Truth or Consequences

Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανειν θέλω.

-Petronius: Satyricon-

When I hear Giggling George justify the NSA spying on us with reference to the results of that effort I think of giving up too. It really no longer matters what you do or what you say. What matters is what those who profit by it tell us it all means. What suits a profit seeking oracle best, is a source whose pronouncements are confusing and contradictory to the point of meaninglessness.

• The results of the massive NSA enterprise have been exiguous at best. One arrest of a man who planned to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch; an accomplishment more absurd than arresting your grandmother for a having a nail clipper on an airplane. The flood of “tips” given to the FBI has lead to nothing, reported the New York Times.
• You can’t expect us to ignore Al Qaeda phone calls to the US, says Bush, and of course we don’t, but we do expect him to leave the Quakers alone and not to use his arrogated powers to persecute his critics. We expect him to respect us and our laws rather than to pretend that he is Commander in Chief of civilian America as well as of its armed forces.
• Bush’s claim that: "leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it" is close enough to a lie, that we might as well call it a lie. The National Security Act requires that he keep Congressional Intelligence Committees fully informed and Bush fulfilled the requirement as he fulfilled his military requirements – he didn’t and got someone else to say he did.

George Bush has broken the law. George Bush continually lies about the law and about his having broken it. How long will his diversions and perversions and prevarications and obfuscations go unnoticed or excused? If we do not stop his progress, and stop it now, the future will hold nothing but leaders who start unprovoked and endless wars to nullify or circumvent the constitutional backbone of our nation. George W. Bush has taken us too far down the road to tyranny.

Impeachment is the only solution.