Salon: Fear of spying

[AlGore-08.com]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/20/spying/

Fear of spying
Democratic strategists say opposing Bush on NSA spying makes the party
look weak. Of course, that's what they said about Iraq.

By Walter Shapiro

Jan. 20, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- What does Dick Cheney have in common with
Democratic campaign consultants?

This is not a trick question built around hairline, health or hard-nosed
philosophy of government. Instead, what unite the vice president and the
opposition-party operatives are their fears of the fallout from the
National Security Agency eavesdropping scandal. Cheney, of course, is not
talking, so his views have to be inferred at a distance. But the
Democratic consultants are outspoken about their political concerns over
the warrantless wiretapping furor, as long as their identities are
protected by don't-use-my-name-in-print anonymity.

Typical was my lunch discussion earlier this week with a ranking
Democratic Party official. Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how
the "Big Brother is listening" issue would play in November. Judging from
his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was
resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With
exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, "The whole thing
plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats -- that we're weak on
defense and weak on security." To underscore his concerns about shrill
attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that
afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by
Al Gore's fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the
president's contempt for legal procedures.

A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found
them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the
wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional
Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The
collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this:
Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida
when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and
the prescription-drug mess?

(more... )

[EST]

1. We aren't afraid.

WE ARE PISSED!

[cyr330]

2. Just what I expecte

What a bunch of pussies the Dems are turning out to be, but isn't that all they've been since GWB STOLE the election? Almost FIVE years of PUSSIFIED behavior--apologies, whining, sniveling, putting their asses out to get FUCKED. I'm am PISSED, but really, I guess I'm not really pissed; I'm disgusted--tired & disgusted, and I'm beginning to not care what the Dems have to say. . . . Because usually it's a bunch of nothing.

[f-bush]

3. Jesus Fucking Christ

Don't buy into that bullshit. We backed down on the Iraq and look where it got us? We need to have a back bone here and call a felony a felony and go for impeachment and jail terms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hestia]

4. Fire the consultants

>The problem with a consultant-driven overreliance on polling data is that it is predicated on the assumption that nothing will happen to jar public opinion out of its current grooves. As Elaine Kamarck, a top advisor in the Clinton-Gore White House and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, argued, "These guys just don't get it. They don't understand that in politics strength is better than weakness. And a political party that is always the namby-pamby 'me too' party is a party that isn't going to get anyplace.">

It looks like it is past time to fire the consultants. We, out here, are the the problem following this statement?: <A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities.>

We, in thinking that wiretapping is a huge problem, are the ones the consultants should be listening to, not the consultants. IMNSO, I feel the consultants are getting money from Repubs to purposely sway the Dems with wrong advise.

46% of the peopled polled who said that "48 percent said it was "generally right" to monitor Americans suspected of terrorist ties "without court permission..." is NOT a mandate.

Fire the consultants, have the Dems start looking "out here" for advise.