Sep 20 2006
Fearing Our Government More Than Terrorists
The news media in this country really has trouble with the idea the President has power. Any use of power bothers them, even though they regularly abuse their power through biased and ignorant reporting. So am I surprised the Washington Post is concerned the President has Constitutional Powers which cannot be constricted by the legislative branch? Am I surprisd the Post is not aware Judicial Branch has recognized those powers? Am I surprised Congress is on the brink of recognizing those powers in law? Nope. I expect the Washington Post to be as obsessively blindered as the media usually is. Sadly, these left leaning people are facing a hard reality: they did not understand how our government works and they do not have the power (anymore, thanks to the new media) to spin people into making uneducated decisions. We need to learn when someone here in the US is in contact with our enemies overseas. We need to monitor those dicussions (by the NSA of course) while the FBI investigates the person in the US and applies for a FISA warrant if they determine the person to be a risk. This is how it works now. What the liberals want to do is go back to the way it was beforee 9-11, when fear of some possible future abuse of power allowed ‘safe guards for terrorists’ to be erected and give the 9-11 highjackers free reign to coordinate their attacks and financing with their bloodthirsty masters overseas. FISA Judges, before 9-11, use to deplore leads from the NSA as improper. They were not allowed. Even now, after 9-11, the FISA judges will not issue a warrant based on NSA intel alone (which is why the NSA cannot ask the FBI to get a warrant from FISA for their efforts). We cannot allow this ignorant thinking to return. There are always risks power can misused. A policeman can go on a murdering rampage – but we still arm them with a gun. We need to stop fearing our government more than those who have stated publically they are out to kill as many of us as they can, in a suicide attack (the hardest to defend since the attacker wants to die).
AJ:
It seems that the press has assumed an adversarial role in regards to government. Not just sometimes, but as a matter of course.
I think this really took hold during Watergate and it has not left them yet. It was their shining moment. The fact that it was 30 years ago is a detail they overlook.
A remedial course in government and civics might be useful to them in this regard so that they can tell the difference between the powers actually given the President in the Constitution and the powers they personally believe he should have.
AJ: kinda funny, when Clinton approved the setup of the NSA’s Echelon Project, which makes President Bush’s NSA wiretaps look like kids play; the NYT and other Leftist MSM outlets actually DEFENDED it!
And when Clinton approved Warrantless Physical Searches, such as in the Aldrich Ames case, teh Leftist MSM outlets, like the NYT again, DEFENDED it!
It appears, the Leftist MSM is only against Presidential “power”, when it’s a Republican President??
It seems that the press has assumed an adversarial role in regards to government.
I think, to a great extent, the press has always assumed such a role. Watergate was, however, the watershed event that brought the press to the realization of just exactly how much power they possessed. IMHO, that power is beginning to wane, thanks, in no small part, to the New Media. Remember a couple months before the 2004 election when Evan Thomas of “Newsweek” said (on live TV, no less)that the MSM was worth 15 points to Kerry. Well, Kerry still lost. It would be interesting to hear Mr. Thomas’ assessment of the value of the MSM to the Democrat candidate in 2008. I’m betting it won’t be 15 points.
A remedial course in government and civics might be useful
If we have any high school teachers among the readers here, I’d be interested to know whether or not “government” and “civics” are still taught in public schools, and, if so, how they’re taught.
so that they can tell the difference between the powers actually given the President in the Constitution and the powers they personally believe he should have.
Terrye, this reminds me of a great quote from Justice Scalia:
A thought provoking read on this and similar issues is here
http://politicscentral.com/2006/09/19/msm_ngos_and_paranoia.php
to quote
In a healthy society there’s an amount of credibility that can conditionally be given or lent to its democratic institutions. If these are under perpetual suspicion, that credibility will likely migrate to alternative ones such as religious authorities, revolutionary groups, cultural agents and so on. In the US, the MSM seem to have been the first to benefit from this migration of credibility. With their own demoralization, a result both of transparent partisanship and sheer incompetence, other newly-created institutions began to attract and almost to monopolize the credibility the society had to offer. Among these, the most important were the NGOs.
Excellent post, go read it all.
BTW…uh…anyone want to tell Warren Buffet that the IAEA cannot be classified as a charity, since he is in such an all-fired hurry to give his fortune away:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/20/105713.shtml?s=ic
Carol
This has nothing to do with fear of the government. Rather it is fear of a Republican run government which has leftists upset. The presidents constitutional powers were of no consequence to the left when slick Willy was in the White House.
AJ,
Good post. And good comments, all.
I suggest the MSM swiched from reporting to advocacy during the Viet Nam War. It continued through the rest of the Cold War, and continues now.
As Oldpuppymax observed, the one party media don’t fear government, only Republican government.
DaleinAtlanta
“when Clinton approved the setup of the NSA’s Echelon Project,”
not that it matters to what you were saying, but Clinton was about 6 years old when Echelon was set up.
