Gibson, Morris falsely claimed that Americans oppose Feingold's censure resolution, support Bush's wiretapping program
SUMMARY: On Fox News, John Gibson and Dick Morris falsely claimed that most Americans oppose censuring President Bush for authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on U.S. persons without warrants, and that Americans actually support Bush's domestic eavesdropping program.
On March 16, Fox News host John Gibson and Fox News political analyst Dick Morris falsely claimed that most Americans oppose censuring President Bush for authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on U.S. persons without warrants, and that Americans actually support Bush's domestic eavesdropping program. Gibson added that "the vast majority" of Americans "think it is absurd and purely political" to impeach Bush over the surveillance. In fact, a recent poll conducted by the American Research Group (ARG) -- the only national poll to date on the censure issue since Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced the censure resolution (S.Res.398) on March 13 -- indicates that a plurality of Americans favor a censure for Bush and 42 percent of respondents believe that Bush should be impeached for the NSA spying, while various polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of the wiretapping tactics that the Bush administration has used.
On the March 16 edition of The Big Story, Gibson claimed that "the trouble is the vast majority of Americans ... think it is absurd and purely political to push either censure or impeachment over the surveillance program." That evening on Hannity & Colmes, Morris echoed Gibson, saying that Americans "don't believe the president should be censured, particularly in the middle of a war." But according to an ARG poll conducted March 13-15, a plurality of Americans support Feingold's resolution to censure Bush, and nearly half would support impeachment.
According to the poll, 46 percent of adults favored censuring Bush, while 44 percent opposed it; 42 percent supported impeachment, compared with 49 percent who opposed it. When polling voters only, 48 percent supported Feingold's resolution while 43 percent did not, and 43 percent supported impeachment while 50 percent did not. The margin of error was +/-3 percentage points for both questions.
Gibson and Morris also repeated the claim that Americans support Bush's domestic eavesdropping program. On The Big Story, Gibson asserted that Feingold is demanding censure "over something which most Americans actually approve." On Hannity & Colmes, Morris said that the public "overwhelmingly supports Bush on the wiretapping issue."
But as Media Matters for America has documented, most recent polls show that the public opposes Bush's warrantless eavesdropping. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted February 21-28 found that while 79 percent of "American voters say the government should continue monitoring phone calls or e-mail between suspected terrorists in other countries and people in the U.S.," 55 percent say "that the government should get court orders for this surveillance." A CBS News poll conducted February 22-26 asked respondents: "Regardless of whether you approve of the President authorizing the wiretaps, do you think the President has the legal authority to authorize wiretaps without a court warrant in order to fight terrorism, or doesn't he?" Fifty-one percent said the president does not have the legal authority to do so. A February 9-12 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reported that 50 percent of respondents believed the Bush administration was "wrong" to wiretap "conversations without a court order," while 47 percent said it was "right."
Finally, Gibson claimed that "new records from a secret spying appellate court say" that the NSA surveillance program is legal. Gibson did not explain his reference to "new records," but, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, conservative media figures have frequently claimed that a 2002 opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) establishes that the president can legally authorize warrantless domestic electronic surveillance despite the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's (FISA) restrictions. As Media Matters has also noted, the court has not ruled whether the president can sidestep FISA in authorizing domestic surveillance without a warrant.
From the March 16 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:
GIBSON: The far left has once again grabbed the attention away from more realistic Democrats, and presented the country with image of a Democrat leader, Senator Russ Feingold, demanding the censure, perhaps even impeachment, over something which most Americans actually approve. Is the NSA surveillance program illegal? New records from a secret spying appellate court say no, but it has become such a Democrat mantra that they are sure it was illegal. Therefore, the president must be punished, and the left wing is insisting on it. The trouble is the vast majority of Americans approve of listening to Al Qaeda's phone calls and think it is absurd and purely political to push either censure or impeachment over the surveillance program.
