’s office. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and seems to have taken place without the knowledge of the media.

How much of this is true and how much is a figment of Mr. Leopold’s overactive imagination is hard to say. Certainly there are many who are following the Plame case who fully expect Rove to be indicted at some point. Others, like Clarice Feldman of The American Thinker, an attorney in Washington believe that Fitzgerald’s case is actually falling apart against Scooter Libby:

I’d say from the discovery proceedings to date, the Prosecution cannot and will not show that Plame was “classified,” that it cannot and will not show that disclosure of her identity caused any harm, that the person who did do that has not and will not be charged, that it has yet to show even potential harm, and that it is a far way from showing that Libby had the slightest motive to lie. And that the stench of selective prosecution is unmistakable

I think the case is taking on lots of water and the Prosecutor is quite frankly out of his depth.

Clarice, whose sources and analysis of this case have been spot on, believes that Rove is not in any immediate danger of indictment. This is apparently more reliable information than that from Leopold since NRO’s Byron York investigated Leopold’s claims today and found them wanting in accuracy:

I talked with Rove defense spokesman Mark Corallo, who told me the story was completely baseless. Part of our conversation:

Did Patrick Fitzgerald come to Patton Boggs for 15 hours Friday?
No.
Did he come to Patton Boggs for any period of time Friday?
No.
Did he meet anywhere else with Karl Rove’s representatives?
No.
Did he communicate in any way with Karl Rove’s representatives?
No.
Did he inform Rove or Rove’s representatives that Rove had been indicted?
No.

So there seems to be nothing to the story, certainly nothing which any other reporter has seen fit to report. Which raises a question: What is going on here? The journalists who checked out the story, quite properly, did not repeat Leopold’s bad information. But for some media blogger out there, it might be reasonable to ask: Where are these reports coming from?

Where are the reports coming from? The overactive and fertile imagination of Jason Leopold. I have a feeling that if Rove is, in fact, indicted this week, Mr. Leopold will be the last to know.

UPDATE

Seixon has two noteworthy posts on Mr. Leopold. First, Everything you want to know about Jason Leopold but was afraid to ask” - a superior piece of research and writing. Then, a post on Leopold’s steadfast insistence that he is correct and that his two sources are solid.

George also informs us that VIPs conspirator Larry Johnson called him “a moron.” Coming from someone who said that the terrorist threat was exaggerated 30 days before 9/11, that’s quite the whopper.

I got a kick out of reading this in the WaPo today regarding Nancy Pelosi’s promise not to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush:

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting Wednesday “that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it,” spokesman Brendan Daly said.

Some House Democrats, including ranking Judiciary Committee member John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, have called for impeachment hearings into allegations that Bush misled the nation about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and that he violated federal law by approving warrantless wiretaps on Americans. In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Pelosi said a Democratic-controlled House would launch investigations of the administration on energy policy and other matters. She said impeachment would not be a goal of the investigations, but she added: “You never know where it leads to.”

GOP activists seized on the remarks to warn potential donors of Bush’s possible peril if Democrats pick up the 15 net House seats they need to become the majority. The National Republican Congressional Committee republished The Post’s Sunday article in a letter to supporters and donors that stated: “The threat of the Democrats taking the majority in the House this November is very real.”

Some Democratic activists criticized Pelosi, saying she made the party appear extreme while drawing attention away from more useful issues such as gasoline prices and Republican lobbying scandals.

Is this anything like the Democrat’s promise not to try and filibuster Judge Alito? You will recall that the “Gang of 14″ solemnly declared that blocking the Supreme Court nominee was also “off the table” and then, lo and behold! John Kerry initiates a filibuster that set off the lefty blogs (who had been skewering their own for not having the courage to buck the Republicans on Alito) into paroxysms of joy. The netnuts scrambled for a few hours but only managed to corral 25 votes for the filibuster. But this is after two-faced Harry Reid promised that the attempt wouldn’t even be made.

Pelosi is living in La-La Land if she doesn’t understand what is boiling and frothing on lefty websites from the very largest to the very smallest. These loons live, eat, breathe, and fornicate impeachment. As of this writing, there are almost exactly 71,000 posts in Technorati that mention impeachment. And while I’m sure there are some posts (like this one) that find the idea of impeaching a President during a time of war abhorrent, I would hazard a guess and say that the overwhelming majority of those blog posts are rabidly in favor of the idea.

This is the political class of the Democratic party. They are activists and contributors. Almost to a netnut, they vote. The Democratic establishment couldn’t ignore these people during the 2004 election (which is a big reason Kerry lost) nor could they ignore them during the Alito debacle. How do they figure on ignoring them in January when, flush from a victory that they will claim complete credit for, will start agitating to have George Bush’s head on a pike?

