To the US Congress - You Ought to Be Ashamed!

An open letter to the US Congress – you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

For too long, politics has taken the front seat from any useful activity that both houses could be attempting.

But, no – both houses are more concerned with their petty political differences with the Bush Administration to do anything that might actually benefit the US, or increase its security.
Do you doubt me on this? Let’s look at what is going on in the great Washington, DC, that swamp (literally and figuratively) on the Potomac.

The US Attorney firings: President Bush, using his constitutionally derived powers, decides to fire some of the US Attorneys because they are not doing the job to his satisfaction. He is within his rights and powers as President to do so. They serve at his pleasure.
The result? Congress sees a way to make the President look bad and jumps on it like a chicken on a june bug. So we now get a circus of hearings and headlines and TV talking heads spouting all this drivel that nobody outside the Washington beltway cares about or understands. Lots of political hot air, lots of breathless media expounding on nothing, but no real substance to any of it. Just political bull crap.

The "illegal" domestic wiretapping of potential terrorists? Not illegal to start with, not domestic eavesdropping, just another way to make the President look bad. This one was started by the New York Times (all the news that is fit to print to undermine the security of the US), who just had to get the goods their pals, the avowed Islamic terrorist enemies of this country. Again, the congress acted like that chicken after that poor bug, and jumped all over this one too. The reality is that all the eavesdropping was on international calls from and to suspected or confirmed terrorists and their organizations. Some of those calls may have originated in the US, but most did not. But, due to the efficiency of US telecommunications technology, many calls from overseas to overseas actually move over US networks so they can be intercepted by our intelligence organizations and used to protect us – without spying on any law abiding US citizen. Well, we cannot have that, not if it means passing on a chance to spin (that means lie) this into a story that makes Bush and his administration look evil and bad.
The result? Not just political bull crap, but actual damage to our intelligence gathering ability. The President tried to work with Congress and agreed to run all the wiretaps through the FISA courts. But, the relevant laws need to be revamped to reflect the current technology and the speed with which intelligence is gathered and the time it remains useful. And the laws need to be changed to protect the US telecom companies from frivolous law suits because they agreed to cooperate with the government. Yup, the Democrats "leaders" (I use that term loosely), got a two-fer with this one. They get to make President Bush look bad with their lies, and they get to protect their buddies the trial lawyers at the same time.

I could go one about say, meaningless resolutions about pulling the troops out of Iraq, immigration laws that need updating and actual enforcement, a sieve-like border that needs protecting, spending measures that need to be passed, etc., but I am feeling nauseous as I think about all the jerks in Washington and how they are wasting time and out money?

All I can say is, "Sirs, have you no shame? Have you no shame?"