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arlen Spector, NSa wiretapping Hearings

Hay foot, straw foot

By John Burtis
Tuesday, February 7, 2006

During the Revolutionary War, Continental officers were forced to tie hay around the left feet of recruits and straw around the right because many did not know left from right and were therefore unable to follow the necessary commands for the proper order of drill.

Today, as the long awaited hearings on the use of the NSa in the wiretapping of home grown terrorists speaking with similarly associated and demented al-Qaeda brethren overseas, overlooking their heated discussions of anti-Islamic cartoons and their penchant for associated reactive violence as a result of the publishing of such breaches of dainty Islamic courtesy, of course, Senator arlen Spector will begin his own hay and straw footed walk between the mine fields which separate the guilty verdicts already decided by the Democrats to his left and the interest in the proceedings to be found to his right.

We are reminded that in the political ring, there's always a choice between making hay and being a merchant of straw. Here arlen needs to keep a close eye on his inveterate propensity for feathering his own nest, the overt currying of favors with Joe, Pat and Ted, his fears of ostracism from cocktails at Pelosi's and the delicious post-prandials at the Old Ebbit Grill in the company of other convivial liberals and weigh his tendency to wax poetic carefully.

However, as a result of arlen's somewhat piquant statements on Meet the Press yesterday, it appears that the old boy may be abandoning his carefully framed posture of neutrality, which he so carefully maintained during the alito and the Roberts hearings, and may finally be sidling up to the ribald mummers to his left.

Senator Spector explained that the Bush administration does not have Congressional authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on overseas phone calls between terror mongers, and went on to say that, "I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic," and, pandering to his pals in the liberal legal profession, "…you can't undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order."

So, it appears that the good Senator, before the hearings even begin, has also come to a guilty verdict. and I guess I'm sort of reminded of the TV shows I saw as a kid, where the sheriff would advise the hoodlums, as they languished in the gritty and practical cells in the black and white jailhouse set, that they'd receive a fair trial before they're hanged, that the judge was expected that afternoon and if they wanted anything special before the following dawn they'd better sing out quick or forever hold their peace.

arlen, baby, come on. and there was so much concern about your left of center leanings back when you last ran for re-election and the President stepped to your defense, and you promised to behave, and everybody, for the most part, fell in line and you won by a whisker. and now you're yapping like a coyote with a paw in a man trap and limning lines lifted right out of The New York Times.

alas, arlen, with the two previous deals on Roberts and alito behind you, is it now time to toss a bone or a country to the liberals in the form of a black eye for the protection of the United States of america? I mean even Jamie Gorelick testified in 1994 that she felt it was ok for the President to monitor overseas seas calls. Even Jamie Gorelick, arlen. Think, dammit, think.

and while you're at it, sifting through all the seemingly limitless piles of affadavies and letters of concern, trundled in to you by the hundred-weight by that newly rented and freshly minted Bucyrus Erie bucket loader, from every lay-about lawyer with an axe to grind, remember to recheck all those sparkling white papers coming in from the lawyers on the old Clinton staff. Keep in mind that everyone submitting a brief against the NSa program you're looking at, like your old pal Walt Dellinger, for instance, wrote a briefcase full of opinions yesterday telling big Bill to go right ahead and do exactly the same thing that George is doing today. But of course for the Democrats the past has no meaning, today's lies are the gospel truth, yesterday is always forgotten and if it is mentioned in passing it's taken out of context. But arlen, you know that, you've been around.

However, with the shameless heap of egregious ravings from Howard Dean nearly burying the NSa program, if not the entire NSa complex - which consisted of such an outlandish collection of half-truths and unsubstantiated gossip and was so little grounded in fact that it garnered a rare, immediate and sternly written remonstration from Senator Pat Roberts - still cluttering the air waves, being used by the media as though it possessed a scintilla of fact and as a basis for learned discussion, one can readily see what damage the dangerously ill-informed and partisan hucksters have already done as part of what the liberals call the NSa "discussion."

and just when the you'd think that the NSa business has reached the level of critical mass with every real Democrat glued to air america for its in-depth coverage of the hallways and necessary rooms outside the Senate chambers, we now learn that our old friends from the deadly bombing of the USS Cole, Jamal al-Badawi, taking a pass on his death sentence, and his cohorts have tunneled out of prison in Yemen. They used that old Muslim trick of starting one end of the shaft in the rarely examined and never visited women's side of the mosque and terminating it in the — you guessed it — prison end of things. It seems like he might have had some help, although we shouldn't jump to conclusions until all the facts are in and the leading Democrats agree with the final assessment.

Now, with all of this latest news in mind, will we allow President Bush to listen in if Jamal drops a dime to somebody in the US to plan the next martyrdom operation on US facilities and people? Or will someone have to march into the hearing room and ask Senator arlen Spector if he thinks we should be allowed to? and will we then wait while he ruminates on the matter and decides if he can make enough hay from it or whether his decision will result in more problematic straw for the overly taxed and uncouth committee members sitting to his left and for the nearly apoplectic crowds of magnificently attired left-wing nay-sayers awaiting their turn to say no to this President, after saying yes, in every case requested, over and over, to his Democratic presidential predecessor?

Hay foot or straw foot, arlen?


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