Does talk of impeachment really hurt Democratic chances and boost the Republicans? Personally, if I do vote this November, the only reason I can think of supporting Republican candidates is to keep the Democrats from trying to remove the President from office. So in my tiny corner of the universe, it makes sense for Republicans to trumpet this to the skies. If I were a Republican strategist, I would have someone glued to lefty blogs from now until November relaying what the netnuts are saying about impeachment on a daily basis to conservative websites. It may be the only thing that gets many of us out of the recliner and into the voting booth on election day.

The news that billions of phone records are stored in a faceless, lifeless, dumb brute of a computer data base has set off a tantrum on the left the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the Civil War. Whipped into a frenzy of outrage not by any actual “spying” or “eavesdropping” by the NSA’s data mining of call records but rather by the idea that the government now has the exact same information available to it that your phone company has had all along, Members of Congress as well as the left side of the blogosphere have given in to hysteria and have allowed their imaginations to take flight about the program, positing all sorts of sinister scenarios where we are a hair’s breadth away from some kind of third world dictatorship.

Their reasoning (or unreasoning) goes something like this; if the NSA wanted to, it COULD abuse the program. Or, THERE IS THE POTENTIAL for mischief by the government if the program’s parameters were violated. The point, of course, is not to demonstrate anything untoward that has actually happened but rather to flaunt a self-image of themselves as saviors, crucified for their beliefs, manning the battlements, waving the bloody shirt, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY while the rest of us peasants look upon them with doe-eyed admiration and worship.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the exaggerations about the “danger” that the country is becoming a dictatorship, a word they throw around with the practiced ease of someone who has no idea what an actual dictatorship looks like. I’m sick of the ginned up outrage against anything and everything the Administration has done in the past 5 years to protect us. I’m sick to death of these immature, emotionally unstable, intellectually dishonest philistines whose foot stomping tirades have begun to resemble the wailings of teenage girls who put on melodramatic, angst ridden histrionics over the tiniest of slights.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty is the star of this high school production of Little Women. In what must be considered some of the most unbalanced, off the wall remarks ever uttered on a major television network, Cafferty gravely informed us (in all seriousness) that “all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country” is…is…(wait for it) ARLEN SPECTER!

Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don’t you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country’s borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

In another age, another time when such drivel would have led to the newscaster’s immediate dismissal (or earned him a trip to the sanatorium so that he could dry out properly) Cafferty would suffer the consequences of his on-air breakdown. Instead, he is lionized, feted, elevated to sainthood all because his outburst reflects exactly what they have been saying on conspiracy laden websites for years; that George Bush is hell bent on turning this country into a dictatorship, that 9/11 was part of the plot to make him king, and that there are top secret government concentration camps that are already built and just waiting to be filled up with all the courageous liberals who “speak truth to power.”

Nice company you’re keeping there, Jack.

Not to be outdone in the Getting Hysterical Department, the mainstream media has predictably gotten on the conspiracy bandwagon and millions of words have been written about what the program is about, what Bush said about the NSA, and, of course, the inevitable quotes from civil liberties absolutists who get their panties in a twist if the government so much as raises a finger to try and find out what al Qaeda and their sympathizers are doing in the United States.

This is all predictable - as is their raising the strawman of potential abuse while offering absolutely no evidence that any shenanigans have taken place:

The New York Times:

The phone records include numbers called, time, date and direction of calls and other details but not the words spoken, telecommunications experts said. Customers’ names and addresses are not included in the companies’ call records, though they could be cross-referenced to obtain personal data.

And from the NY Times editors desk:

The government has stressed that it is not listening in on phone calls, only analyzing the data to look for calling patterns. But if all the details of the program are confirmed, the invasion of privacy is substantial. By cross-referencing phone numbers with databases that link numbers to names and addresses, the government could compile dossiers of what people and organizations each American is in contact with.

The Washington Post:

According to USA Today, the telephone companies are removing the names and addresses of their customers from the records they give the NSA. But the government has many means of identifying account owners, including access to commercial databases from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis.

NBC News:

Although customers’ names and addresses are not being handed over, “the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information,” it said.

The Los Angeles Times:

On Thursday, USA Today reported that after 9/11, the NSA asked telecommunications companies to turn over the “call-detail” records of millions of customers. The records — essentially a list of phone numbers — reportedly have been used by the agency to identify patterns that would help identify terrorists. The newspaper said that the data turned over by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth did not include customers’ names or personal information. But it would not be hard for the agency to connect those dots.