I do think the press was easier on Clinton, but then again it was Drudge that broke the Lewinsky thing, and once it broke the press was brutal. Not long ago I saw Clinton go after a British reporter referring to the press as “you people” or something like that. I had never seen him so pissed.
So when it comes to certain political decisions I do think the press was easier on Clinton, but once they turned on him they got pretty ugly. I don’t think they can help themselves.
And to some extent it has been this way forever, it was a “journalistst” who first broke the story about Thomas Jefferson’ s relationship with slave girl and it almost ruined him…so the press have always been sharks, but it was not until Watergate that they had this kind of power.
i wish it were so-the press being even handed.
the press loved the clintons. after pretending outrage over bill’s misogyny and the blue dress they went back to their situational ethics rationalizing his behavior. the charge was led by bill maher. the right despised the clintons–not so much for their politics but for their personal behavior and attitudes. it still persist to this day.
the question going forward is will the press ever truly turn on a democrat president. it’s hard to say. when bush leaves office the dems will have had the presidency for only 12 of the last 40 years, truly a mind boggling statistic–to have the white house, despite the fourth estate, for so long.
my guess is they will rally behind any dem president for as long as humanly possible to validate in their own minds that the repubs reagan, bush and bush were ignorant devil dogs as chavez said today. they will commit collective hari kari if another repub gets elected.
Patrick:
The press felt more comfortable with Democrats and their policies, but they eat their own. When it was worth the time of someone like Isikoff to turn on Clinton, he did.
And Conservatives used to fear big government! AJ willingly refers to “the pre-9/11 days ” with conservatives presumably permitted to have this attitude until the catastrophe. The catastrophe,however, did not rightly propel us into a new era requiring new “conservative” norms. It only showed the Empire had made too many enemies to
fight as a free people.
they will commit collective hari kari if another repub gets elected.
One can only hope, Patrick.
Ken I read your post 4 times, and I still have not idea what you’re talking about. Hitting the single malt a little early today?
The “press” turned on BJ Clinton because it was juicy news and got readers and viewers. But the “press” still supported his policies.
Also, don’t forget the words used to minimize his actions: “it’s just about sex.”
In Jefferson’s time, the press was anabashedly partisan, instead of masquerading as unbiased.
Ken:
Can you answer a question for me? You told me that you were a Buchanan style conservative. Were you pulling my leg or is there really that little day light between the extreme right and the extreme left?
My friends here think you are a typical leftist and laughed themselves silly at the idea you might be a closet rightie, but I wonder.
macker:
Yes, that is true. That is what I was saying, the press was and is more comfortable with liberal policies, and so the idea that they are objective is a joke…but when it suits them can stab anyone in the back.
Terrye, you should be able to read what Ken says and know that he is to the far left side of the Looney Lefties. There is no light at all between Ken and the extreme Loonies.
Even when the press turned on the Clinton’s it was mild compared to the rabid treatment of Repubs. (As always)
Ken: who is this “Empire” you keep referring to? before you answer, read the definition of empire. Maybe you will be a little less clueless, but I doubt it.
Enforcement:
I don’t know about that.
I have listened to Buchanan rant about Zionists taking over America and our illegal empire building neocon driven war in Iraq enough to know that extremes really do meet.
I got in a spat with a Buchanan fan the other day who was going on about our moronic military. After all smart people don’t join up. Only the morons who believe whatever the powerful people tell them. The lesson being that people on both sides can be wrong.
I think the thing that draws the extreme right and left together is a combination of isolationism and antiSemitism. They are somewhat reminiscent of the America Firsters of preWW2.
Surely you have heard this stuff. Really, I am not trying to be facetious.
Pat Buchanan said:
Lesson? The price of empire is terror. The price of occupation is terror. The price of interventionism is terror. As Barry Goldwater used to say, it is as simple as that. When Israel departed Lebanon, Hezbollah’s attacks fell off almost to nothing. But as long as Israelis occupy the West Bank, which Prime Minister Barak conceded belongs at least 95 percent to the Palestinians, Israel will be hit by terror attacks.
Either Israel gets out, or it pays the price of staying in: terrorism.
But this column is not about Israel — it is about us. It is about why we are being told by our leaders, in tones of resignation and fatalism, that it is not a question of whether, but of when, the next act of cataclysmic terror occurs here, and why we must accept the possibility that a nuclear weapon will be exploded here.
But when Americans ask, “Why do they hate us?” and “Why do these Islamic radicals on the other side of the earth want to come over here and commit hara-kiri killing us?” we get responses that ought not to satisfy a second-grader. They hate us, we are told, because we are democratic and free and good, and we have low tax rates.
Well that is no longer enough. Before, not after, the next terror attack on this country, America’s leaders should start telling the truth: Evil though they may be, Islamic killers are over here because we are over there. They are not trying to kill us because they dislike our domestic politics, but because they detest our foreign policy.
And so on and so forth. Just google him, Noam Chomsky could not do a better job.