From the March 16 broadcast of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
MORRIS: Feingold's pushing the wrong issue. If he was censuring Bush over something like the -- saying there were no -- there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there he might have a little bit of support. But the public overwhelmingly supports Bush on the wiretapping issue. They want that wiretapping because they think it makes them safe. And they don't believe the president should be censured, particularly not in the middle of war. Remember, this hasn't happened since Andrew Jackson.
I have never seen a man that spews more lies and garbage than Dick Morris.
Bozell?
.......O'Reilly lies MUCH More.................
When I was in the Navy, they would refer to a guy like Dick Morris as "A Guy With A Pound Of Butter In His Hip-Pockett."
This guy would carry anybody's water that would pay him the attention, thats what Clinton learned from this parasite.
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
Time for Dick Morris to get a new job as a corporate flack singing the praises of Halliburton, Exxon, and the Carlyle Group. Oh wait, he does that now. Sorry.
Notice how they slide "indicates that a plurality of Americans " in there....If you actually look at the states 46% agree with censure, 44% disagree, 10% undecided. So the majority of Americans do NOT conclusively agree with the censure resolution introduced by Feingold. So MMFA has to resort to "plurality" by taking the bare 51% of those who have a position one way or the other to try to justify that the American people support this censure resolution. Good to see they're boning up on their math though...no more embarrasing math mistakes...
[link to mediamatters.org]
*Correction: The original version of this item wrongly stated that a "300 percent increase ... would constitute tripling." In fact, only a 200 percent increase is necessary. A 300 percent increase would be a quadrupling.
A recent Harris poll found that 48% knew little or nothing at all about the NSA wiretapping issue...how credible can any of these polls be when half the population is uninformed about the issue?
mmfa's claim that 51% of Americans oppose the wiretapping means that almost every single person who knows anything about NSA wiretapping is opposed...just more political maneuvering...nothing more...nothing less.
how credible can any of these polls be when half the population is uninformed about the issue
The issue here, of course, was the falsity of Gibson's and Morris's claims; your opinion as to the worthiness of the opinions expressed in the polls is therefore wholly irrelevant. But a nice try at distraction.
mmfa's claim...
Falsehood. It was not "MMFA's claim," it was poll results.
...that 51% of Americans oppose the wiretapping means that almost every single person who knows anything about NSA wiretapping is opposed
The math is utterly nonsensical; contra Grhino, apparently it is you, not MMFA, that should be looking to improve their math - but on the other hand, if you really want to say that almost everyone who knows anything about the issue is opposed to Bush's illegal wiretapping, that's fine with me.
- your opinion as to the worthiness of the opinions expressed in the polls is therefore wholly irrelevant. - larrye
mmfa has taken a stand that Americans favor censuring the president and no amount of posturing by you or mmfa can change that fact.If half the people are uninformed about the issue...it's the poll and someone using it that is irrelevant.
mmfa has taken a stand that Americans favor censuring the president and no amount of posturing by you or mmfa can change that fact.If half the people are uninformed about the issue...it's the poll and someone using it that is irrelevant.
Worth quoting in full, the better to savor the wonder of it all. The issue, of course, is that Gibson and Morris claimed "the vast majority" of Americans oppose censure. Polls in fast say a plurality favors it, marking Mssrs. G.'s and M.'s claims as flatly, demonstrably untrue.
You reply - as near as anyone can make out - that if people are "uninformed" about an issue, their opinions must not be counted. You do not challenge the numbers, in fact you implicitly accept them - yet you say this as if it is a logical response to MMFA's argument. Truly a merry bit of word play, a delightful excursion into the absurd.
But I suppose you actually intended to mean something. In that case, since in this thread you have shown your grasp of math, law, and now logic to be shaky at best, we are entitled by your own argument to refrain from taking seriously anything else you have to say.
Thanks for letting us know.