One needs to ask if it is the government’s plan to get the names and addresses attached to these phone records why in God’s name didn’t they just ask for them at the same time that they asked for and received the other information? What stayed their hand? Fear of Jack Cafferty’s outrage? Maybe it was something a little more basic; they had no intention of getting the names and addresses of American citizens attached to those records unless they represented a threat to the people of the United States!

A regular reader of this site knows that I am not a huge fan of this President, or Republicans, and am even getting a little disgusted with my conservative brethren over some issues. But the behavior of the left, of the media, and of Members of Congress these past 24 hours has gone beyond mere political posturing and has become pure scaremongering. There may be reasons to rationally examine this latest revelation about what the NSA is doing to safeguard the United States. The fact that 12 Members of Congress knew about this program and never opened their yaps in opposition to it should tell you all you need to know about the program being a nail in the coffin of democracy- it isn’t even close.

And for the purveyors of Bush hatred and partisan scare tactics, perhaps they should ask who is a greater threat to America? The people who are doing their best to protect us from a terrorist strike? Or those who seek political advantage by making their jobs harder?

UPDATE

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post media columnist, linked to my post yesterday where I stated flatly that this latest leak about an NSA program was designed to derail the nomination of General Hayden for CIA chief.

Kurtz dismisses my speculation saying “Well, maybe. But how does he know the motivation of sources whose identity we don’t know?”

Although arithmetic is not my best subject (having given my poor parents near heart failure in high school, worrying about whether or not I would pass Algebra), let’s try a little basic math out and see what we can come up with, ‘kay?

1 + 1 = 2

As in: Hayden ran NSA when the data mining program began. There are those who wish to hurt the President by denying Hayden the post of CIA chief. Ergo, being an inveterate (degenerate?) gambler, I would bet a substantial amount of money that the reason the details of the program were leaked at this time was to hurt said General in his quest to serve as CIA chief.

If Mr. Kurtz were to peruse the pages of his own paper, he would find similar dot connecting even when the dots are half as visible as they are in this case.

Dana Priest, anyone?

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin rounds up the react today (which may turn into a plus for the President if the overnight ABC poll can be believed) and links to her column in today’s New York Post:

Nevertheless, the civil liberties Chicken Little are screaming “Bushitler!” on cue. What they should be screaming for are the heads of the blabbermouths endangering all of us by running to the fifth-column press when they don’t get their way in Washington. But you can never find the leak-decriers when you need them, can you?

Prediction: To the dismay of the USA Today prize-seekers and fear-stokers, most Americans won’t react to their precious scoop by hysterically throwing their cellphones into the nearest lake and calling for President Bush’s impeachment.

Speaking of the Post, they are the only major media outlet I’ve read so far that comes out four square for the NSA data mining program. This Week’s Treason:

Far from disqualifying Gen. Michael Hayden from the job of CIA director, the political and news media uproar over a report that the National Security Agency is mining data from domestic phone calls only reinforces why Hayden should be confirmed.
For all the hyperventilating on the TV news and on Capitol Hill - by Republicans as well as Democrats, sad to say - there is little new in yesterday’s “disclosure” by USA Today. And even less to cause Americans concern.

As a matter of fact, prominent stories in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported the details of the program months ago. And a lawsuit filed against the NSA in January spelled out specific details.

Plus, the program has clear antecedents in a widely rumored surveillance program called Echelon, which was hotly debated across the Internet back in 1999 - nearly two years before President Bush took office.

UPDATE III

This is pretty much a “topper.” Glenn Greenwald is telling the American people that they’re too stupid to understand the “nuances” of the NSA telephone program and therefore, they should wait until Greenwald and his intellectual bully boys spin the story until they are told exactly what they should think about it:

The whole point of having political leaders and pundits is to articulate a point of view and provide support for that view in order to persuade Americans of its rightness. That process changes public opinion on every issue, all of the time, often dramatically. None of that has occurred here. Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive — to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors. And let’s have a debate about whether the law prohibits this program. And then let’s see where public opinion is.

Is he kidding? What arrogance! Leave aside the hyperbole about the program itself (”Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive — to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors.”) - as if the NSA is curious about your call last week to Aunt Martha - and see how the left actually thinks of themselves. The whole point of having political leaders is to represent us. And to compare a pundit with a Congressman is scary as hell.

The people are perfectly able to make up their own minds about issues without Glenn Greenwald telling them what all the cool kids are thinking. Greenwald - not they - need to be instructed.

