It's 'Kristol' Clear: We Should Just Trust Bush Even If He Rips Up the Constitution

What happened to the days when conservatives stood up for our Constitutional rights against abuses of governmental power?

In a Jan. 2, 2006 column, none other than Weekly Standard editor and Project for a New American Century progenitor Bill Kristol himself called anyone who objected to Bush's unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens without a warrant guilty of paranoid liberalism.

In his screed, "The Paranoid Style in American Liberalism," Kristol's main themes are that we should simply trust Bush to do the right thing; that any suspicion that he might misuse his office is ridiculous and irresponsible 'paranoia'; and that American liberalism is on the verge of descending into a "fever swamp" filled with such "bizarre" notions if they continue to question Bush's abuse of power to fight terrorism. (Of course, as Condi Rice is 'not a lawyer'; neither is Neocon Bill a medical doctor, so his diagnosis can be treated with skepticism -- or would that be paranoia?)

Why should we be 'paranoid' about a president who uses war as an excuse to secretly dismantle the Constitution and trample on our rights?

Well, gee, Bill, maybe it's because liberals and true conservatives have read the history of the world and know that many democracies, such as Germany, have been lured down the primrose path of Wartime National Security to despotism; it is precisely the well-worn avenue other tyrannies have taken to strip away the rights of its citizens.

Perhaps it's also because the framers of our Constitution were equally 'paranoid' about guarding our liberties from this sort of infringement. As James Madison wrote: "It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

I'll take the opinions of Madison regarding our liberty over those of the Bush Adminstration any day of the week.

Kristol should remember what his favorite president, Ronald Reagan, once said, quoting a Russian proverb: "Trust, but verify." It applies equally as well to the Bush Administration as it did to the former USSR.

But I'll go a step further and quote what John Adams wrote in his journal in 1772: "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

Bill and his neocon friends should ask themselves this question: Is there any violation of the Constitution that Bush could commit under the guise of protecting us from terrorism that they would condemn?

"I can say unequivocally, all right, that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available."
-- Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and presently deputy director of national intelligence, at a press conference Dec. 19, 2005. [Of course you got information; the nature and legality of the information is what's in question.]

"Now, General Hayden is by all accounts a serious, experienced, nonpolitical military officer. You would think that a statement like this, by a man in his position, would at least slow down the glib assertions of politicians, op-ed writers, and journalists that there was no conceivable reason for President Bush to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court."
-- William Kristol, "The Paranoid Style In American Liberalism," The Weekly Standard, Volume 011, Issue 16, Jan. 2, 2006. [There was no reason to illegally bypass FISA, and a thousand generals who work for Commander-in-Chief Bush will not change that fact.]

"The idea that the once highly respected former director of NSA, Gen. Mike Hayden, had allowed himself to be seduced into sinning against NSA's first commandment, 'Thou Shalt Not Spy on Americans,' was initially met with incredulity. Sadly, no other conclusion became possible as we watched Hayden and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spin and squirm before the press on December 19 in their transparent attempt to square a circle."
[...]
"Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.) was assigned to NSA headquarters in the late nineties while working for Gen. Hayden, who was then head of the Air Force Intelligence Agency. At that time she -- like others -- had a favorable impression of Hayden and was therefore stunned upon learning of his acquiescence in, and rationalization of, eavesdropping on Americans. In a recent conversation, Karen used as an analogy what Gen. Brent Scowcroft said recently about Dick Cheney, with whom he had worked for many years -- 'I don't know Dick Cheney.' As for her, said Karen, 'I don't know Gen. Hayden.'"
-- Ray McGovern, "Heck of a Job, Hayden!" Truthout, Jan. 5, 2006. [Before retiring, McGovern was a CIA intelligence analyst for 26 years.]

"A SIGINT [signals intelligence] officer [is] taught from very early on in their careers that you just do not do this. This is probably the number one commandment -- you do not spy on Americans. It is drilled into our head over and over again in security briefings at least twice a year, where you ultimately have to sign a paper that says you have gotten the briefing. Everyone at NSA, who's a SIGINT officer knows that you do not do this -- Apparently the leaders of NSA have decided that they were just going to go against the tenets of something that's gospel to a SIGINT officer -- Hayden knew that this was illegal." -- Russell Tice, a former NSA officer, in an interview with Democracy Now radio. Quoted by Ray McGovern ibid.

"We have had discussions with Congress -- as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."
-- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Dec. 19, 2005, admitting that Congress would not give Bush carte blanche to spy on American citizens without a warrant. Quoted by Ray McGovern ibid.

"Vice President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world,...[the Cheney/Rumsfeld group are] paying the consequences of making thosedecisions in secret,...but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences."
-- Col. Lawrence Wilkerson [USA], former top aide to Colin Powell, in the Financial Times, as quoted by the Progress Report, Oct. 20, 2005.

"First, we must remember the high standards that come with high office. This begins with careful adherence to the rules. I expect every member of this administration to stay well within the boundaries that define legal and ethical conduct....We're all accountable to one another. And above all, we're all accountable to the law and to the American people."
-- George W. Bush, Jan. 22, 2001, before 9/11.

"Let me say a few words about important values we must demonstrate while all of us serve in government. First, we must always maintain the highest ethical standards. We must always ask ourselves not only what is legal, but what is right. There is no goal of government worth accomplishing if it cannot be accomplished with integrity."
-- George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2001, after 9/11.

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
-- George W. Bush, in a speech at Buffalo, NY, April 20, 2004.

"Whatever I do to protect the American people -- I have an obligation to uphold the law."
-- George W. Bush, quoted by CNN, Dec. 16, 2005.

"President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a [warrantless]secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks."
-- Associated Press, Dec. 18, 2005.

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived."
-- Niccolo Machiavelli

"By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed."
-- Adolf Hitler

"The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition."
-- Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays," 1965.

"I think if we're going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed."
-- Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, as quoted by Editor & Publisher, Dec. 21, 2005.

"In war, the politician can suppress more, steal more, control more, lie more, spy more, bomb more -- and it's all in the name of patriotism. And anyone who questions the seizure of our liberties, the exaltation of the president and the police state, the constant (and stupid) propaganda, and the bloody massacres, is 'anti-American.'"
-- Burton S. Blumert, "Does LewRockwell.com Have a Future?" LewRockwell,com, Sept. 6, 2005.

"The Founding Fathers never imagined that our nation would need laws to protect us from someone like Bush."
-- Tony Seton

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
-- Henry Kissinger

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."
-- George Orwell

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, Laying its foundation onsuch principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
-- Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.