Patriots

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

These are Georgetown students in a gorgeous display of patriotic dissent aimed at Abu Gonzales, defender of the destruction of the Fourth Amendment. 

The NYT story quotes someone who understands what's happening:

David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who took part in a panel discussion by liberal critics and conservative supporters after Mr. Gonzales's speech, said the program was "clearly" illegal, and he attacked what he saw as a "blatantly political" effort by the White House to establish a legal footing for it.

Administration officials "can say over and over and over again that it's lawful - as if the American people will believe it if you say it often enough," Mr. Cole said.

Then the usually good Eric Lichtblau (or his editor) throws in a line so dense, so tone-deaf to the current political situation in the United States, that I have to wonder what country he's talking about:

The question of the N.S.A. operation's legality will probably be settled not in the court of public opinion, but in a court of law.

Probably?  I think I'm going to throw up.   On the other hand, let's make this a teachable moment for  the paper of record:

If there's even a chance that the survival of the Fourth Amendment will be decided in the court of public opinion, which these days means in the court of the Right Wing News Machine, of which the corporate media is an active arm, then that should be the lede of the next two hundred stories written on this topic - White House Catapults Propaganda in Campaign to Turn Public Against Constitution.   And since there's still a chance that "a court of law" may have something to say about the salvation of our Constitution, then there should be two hundred more stories written in the next week about what a Samuel Alito confirmation to the bench would mean to this country.   

I almost wrote "when will the corporate press realize that what they say and what they don't say matters" except I think that their masters have figured that  out a very long time ago and are pefectly happy with things the way they are.

Related: Lichtblau gives Abu a helping hand when he quotes the following lame-ass defense of the illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying operation without mentioning that all of the Torture Czar's examples of presidential overreach came before the FISA court was established:

He said the country's "long tradition of wartime enemy surveillance," often without warrants, was seen in numerous historical precedents, including George Washington's interception of mail between the British and Americans, telegraph wiretapping in the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson's order in World War I to intercept cable communications between Europe and the United States and Franklin Roosevelt's order after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to intercept all communications traffic into and out of the United States.

I guess everyone at the NYT is worried that the Sedition Act is the next trick Team BushCo plans to pull out of its bag of dictatorial tricks and feels like it wouldn't be wise to push them too far in the accuracy department.

Note: This should be at the AmSt but I can't login in over there right now.

 

Comments

[DavidByron]

To paraphrase the quote, those who would sacrifice principles for power deserve neither and lose both. I'm guessing Chuck Pennacchio isn't about to come out and support Alito?

[Helga Fremlin]

A gorgeous display indeed, Robin! Thanks for sharing it with your readers.

[Thomas Nephew]

Fantastic.

My friend Brett Marston was there (not one of the protesters), and noticed how little sense one particular Gonzales point made.

[eRobin]

Thomas! Did you notice the hoods?? Didn't they get the Nephew No-Hood Memo???

Abu Gonzales doesn't need to make sense. He's just catapulting that propaganda.

[Dee]

How did they get in there is what I need to know! Aren't they supposed to "hand-pick" the audience?