pinions of buddy don: patriot or partisan?

we are livin in verr innerestin times, gittin a chants to see ifn amurka kin live up to its ideals, them cuntained n the constitushun. jes to reemind ye of sum of the thangs that orta apply to this situwayshun.

furst, here is the oath of offus frum articull 2, seckshun 1 of the constitushun mr bush swore to uphold:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

next, here is the 4th amendment to the constitushun:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

i wood bleeve the uproar over the presdint aproovin nsa eavesdroppin on amurkins wuz partisan (n not the ack of true patriots) ifn:

• the new york times, witch they printed the articull that got this hole scandal a brewin, had printed it last year when it mite could have affected the eleckshun sted of waitin fer a year (dont know the timin of it eggzackly or whuther twood have been before the eleckshun, but twooda been close)


• it dint involve publicans lack arlen spencer gittin upset by it

as the wall street journal reports, this thang has split the presdints own party, witch that makes me thank thays sum patriots amung the publicans that wood putt thar cuntry ahed of thar party:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's claim that he has a legal right to eavesdrop on some U.S. citizens without court approval has widened an ideological gap within his party.

On one side is the national-security camp, made even more numerous by loyalty to a wartime president. On the other are the small-government civil libertarians who have long held a privileged place within the Republican Party but whose ranks have ebbed since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The surveillance furor, at least among some conservatives, also has heightened worries that the party is straying from many of its core principles the longer it remains in control of both the White House and Congress.

Conservatives have knocked heads in recent months over the administration's detainment and treatment of terrorist suspects, and as recently as yesterday over provisions of the Patriot Act. Strains also have grown among conservatives over government spending and whether to loosen U.S. immigration rules.

But the current debate over using the National Security Agency for domestic surveillance -- which the administration has defended as legal and necessary -- hit a rawer nerve because it pits national-security concerns against a core constitutional right, in this case, the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

tiz hard to know bout thisn on a counta how we dont know much of nuthin bout top secret programs. ifn twuz a program that captchurs all communicayshuns twixt amurkins n folks usin fones overseas, as the boston globe reported this morning, then tiz sumthin that rubs mos ever amurkin the rong way:

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans suspected of links to Al Qaeda, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.

The Bush administration and the NSA have declined to provide details about the program the president authorized in 2001, but specialists said the agency serves as a vast data collection and sorting operation. It captures reams of data from satellites, fiberoptic lines, and Internet switching stations, and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers, and words that have been identified as suspicious.

"The whole idea of the NSA is intercepting huge streams of communications, taking in 2 million pieces of communications an hour," said James Bamford, the author of two books on the NSA, who was the first to reveal the inner workings of the secret agency.

"They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has obtained documents about the NSA using Freedom of Information Act requests.
The NSA's system of monitoring e-mails and phone calls to check for search terms has been used for decades overseas, where the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply, declassified records have shown.

ifn twuz the case, then tiz a skeery thang on a counta the follerin simple but easy possibilities:

• a mama talkin to a child overseas a'studyin on a skolarship could git into a discusshun of whut folks thanks of amurka in the cuntry whar the child is a'studyin n mentchun sum of them terms that wood alert the computer n make folks thank mayhap tiz a suspishus conversayshun


• sumbidy could git a call frum a ackshul agent of al qaeda that wudnt nuthin but a rong number, witch we have dun seen that once ye are a suspeck, seems lack they kin do innythang they wonta with ye.

so these days is the kinda times that tries mens souls.

ye mite have dun herd partisans argue that tiz ok ifn clinton did it. thatn has been debunked, but the plane fack is, it dont matter ifn clinton broke the law the same way – that still dont give nobidy the rite to brake the law. i caint git off a murder charge by sayin other folks has dun it n gut away with it.

sum partisans claim that congress dun give bush the rite to do bout innnythang he wonts to do whenever they approoved his use of force to git osama n them that ackshly attacked us on 9/11, witch as ye mite coulda notissd, he aint been able to catch osama after all these years (tiz a longer time than it tuck us to defeat bof them nazis n japanese durin worl war two). but former sd senator daschle dun proovd that wudnt so:

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

tiz time to divide the sheep frum the goats, so to speak, ceptn in this case, tiz the patriots frum the partisans.

the patriots will not sit still fer this without a investigayshun. the partisans is a'gone try to stop it n perteck thar own.

ifn whut mr bush is a'doon is legal, then the investigayshun wont hurt im. ifn taint, then hes in big truble fer failin to uphold the oath he swore to uphold.

tiz that simple.

rite now, usin this simple method, ye kin tell that arlen specter is a patriot on thisn (n i half to add mitt, i aint no big fan of senator specters). them that thanks tiz rong to investigate this cumpletely is folks that putts party above cuntry, witch thar partisans, not patriots.

ye kin tell how subpeenas n investigayshuns is generly partisan by this:

Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents.

at this parlus time in our histry, we need leaders of courage that putts cuntry above party, meanin we need patriots not partisans.