Adam's Apple
Senior Member
- Apr 25, 2004
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May 16, 2005 / 7 Iyar, 5765
Hes Gone Berserk
By Tony Snow
May 16, 2005
At the risk of piling on, it appears that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, in the latest of a series of strained attempts to justify a judicial-filibuster strategy that annihilates Senate traditions, has utterly destroyed the civility that once prevailed in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.
Reid took the floor to decry Republican attempts to restore the old traditions of voting yes-or-no on a president's judicial nominees. About two-thirds of the way through a 30-minute talk, he added the following ad-libbed passage: "Henry Saad would have been filibustered, anyway. He's one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and think we all would agree there is a problem there."
Let us count the sins:
(1) It is verboten for Senators to jibber about FBI files.
(2) Harry Reid does not, under Senate rules, have the right to see those files. He is neither a member of the Judiciary Committee nor a representative of Saad's home state of Michigan. If he actually has read the Saad file, he could face an Ethics Committee inquiry.
(3) FBI files are like great dumpsters for gossip, and they are filled with notoriously unreliable drivel. They contain everything anybody has told any FBI agent about the person in question. There is no attempt to separate truth from falsehood, or to discount rumors passed by people with ulterior motives.
(4) Reid's smear is literally unanswerable. Saad himself has not seen the file. Neither he nor his closest associates have any idea what Reid is talking about. And, having already undergone three rounds of FBI scrutiny for other jobs, he has never been confronted before with such detail-free innuendo.
for full article
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/tony/snow051605.php3
Hes Gone Berserk
By Tony Snow
May 16, 2005
At the risk of piling on, it appears that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, in the latest of a series of strained attempts to justify a judicial-filibuster strategy that annihilates Senate traditions, has utterly destroyed the civility that once prevailed in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.
Reid took the floor to decry Republican attempts to restore the old traditions of voting yes-or-no on a president's judicial nominees. About two-thirds of the way through a 30-minute talk, he added the following ad-libbed passage: "Henry Saad would have been filibustered, anyway. He's one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and think we all would agree there is a problem there."
Let us count the sins:
(1) It is verboten for Senators to jibber about FBI files.
(2) Harry Reid does not, under Senate rules, have the right to see those files. He is neither a member of the Judiciary Committee nor a representative of Saad's home state of Michigan. If he actually has read the Saad file, he could face an Ethics Committee inquiry.
(3) FBI files are like great dumpsters for gossip, and they are filled with notoriously unreliable drivel. They contain everything anybody has told any FBI agent about the person in question. There is no attempt to separate truth from falsehood, or to discount rumors passed by people with ulterior motives.
(4) Reid's smear is literally unanswerable. Saad himself has not seen the file. Neither he nor his closest associates have any idea what Reid is talking about. And, having already undergone three rounds of FBI scrutiny for other jobs, he has never been confronted before with such detail-free innuendo.
for full article
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/tony/snow051605.php3