If MMFA were trying to pull the wool over our eyes with the word "plurality," then why would they list the actual figures - 46% & 44% - a few paragraphs down? What's more, their reference to the ARG finding that a "plurality" of Americans support censure was given as a rebuttal to Gibson & Morris' claims that the "vast majority of Americans..." oppose the measure as "purely political," etc.
Get over it. That is all MMFA claimed.
- More people agree with censure than disagree - solon
That means that of the people with knowledge of the subject...maybe 1/4 of the population agrees with censure. That's hardly a ringing mandate.
But if stretching facts to fit your position suits you...it suits me.
Even with YOUR take, those who have an opinion more favor censure than disagree with it. Do you have any evidence that as more people become familiar, and come to a conclusion on this that this overall pattern will somehow change? Do you think that magically all those who dont yet have an opinion will decide censure is bad? Without some evidence this is true your assertion about 25% is meaningless. Without evidence that the undecideds will come to a decision that will change the overall pattern the poll shows you have no point
There you go again...with the mind reading. The Harris poll found that half of America knew little or nothing about the NSA wiretaps. That means that ANY poll trying to decipher the way Americans feel about the issue is meaningless...whether they support it or not.
I don't know much about trains but I certainly have opinions on trains...and probably incorrect ones if I knew the facts.
You and mmfa are stretching meaningless polls to fit a political agenda...that's fine with me under the constraints of playing politics...but it's not ok with me if you're trying to representent an uninformed opinion as something that is good for the country.
So Wesley; do you have a horse in this race, or are we just getting a little rhetorical exorcise??
I favor warrantless wiretaps between American citizens or anyone else with suspected ties to terrorism. The spooks will find nothing of interest in my conversations.
No I'm not afraid of losing my civil liberties. Information gathered without a warrant is useless in a court of law concerning criminal or civil matters...this is about gathering info on enemies of our country.
I favor KEEPING my fourth amendment rights which include the government needing a court order to wiretap my phone conversations. In any conversation with those who have ties to terrorists this should be easy enough to get. IF this is their only interest there is no discernable reason they cannot get them other than they cant be bothered to follow the law. I want the President to follow the law not declare himself Pharoah with magical invisible powers that are NOT explicit in the constitution to do that which is specifically DENIED him in the constitution
The current Bush administration, including the US Attorney General, have stated that the wiretaps are legal. The Clinton administration and US Attorney General concluded it was legal...you surely remember Echelon....you know...the program that used millions of warrantless taps.
Sorry to burst your bubble but until a higher court rules otherwise...you're on the outside looking in with your theory...but keep up the good fight.
Fisa says it is the only mechanism to do domestic wiretaps. Bush is NOT following FISA. It might be simple for you to SAY Bush said it, I believe it and that settles it but it just flat doesnt work that way. MOST legal scholars are saying it is illegal. If Clinton was using Echlon domestically he was wrong and it was in my opinion not legal. What I am reading is Bush talked to a few people in Congress about getting the law changed and was told it wouldnt fly, it is hard to claim that he WANTED to change the law but when told by his people in Congress it they wouldnt give this to him that he then discoverd it was legal all along.
So you don't agree with the assessment of Pres. Bush. Well you conveniently forgot to address the fact that both AG offices of Clinton and Bush, said it was legal. Pres. Clinton and his administration said it was legal.
No sale on your anonymous sources of "most legal scholars"...that's parroting at its finest.
That argument has been tried before and found wanting. Cough up where they said warrantless wiretapping of Americans was legal. Even had they it is irrelevant. I think Bush is wrong. If Clinton said the same thing,which he didnt, he would be wrong. I didnt convieniently forget ANYTHING no one has EVER shown Clinton okayed warrantless wiretapping of Americans outside FISA.
Based universe was disputing this. Here are 14 constitutional scholars:
[link to uchicagolaw.typepad.com]
Dear Members of Congress: We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush Administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in the New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005 letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program. Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.
