Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Oh, thats fine, that you refer to their other polls as well, referring to specific government actions and other indicators of well-being ... that could help you make the point about, say, support going back in his favour on this or that policy or action.

But you were quite adamant about talking of a "swing[..] back to support for The President, his Administration, and its actions" - period. Note the use of the word "and".

Isnt it odd that if support were veritably "swinging" back to the President, himself, it is not reflected by much of a change in his approval rating?

...

Me thinks your enthused bluster might be a tad premature, Timber...

Poll: Bush's Approval Ratings Climb
Iraqi Elections, Economic Gains Lift President From Career Lows


President Bush listens to a reporters question,
Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, during a press conference in
the East Room of the White House in Washington.
(Ron Edmonds/AP Photo)

Analysis By GARY LANGER



The recent elections in Iraq and an improved economic outlook at home have shifted public support in the president's direction, lifting him from career lows in his job performance and personal ratings alike.

The president still faces significant challenges, including majority disapproval of his overall performance, substantial skepticism about the war and roughly 50-50 ratings on his personal honesty and his handling of ethics. Still, each has moved his way ...

Walter Hinteler has researched Tokyo Rose.

Thank You for Wiretapping
Why the Founders made presidents dominant on national security.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:01 a.m.

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold wants to be President, and that's fair enough. By all means go for it in 2008. The same applies to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who's always on the Sunday shows fretting about the latest criticism of the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war on terror. But until you run nationwide and win, Senators, please stop stripping the Presidency of its Constitutional authority to defend America.

That is the real issue raised by the Beltway furor over last week's leak of National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects. The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are "illegal," done "in total secret," and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. "I believe it does violate the law," averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday.

The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America's Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn't be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are "illegally" usurping Presidential power--and endangering the country in the process.

The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed.

The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

On Sunday Mr. Graham opined that "I don't know of any legal basis to go around" FISA--which suggests that next time he should do his homework before he implies on national TV that a President is acting like a dictator. (Mr. Graham made his admission of ignorance on CBS's "Face the Nation," where he was representing the Republican point of view. Democrat Joe Biden was certain that laws had been broken, while the two journalists asking questions clearly had no idea what they were talking about. So much for enlightening television.)

The mere Constitution aside, the evidence is also abundant that the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties. Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, President Bush said yesterday. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them.

Inside the executive branch, the process allowing the wiretaps was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers, by the Attorney General personally, and with the President himself reauthorizing the process every 45 days. In short, the implication that this is some LBJ-J. Edgar Hoover operation designed to skirt the law to spy on domestic political enemies is nothing less than a political smear.

All the more so because there are sound and essential security reasons for allowing such wiretaps. The FISA process was designed for wiretaps on suspected foreign agents operating in this country during the Cold War. In that context, we had the luxury of time to go to the FISA court for a warrant to spy on, say, the economic counselor at the Soviet embassy.

In the war on terror, the communications between terrorists in Frankfurt and agents in Florida are harder to track, and when we gather a lead the response often has to be immediate. As we learned on 9/11, acting with dispatch can be a matter of life and death. The information gathered in these wiretaps is not for criminal prosecution but solely to detect and deter future attacks. This is precisely the kind of contingency for which Presidential power and responsibility is designed.

What the critics in Congress seem to be proposing--to the extent they've even thought much about it--is the establishment of a new intelligence "wall" that would allow the NSA only to tap phones overseas while the FBI would tap them here. Terrorists aren't about to honor such a distinction. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," before 9/11 "our intelligence agencies looked out; our law enforcement agencies looked in. And people could--terrorists could--exploit the seam between them." The wiretaps are designed to close the seam.

As for power without responsibility, nobody beats Congress. Mr. Bush has publicly acknowledged and defended his decisions. But the Members of Congress who were informed about this all along are now either silent or claim they didn't get the full story. This is why these columns have long opposed requiring the disclosure of classified operations to the Congressional Intelligence Committees. Congress wants to be aware of everything the executive branch does, but without being accountable for anything at all. If Democrats want to continue this game of intelligence and wiretap "gotcha," the White House should release the names of every Congressman who received such a briefing.

Which brings us to this national security leak, which Mr. Bush yesterday called "a shameful act." We won't second-guess the New York Times decision to publish. But everyone should note the irony that both the Times and Washington Post claimed to be outraged by, and demanded a special counsel to investigate, the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, which did zero national security damage.

By contrast, the Times' NSA leak last week, and an earlier leak in the Washington Post on "secret" prisons for al Qaeda detainees in Europe, are likely to do genuine harm by alerting terrorists to our defenses. If more reporters from these newspapers now face the choice of revealing their sources or ending up in jail, those two papers will share the Plame blame.

