Not Your Grandfather's Republican Party

To say that the Republican party is experiencing a split is a bit like saying the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 caused a bit of a stir. There are voices of imminent reason, at least philosophically consistent and cogent, like George Will, Chuch Hagel, McLaughlin and sometimes even Pat Buchanan who think that the neo-con pre-emptive lie us into War mentality has undermined Middle East stability and will cause huge backlash domestically. The jury is not out on that one; it has returned and the country thinks it was a disasterous policy. The verdict will be entered in the record in November. Everyone knows it. The repercussion for letting the neo-con
coup hijack the moderate reasoned elements of the party will be that the Democrats likely take back the House and probably the Senate.
Then there are the diehard party loyalists who are banking on GOP fundraising for future elections and so have lost all intellectually honest perspective and speak with forked tongue. They miscalculate.
John McCain has appeal because he can see error, calls it for what it is but is too easy to excuse it and too ready to tote the party line. Its the line that is the problem. He admitted on Meet the Press today that Rumsfeld has presided over a department bumbling through horrendous strategic and basic military errors in misunderstanding the Iraqi insurgency that have cost us billions and thousands of lives. Unlike Hillary, however, he refused to call for his resignation. He expressly affirms every President's right to appoint whomever he likes for as long as he likes. Here, McCain puts party ahead of country, something that he commended Lieberman for allegedly not doing.
Presidents do not, however, have the right to appoint whomever they like for as long as they like regardless of their record of incompetency because Presidents and their cabinet ultimately must serve the country not just party, and when their actions have substantially damaged the country, it is the People's job in the form of their Congressional representatives to call them to account and demand they be removed. Because the Republicans have lost all responsible self-regulation in this calling to account, the People are insisting loudly that someone does and they will clean House in November.
This is not a new concept. McCain is to be applauded for his bill condemning Torture, and criticism of the prosecution of the war. But he comes short in not demanding accountability from where the buck has to stop.
Hillary is to be applauded loudly for her position, regardless of how late she came to it, that Rumsfeld should resign. "Oh My" indeed. These types of jobs are not your ordinary middle muddle management positions where people for sheer croonyism should be allowed for buddy buddy comraderie sake to keep them for eight years when they screw up that badly and devastatingly hurt that many people in the deceitful process (destroying villages, lives, towns, etc.). They are ultimately employees of the people, not just of the President who needs to be reminded that he himself is but a public servant. How long did they really think people would stand for being bold face lied to their faces?
"We have no Kings in America" as the Michigan judge chided Bush on the warrantless wiretapping. We similarly have no permenant secretaries, cabinet members of heads of departments by fiat, declaration or stubborn intention to excuse the inexcusable. Competency reviews by Congess should be mandatory and regular, and if one fails the review the President owes it to the Nation to flunk him out or allow him to graciously resign.
When someone as devastatingly pathetic, either by intentional malfeasance, deceit, negligence, misjudgment or a combination of all the above, as Rumsfeld's record persistently demonstrates, it is simply long overdue time for him to go.

Now a word on wireless wiretapping. Of course it is wildly blatantly completely flatly unconstitutional. The fact that someone connected with Al Quada may be calling into the country provides NO-ZERO- justification for the fact that my phones or any true American living in America's phones click off the hook on the mere suspicion that I know someone overseas. The President does not have the authority to listen to my private personal or professional conversations unless there is a threshhold basis or reason for suspecting something criminally evidentiary will result. This country has since its foundation established the right to be secure in your person without governmental intrusion. The colonialists and revolutionary soldiers fought hard and gave their lives to throw off the British practice of quartering squatting british soldiers and spies in anyone's home. Bush cannot do it in the name of "national security."
I have a friend who won't talk at all on anything but a landline for fear of all his cell phones being monitored merely because he is a democratic activist attorney who has taken on legal matters against the Administration. This has interrupted needlessly my personal life. I have had emails disappear into the diverted remote server ether compromising potentially my ability to represent clients when I travel overseas. Of course this Bush practice is a horrendous abuse of my right to run my personal and professional life without governmental intrusion. I not only resent it- I think it is a criminal invasion- as if someone E-burglarized me with full governmental duplicity. It is disgusting. E-burglary should be as
criminal as walking into your home and stealing a pile of mail off your desk or walking off with your draft pleadings. The government in legal matters against it should not in the name of national security be allowed to read attorney's emails or listen in on their phone conversations as that fundamentally perverts Justice. If FISA isn't working, then there has to be a legislative solution crafted to meet legitimate national security concerns (as Arlen Specter has insisted), while at the same time safeguaring the basic civil/constitutional rights that make us proudly Americans. Think about it.