One of the best words to define the current administration, and dubya in general, is "truthiness". This administration spouts an incredible number of half-truths and no-truths that they want to force you to believe that it is quite disheartening. A great example is in regards to the current illegal wiretapping scandal. The administration wants to believe (and wants you to believe) that their wiretapping was legal. Forget for the moment that even after authorizing warrantless wiretaps (in violation of FISA *and* the Fourth Amedment of the Constitution), our fearful leader stated that court orders were still required for wiretaps. Glenn Greenwald points out today that the current administration in 2002 refused to support legislation by Senator Mike Dewine (R-OH) that would have eliminated the very requirements of FISA that the administration violated. In other words, the administration went against a bill that would have legitimized the very tactics they ended up using. And why did they do this? Because, among other things, the Department of Justice was concerned that the legislation would have violated the constitution! Read Glenn Greenwald's article; it's well worth it.
Another great read: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) speech today at the Center for American Progress. His points are all dead on, including the question of what is going on with Osama Bin Laden. For all of this current administrations posturing on "national security", four years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still running around free and making threats against our country. Reid hits all the big points on the administrations current failures.
Armando at dailykos brings up an excellent article by E.J. Dionne providing a bit of a framework for what Democrats need to do to stand up to Republicans on the Nat'l Security issue.
Finally, on a somewhat lighter note, my California Golden Bears (men's basketball) return home after a road split last week at the Arizona schools in the Pac-10. While winning on the road is always tough, Cal blew a golden opportunity to defeat the weakest Arizona team in years. After many blowout losses to UA in Tucson, it certainly was encouraging that the bears kept it close and had a chance to win at the end. However, in my opinion, after watching the game, the bears offensive flow was pretty poor, and even an average offensive outing would've led to an important win. As it is, Cal needs a big win over visiting Washington this thursday (as well as a win over Washington State on Saturday) if they want to improve their resume for an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. If they continue to play like they have, however, my guess is that they'll need to win the Pac-10 tournament to get an NCAA bid. With such a weak Pac-10, and the bears' strongest team for a while, that would certainly be a disappointing season.
. I’d like to think that it was the growing demands of parenthood as well as work and other commitments, but I can’t say that. It’s probably just scandal fatigue, and the capitulation of the Democrats to a president with a sub-30% approval rating. Politics just makes me so depressed sometimes.