The NSA wiretap uproar is one of those episodes, alas far too common, that make us wonder if Washington is still a serious place. Too many in the media and on Capitol Hill have forgotten that terrorism in the age of WMD poses an existential threat to our free society. We're glad Mr. Bush and his team are forcefully defending their entirely legal and necessary authority to wiretap enemies seeking to kill innocent Americans.

A president can pull the trigger
By John Yoo
JOHN YOO, a UC Berkeley law professor, is the author of "The Powers of War and Peace" (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005).

As we confront terrorism, rogue nations and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we should look skeptically at claims that radical changes in the way we make war would solve our problems, even those stemming from poor judgment, unforeseen circumstances and bad luck.

Quote:

As we confront terrorism, rogue nations and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we should look skeptically at claims that radical changes in the way we make war would solve our problems, even those stemming from poor judgment, unforeseen circumstances and bad luck.

Radical changes like spying on Americans and denying prisoners POW status so that we can hold them indefinitely without judicial review?

Quote:

As we confront terrorism, rogue nations and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we should look skeptically at claims that radical changes in the way we make war would solve our problems, even those stemming from poor judgment, unforeseen circumstances and bad luck.

Radical changes like spying on Americans and denying prisoners POW status so that we can hold them indefinitely without judicial review?

Let me say something about the Patriot Act, if you don't mind. It is inexcusable for the United States Senate to let this Patriot Act expire. You know, there's an interesting debate in Washington, and you're part of it, that says, well, they didn't connect the dots prior to September the 11th -- "they" being not only my administration, but previous administrations. And I understand that debate. I'm not being critical of you bringing this issue up and discussing it, but there was a -- you might remember, if you take a step back, people were pretty adamant about hauling people up to testify, and wondering how come the dots weren't connected.

Well, the Patriot Act helps us connect the dots. And now the United States Senate is going to let this bill expire. Not the Senate -- a minority of senators. And I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer. It is inexcusable to say, on the one hand, connect the dots, and not give us a chance to do so. We've connected the dots, or trying to connect the dots with the NSA program. And, again, I understand the press and members of the United States Congress saying, are you sure you're safeguarding civil liberties. That's a legitimate question, and an important question. And today I hope I'll help answer that. But we're connecting dots as best as we possibly can.

We declared war on a non-uniformed enemy, so why would uniforms have anything to do with it.

Nimh, read the polls; the trending over the past few weeks has been news itself. For a fairly readilly trackable indicator, check out Rasmussen. I take the liberty here to remind you of the last dispute between you and I concerning polls and what they indicate and portend.

Well, looks as though we'll continue to agree to disagree politically, nimh - which is cool by me, so long as the endings continue to match my view of the trendings, not yours

Spying on Americans WITH KNOWN TERRORIST LINKS. I would really, really hope that people with KNOWN TERRORIST LINKS are spyed upon, followed, filmed, bugged, bothered and in general known about.

FreeDuck wrote:

We declared war on a non-uniformed enemy, so why would uniforms have anything to do with it.

Because to be covered by the Geneva Convention and be accorded POW status,there are certain conditions that must be met.

One of then is that those captured MUST be wearing identifyinf uniforms or insignia,must answer to a central command authority,MUST represent a country or other national entity,and MUST abide by the rules of war.

Since the insurgents dont meet ANY of these conditions,they do NOT qualify for POW status.

But,if you want them to have POW status,then they MUST be tried by a military tribunal,not civilian courts.
That is also part of the Geneva convention...

I refer you to article 84 of the current GC,which says...
"A prisoner of war shall be tried only by a military court, unless the existing laws of the Detaining Power expressly permit the civil courts to try a member of the armed forces of the Detaining Power in respect of the particular offence alleged to have been committed by the prisoner of war."

I fully anticipate the Republican counteroffensive, when it begins in earnest, will carry the issue handily. There certainly are deep divisions, and strong partisanship, when the two major parties are considered, and nothing is likely to sway the positions and sentiments of either. Given that the two parties themselves each comprise approximately a third of The Electorate, it is the the other third, the Undecideds, the Independents, who are the key to victory. What I see the Democrats accomplishing is nothing less than alienating this remaining third.

Of the "remaining third" that Timber predicted the Democrats would "alienate", Kerry ended up winning about 45%...

Quote:

Of the "remaining third" that Timber predicted the Democrats would "alienate", Kerry ended up winning about 45%...

So that means that Bush got the other 55%.
I dont call that a win for Kerry,do you?