| What has gotten people upset here not that Bush has "started seeking wiretaps on domestic calls (instead of just international calls), and is hiding under the cover of FISA," it's that no one knows what Bush is doing because he is stonewalling. You might find this a minor quibble on my part but it is not. It's the perfect segue into what's wrong with Phillip's second to last graf. He writes:
Now -- to the Agonist. The problem with those questions is that they're scattered. A vote against FISA -- back when Gammage was in office -- wouldn't have been a vote "to give any president the unfettered authority to invade innocent citizen's privacy," as you allege. That sort of unfettered authority didn't happen until recently, with President Bush.
Two things wrong here. Phillip writes that a vote against FISA wouldn't have been a vote to give any president unfettered authority to invade innocent citizen's privacy. But that's exactly the question I pose to Gammage: why did he vote against FISA? And as others have been calling for context, let's do that. This bill was passed in the aftermath of Watergate specifically to curtail the abuses of the Nixon administration and to prevent them from happening again. Furthermore, Gammage had to constantly worry about Ron Paul running against him, and in my opinion, he spent too much time tacking to the right on this. This is all circumstantial evidence, I grant you. This and other evidence still paints a picture that Gammage wasn't siding with Bob Eckhardt, as Texas_Kat notes, but was worried, as I already mentioned, about fighting off a challenge from the right.
Moreoever, yes, I have my personal interpretation of FISA. As it is now a national issue and has been abused I am inclined to view anyone who voted against it in a negative light and intepret a vote against it as a vote for expansive presidential power than limiting presidential power. That's my bias. I am honest and up front about it. That's how I see this. Did Bob Gammage vote against the bill in conference because he didn't think the bill limited the president enough or did he vote against it because he thought the president was already too limited? I'd like to hear his answer. Just to prove my good faith I'll let him give his answer as a front page post on The Agonist. Seems fair, yeah?
Look, I support Chris Bell but I am not paid by him. I am a Bell partisan and there is no rule against that. I'm honest and up front about it. I want Chris to win the nomination.
But I'm not one to hide behind an assumed blog name because I'm afraid of upsetting some campaign or another--whatever my motives are. In the end, whoever the nominee is, I will support the Democratic contender 100%, just like I did Kerry (I supported Clark in the primary--who I will likely support again in '08.) And you'll know that I am credible because I called it like I saw it in the primary and didn't hide behind an assumed name.
Calling me a smear artist, as some have done, is simply a tactic of avoiding debate. I've been 100% open and transparent about my motives here and my front page is open to a Gammage rebuttal.
You won't find fairness like that in the so-called "liberal media", now, will you? |