And even Wikepedia admits the consensus is that it is illegal:
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
The consensus is now that of Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School, and Suzanne Spaulding, former general counsel for the Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate, who argue that FISA clearly makes the wiretapping let alone the data mining illegal[43]; Those who like John Schmidt, former Associate Attorney General, [44] and Douglas Kmiec, chair of Pepperdine Law School, argued either that Congress implicitly authorized an exemption to FISA or that FISA cannot bind the president in a time of war are generally conceeded to be wrong
If you need citations that the sky is blue wait until morning and look for yourself
.....Hey Wesley, did you read this?.................
Nice link
"It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern:
point-of-view rant; most of this information is already available at NSA warrantless surveillance controversy"
Wikipedia says no such thing. In fact, it gives plenty of arguments and views from both sides.
Lipshin, Wesley; How do you know who they have been listening to?? Tell me, how do you know the last election wasn't influenced by this program???
Please save the 'paranoia will destroya' arguement, because this is fact, in plain sight, that is all but whom they spied on.
We have laws that give all the latitude needed to spy on all the terrorists in the world. Why not get a warrant 72hrs afterwards, what's the problem. Lazy? Our Constitution, Bill of Rights don't warrant a little extra effort??
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
I favor warrantless wiretaps between American citizens or anyone else with suspected ties to terrorism. The spooks will find nothing of interest in my conversations.
So it's "if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear," is it? The justification of tyrants down through history.
No, I'm not saying Bush is a tyrant. I'm talking about where you would take us. It would be wise for you to consider the just slightly-deeper meaning of Martin Niemoller's famous warning. And while it will make this comment rather long, I hope I'll be forgiven for including this, from the play A Man for All Seasons. A character, I forget who, has just left the scene. This dialogue (edited for space) follows:
Alice: Arrest him!
More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret: He's bad!
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Finally, there's this:
Information gathered without a warrant is useless in a court of law
Unhappily, your understanding of law is no better than your math. Generally, evidence can be suppressed only if it was illegally obtained - the whole point of a warrant being to give officials access to information they otherwise could not legally get. So of course information gathered without a warrant is admissible if no warrant was required - which is exactly what you propose. Second, even in the case of illegally-obtained evidence, there is a growing body of so-called "good faith exceptions" where officials blithely claim that gee whiz, they really thought what they were doing was legal.
.....food for thought for Wesley..............
The fact that anyone would want the government to spy on its citizens without oversight fromt the people is shameful. I don't care what the situation is, how scared I am of terrorism, or what; that attitude is unamerican and cowardly. If you want to sacrifice the freedoms that countless Americans before us fought and died for just so you can feel a little safer, then move to North Korea. Not to mention that we are asking our soldiers to die in Iraq for the freedoms that you are so quick to throw out the window here.
You seem to KNOW what this wiretapping is "about".
Could you tell us where you have gotten the assurance that it's ONLY about tracking terrorists? See, it's not enough to just take Bush's WORD for it. So, what is your basis for allowing the government to do whatever they want, and to hell with our Constitution?
(P.S. That YOU are willing to be dominated by tyranny, does not give any credibility to your position. A great many of us are Americans who value our freedoms.)
Wes seems to have forgotten that excluding even the illegal searches in a court of law is a protection added by the Supreme Court, not the author's of the Bill of Rights who naively thought that just prohibiting unreasonable searches in such an august document should suffice ... which is why having authority for searches reviewed both before and after they are conducted by an independent judiciary, preferable the Federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, is so important, Wes ... you wouldn't have that protection of which you speak without them.
Most Americans oppose censureing Bush. The POLL says more people polled say the FAVOR censuring Bush. You then claimed it was a stretch because of the undecideds. Am I going to fast for you? Morris CANNOT claim the undecideds like you TRIED to do to make your point. Morris was INCORRECT. Of those with an opinion more favored censure than opposed it, this isnt that complicated Morris was WRONG, your weak attempt to portray MMFA as having to stretch the point was WRONG. It cannot be reasonably claimed that MOST Americans oppose censuring Bush. Try to keep up
Let me see if I understand. There are ten people in a room. They are told that solon has been switching railroad cars without authority.
