It is barely nine o’clock in the morning, still sipping at my first cup of coffee and already my head is spinning. I just finished reading an article in the NY Times which makes me question wether I have woken in a parallel universe. The title of the article is enough to make you scratch your head in disbelief “Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping“, and here is what it says:

Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers.

Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

“We hope our Republican counterparts will work together with us to fix the problem, rather than try again to gain partisan political advantage at the expense of our national security,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a statement Monday night.

The statement by Harry Reid would almost be laughable, if he actually said it in jest. The truth is Harry Reid truly believes the Republicans are obstructionists and will block any attempt by Democrats to pass legislation, even if it is legislation they believe in. If Mr. Reid wants this bill to pass, all he would need to do is leave out the earmarks, and unrelated amendments.

I can only assume the reason Democrats are jumping aboard the surveilance bandwagon is because Bush promised them some sort of concession, most likely on the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007. That Mr. Reid is what is called “playing politics” and noone does it better than Democrats, i.e. allowing the government the opportunity to obtain intelligence which will allow it to defend our country better, but only in exchange for new entitelements and more government waste.

As we read further down the article, it appears the NY Times is vindicating Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez of perjury:

Mr. Gonzalez has insisted that a 2004 dispute between the White House and Justice Department officials that erupted in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft related to other intelligence activities. On Sunday, The New York Times reported that the dispute centered on the data mining elements of the N.S.A.’s program, rather than on the eavesdropping, leaving open the possibility that Mr. Gonzalez had been legalistic in his testimony, but had technically not lied.

Hat Tip StopTheACLU

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Congress, Politics, Terrorism