Gore's Challenge

[papau]

Gore's Challenge
Al Gore's comments on Monday on executive power did the country a "service by laying out the case as clearly and copiously."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801874_pf.html

Gore's Challenge

By David S. Broder

Thursday, January 19, 2006; A19

Former vice president Al Gore has turned himself into a one-man grand jury, ready to indict the Bush administration for any number of crimes against the Constitution. Whether you agree with Gore's conclusions or not, the speech that the 2000 Democratic nominee for president gave this week in Washington was as comprehensive a rundown of George W. Bush's ventures to the limits of executive authority as anyone could hope to find.

Gore is hardly an objective observer. Having outpolled Bush in the popular vote only to see his apparent victory taken from him by a divided Supreme Court, Gore cannot be expected to be dispassionate about the way Bush is operating as president. His speech is just an indictment. The proof of the charges can come only in congressional hearings and, ultimately, in the courts.

But even after discounting for political motivations, it seems to me that Gore has done a service by laying out the case as clearly and copiously as he has done. His overall charge is that Bush has systematically broken the laws and bent the Constitution by his actions in the areas of national security and domestic anti-terrorism. He is not the first to make that complaint. My e-mail has included many messages from people who have leaped far ahead of the evidence and concluded that Bush should be impeached and removed from office for actions they deem illegal.

Gore stops well short of that point and contents himself with citing the cases that cause many others concern. The first -- and to my mind weakest -- instance is the claim that Bush took the nation to war on the basis of false intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But there is no clear evidence as yet that Bush willfully concocted or knowingly distorted the intelligence he received about Saddam Hussein's military programs. <snip>

[enid602]

1. MSM

I agree with whomever it was that said this was one of the most important political speeches of the century, and its lack of coverage is nothing short of stunning. If anyone had any doubts that the MSM is complicit in Bush's little experiment, I would hope they see the reality now. we're in for some pretty scary times.

[Vyan]

2. If it wasn't willfull

to take the nation to war on bogus intelligence - it was rank incompetence, and exactly how is that acceptable?

It doesn't matter if it was deliberate - Bush and Powell stood up before the nation and the international community and claimed this is the truth, and that they were absolutely certain of it. (Powell: "These are not assertions, these are facts")

They were not facts, the argument that they supposedly didn't know this - is not a defense.

Vyan

[sduncang]

3. Very Worthwhile Read....

Gore's speech was one the better ones to come along in a long time.