Screaming Penguin

So Al Gore piped up and called wiretapping American citizens on American soil without FISA (or any court) approval ILLEGAL. Imagine that, being that it IS ILLEGAL seems like a crazy thing to say right? Well that prompted the recent attack responses from the Bush bullshit machine calling Gore a hypocrite. The Bush team also cleaned up the language a bit and re-spewed it in the form of editorials by justice department lawyers. The problem is that the Clinton-Gore use of a SINGLE physical search in the Ames spying matter was NOT COVERED by the FISA court at the time. At the time FISA covered electronic survelliance only and did not cover physical searches. The law was later changed to include physical searches by legislation that Clinton supported, encouraged and signed (imagine a President supporting civil liberties and a balance of power, wow). The Bush team seems to be citing the very law they now say doesnt apply to them in order to try to smear Gore and deflect his statements about their illegal activity. Its one thing to defend against Gore if they really believe their activity is not illegal (as they still assert, but has been refuted by every independent legal expert and rational person to review the matter thus far) but it is another to quote the very law they say does not apply in their defense and do so in a manner that invokes the current law deceptively in reference to past actions when the law was different. And the issue here is that the Bush-McClellan-JusticeDeptClowns KNOW and KNEW THAT. That makes them deceptive assholes at best and complete liars at worst. This administration wonders why the hell we as a populace will not accept the wiretaps and the explanation that "hey we say they are good for you, accept it"? Yet they lie and deceive at every turn? Something the Bush team apparently does not get, or they think it also does not apply to them, is that you have to EARN credibility and respect, continually lying and or deceiving at every turn is not the way to do that. We need to stop the illegal wiretap practice now, we do need to have congressional investigations, we do need to treat this issue as a very important matter because it is. We need for the executive branch of the federal government to be censured and reigned in from all of the illegal activity and or just plain excessive use of powers. And we need a Republican led indictment every other day congress to do it? Yeah right. Forgive me if I sound incredibly cynical, but I am and its deserved. The Republican party cant investigate the "misplacement" of BILLIONS of dollars in the Iraq contracting mess, they cant investigate the pre-war intelligence, they cant investigate Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff et al (several DA's have but the house ethics committee did not stop all this crap, au contrare), they cant investigate secret "black sites" prisons, they cant investigate torture, they cant stand up and say the detention of American citizens without charge is not allowed and they certainly cant be depended upon to investigate the wiretap matter. I personally am no Democrat but will be voting for and pulling for the Democrats very much so in upcoming 2006 elections. What are my choices? The Republican theological and dictatorship "make the government bigger than ever", "put even more government into social issues" and "dont ever investigate anything even though we are obviously corrupt as hell" party? The disorganized and all too often distracted Libertarian party which even when it is making sense has no chance to really get anyone into higher office? Or the Democrats who have their own issues with putting government where it doesnt in my opinion belong, especially on social fronts, but who at the same time seem to ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE when they do so and are not trying to deceive - most of the time. With those choices I am going Democrat and will be hoping for enough seats to change hands that we can at least get some real investigations going to at least "investigate" the very important and mostly ignored matters of the last few years of government.