Posted on 02/08/2006 10:19:09 AM PST by areafiftyone
The Republican chairwoman of the House subcommittee charged with overseeing the National Security Agency announced her own misgivings with the Bush administration’s controversial terrorist surveillance program Tuesday and called for a full congressional inquiry into the matter.
The congresswoman, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., is chair of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.
With the announcement, she became the first Republican on an Intelligence Committee, from either the House or Senate, to call for a full investigation.
Wilson told the New York Times that she had "serious concerns,” arising, at least partially, from the fact that the administration has withheld information about the operation from lawmakers.
Though Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, the inquiry was limited to the legal justifications for the operation and did not reach operational detail. The administration has also met frequently with the Gang of Eight – a group that includes party leaders in the House and Senate, and both intelligence committees.
But Wilson said continued limited briefings were "increasingly untenable.”
Vice President Cheney explained the administration’s reticence to discuss operational details of the program in an interview Tuesday on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”
"It’s important for us,” he said, "if we’re going to proceed legislatively, to keep in mind there’s a price to be paid for that, and it might well in fact do irreparable damage to our capacity to collect information.”
This is simply a turf battle. She's trying to make herself look big time by standing up to Bush and demanding relevance for the Congress.
Heather was a Rhodes scholar, also the first congresscritter ever that also graduated from the USAF
Academy, per her bio.
Simply take that person aside, tell him something in confidence that is plausible, a complete fabrication, and made up by you. Tell no one else.
If you hear it come back, keep the bastid at arms length for your own protection.
Republican Main Street Partnership
Congressional Members
109th Congress
Rep. Heather Wilson, New Mexico
http://republicanmainstreet.org/
'Nuff said.
Yep.
I just wrote Rep Wilson this email:
"Rep Wilson. I understand that you are calling for "hearings or probes" into the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program. Don't you know that you will be further exposing our country to more terrorist attacks with this "probe"? How can you do such a thing to our country when you have sworn to uphold our laws? The Constitution says our President is the Commander in Chief and he authorized and REQUIRED to defend our country in a time of WAR. What is so difficult to understand about that? Please DO NOT follow through with these "probes" that you told the New York Times about. This is rediculous!!!"
Her web site contact page is: http://wilson.house.gov/Contact.asp
I wouldn't label her a RINO - she's just WRONG on this position.
Oh my God!!! I'm embarrassed. As an AF retiree, I'm dumbfounded.
 "I wouldn't label her a RINO - she's just WRONG on this position."Now, I'll agree with that! |
| I'm sure her calculation is that calling for an investigation has no downside except for the waste of money. It makes her look in favor of "sunshine" (good for her in a swing state) and the worst thing that could possibly happen is that the investigation uncovers the unmitigated protection of the American public by President Bush. The only thing the Dems will be able to hang their hat on is: "how dare this President protect Americans at all cost? The Gaul of this man." lol |
I'm getting sick and tired of all these "investigations" where all they do is create news items. Perhaps a mandatory requirement before an investigation can begin would be a determination of the legality or illegality of the issue. Legality or illegality seem to me to be a statement of governing law in accordance with the statutes and the constitution. An investigation should be used to determine the facts pertaining only to illegal/unconstitutional issues, following the determination of legality. All this rhetoric does is cloud the issue and puts the cart before the horse.
I'm tired of representatives trying to bargain in the press. If she wants to know, got to Hoekstra and ask him, he's the committee head.
I think Congress should hold more hearings on administration activity, not less. In fact, they should routinely hold hearings on everything they can think of.
First, it would keep them from thinking up ways to screw us even more.
Second, it would take away the RATs ability to scream about not holding hearings.
Third, since everything would be subject to hearings, having a hearing wouldn't imply any malfeasance, which currently is why the republicans are so afraid of having a hearing.
The congress has a responsibility to oversee how the business of government is running, and to do so they should have hearings. There were PLENTY of hearings when Clinton was in office, we should have simply kept that up.
Not having hearings just contributes a real issue to the largely false culture of corruption argument. Let's not give the democrats any real issues.
NOW, in this particular case, I'm not sure how a public hearing is going to help her if her problem is that she wants to know stuff that is being withheld because of secrecy concerns.
I agree it's not a question of being any RINO overall, though I would say this: on a matter of the most critical national importance, with the 'Rats and MSM working overtime to dishonestly harm the WH and the country on this issue, Rep. Wilson (and Senator SPECTRE) have given the 'Rats cover to claim their assault is not the scummy partisan maneuvering that everyone knows it to be. Unless she has firm knowledge that what she is doing will blow up the 'Rats big-time (with what might be revealed in hearings, etc.), I would say that she is displaying very poor judgment to undermine the WH on such a vital issue. And even if more hearings and investigations could backfire on the 'Rats, she should remember that the MSM will have a huge say in what the public is told about it - despite the advances of the blogosphere, etc. the MSM still controls a great deal of the public news agenda and a huge % of the public gets their only impressions of any issue from what the liberal talking heads tell them. Rep. Wilson has just given them ammo that they should not have had from a Republican.
I think "Justanobody" has nailed what her problem is:
Republican Main Street Partnership is funded in part by George Soros.
"how dare this President protect Americans at all cost? The Gaul of this man."
so Bush has some french in him?
Listening on terrorist activities by one country's Administration can never be considered spying...but rather foresight.
no, its de Gaul..... he he
Did she miss yesterdays hearings?
Blacklist her.
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