I don't understand what it means when I read that Sen. Rockefeller wasn't allowed to discuss the meager information on the warrantless wiretapping program given to him by the Bush administration.
Not allowed? Rockefeller is a high official of a branch of government co-equal with the President, the one specifically responsible for overseeing the Executive. If he comes across -- by whatever means -- information that the President is breaking the law, subverting the Constitution and trampling on the civil liberties of American citizens, then it is incumbent upon him to GET THAT INFORMATION OUT! Unlike the New York Times which merely has a duty to publish that information under any reasonable code of journalistic ethics, Rockefeller has the absolute responsibility to blow the whistle, because THAT'S HIS CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED JOB!, that's the entire purpose of having a divided government in which each branch checks the others.
By meekly submitting to the restrictions placed on him and keeping his mouth shut, Rockefeller certainly preserved his own position of power, but he also subverted the Constitutional plan of the founders almost as much as Bush did.
It's understandable that he would be loathe to take such a drastic step, since there would obviously be repercussions, blowback from the Administration. His security clearance would probably be lifted, and he would be cut off from information he needs to do his job -- but the very act of blowing the cover off this program, and the repercussions that resulted from it, would create a legal case which could then be sent to the Supreme Court to be settled. Without that, there's no case. (Since no one knows who's been wiretapped, because there's no warrant, there's no aggrieved party to sue and create a case which the Supreme Court can review.)
I don't know if I would have the fortitude necessary to take that step, knowing that it could potentially be my downfall, but, then, I'm not a United States Senator, and Rockefeller is. If he can't handle the responsibilities inherent in that position, he had best step down and let someone else have a try.
Update (12/21): A post on dKos explains the specific reasons that it would be illegal for Rockefeller to reveal the information he was given. I had no doubt that was the case. It was also illegal for Rosa Parks to sit in the front of the bus, and for Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers. Whistleblowing of corporate wrong-doing is often illegal, involving public disclosure of private matters. The jury in the John Peter Zenger case acted outside the law in refusing enforce laws that were reprehensible. Eeven everyday people sometimes are forced by circumstances to make a dofficult choice: to obey the law or to do the right thing.
When they came to their moral crossroad, Rockefeller and other elected officials chose to acquiesce in a blatantly illegal program of domestic spying, instead of answering to a higher good and blowing the whistle, whatever the consequences to themselves. They behaved legally, true, but selfishly and without regard for the unethical nature of the acts they allowed to continue.
The situation in this country is obviously dire (as this incident points out), and the vast majority of the malfeasance here is Bush's, so I don't advocate actually turning Rockefeller out of office -- we need every Democratic Senator we can get (real Democrats, not DINOs like Lieberman), but the fact that he's saved from the moral repercussions of his inaction doesn't mean that he's excused, at least not by me. This is a black mark against Rockefeller, and I will remember it.
absolutist
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authoritarian
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class warriors
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dogmatic
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felonious
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heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
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ignorant
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isolated
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Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
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recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
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Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
