[PhiKapMom]

Please distribute this MEMO NOW!

[Oldeconomybuyer]

bump

[sasafras]

The democrats are the only ones with balls - Republicans are little cats and wont make a big deal of this. I cant stand the way Republicans play ball - If I didnt know better I would say that they are all queer and would be better off as cheerleaders versus football players.

[jla]

^

[af_vet_1981]

Awesome
I admire Sen. Miller as a true patriot.

[dpwiener]

I suspect that the Bush Administration has had its share of intelligence screw-ups, and unfortunately it has failed to fire anyone for their failures or incompetence. Democrats on the intelligence oversight committees should be trying to fix those problems, but this leaked memo proves that fixing problems is subordinate to their desire to seek political advantage.

Here's how I analyzed the matter on my blog:

“Cover Your Ass” or “Protect Your Assets”?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

When the Bush Administration (or any Administration) insists that intelligence-gathering details must be kept secret for reasons of “national security”, and that they’re prevented from effectively refuting accusations that they screwed up out of a need to protect intelligence assets, how do you disprove that? How do you know whether they are telling the truth, or merely covering their asses, or even putting out deliberate misinformation to fool the enemy?

Steven Den Beste has a long post discussing this issue in relation to the leaked Democrat memo which outlines a strategy to use their access to classified data on Iraq against Bush in the 2004 campaign. Steven contrasts that memo with Dewey’s willingness to forego similar political attacks in 1944 in order to avoid compromising our ability to decrypt enemy codes.

The problem is, waiting years later until the war is over to reveal intelligence failures is too late. Such a delay may prevent failures from ever coming to life, or else by the time they do see daylight no one may even care. Certainly such a delay does nothing to quickly correct those failures and avoid new ones. And it means that the same higher-ups who were ultimately responsible for them will remain in charge.

This dilemma offers a responsible opposition political party the opportunity to play a vital role. Senators and Representatives from the other party (or parties) who sit on intelligence oversight committees should bore in on mistakes and failures and insist on fixing them. This must be done behind closed doors, but the implicit threat always exists that continuing failure by the Administration to correct really horrible problems could provoke the opposition into going public.

This only works if the opposition is patriotic and sincere, and is perceived to be patriotic and sincere, in its desire to quietly fix problems. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and its Presidential candidates and its other spokesmen are increasingly perceived by the general public as being knee-jerk political opportunists who are in thrall to the radical anti-American leftists within their own party.

This leaked memo will (justifiably) confirm that perception.

The memo eviscerates the implicit threat that the Bush Administration risks public exposure if it fails to respond to closed-door critiques. Who is going to believe the Democrats now if they do that? The Bush Administration will simply characterize the charges as being politically motivated, and then accuse the Democrats of endangering lives and harming the war effort by violating security restrictions.

The result is that a vital check-and-balance within our system has been rendered all but useless. The lack of credible political opponents is harmful to the nation’s security.

The Democrats have shot themselves in the foot with this memo. They will pay a political price for that. But the rest of us will also pay a heavy price, measured in our greater vulnerability to terrorist attacks.

[friendly]

This important memo should be a centerpiece in a unified new "Contract With America" type effort in 2004 to take massive control of the Congress: We must remove the Rats from all meaningful power in the US. Our lives depend on this!!

[Dolphy]

I have been writing Senators, actual letters with stamps and all. This campaign is up to us, at least to help it build steam. When the Republican Senators tried to respond, at least the few I saw this morning, they were being accused of partisanship and protection of the President. The Dems keep pointing to the places Roberts won't take the investigation. (McCain may be the only Republican, with enough bipartisan, national recognition, who could take it on.) On the Senate floor this morning Durbin indicated that even Rockefeller is being bashed, by some Dem Senators, for his cooperation with Roberts.

I see no reason why this isn't Wilson and Plame allegation x every soldier in Iraq.

[JustPiper]

Never has that been proved more true than the highly partisan and perhaps treasonous memo prepared for the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.

Bump! Isn't Zell considering changing to GOP?

[Southack]

CNN POLL:

What is your reaction (outrage or disinterest) to the DNC Memo on abusing the Senate Intelligence Committee for partisan purposes

[Tempest]

Cool!

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.

[Defender2]

#1.MEGABUMP!!!!

[winker]

Zell Miller said he is not in trouble but the democrap party is dead on arrival.This is what I have always said was needed in National Politics. A conservative democrat is a most electable candidate in the country today. The spectrum he creates is so disturbing to the democraps and their assumed aceptance that they don't even percieve they have lost their entire platform and base of support. The black vote is their only hope of survival and make no doubt about it so goes the black vote in the south; so goes the country!

Now that the Republicans have added Kentucky and Mississippi to their growing ranks; broad based support will change the face of the Old South forever! Conservative democrats will be viewed as friendly to freedom loving partisan voter blocks once staunchly liberal. The arrogant assuming self centered liberals are going to get a wakeup call all across the Nation and it is long overdue. Zell Miller represents just a small resurgence of a growing ground swell of support. Now if this can be coupled with a strong candidate who supports Anti-Abortion policy we will be looking at a truly awesome phenomenom called; never again will we be lied to and taken for granted!

[Moose4]

Miller is the classic old-school Southern Democrat. Patriotic, hawkish on defense, socially moderate, fiscally populist. If there were more D's still down here like him, instead of like the liberal northeastern wing of the party, the Republicans would still be struggling in the South. As it is, the Dims have basically ceded the GOP the "high ground," so to speak. That IS the Southern political center, and the Republicans have moved into the vacuum that the Democrats left behind when they slid left.

The weird thing is, I'm only 37, and I remember, just 20 years ago, my old district in Virginia (6th) being represented by a Democrat, a guy named Jim Olin. Olin was fiscally more conservative than a lot of modern Republicans, fairly hawkish on defense, and kept a low profile on social issues because he was a bit to the left of a lot of the district. He got re-elected easily, multiple times. I can't imagine a Democrat getting elected in that district now. (Bob Goodlatte is the current Representative.)

How quickly things can change.

BTW...he may be "Zig Zag Zell," but at least on this zig, he's 100% right. Whether he has a D or an R after his name, he's taking an honorable stand. And by that stand, he is rightfully humiliating the rubber-spined girly-men that pass for the Republican leadership in the Senate. It's time for Frist and the GOP to quit giving a damn what the New York Times thinks about them, quit caring what nasty things Thomas Friedman and the Washington Post editorial page are going to say, quit worrying about Tom and Petah and Dan and Katie. It is time for them to take the gloves off and FIGHT.

}:-)4

[rwfromkansas]

bump

[rwfromkansas]

Send this sucker to Drudge over and over.

[The Wizard]

Go Zell

[<1/1,000,000th%]

WOW!

Great post!!

[Agnes Heep]

Install these in all Senate offices, pronto.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Bttt...