They are all asked if they know about car switching authority and five of them say they know little or nothing about the subject while the other five say they are informed.
A secret poll is then taken of all ten...asking the question if they support solon's dubious activity. Four say he has the authority and five say he does not and one abstains.
Yep, a majority of those polled said solon's activity was illegal...I'll bet you don't want that bunch determining your fate.
Polling numbers from a group where half of the people are uninformed cannot be used to rationalize either position...pro or con.
When in the yard I need no authority to switch any cars I want for any reason I choose. Your arguments still is irrelevant. Polls ask a question and guage opinion. Now the legality is NOT left to polls but the opinion IS what polls are about. This poll says more Americans think Bush deserves censure than think he doesnt. It is the opinion being talked about now it will be left up to the legal procedure whether there is an actual censure. So your little analogy is worthless. I couldnt possibly care less what the majority of people think when asked about the railroad as those in authority WILL know. However when the question was what do the majority of the people HERE THINK I wouldnt LIE and say the majority of people agree with me. That is what happened here, there is NO possible way to claim the vast majority of people have an opinion where polls exist that show more feel the exact opposite way than what was claimed. Spin till you lose your lunch it wont change the facts
Polling numbers from a group where half of the people are uninformed cannot be used to rationalize either position...pro or con.
My comment here comes a little late in the game but I missed this when I read through the comments earlier and it's too good to let pass.
So, you say, the polls can't be used to "rationalize either position?" In that case, by your own argument, Gibson and Morris were just mouthing off phony numbers with absolutely nothing - not even an supposedly useless poll - to base them on.
Which means you actually agree with the thrust of MMFA's post! You arrived via a different path, but you wound up at the same place! So what they hey is your problem?
The only alternative is that if MMFA hadn't cited any evidence but simply, like Gibson and Morris, plucked out of the air a claim like, say, "They're all wet! Actually, uh, 75% of all Americans want Bush impeached!" you'd have no objection!
Geez, you're funny.
........a majority of Polls in America include a great amount of uniformed people. A good example; 34% approval of Bush....
So the majority of Americans do NOT conclusively agree ... So MMFA has to resort to "plurality" ...
You'd better re-take that reading comprehension correspondence course, my friend. What MMFA challenged was the claim by both Gibson and Morris that, in Gibson's words, "the vast majority" of Americans oppose censure.
But not only doesn't a "vast" majority oppose censure, not even a plurality does. In fact, a plurality supports censure, as you yourself admit. Gibson and Morris were either lying or just making numbers up.
MMFA did not say that a majority favor censure; it did not even say, as it legitimately could have, that a majority of those with an opinion support it. MMFA said that a plurality favors censure - which, apparently, it does. Therefore, what Gibson and Morris said was false.
Is that clear enough?
- It's an overreaching step by somebody who's grandstanding and running for president at the expense of his own party and his own country - Mark Dayton, democratic senator from Minn.
Politics aside...it's refreshing to see a politician speaking frankly...oh I forgot...he's not running for reelection...which automatically boosts the courage level.
An investigation should be done covering this, the intelligence use by this administration, the torture scandal including subpeoning every scrap of paper that mentions torture the adminstration has. Then he should be handcuffed and frogmarched to the Hague to stand trial for the supreme warcrime starting a war of agression. If the Nuremberg laws were applied he would be hung. Since they dont do the death penalty anymore 20 years in an orange jumpsuit if found guilty will satisfy me.
"Politics aside...it's refreshing to see a politician speaking frankly...oh I forgot...he's not running for reelection...which automatically boosts the courage level.''
I would take issue with this statement if directed at Sen. Russ Feingold. The happy constituents of Wisconsin should be proud of the consistent stand, fight, and continued fight for truth in governance, and protection of civil liberties.
