You are using reason & good sense, they are generally ineffective on Bushites...

Icall,

I am concerned about damage to this country, not partisan advantage, When Pres. Reagan was in office, I was proud to be a member of the GOP, so I am hardly a far left idealog. Placing President party over country is a trick the Bush crowd perfected, you might want to consider taking them to task for it,,,

Funny how if you read the article nowhere does it say there was flimsy evidence. He says there were disagreements on the use of the system. Talk about writing your conclusions first.

'Perhaps you should consider getting some news other then reading blogs that agree with your worldview'

Perhaps you should try to come up with a thought other than anytime something happens that it's a distraction from something that you think does partisan harm. Or maybe just a thought.

Perhaps you should consider getting some news other then reading blogs that agree with your worldview...

because it only exists in your paranoid delusions.

Heh. ICallM needs to 'C' a bit more news... or maybe just talk to Tom Ridge, the guy supposedly in charge of the terror alerts...

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

because it only exists in your paranoid delusions.

Maybe you can explain how it is the democrats fault that the 9/11 Commission gave the administration almost all Ds and Fs for its attempts to follow up on its bipartisant recommendations.

Let me give you one exampple. there has still not been a single penny spent on rebuilding the commo systems the NY police and fireman use to so they can communicate with each other although Bush promised numerous times to finance this change. So how is it the democrats fault that Bush has not proposed any legislation to do this?

You have a "POTTY MOUTH".

Bush is being critized for being Bush, not because he performed his constitutional duty of protecting the securty of the American people. That is plain and simple fact. The democrats have mede it quite clear that they care little or nothing about terrorists coming or going into this country as well as talking to their fellow terrorists via phone or on a computer. The fact that Bush did perform in accordance with the Constitution without the consent of a bunch or leftest liberal democrats or a liberal leaning leftest court is the issue here and not one of oversight.

What makes you think that the Legislature is performing in your or the peoples "best intrests"? If that ever happens, it will be a day to celebrate.

While i can somewhat see your point here, you seem to arrive at your conclusions thru an "Idealists" frame of mind, and that is not how this government performs. Money and Power is the name of the political game and this entire issue is that and only that. The democrats had this in their back pockets for 40 years and are now on the outside looking in, and that is the sole reason why they continue to do everything possible to keep this country devided with their obstructionist agenda and self serving tactics of trying to make Bush look bad on each and every issue confronting our country.

Your response to my post is a) one big disconnected ad hominem insult, and b) completely unrelated to either what I said or the discussion topic. I insulted nobody; I accused neither Bush nor the NSA nor the GOP of anything; I stated my guess as to why a lot of people are questioning the need for the wiretaps, the Patriot Act, etc.

Speaking of which; you're either dead wrong in your information, or deliberately lying to cover your lack of factual support. The poll you're using as evidence (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/NSA.htm) shows 64% support, but only for the generic question 'should the NSA be allowed to perform taps on conversations between terrorism suspects and people in the US'... That activity, following the proper procedures, has always been legal and _nobody_ one any side of this discussion has disagreed with that. The _actual issue_ is whether the NSA should be able to do that without getting warrants or submitting to any oversight on what/who they're tapping. _That_ poll, to the best of my knowledge, has not been run.

So if you're not "man enough" to actually debate facts, without jetting off to insult-land, you can go back into the ignore file.

DEMOCRATS AND THE NSA....Joe Klein thinks Democrats are heading off a cliff by making too big a deal out of the NSA's domestic spying program. Conservative James Joyner has a reasonable reaction:Klein is right on two counts here. First, there...

No doubt, we all support the notion that eavesdropping on terrorists should occur.

The AP poll mentioned also demonstrates that a healthy majority also believes that this eavesdropping activity should be overseen by a court, through an insistence on the aquisition of warrents. (probably would be an overwhelming majority for that position if the question were asked at a time when the issue were not a hot button, partisan issue).

So we all basically agree. The government should do what is necessary to protect us, but we shouldn't abandon the core American notion of checks and balances to protect us from the unaccountable power of the executive - that would inevitably lead to tyranny (the great insight of our founders).

Bush is not being criticized for doing the eavesdropping. He is being criticized for trying to avoid the (minimal levels of) oversight that is at the root of our system of checks and balances. As extreme as it may seem, impeachment, or the threat of it, is the only recourse that the legislature (or the people, through the legislature) has in order to thwart a proto-tyrant in the executive branch. I think we all hope that wiser heads in the administration would respect the rule of law, long before is ever comes to impeachment.

Do you live in neverland? Who do you think set the bombs in London, Madrid, Bali and the many places thruout the world? Do you ever follow the news events of the day, week or month? Gads, Legion, get with it.

As for the American people and the NSA activity, a majorty support the evesdropping. And, why don't you think that the NSA, CIA and FBI activities have not stopped any number of porential threats to our country. Use some common sense Legion and be man enough to give credit where credit is due.

I think your problem lies with your clouded leftists way of thinking and your overwhelming desire to "Get Bush" at any cost, just like the democrats are doing and is why people don't trust them with the power of Congress and the Whitehouse.

Guys like you are the best thing that ever happened to the Republican Party.