The Lefts REAL Purpose

Barring something truly unforeseen, Judge Samuel Alito will be confirmed as Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, strengthening its independence and perhaps slowing down it's slide towards activism.

But I have grave reservations with regard to the lines of questioning about Executive Power and the Unitary Executive Theory. If I had any doubt as to the lefts intention in asking it, Senators Schumer and Kennedy, no friends of the current administration, put those doubts to rest.

What is interesting, at least in part is the authorization granted by the legislative branch gave to the President which states as follows "IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." This seems pretty clear to me that the President, if he does not have inherent authority, would have the authority under this resolution to use the measures that he thought necessary throughout the law enforcement and domestic intelligence apparatus for our protection.

I think it is important to show the contradictions in the assertions of those democrats who have been so critical. Recall that, following the release of the 9/11 commission report, the Democrats were actively charging President Bush with a failure to "connect the dots". Now with the FBI and NSA attempting (and succeeding) to do just that, they conflict their own argument , stating that President Bush somehow acted illegally. Some on the left side of the aisle are even whispering impeachment for abuse of executive power.

The mainstream media and the Democrats have somehow forgotten that it was during the Clinton administration that the public first learned of the existence and use of an NSA program called "ECHELON". Interestingly, the NY Times was strangely quiet about the use of this program during the Clinton years and even defended it's use as a necessary mechanism to protect us from terrorists. In fact, it was under reported but well documented that the program had in fact been used to eavesdrop on Americans, in many cases for no objective reason at all. Mind you this eavesdropping was done without any FISA warrants, and they were done to American citizens who's phone numbers did not show up in any Al-Qaeda cell phones.

My own conclusions on this matter are bound to upset some of you. The Democrats power in Washington has been so depleted by their loss of the Senate, The House, and The Presidency, and their hatred of George W. Bush is so visceral, that many of them just can't believe that he actually to steps and has heretofore prevented attacks from occurring on US soil. The Democrats are weak on Defense and National Security issues and failed to take action and arrest Bin-Laden while they were in power. They disregard and hold up as civil rights violations the actions taken to protect us to date, yet present no coherent plan of their own. They lambaste the President over a lack of a post regime change strategy in Iraq, but, once again, have offered no strategy or plan of their own other than the complete and total withdrawal of US troops. Essentially their strategy is to admit defeat.

In the end, the public supports the President doing what is necessary to protect them. A recent Fox News poll showed that 58% of respondents were favorable to the actions taken by the with regard to NSA eavesdropping on potential terrorist subjects. My sense of this is that it will ultimately blow up in the face of the Democrats just as their attacks on Judge Alito did.