There are apparently no limits to which the cadre of leakers who are working in our intelligence agencies will go to undermine legitimate national security interests in furtherance of their own, private agendas. The revelations in today’s USA Today about the massive collection of telephone numbers by the NSA - not eavesdropping on calls, not gathering people’s names or addresses - was leaked solely to discredit General Michael Hayden and derail his nomination for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The news that the NSA has information on billions of phone calls made by US citizens since 9/11 should not surprise anyone who has been following the NSA intercept program closely. Which is why lefties are going absolutely ballistic:

John Aravosis:

The phone companies were NOT required to turn over our records - Qwest refused - but AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth gave the Mein Kampf salute. Pigs.

I’m going to say it again. Encrypt your emails NOW:

And I might add…don’t forget to adjust your tinfoil hat, LOON.

Booman Tribune:

I’m not even going to pretend that I’m capable of digesting this and spitting out a rational response. A database of every call ever made? There really are no words. I don’t quite know when it was that we lost our way, though I doubt that it began when the worst president ever took office. No, the desire and the effort to subvert the rights of America’s citizens has manifested itself throughout our nation’s history, though the technology to do so on such a massive scale is relatively new. What the Worst President Ever has given us, is an executive branch which, through its actions, has demonstrated utter contempt for our nation, its citizens, our constitution and the basic morality which compels most of us, from a very early age, to try to speak honestly and act in the best interest of those around us. This is nothing but bad faith and contempt as far as the eye can see.

Um…yeah.

Matt Stoller blames big business:

Qwest refused to help? And Verizon and AT&T (which bought Bellsouth) acted as nice little sycophants? Wow. I always hated Verizon because of their customer service, and AT&T is run by a megalomaniac named Ed Whitacre who likes to destroy trees in his spare time. But I still assumed that cooperation with the government was mandatory. It’s not. These companies are aiding and abetting the NSA in illegal activity. And not only are they aiding and abetting the NSA, they are possibly engaging in illegal corporate behavior. That at least is how Qwest is reading the law.

I say we should nationalize the Telecoms!

Mcjoan from Kos:

Obviously, they’re fighting terror. Because every single American might just be participating in terrorism. So they really need to keep track of all of our phone calls. It’s obvious, right? Obvious, but not particularly legal, though since when has that stopped BushCo?

At least there are a few saner heads on the left. Kevin Drum:

The rules for collecting data about phone calls are different from the rules about listening in on the content of phone calls, so I don’t know what the legal situation here is. However, although most domestic carriers cooperated with the NSA, one of them didn’t: Qwest.

Mark Kleiman:

So now we know about the even nastier program that made BushCo so determined to cover up the warrantless wiretaps. The NSA has been compiling a master database of all telephone calls made in the United States: not the content, but who called whom and when.

Still, I don’t think the voters are going to hold still for it. Not with a President the country already distrusts.

I think Mark underestimates the tolerance by voters for measures like this. While I think a case can be made on constitutional grounds that if argued correctly before SCOTUS could result in a ruling that the NSA intercept program was illegal (a very close call either way), I don’t think this aspect of data collection by the NSA even approaches the danger zone, a point made in the article in USA Today (not anywhere near the lead of course):

The government is collecting “external” data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting “internals,” a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it’s been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for “social network analysis,” the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

FISA doesn’t even enter into the discussion of whether the program is legal:

Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn’t necessary for government data-mining operations. “FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining,” said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.

The caveat, he said, is that “personal identifiers” — such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses — can’t be included as part of the search. “That requires an additional level of probable cause,” he said.

Since the only thing being collected are telephone numbers, it is doubtful that what the NSA is doing here even constitutes a “search” as it would be defined under the 4th Amendment.

Exactly what the NSA is doing with the records of billions of phone calls isn’t exactly clear according to the article:

“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

Of course, the “detailed records” the government has probably include a phone number, and the date and time it was made, as well as who was on the other end. Technical details about which “switching station” the call was originally routed through would probably be available as well.

The article points out that it would be easy enough to retrieve your name and address if the government wanted to - a disturbing piece of information if you are a terrorist. Come to think of it, that aspect of the program should make everyone uncomfortable. Which leads us to the $64,000 question; is this program really necessary? Or are the spooks just playing fast and loose with the constitution for the hell of it?

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. “There is no domestic surveillance without court approval,” said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government “are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists.” All government-sponsored intelligence activities “are carefully reviewed and monitored,” Perino said. She also noted that “all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States.”

