The Captain brings t…

The Captain brings the NSA wiretapping program into perspective.

The Democrats, of course, initially wanted to hang Bush from a yardarm over this program, but quickly ran into a problem: the White House had kept key Democratic leaders abreast of the program since its 2001 inception. They then wanted to get the public irate over what they kept calling “domestic spying,” but eventually realized that the public thought it reasonable to check on international calls from suspected al-Qaeda terrorists during a war against them. Now they have settled for the most reasonable position yet — that Congress should have some method of weighing the risk/benefit ratio of warrantless wiretaps, even in a time of war. It may still not meet the terms of the Constitution, but politically it’s the most resonant message that Democrats can make.

The White House knows this, which is why they changed their position and decided to fully brief both Intelligence Committees in full, rather than just the leadership as they have done throughout the program. It has already paid dividends, although this hasn’t received much attention from the media so far. The AP reported that the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Oversight Committee has publicly stated that the program doesn’t represent the Big Brother nightmare that its critics have painted it.

And that has been my big problem with those screaming “Impeachment!” over this; they didn’t know what they were talking about. Frankly, none of us did. Only now is it coming out, and, predictably, the rhetoric is cooling down (rabid Bush-haters being the perennial exception). Al Gore himself, in his speech on the subject, demonstrated this problem.

“We still have much to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently,” Gore said.

The more we’ve learned, the less it has troubled even Democrat lawmakers. But Al was a big “Impeachment!” guy, and the Left ate it up.

Some more interesting bits: The original NY Times article noted that purely domestic calls were done under warrant, so the label of “Domestic Spying” lumped in with “warrantless wiretaps” was disingenuous each time they were paired. (Thank you, mainstream media, for propagating that bit of misinformation.) The original article noted that the program was actually suspended twice and further restrictions put into place due to concerns about the legalities, but the Left has ignored this bit of good-faith effort on the part of the Administration.

I am concerned about those on the Right who blindly approve of this. It’s not necessarily true that being against the program means you’re for the terrorists. I don’t really buy the “what do you have to hide?” argument. I just think that much of the noise from the Left about this was knee-jerk, and like Gore’s speech, was bluster from ignorance (ignorance, I again note, that we all shared). Some on the Right were, I suspect, willing to accept it just because it was Bush doing it. As I said when this first came out, this is government we’re talking about, and unchecked expansion is never a good thing. However, from the get-go this has been checked. It has been modified over legality concerns. And because of this, I’m not as concerned. I’m glad we’re having an investigation. Let the chips fall where they may.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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