Be Careful What You Wish For
by Average Joe
Aaron Sorkin as usual has an uncanny capacity to encapsulate an argument. A couple of characters in his screenplay of A Few Good Men seem to explain the Bush Administration’s obsession with gathering domestic intelligence nicely. Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise in tells Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, he thinks he is “entitled to” answers. Subsequently, Kaffee tells Jessep he “want’s the truth.” In what may be one of the most memorable quotes in modern cinema, Jessep responds, “You can’t handle the truth.”
Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
Jessep and the Bush Administration seem to be telling us we don’t want to know the details of defending a country. They wanted us to trust them while they were able to look at every single email leaving the west coast. They seem to be telling us today we did not have the stomach for catching terrorist so we shouldn’t ask what information they were allowed to sift through to get their man. The ends, they told us, justify the means.
So this week when the Inspectors General released the unclassified report of their review of Bush Administration “unprecedented collection activities” they said the “organizations and information collected under PSP and FISA should be carefully monitored.” I shiver a little when I think about what was in the classified report.
After the report, of course, left wingers want blood. I can see why. I was personally deprived of a good Governor who was no more corrupt than the next guy. Don Siegelman, as you have read before, may have been railroaded by Karl Rove. Nixon played dirty tricks. I wonder if Rove played dirty tricks with the NSA’s massive computer files of domestic spying too. Well, Rove to be sure, perfected Nixon’s method ten-fold by using the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s to affect the elimination of Siegelman and others.
Siegelman, is just one burr in the saddle of the left wing Democrats. I would have a word of advice for those who would love to see Karl Rove doing time in Sing Sing. Be careful what you wish for. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and Vice President, Joe Biden, might be next. Don’t get me wrong, I too would love to catch Rove using intelligence to sink a political foe. Rove however is too slick. We would probably have to send a hundred other poor intelligence officers who were doing as they were told to get him. Additionally, so many right wingers would take offense, when a Republican administration is elected Democratic darlings like Holder and Biden would probably have a retaliatory cell next to Rove.
Average Joe is works as a civil engineer and lives with his wife and daughter in north Alabama. He writes for the American Silent Majority. www.americansilentmajority.com is a moderate political blog with an aversion to the left and right wing.