Further thoughts on Bush and the NSA

As I've read and heard the discussion of the Warrantless Wiretaps. I began to wonder if I would have thought Clinton should have been impeached for doing the same thing. I can't say for sure, but I thought at the time that the best ground for removing him from office was his lack of judgment and seriousness about the job of President. I didn't really think that his perjury really harmed the office as much as what he lied about, when he shook his finger at the camera and got indignant that his sexual responsibility was being called into question.

I don't believe that anything Bush has done is worthy of impeachment. The real reason this is being thrown around is because the Democrats and the press want payback for Clinton's impeachment. The one they should blame for that is Clinton himself, but for access to power, they'd sell their own mothers.

Anyway, I don't think that Clinton, Bush or anyone else did anything wrong by authorizing wiretaps for the purpose of preventing terrorism or foreign spying on Americans. The whole "Domestice Spying" meme is a measure of the desperation of the left. I'm sure that some people think that such things are unconstituional, but I don't take them seriously. What this whole kerfuffle makes me think of is Emerson's line that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." We elect people and give them vast power. If the president has the power to launch nuclear missiles, it seems kind of penny-ante to say he can't be trusted on wiretapping foreign agents.

There is no way to protect ourselves from politicians who use their powers for political purposes. FDR, JFK, J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ and Nixon, and probably Bill Clinton, all did it. If anything, Clinton should have used his presidential power more boldly to combat Al Qaeda. George W. Bush is different in that he hasn't used the FBI to keep his secrets or to punish his enemies. I trust him. I can't say that about the New York Times, the Washington Post, most federal judges or journalists, including a fair number of conservative ones. You can't lay down a universal rule. You just have to decide whether you want to see more terrorist attacks or not. And I don't believe that that constitutes trading liberty for a little security, or whatever it is Ben Franklin said. He wasn't talking about terrorists.