He had been consistent when Clinton was up against it, he has opposed this Presidency as it concerned his responsibility to protect & preserve the Constitution of the United States of America. Let us not forget that this is his principle oath, as is the President’s.
I know the President did. Forget, or disregard?? Oath, smoath, he’s the Pres.
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
- I would take issue with this statement if directed at Sen. Russ Feingold - dangrady
It was not directed at Feingold...as is obvious that he is still running for office. It was directed at Drayton.
No need to drum up a strawman on the back of my statement.
Dodging, ducking, slipping, sliding, Republican strong suits in the public.
Lipshin, Wesley; How do you know who they have been listening to?? Tell me, how do you know the last election wasn't influenced by this program???
Tell me, do you know something the rest of us don't. Maybe you could share?? Did the President choose to tell you, but not the rest of the country, or at least the Senate Intelligence Committee? Gang of Eight?? Swore to secrecy?
Man, you’re dodging the issue, and you know it. You would like to make the issue a mud slinging contest, when it should be good governance.
A party, whom believes government should be smothered in the bath, could hardly be expected to govern well. The proof is in the news cycle daily, and even a corrupted media could hardly avoid reporting it no matter how hard they try.
So you call this whining, and feel secure in your conviction that the strategy of good governance, protecting, and preserving the constitution is a strategy for failure. That pointing to the painfully obvious corruption, malfeasance, and outright incompetence should not be enough to put us over the top.
I think we'll risk it!
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
A non-binding resolution expressing the sense of the Senate has no legal impact whatsoever on the President. It doesn't diminish his power by one iota, it has no force of law, and it has no Constitutional consequences. It doesn't hurt America to have the Senate say it disapproves of what the President did, in time of war or in time of peace.
Feingold put the Republicans on the hot seat with his resolution because they have to either betray their President and party, or cast a vote that says "I don't think the President should be criticized for breaking the law." Of course it's all about politics, the resolution is an entirely political act -- it's not a law.
Now the Conservatives are looking for cover, trying to find a reason to vote against the resolution that appears apolitical so they don't have to take the political consequences of doing so.
Dayton appears to have bought into the idea that it's bad for America to be politically divided over a war it started in time of war.
The distorted facts have become America's commonplace. We have an administration trying to hang on to public opinion by the string of its teeth! Bush needs suporters who don't mind a out and out fabrication to make an opponent look bad. The corruption that surrounds him comes dangerously close to our leader, except he's surrounded by old cronies that will not go against him (THAT IS UNTIL HE WANTED TO DO SOMETHING AS STUPID AS GIVING A FOREIGN POWER TOTAL ACCESS TO OUR HOMELAND, WE SHOULD IMPEACH ON THAT ALONE! BUSH IS KILLING AMERICANS DAILY!
old skirt chasing Dick Morris had more up-to-date polls than MMFA.
Four in 10 (42 percent) of the adults in the general public say they would support Congressional censure of the president, while half (50 percent) say they would not. Censure wins majority support from Democrats (60 percent) and one in five Republicans (20 percent) say they’d support it. Yet if Democrats in Congress do decide to push for such a measure, they may run into trouble with that same public. By a margin of 53 percent to 33 percent, Americans feel the censure proposal was made as a partisan ploy, not for reasons of principle.
[link to www.msnbc.msn.com]
...he just pulled his facts out of his hinder just like you pulled that one. If he had such a poll, why not source it? Because you can't source your imagination.
the link is right there, Mr. Wonder.
So, Mr. Leatheriffic, you can read Dick Morris's mind and KNOW, just KNOW for sure, he had a more up to date poll. Fatuous in your logic to the end. Also, his appearance was on March 16. The article you source is March 18. So your argument gets even sillier. Now Morris obtained the poll results early from a friend at Newsweek, Danny Steinhouse, the guy with the sweaty palms, I know he can't help it, but it's really gross. Anyway, old Dick called up old sweaty Danny who let him have the scoop so he could go on Fox and really give it to the Dems, but he was sworn to secrecy, "Don't tell them where you got it or it's my sweaty butt cheeks!"
