“He lied to the American people and broke the law.”
December 29, 2005
Three cheers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which ran a full-page version of this advertisement in today’s New York Times. In case some of the text is too small to read, the presidential quotations state:
“On May 22, I stated in very specific terms and I state again to every one of you listening tonight these facts — I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in; I neither took part in nor knew about any of the subsequent coverup activities; I neither authorized nor encouraged subordinates to engage in illegal or improper campaign tactics. That was and that is the simple truth.” — Richard Nixon, August 15, 1973
“Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think PATRIOT Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.” — George W. Bush, April 20, 2004.
I’m pretty cynical when it comes to this administration, but read President Bush’s statement again. It sounds unscripted. There’s the mangled sentence corrected halfway through. There’s the folksy aside (now, by the way). There’s the semi-gratuitous mention of terrorism. There’s the the demand that people “understand”. Everyone has certain habits and nuances that they fall into when making unscripted speeches, and this statement contains many of the president’s familiar rhetorical devices. It sounds like unprompted conversation, but read it more carefully. There’s something very creepy and deliberate going on here.
Any time you hear
Talking about wiretap
We’re talking about getting a court order
When you think PATRIOT Act
The pattern continues in other statements the president has made on the issue:
Any action … by law enforcement requires a court order
Law enforcement officers need…
Everything you hear about requires a court order
This has moved beyond spin into deliberate deception. The subtext says, “It’s the wiretaps we don’t talk about that are illegal. When we ignore the courts, we don’t want you to hear about it. It’s the NSA that break the law, not the police.” The president is lying very carefully so as to avoid perjuring himself. “It depends what the meaning of talk is”. He plays dumb sometimes, but he’s a extremely smart guy, and the weasel wording is too perfect to happen by accident. Impeach George Bush. Impeach Dick Cheney. Impeach them now.
December 29th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Oh please. So your argument is that Bush should be impeached because he lied, but also because he didn’t really lie?
December 29th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Steve R: I think Bush should be impeached because of the way he has placed himself above the law. I make that argument inn more detail here. I also think that his statements about requiring a court order are lies, even if they are not technically perjurious. They were deliberately constructed to mislead people, and to hide what was going on.
December 29th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Yeah, it’s always the crimes they don’t talk about that get them in the end.
December 29th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
I don’t think his remarks were carefully crafted to not be technically perjurious, but they do give me the creeps big-time. You just have to know he was at that very moment recalling White House strategy meetings in which they decided to spy without warrants.
I’m all for an immediate independent investigation. Unless I’m missing something here, what he did was illegal and is exactly the sort of abuse of power that our checks and balances were designed to protect us against.
December 29th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
It’s going to be an interesting month of January. I’m sure the extent of executive power is going to be a big topic at the Alito hearings — if there’s one thing senators don’t like, even Republican senators, it’s presidents who disrespect Congress. And then there will (it looks like) be hearings about the NSA spying, too.
The prima facie case certainly seems to be impeachably illegal. They’ve had several weeks now to mount a defense, and they haven’t come up with anything except for the Article II nonsense, and appeals to sacrificing liberty to gain safety. The latest idea appears to be confusing “spying” with “spying without a warrant”, as if what matters is the idea that the government can eavesdrop, and not the idea that the government needs to follow the law when doing so. It’s time for the checks and balances to check in.
December 29th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Not only does he lie, he does it with that brazen “I think America’s stupid enough to believe me” attitude that third-world dictators are so famous for. The sad thing is, he’s 51% right.
George W. Bush is the 2nd biggest disgrace in the history of this nation, the 51% that voted for him in ‘04 being 1st.
December 30th, 2005 at 1:00 am
The guy referred to WMD’s in 40 of 48 paragraphs of his Cincinnati speech in the run up to the resolution to murder and main.
I’m not sure what this lie’s gonna precipitate.
I’d like to focus more on ECHELON, the god-awful machine that this “wire tapping” so euphamistically refers to.
December 30th, 2005 at 9:28 am
Well, this lie was directed at concealing the existence of an illegal program authorized in violation of federal law, and quite possibly in violation of the Constitution. It’s not the result of ideological incompetence and bad intel, and it’s not exaggerated agit-prop. The big problem here is not the lie, but the program the lie was meant to hide.
As far as ECHELON goes, I’m not familiar with all of the details, but my understanding is that it intercepts foreign communications (it’s based in Scotland), and that a warrant is required before any information is collected (accessed? stored?) on American citizens. Whether the NSA is obeying the law or not is unknown, and one of the problems with having an NSA in the first place.
That said, I think the benefits of an NSA (at least one subject to strong Congressional and judicial oversight) far outweigh the negatives. I’m not concerned with the spying (we should be spying!), but with the fact that the Bush Administration is acting outside the law and ignoring civil liberties when doing so.
December 30th, 2005 at 9:32 am
I also don’t think the illegal wiretaps refer to ECHELON. The information that’s come out about why the FISA warrants were rejected suggested the administration didn’t show probable cause. They had to fill out a piece of paper (this is really how it works) that had a name (which could presumably be “John Doe 1″ or something) and a reason to authorize the tap, and they were unwilling to do so.
The only reasons I can see for them doing that are (a) blithe unconcern for the law, or (b) they were spying on people that weren’t really connected to al Qaeda.
December 30th, 2005 at 11:10 am
Become a member and support the ACLU of Wisconsin at this website! http://www.aclu-wi.org
December 30th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
I’ll second crwfd’s suggestion: if you’re not already a member, join your local ACLU today!
December 31st, 2005 at 10:38 am
Unfortunately, there are too many people out there that are still VERY afraid. Bush has capitalized on that fear, and told them that if you don’t let me do what I want, the terrorists will get you. There are just too many people that are so afraid, that they’ll let him steal their rights and walk all over the Constitution. This ACLU ad is a GREAT start, but we need to convince Congress.