Adam's Apple
Senior Member
- Apr 25, 2004
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Democrats Are Fighting the Wrong War
by Linda Chavez, Human Events
December 21, 2005
Opponents of the Patriot Act can point to no single instance of serious abuse of civil liberties caused by the law in the four years since it was enacted. But that doesn't stop them from raising the specter of snooping feds pouring through library records or breaking into homes of innocent Americans for a "sneak and peek." Worse, barely a year or two ago, many of these same critics were demanding congressional and independent commissions to investigate why this administration had failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed 4,000 Americans.
They can't have it both ways. Either we are fighting an all-out war on an unconventional enemy that has already proved its ability to exploit our legal system and operate within our own country, or we aren't. Either we want the government to do all it can to interrupt any future attacks, or we don't. And if Democrats choose the latter course, they better make clear that they are willing to take responsibility for the loss of life that will surely follow if they turn out to be wrong.
Democrats have lost all sense of proportion. It's hard to know if they are acting out of a misguided desire to protect civil liberties, which aren't truly being threatened in the first place, or simply playing politics. I'd like to think it's the former, but their actions over the last week point to partisanship as the likely cause. Where were these Democrat putative civil libertarians when the Clinton administration claimed the authority to engage in warrantless searches in the mid-1990s? As Byron York reported on National Review Online this week, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in July 1994 that "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General." The issue came up after federal authorities searched the home of CIA spy Aldrich Ames without first obtaining a warrant. I don't remember any Democrat stepping forward to allege the Clinton administration had violated Ames' civil liberties.
It used to be that in a time of war, partisans put aside their differences and supported the commander in chief. Now it seems some Democrats would rather declare war on the president than ensure we win the real war being waged by our actual enemies.
for full article:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=11028
by Linda Chavez, Human Events
December 21, 2005
Opponents of the Patriot Act can point to no single instance of serious abuse of civil liberties caused by the law in the four years since it was enacted. But that doesn't stop them from raising the specter of snooping feds pouring through library records or breaking into homes of innocent Americans for a "sneak and peek." Worse, barely a year or two ago, many of these same critics were demanding congressional and independent commissions to investigate why this administration had failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed 4,000 Americans.
They can't have it both ways. Either we are fighting an all-out war on an unconventional enemy that has already proved its ability to exploit our legal system and operate within our own country, or we aren't. Either we want the government to do all it can to interrupt any future attacks, or we don't. And if Democrats choose the latter course, they better make clear that they are willing to take responsibility for the loss of life that will surely follow if they turn out to be wrong.
Democrats have lost all sense of proportion. It's hard to know if they are acting out of a misguided desire to protect civil liberties, which aren't truly being threatened in the first place, or simply playing politics. I'd like to think it's the former, but their actions over the last week point to partisanship as the likely cause. Where were these Democrat putative civil libertarians when the Clinton administration claimed the authority to engage in warrantless searches in the mid-1990s? As Byron York reported on National Review Online this week, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in July 1994 that "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General." The issue came up after federal authorities searched the home of CIA spy Aldrich Ames without first obtaining a warrant. I don't remember any Democrat stepping forward to allege the Clinton administration had violated Ames' civil liberties.
It used to be that in a time of war, partisans put aside their differences and supported the commander in chief. Now it seems some Democrats would rather declare war on the president than ensure we win the real war being waged by our actual enemies.
for full article:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=11028