At least I KNOW I'm being silly and making it up. What's your excuse?
Did Mr. Morris cite any of the Media Matters polls?
No, he didn't. He made the general statement that the public did not back Feingold's censure folly.
And guess what, two days later a poll comes out proving he is correct. Unless of course, you believe they did all their polling on the 17th and everyone magically changed their mind in one day.
It turns out Dick Morris was right and MMFA's attempt to prove him wrong backfired in their faces.
The ARG impeach question reads as follows:
"Do you favor or oppose the United States House of Representatives voting to impeach President George W. Bush?"
There's nothing in there about impeaching bush for wiretapping. That's the Zogby poll. ARG didn't give a reason for impeachment, however, the censure question asked about censureing for wiretapping.
"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?"
The media matters article is incorrect:
"...March 13 -- indicates that a plurality of Americans favor a censure for Bush and 42 percent of respondents believe that Bush should be impeached for the NSA spying."
Our democracy depends upon it. LarryE / Saturday March 18, 2006 09:56:21 PM EST had a great post, too bad no one responded to it.
How safe would you feel, leatherhelmet & Wesley, if in the name of fighting terrorism, your own home was searched and your phone tapped? Perhaps someone who doesn't like you reported you as a suspected terrorist to get revenge. & the gvt. found some innocent conversation in some way threatening & twisted your words to convict you? This happens all the time in police states.
Never in the US you say? Only if we don't listen to people who think like you two do.
How about letting a president that you didn't support do illegal wiretaps & searches?
- How about letting a president that you didn't support do illegal wiretaps & searches? - mary59
He did. Pres. Cllinton had a little program called Echelon. This program intercepted millions of communications without warrants.
There is also the little matter of the warrantless search of the Ames property. Guess what...we discovered a traitor and spy.
This was not "Clinton's" program. Read the link: [link to en.wikipedia.org]
Catching Ames was not done by breaking the law either. [link to www.brainshrub.com]
Would you please comment on the questions in my previous post? Please, can you see the forest?
[link to www.thinkprogress.org]
Mary, Mary...you asked the question...it was your question that brought Clinton into the discussion:
I answered a question that you posed...it's not my responsibility to see that you get the answer you approve of.A non-answer, esp since the links expose the lie that Clinton did illegal wiretapping. Please answer this one: would you like a FUTURE president that you don't support to conduct illegal wiretaps and searches of your home or office?
A Cold War holdover, from the 1960s, to spy on enemies abroad. It wasn't Clinton's program anymore that Social Security was his program. And would you and the rest of the "Clinton broke the law so I don't see why it's a problem that Bush did" people please stop bringing up the warrantless property search. The FISA law didn't cover that at the time. Once it did, out went the warrantless searches. As for what the search produced, a name would be nice. A spy for which country? Russia? Pakistan? Canada? And to what end? It's all very cryptic and generalized, light on facts, high on apologetics for Bush's breaking the law as to make us "safer". Know what makes me feel safe? Knowing the President isn't above the law. Wasn't that the whole argument behind the Clinton impeachment? He broke the law, he must be punished. Simple as that. I agree. Bush broke the law, he must be punished, and while we're at it go after that scofflaw Clinton, too, and all those corporate criminals on Capitol Hill. Clean house, throw 'em all in prison for voting us into an un-winnable civil war. With all them behind bars, I'd feel REAL safe.
Echelon is an old program ... A Cold War holdover, from the 1960s, to spy on enemies abroad.
And one that for years the government denied existed. Descriptions of it were labeled paranoid fantasies of the "loony left." Keep that in mind the next time those phrases are tossed around with regard to, for example, paperless electronic voting machines.
