Bush Lies, the Right Yawns

Heidi at ‘Euphoric Reality’ claims that the recent revelations regarding warrantless wiretaps aren’t worth discussing:

It’s not news – we’ve known about this for years. It was news about 4 years ago.

Really, Heidi? You can find news stories published in late 2001 that reveal that Bush had already ordered wiretaps without approval from the FISA court? Cite them.

(Prediction: Heidi’s silence on this matter will be deafening.)

Heidi’s assertion is hogwash, of course. The truth is that Heidi, and a great many radical rightwingers like her, will applaud anything Bush and the current administration do, so long as some excuse can be given that it advances the Global War On Terror™.

The NSA “gets it”. They understand that laws are meant to be followed, not flaunted:

Americans expect NSA to conduct its missions within the law. But given the inherently secret nature of those missions, how can Americans be sure that the Agency does not invade their privacy?

The 4th Amendment of the Constitution demands it… oversight committees within all three branches of the U.S. government ensure it… and NSA employees, as U.S. citizens, have a vested interest in upholding it. Respecting the law is only a part of gaining Americans’ trust.

This seems to me to be a very simple concept. Why is George W. Bush unable to grasp it?

For that matter, why does he find it necessary to lie to the American people? In remarks made in April 2004, Bush claimed:

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Bush signed the Executive Order that bypassed the FISA court in 2002. Brendan Nyhan has more on Bush’s prevarications about wiretaps and warrants.

The right was slavering to impeach Clinton for allegedly lying about a sexual escapade with a White House intern. Yet they yawn when Bush violates US law, and then lies about doing so.