Even Republican Senators Want an Investigation

Hallelujah!

Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine joined Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Dianne Feinstein of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon in calling for a joint investigation by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees into whether the government eavesdropped "without appropriate legal authority."

Nice to see my good Senator on this list! But it's even nicer to see at least some republicans taking this seriously.

"It is critical that Congress determine, as quickly as possible, exactly what collection activities were authorized, what were actually undertaken, how many names and numbers were involved over what period, and what was the asserted legal authority for such activities," they wrote in a letter to the Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats on the two panels.

..."I have grave doubts as to its applicability," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, adding Bush's order "raises very fundamental questions ... about privacy and the Bill of Rights."

Frist, of course, remains a wanker:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, was noncommittal, saying he first wanted to further explore the matter.

"I have been in discussion with the various chairmen and will continue that discussion," Frist said." And then decisions will be made as to whether or not (there will be) hearings, and where such hearings would be carried out."

Leadership™

Let's pray they get a clue, recognize shrubya for the nukular albushtross he is and - even if for no other reason than their own selfish interests - do the right thing. Unfortunately, a lot of them still need swift kicks in the pants to do so under any circumstances. We are talking about extralegal spying on U.S. citizens - wtf does it take for some people to say "enough!" Apparently, they only have such limits regarding wildly popular Democratic leaders who actually, you know, have sex lives and who are respected around the world and stuff. I wonder if they'd even allow that this is at least worse than "inhaling":

A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

Yes; it's "apparantly accidental" in much the same way that shrubya is "apparantly brilliant." But, apparently, the simple logic of "only an investigation will tell us if it was accidental or not" is beyond far too many people.

So, kick them we must; any member of Congress who wouldn't want to investigate unchecked abuse of executive power doesn't deserve to serve in those chambers. Wouldn't that be in violation of their affirmation oath?

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution

I do believe it would. So, let's kick 'em! Let any good Congressmembers (like those cited above) you might have know how you much you appreciate and support their efforts. If your Congresscritters are being bad, gently remind them that you take their oath of office seriously, even if they don't.






By the by, this really is not sitting well with anyone except the truest of the true Kool-Aid kids. We're all in Peoria, now...