If “all appropriate members of Congress” have been told of this program (something we’ll surely find out in a few hours whether nor not that statement is factual) without a peep prior to this, I would guess that there are aspects to the program not contained in the USA Today story that make this part of the NSA intercept program a necessary adjunct to their efforts regarding overseas communications. And if it were possible to have a debate about the efficacy of these programs as they relate to our constitutional rights without the jaw-dropping idiocy from the left and right, it might be instructive and necessary to the health of the republic.

But these kind of debates just are not possible. Not with this President in office. Not with the kind of unreasoning hatred the opposition displays on a daily basis. Any kind of rationality displayed by the left is taken as treason and the offender is drummed out of the tin foil hat brigade forthwith (Senator Lieberman, call you office).

So we are stuck with the unsatisfying feeling that we can’t be 100% sure that the programs are necessary because the left refuses to engage on any level but the gutter - and that is not a level conducive to arguing the merits of anything.

As I mentioned at the top of this piece, this story has been leaked as a transparent attempt to embarrass General Hayden and stop his nomination. While it will probably cause outrage on the left and among that ever more curious contrarian Senator Specter, the brouhaha over this will pass and Hayden should still be on track for confirmation.

If I were Howard Dean, I would very quietly and without much fuss, lock John Conyers in a closet until after the November elections:

The left-wing Democrat who will become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins back Congress in November wants to hold full-blown congressional hearings on whether the government should pay black Americans reparations for slavery.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers has attracted attention in recent months for his House resolution calling for an impeachment investigation against President Bush.

But another Conyers cause célèbre is reparations, which he’s been advocating since 1989, when he first introduced legislation to establish what he calls “The Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African American Act” (H.R. 40).

This is a great idea. No, I mean it. The precedent being established for paying reparations to groups whose economic exploitation built up the United States economy in the 19th and 20th century will allow every single immigrant group standing to agitate for reparations.

Don’t know what the American people would think of the idea, though. It would be better if Dean took Representative Conyers by the hand and led him (along with the KosKids, the DU’ers, and the Hampsterites) where they were all about 100 miles from the nearest TV camera or microphone. Right now, they may be the only thing standing in the way of a smashing victory for Democrats in November. But not if the voters get a whiff of Conyer’s scathingly brilliant ideas about reparations.

Why stop at those whose ancestors were slaves? Aside from the obvious race baiting by Conyers and his fellow racialists, the logic inherent in reparations bypasses the notion of justice and instead, settles on a tote board system of economic accountability where the US government is liable due to its enabling of the exploitation either constitutionally as in the case of slavery or through a failure to pass legislation that would have given immigrants basic protections against the obvious exploitive nature of 19th century capitalism (ignorance is no excuse!).

The real problem with reparations for the descendants of slaves is the impossibility of rendering such a program with even a smidgen of fairness.

Who, pray tell, would be eligible? And how, in God’s name, could such a program be fairly administered?

Given the paucity of historical records, it would be an impossibility to judge who was deserving and who wasn’t. And what of citizens of mixed race? How “black” does one have to be in order to collect the bounty? I can see an entire new judicial court system set up to adjudicate claims: Race Court.

Do you grant more in reparations to someone whose ancestors were kidnapped in the 18th century? Do you give less to those whose family came later? And, just so that I know what I’m supposed to be feeling guilty about, are we only paying for the sin of slavery or are my children and grandchildren going to be paying for Jim Crow and segregation as well?

Most of my family came here in the 1880’s, long after slavery was dead and buried. Am I to suffer for the sins of my race? Not even paying for the sins of my father or grandfather? What a novel indictment!

Yes, the Democrats have some new ideas they should be running on in November. It’s a good thing that Conyers is going to be too busy impeaching President Bush to turn his attention to this extortion scheme. Otherwise, he might be free to do some serious mischief to the idea of fairness and the rule of law.

By any standard, Karl Rove must be considered one of the most successful political strategists in history. Perhaps only FDR’s political alter ego Louis Howe, who guided Roosevelt’s fortunes for more than 20 years and helped establish the Democratic party’s dominance in Congress, was more influential.

But where Howe eschewed promoting FDR’s agenda (except as it made his boss look good politically), Rove took on the dual role of political mastermind and policy wonk, a combination that worked quite well during the President’s first term. Prior to 9/11, Bush received high marks for reaching out to Congress on education and healthcare as well as laying the groundwork of his tax cuts. After the attack, Rove proved himself both a patriot and brilliant strategist as he showcased the President’s resolve to fight the War on Terror by taking the fight directly to the enemy. Bush’s numbers seemed to go up after every such appearance, much to the continuing discomfort of the Democrats.