As for Echelon, it was and is nothing more than a hi-tech fishing expedition, eavesdropping on an enormous number of electronic communications in the hope that something will turn up. Not so long ago, that notion was offensive enough that it was kept secret for fear of public reaction. Now, it's celebrated as a major and necessary tool in the battle for freedom. How far we have come.
The thing is, though - and this is what our resident wingnuts keep trying to dodge - because Echelon did not involve listening in on domestic conversations but only foreign ones, while the searches it undertook were usually warrantless, they were not illegal under US law.
One the other hand, the NSA wiretaps that are the subject of recent arguments are illegal under US law by general agreement. (The White House's whirling claims for legality, which first looked to "inherent authority" and then abruptly switched to claiming Congressional authorization under a bizarre interpretation of some post-9/11 legislation, are, to be gentle, unpersuasive.) Echelon, while an important issue in its own right, is therefore wholly irrelevant to the issue before us.
.....when all else fails in your argument, blame Clinton. This childish argument is not working Wesley. Wait for further points of argument soon, from Karl.........................................
LarryE / Saturday March 18, 2006 09:56:21 PM EST had a great post....
Just wanted to say thanks for the compliment.
Even under FISA they can tap your phone and you would never know because the warrants are secret.
The Washington Post reported there has been about 10 NSA cases per year of the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
I see no reason where the average person wouldn't have more worries with the IRS than the NSA.
As far as I know there have been no illegal physical searches. If there have been, it hasn't been very rampant, or they are so good I have only read of the one shakey complaint from a guy in Oregon. So at this point it is kind of a silly argument.
To me, it is just civil libertarians going apesh*t over nothing.
I appreciate them looking out for our civil rights and I know there are tons of newspapers and bloggers and lawyers working day and night as a check on our government. After reading reams of materials on how the Patriot Act was going to ruin our way of life and here we are years down the road and virtually nothing has happened, I see no reason to quake in my boots over a program which tracks terrorists with minimal intrusion to our freedoms.
I read these arguments and think that the spin is making me dizzy.....truth is.....we don't believe the neo cons and nothing Morris or Gibson says will change that.
When you are a pundit...you have only so long a life expectency in the media...would the statesmen please step forward now.
F.O.X.
FABRICATED-OBNOXIOUSLY-XENOBIOTIC
These rightwing foghorns speak from the default position that Bush is to be trusted implicitly.
Thus, when Bush says that ONLY terrorists are being wiretapped, that represents an absolute TRUTH.
From THAT premise, they can claim that "most Americans agree" with what Bush is doing; most Americans WANT terrorists spied upon.
But, that's not the issue. It's a distraction based on a distortion supported by faith alone.
The issue is, we Americans can have NO IDEA what or who this Administration is spying on, and for what purpose, unless some form of meaningful oversight is implemented. The requirement to get FISA approval is the "check" against governmental abuse of power (and violation of our Constitution).
FISA presents no obstacle to the President doing what he claims to be doing ... spying ONLY on terrorists. FISA presents a problem when what the president is doing cannot be justified. So, the president has decided he NEEDS no oversight, that he should just be TRUSTED.
No sale, Mr. President. We are not a monarchy.
Tex, you hit it, as you did in addressing Wesley earlier.
Wes and his likeminded follwers seem to have forgotten that excluding even the illegal searches in a court of law is a protection added by the Supreme Court, not by the authors of the Bill of Rights, who naively thought that just prohibiting unreasonable searches in such an august document should suffice ... which is why having authority for searches reviewed both before and after they are conducted by an independent judiciary, preferably the Federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, is so important to protect one's privacy, regardless of whether the private things people want to protect are criminal in nature. A lot more folks died to give rise to the nation that honors that privacy and in the numerous conflicts since then than died in terrorist attacks all over the world. Why are so many suddenly so willing to surrender these rights to an all-powerful president? Hard to understand.