Politics > Politics-USA > Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee heads had to give up any turf!
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"elmer swanson" |
| Date: |
23 Nov 2004 05:51:54 PM |
| Object: |
Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee heads had to give up any turf! |
..... Mr. Bush campaigned on the idea that he is the man to handle the
aftermath of 9/11. But if he could not deliver a sound bill with the
Democrats, most Republicans, the entire 9/11 commission, the 9/11
families and a lot of ordinary Americans backing him up, what will
happen on something actually hard?
November 23, 2004
EDITORIAL
A Truly Lame Duck
The story of the 2004 intelligence reform bill just keeps getting
sadder and sadder. House Republicans did grievous enough harm to this
vital measure during the campaign. But then, pumped up with
post-election hubris, they went even further in the lame-duck session
of Congress and gave us all a depressing lesson in how narrow-minded
politics and weak leadership can undermine what should have been a
fairly easy triumph for bipartisanship.
Despite endless - and in some cases wrongheaded - compromises among
Republican and Democratic negotiators, it proved impossible to make
the reform plan weak enough to satisfy a core of right-wing House
Republicans and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Now all hope for a
decent piece of legislation seems lost.
The measure was intended to carry out the wise counsel of the
bipartisan commission on the Sept. 11 attacks to create a new job with
real power to oversee the 15 overlapping intelligence agencies that
failed the nation before 9/11 and the war in Iraq. President Bush
resisted the idea, just as he had resisted creating the panel itself,
but he ultimately signed on.
In the Senate, a bipartisan team produced a sound measure. Among other
things, it would have dealt with one of the biggest problems of the
current system by breaking the Pentagon's grip on intelligence
budgets. But House Republicans led by Duncan Hunter, chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee, weakened their version in the service
of a turf-conscious Pentagon and committee chairmen who put their
powers ahead of the nation's security. Meanwhile, James Sensenbrenner
Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and other members of the
House tried to turn the bill into a campaign commercial by larding it
with foolish and irrelevant new police powers.
After the election, House and Senate negotiators tried to drag an
actual law out of this morass, removing the added police powers and
other poison-pill measures. The Senate negotiators, Susan Collins for
the Republicans and Joseph Lieberman for the Democrats, were so eager
to get a bill that they made excessive concessions on the powers of
the national intelligence director. The compromise also gutted the
authority of a proposed panel to safeguard Americans' civil liberties
against expanded government powers to combat terrorists.
We take Mr. Bush at his word when he says he lobbied hard to get the
bill through. But if that's the case, his lieutenants had a peculiar
way of respecting the election mandate that they keep insisting he's
won. Despite Mr. Rumsfeld's denials, it seems obvious that he lobbied
against the president's stated policy. The House Republican
leadership, which rammed the president's prescription drug bill to
passage by keeping the vote open for hours past the deadline in order
to strong-arm resistant legislators, seemed less than lethargic on
this key issue. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader who found time
last week to push through rules that would allow him to keep his post
if indicted, kept a low profile. Speaker Dennis Hastert refused to
permit a vote on the compromise bill rather than irritate the
intractable committee heads.
And intractable was an understatement. The White House said the
president contacted both Mr. Hunter and Mr. Sensenbrenner to urge them
to compromise. The evidence suggests that either Mr. Bush was less
than forceful in his pleas or the two veteran Republicans have a
stunning lack of respect for the wishes of their newly re-elected
chief executive. Mr. Hunter at one point rejected language written by
Vice President ***** Cheney's lawyer. Mr. Sensenbrenner rejected a
section of the bill even though it contained his own language.
Mr. Bush campaigned on the idea that he is the man to handle the
aftermath of 9/11. But if he could not deliver a sound bill with the
Democrats, most Republicans, the entire 9/11 commission, the 9/11
families and a lot of ordinary Americans backing him up, what will
happen on something actually hard?
There's talk now about passing some version of the bill next month. As
much as we want real intelligence reform, that's a bad idea if Mr.
Bush is still not ready to step up. Senator Collins says she's through
compromising. We support her enthusiastically. Too much harm has
already been done.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/opinion/23tue1.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
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| User: "Chip Anderson" |
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| Title: Re: Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee heads had to give up any turf! |
26 Nov 2004 06:10:57 AM |
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(elmer swanson) wrote in
news:3fade24c.0411231551.2007cccc@posting.google.com:
-->snip<--
There's talk now about passing some version of the bill next month. As
much as we want real intelligence reform, that's a bad idea if Mr.
Bush is still not ready to step up. Senator Collins says she's through
compromising. We support her enthusiastically. Too much harm has
already been done.
There can be no compromise on controlling the border and no compromise on
military control over battlefield intelligence. Also the creation of yet
another bunch of unelected officials will do nothing to help reform the
intelligence community.
--
---
Chip
"Oderint dum metuant."
- Lucius Accius
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| User: "InsuranceBroker" |
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| Title: Re: Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee heads had to give up any turf! |
26 Nov 2004 06:41:37 AM |
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Subject: Re: Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee
heads had to give up any turf!
From: Chip Anderson
Date: 11/26/2004 7:10 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <Xns95AD3F20FB00Fbandersbellsouthnet@216.77.188.18>
elmer_swanson@hotmail.com (elmer swanson) wrote in
news:3fade24c.0411231551.2007cccc@posting.google.com:
-->snip<--
There's talk now about passing some version of the bill next month. As
much as we want real intelligence reform, that's a bad idea if Mr.
Bush is still not ready to step up. Senator Collins says she's through
compromising. We support her enthusiastically. Too much harm has
already been done.
There can be no compromise on controlling the border and no compromise on
military control over battlefield intelligence. Also the creation of yet
another bunch of unelected officials will do nothing to help reform the
intelligence community.
What are you talking about. The same congress that just failed to reform the
intelligence also put in a provision of the spending bill that allows another
20,000 h-1b guest workers. BTW the same day the put that into the spending
bill the country that would send most of the h1-b have the American embasy was
closed for fear of a terrorist attack.
You can only expect to get the short end of the stick on everything with our
corrupt congress.
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| User: "abelincoln" |
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| Title: Re: Well no intelligence reform bill, but at least no committee headshad to give up any turf! |
23 Nov 2004 07:24:28 PM |
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what difference does it make. porter goss has told the cia analysts that
it their job to support the president and his policies. that means, your
analysis better conform to the presidents wishes or you're history.
goss has all the makings of the worse DCI ever.
ordering his subordinates to support the presidents policies ain't
exactly ordering them to be objective.
pity the poor ***** that comes up with an analysis that contradicts
the retards wishes. one less analyst.
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