For this, as well as his reputation for playing hardball politics, Rove earned the undying enmity of the left. He was “The Dark Lord” or “The Evil One.” The howls of rage heard from Democrats during the 2002 election as Rove engineered a vote to authorize force in Iraq, deducing correctly that the only way such a vote could receive bi-partisan support was if the timing was tied to the political survival of Democratic candidates, were exceeded only by the outcry against his seeming to question the patriotism of Democrats during the 2004 election.

Thus, Rove has been a lightening rod of sorts for Bush, taking some of the heat off his boss when the going got tough. But what worked well in the first term has fallen apart in the second. In the last year, there have been many so many missteps both in policy and public relations at the White House that Bush has decided that Rove should be relieved of his policy duties in order to concentrate fully on the upcoming 2006 mid term elections. The reason is simple; the survival of the Republican majority and perhaps even of Bush himself:

The prospect of the administration spending its last two years being grilled by angry Democrats under the heat of partisan spotlights has added urgency to the efforts by Karl Rove and Mr. Bush’s political team to hang on to the Republican majorities in Congress.

Newly shorn of the daily policymaking duties he took on after the 2004 campaign and now refocused on his role as Mr. Bush’s chief strategist, Mr. Rove is facing an increasingly difficult climate for Republicans, and an increasingly assertive Democratic Party.

The ambitious second-term agenda he helped develop has faltered even with a Republican Congress. His once-grand plans for creating a broadened and permanent Republican majority have given way to a goal of clinging to control of the House and Senate.

The prospect of Democrats capturing either, however, may be one of the best weapons Mr. Rove has as he turns to what he has traditionally done best: motivating his party’s conservative base to turn out on Election Day.

But Rove enters what is probably his final campaign limping. That’s because Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will have the final say on whether or not Rove will continue to manage the mid term effort or forced to resign as a result of being indicted:

Fitzgerald, according to sources close to the case, is reviewing testimony from Rove’s five appearances before the grand jury. Bush’s top political strategist has argued that he never intentionally misled the grand jury about his role in leaking information about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003. Rove testified that he simply forgot about the conversation when he failed to disclose it to Fitzgerald in his earlier testimony.

Fitzgerald is weighing Rove’s foggy-memory defense against evidence he has acquired over nearly 2 1/2 years that shows Rove was very involved in White House efforts to beat back allegations that Bush twisted U.S. intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to sources involved in the case.

Rove is said to be worried about being indicted although he apparently hasn’t let the prospect bother him enough to throw him off his gameplan to maintain Republican majorities in Congress:

With so much on the line, Mr. Rove has taken to traveling the country to form strategies with individual candidates and local parties while brainstorming with the president’s political and policy teams on broad items the White House can pursue to help Republicans everywhere. He is focusing on only the major planks of Mr. Bush’s agenda and not the minutiae of policy that had consumed hours of his day.

In regular West Wing breakfast sessions catered by the White House mess, Mr. Rove and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, have already been reaching out to nervous and vulnerable Republicans, three at a time, laying out an emerging three-prong attack on Democrats over national security, taxes and health care.

In meetings at the White House, aboard Air Force One and in candidates’ home states, Mr. Rove is trying to rally Republicans to stand by the president and his agenda.

He has focused in particular on uniting them behind the administration’s proposals to overhaul immigration, which include guest worker provisions that conservatives despise; the Iraq war, which has driven Mr. Bush’s poll numbers sharply downward; and the Medicare prescription drug program, which the administration says will cost $872 billion from 2006 to 2014 and which Mr. Bush backed enthusiastically despite complaints from conservatives that it was a vast expansion of the social welfare state.

Clearly, the loss of Rove would leave a huge hole that Republicans would have a hard time filling. GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman is an able fellow, an adept fundraiser and a master at outreach programs to minorities. But he leaves much to be desired as a grand strategist. Rove had a certain heft about him, a gravitas that was the result of his close relationship with the President. When Rove talks, party leaders and GOP operatives listen. The loss of Rove would also probably mean an internal battle in the White House as aides would jockey for dominance. Rove’s presence on the White House staff precluded such internecine battles simply because of who he was and his dominant relationship with the President. Any such scrambling among White House staff would be enormously distracting and would add to the impression of a listing ship of state.

So what are the chances that Rove won’t even get a chance to carry the GOP to victory in November?

Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, responded that “just because Rove was involved in the defense of the White House Iraq policy, it does not follow that he was necessarily involved in some effort to discredit Wilson personally. Nor does it prove that there even was an effort to disclose Plame’s identity in order to punish Wilson.”

Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted — or publicly cleared of wrongdoing — for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser.

An indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda. If Rove is cleared, however, it would allow Bush’s longtime top aide to resume his central role as White House strategic guru without a legal threat hanging over him.

In Edwin O’Connor’s novel The Last Hurrah, the former long time Mayor Frank Skeffington is convinced to run for Mayor one last time after being out of office many years. But much to his chagrin, he finds that politics and elections have changed dramatically with the advent of television and mass media. The old ways simply didn’t work any longer as the courtly, glad handing ex-Mayor is defeated in his comeback bid. While some have likened the character in the novel to a former Boston Mayor Patrick Curley, others (including himself) said it was based on John F. Kennedy’s maternal grandfather who served several terms as Mayor of Boston and in the late 1940’s ran one last unsuccessful campaign.

JFK’s grandfather’s name? John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald.

I have to admit to experiencing a case of extreme mandible depression after reading Hugh Hewitt this morning. Despite generic poll numbers that show people would prefer Darth Vader over a Republican when voting for a Congressional candidate, Hugh prefers to walk on the sunny side of the street, in effect saying “Aha! We’ve got those Democrats exactly where we want them!”

But with the rejection of the immigration approach favored by the Democrats and the mavericks, the appearance of some fiscal discipline among some senators, the slow but certain march towards the confirmation of future Judges Kavanaugh, Boyle, Haynes etc, the word that the White House will be back in the judicial nominations business very soon, and –most of all– the return of the war to the public’s consciousness because of Iran’s manifest aggressiveness on nukes and Israel and undeniable threats in Central and South America, suddenly the election if framed –again— as a choice between the serious though flawed party of victory, growth, and border security and the party of surrender, to both the jihadists abroad and the demands for amnesty now and again in the future at home.

There are undeniable signs of GOP renewal, in Senate races in Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Washington State, Montana and Missouri –and perhaps next week in Florida– as well as great candidates for governor in Blackwell in Ohio and Swann in Pennsyvlania.

I really wish I could share Mr. Hewitt’s usually infectious enthusiasm for Republican chances in November. I also wish I could fly but given my weight, lack of wings, and a scarcity of magic fairy dust, it looks like both wishes will, by necessity, be relegated to the realm of fantasy rather than coming true any time soon.

The facts are grim and getting grimmer. Leaving aside the President’s poll numbers (which should be largely irrelevant in an off year election held during an incumbent President’s second term), the shockingly low support for Republicans in Congress - only 25% think they are doing a “good job - along with dismal numbers for Republicans on the so-called “generic” ballot where the latest AP-Ipsos poll has Democrats outpolling the GOP by an almost historic 51%-34%, both point to extraordinary unease with Republicans running the House and the Senate.

This may not turn into the kind of disaster for Republicans the Democrats are hoping for. Then again, if the economy takes a turn for the worse or if there is another big scandal, or if gas prices top $4 a gallon, or if things start to go south in Iraq, the worry and disgust many voters are feeling at this point could result in a Democratic tidal wave that would swamp the GOP on election day.

Not a repeat of 1994 as the Dems are hoping for. The model would be 1974 where Watergate and disgust over the Viet Nam war gave the Democrats 54 more seats in the House.

The deadly combination of conservative Republicans staying home and an energized Democratic base may put in play more than the 30 or so seats most analysts are saying are at risk for Republicans. The definition of what constitutes a “competitive” house race is generally accepted as the incumbent receiving 55% or less of the vote in the previous comparable election cycle. But Democratic pollster Charlie Cook has pointed out if that “safe” number is raised to just 57%, it puts 20 more Republican seats at risk.

On the other hand, Mr. Hewitt has an answer to that scenario:

As Michael Barone has argued, the GOP voters just seem to keep turning out, despite their grumbling.

Bill Kristol has argued that 9/11 may have changed American politics far more than we know, and I suspect the president’s poll numbers –to the extent they are accurate– reflect not dismay with the war, but dismay with the Administration’s occasional appearance of placing priority on other than the war. Telling the American people that there is no substitute for victory in Iraq and firmness with Iran even to the point of confrontation is exactly the reassurance that serious people need. The president has been doing this for months, but he and his Administration have been helped in recent weeks by the appearance of the left’s venom and its effects on the Democratic leadership. The party is truly unhinged, and a vote for any Democrat will be a vote for defeat, and not just in Iraq.

Suddenly, the debate is back where it ought to be, on the war, judges, taxes, spending and also border security.

