Post-literate Congress
I have the Alito hearings on the tube as I write this. Leahy is hectoring Alito on the warrantless "spying" by the administration and he is getting very worked up about it.
Which brings up an interesting point. Dan Quayle — much underestimated in my view — wrote an entertaining autobiography about 10 years ago called Standing Firm (the book was most interesting in part because he used it to settle scores).
In his book, he made an arresting point that has stayed with me. "Nobody in Congress reads." Wow. This is from the horse's mouth because he had a career in Congress.
"Instead of reading, they are briefed." Quayle made this point to explain the shallow level of debate on substance that you hear in Washington. Once you have this insight, you "see" it everywhere.
Did Kerry read the intelligence on Iraq before the October 2002 vote? No. By his own admission, he went to the Pentagon to be briefed on it. In fact, the monitors for the National Intelligence Estimate said that only 6 senators actually read the 96 page intelligence document (although more read the 5 page summary)!!
Now I am listening to Leahy hector Alito on warrantless wiretaps. He is implying that the administration is out of control. However, we at AT and others have already shown that warrantless wiretaps were expressly allowed in FISA, leaving aside whether FISA applied in this situation.
Leahy is able to be so self—righteous on this point because I very strongly suspect he hasn't read the relevant documents and is very likely unaware that they provide for warrantless wiretaps, or at least that that point is very much in dispute.
Greg Richards 1 11 06
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- The Death of the Center-Left in America
- ‘Make Peace, You Fools! What Else Can You Do?’
- When Nuclear Regulation Goes Awry
- The Danger of Nothing
- A New Pope With Courage
- Not in Kansas Any More
- Democrats Dying on the Most Desolate Hills
- If She’s an Astronaut … I’m a Jet Fighter Pilot
- Is the Jihadist Trojan Horse Winning?
- Who Has the Best American Autobiography?
Blog Posts
- Rep. Jamie 'Maryland Man' Raskin also threatens Trump supporters
- The eight narrative fallacies that drive American politics
- Summertime reality twisted into climate exasperation
- Life discovered on a distant planet?
- The answer is not blowing in the wind
- Letitia James: it's either/or
- Harvard elitism meets Donald Trump
- The GEC is finally more than mostly dead
- We're not the same
- Hillary ‘the Russia Hoaxer’ Clinton wants to imprison people for ‘propaganda’
- Rep. Jamie Raskin threatens foreign leaders who cooperate with President Trump, 'when we come back to power — and we will'
- Maybe we need more living versions of “Hillbilly Funerals”
- A female fencer's courage is partly rewarded
- Democrats' Cloward-Piven default
- A New Mexico judge resigned over allegations that he kept a Tren de Aragua member in his home