The House has begun a 12-day recess without renewing the FISA bill passed by the Senate earlier this week. They know full well the expiration date of the FISA law (this Saturday) and have decided to ignore it, eliminating one of the most effective tools in our war against terrorism (meaning the protection of American citizens - YOU). This wasn't an accident, either. Yesterday, they insisted on holding a vote over whether or not to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys.
House Republicans walked out on the contempt vote:
The move was intended to show that Republicans want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rather than be part of a "partisan fishing expedition," as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it.
At a press conference following the walkout, Boehner said "Before Congress leaves town, we must give our intelligence officials the tools they need to keep America safe.
"The president will delay his trip to Africa to deal with this critical issue. And Republicans are prepared to stay here as long as it takes to complete our work," Boehner added. "The terrorist threat to our country is not going away. We must do everything we can to protect the American people, and we should start by passing the bipartisan Senate bill."
Side note: this is a prime example of the Democrats' constant effort to create a Bush scandal where none exists. According to law, U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, which means ANY President can appoint/fire ANY U.S. attorney at ANY time for ANY reason. I wonder where these Democrats were when their hero Bill Clinton fired ALL 93 U.S. attorneys back in the '90's? Hypocritical snakes!
Anyway, back to FISA. The House is on recess, which means there will be no deal for the next two weeks. Bush rightly put this delay on the Democrat leadership:
"Now the House and Senate are on a 12-day recess," Bush said after a meeting with Republican congressional leaders.
"When they come back from that 12-day recess, the House leaders must understand that the decision they made to block good legislation has made it harder for us to protect you the American people," he said.
"And we expect now to get a good bill to my desk -- which is the Senate bill -- to my desk as soon as possible," Bush said.
One of my biggest frustrations with the Bush administration is the seeming lack of fight. Even when Bush has been right, there seems to be a reluctance to use his office to place blame where it belongs (on his opposition). While this may seem honorable to some, the reality is that people see this lack of defense and take it for a silent confession of guilt. Hopefully, Bush will continue to hammer away at the Democrats in the House about this publicly. It would be a welcome change, in my opinion.
Additionally, I find the constant efforts of Democrat leaders since 9/11 to hamper the ability to protect Americans -- both our military abroad and our citizens at home -- disturbing on many levels, but I'll just go into one of them here. Policies like the FISA reform, the Patriot Act, and waterboarding are the tools that law enforcement and military needs to combat terrorism and keep us safe. The thing I can't decide is if these Democrat leaders are actually hoping for another attack which they can blame on Bush, or if they truly don't understand that America is in constant danger.
I would guess the fact that we haven't seen another attack since 9/11 is a huge sore spot for Democrat leaders because it is a sign of the success of Bush's policies. It's a big deal for Bush to be able to point out that we haven't been hit again, and I believe they'd love nothing more than to rub a new attack in his face, despite the loss of American life and property. On the other hand, I find it difficult to comprehend that any self-respecting American -- I know, it's debatable whether these Democrat leaders fall into that category -- to so cavalierly allow such a tragedy to happen for purely political gain. If that's the case, the only other explanation is that they don't think we're in danger, so they're willing to flaunt whatever national security measures they need to in order to win political points. Given the undeniable reality of the anti-American hatred of radical Islamic jihadists all over the world and here at home, I just don't see how anyone with more than a quarter of a functioning brain can mistake what these radical Islamists would do to us if they got the chance.
So, I'm stuck - I don't know which is the right explanation. But, both of them make me question their qualifications to run a local quickie mart, much less America.
There's my two cents.
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