I don’t necessarily want to question either Mr. Barone’s or Mr. Kristol’s judgement, but frankly, I believe that both gentlemen are sipping from the same glass of kool aid. Turnout modeling is an inexact science (just ask the Democrats from 2004). This is especially true in “competitive” races where turnout can be affected by a wide variety of factors including local ballot issues, candidate personalities, and the local economy.

As for how our politics have changed since 9/11, I wrote this for the American Thinker back in June:

At bottom, the brouhaha about prisoner abuse, Koran flushing, puppet governments, Bush- lied-and-people-died-no-blood-for-oil-U.S.out-of-Iraq battle cries reveals a desperate desire on the part of many Americans – perhaps a majority – to wish away the harsh realities that the war in Iraq is exposing, and the monumental effort it will take to win this conflict and defeat the forces of ignorance, intolerance, and terror.

President Warren G. Harding used the phrase “return to normalcy” to describe a state of mind that existed in the United States prior to our entry in World War I. There was a reaction to America sullying her hands by taking part in what, at the time, was seen as part of the endless cycle of European self-immolative conflagrations that had flared up every hundred years or so. Harding thought it was high time America returned to a pre-war state of mind where, as his successor Calvin Coolidge so aptly put it, “the chief business of the American people is business,” and the only foreign entanglement worthy of our interest was trying to keep Latin America peaceful and beyond the clutches of European powers. Harding and Coolidge succeeded in making America forget its involvement in that war.

Republicans underestimate this yearning at their own peril. As I have stated on numerous occasions, the biggest mistake this President has made to date has been his failure to call on the American people for shared sacrifice in the prosecution of the war. As it stands today, the burden for fighting this war remains on the men and women in uniform who perform spectacularly day after day and on their families. Why should it surprise us that the American people would want to forget about a war in which they have no personal stake, no feeling of solidarity with each other and the brave men and women who are taking the struggle directly to our enemies?

The Democrats will seek to delegitimize the war if they do in fact, take control of the Congress in November:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview last week that a Democratic House would launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House’s first-term energy task force and probably including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Pelosi denied Republican allegations that a Democratic House would move quickly to impeach President Bush. But, she said of the planned investigations, “You never know where it leads to.”

[...]

Pelosi also vowed “to use the power to investigate” the administration on multiple fronts, starting with the task force convened in secret by Vice President Cheney to devise the administration’s energy policy. The administration has successfully fought lawsuits since 2001 that sought to reveal the names of energy company executives tapped to advise the task force.

“Certainly the conduct of the war” in Iraq would be the subject of hearings, if not a full-fledged House investigation, Pelosi said. Another subject for investigation could be the use of intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction to make the case for the 2003 invasion.

Hoyer added that he would like to see investigations into the extent of domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency, and the billions of dollars wasted by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This shouldn’t be surprising either. After all, since most Democrats do not believe we are at war in the first place, (seeing the issue of national security a political weakness) they wish to make it virtually impossible for any future President to use force except as a response to an attack - say a nuke detonated in New York City. What good any kind of response would be at that point, the Democrats refuse to say.

Also, by returning to “the good old days” where we didn’t have to worry about silly things like terrorists in the United States plotting with their leaders overseas to kill mass numbers of us, the Democrats will feel perfectly comfortable in tooling back homeland security programs like the NSA intercept program, increased border security, and other measures implemented by the Bush Administration that they have labeled “excessive” or even “dictatorial.”

They will run on a platform that basically says 9/11 never happened. Or even if they acknowledge it, their only reason for doing so will be to criticize Republican efforts in response as “overreacting” to what happened that horrible day.

In this respect, I think Mr. Hewitt is tragically mistaken when he says that the American people are uneasy because the Administration has downplayed both the War on Terror as well as the threat from Iran. Despite 9/11, we are still an extraordinarily insular people and if these last few years prove anything, it is that Osama Bin Laden’s belief that we don’t have the staying power for a long war may prove prophetic if the Democrats ever achieve majority status.

Will a push by the Bush Administration to nationalize the election by making the war and terrorist threats the overriding issues save Republicans in November as Hugh seems to think it will? I would say to my friend be careful what you wish for. By nationalizing the election, other factors would come into focus that would play to the advantage of the Democrats including people’s feelings about this President which at the moment are as low as one can go without an impeachment trial. Even if conservatives come back to the fold, the fact that Democrats outpoll Republicans 3-1 among people who identify themselves as independents makes nationalizing any issues in this off year election extremely hazardous for Republicans.

I will be the first person to congratulate Hugh if his analysis proves prescient. But as it stands now, I have to wonder if Mr. Hewitt is letting his enthusiasm get the better of him when looking at what many other analysts see as sinking Republican chances in November.