More Talking Points

Thanks to Matt "Scandal? What Scandal?" Drudge, another one for the pile:

5. OMG CLINTON DID IT!

As we know, when all else fails, blame Clinton. The right-wing bloggers are foaming at the mouth with excitement over a link Drudge posted this morning: Transcript of 60 Minutes on Echelon. The link is the transcript on a year 2000 '60 Minutes' report on Echelon, a Clinton-era program meant to "eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels". The program (a computer system that searched airwaves for key words like 'bomb') would sometimes accidently breach into a civilian's conversation. Many politicians were concerned about this.

Is this the same thing that is occurring now? Similar sure, but definitely not the same. Scary, though. Indeed. But still... not the same. Echelon was an international, cooperative program run not just by the NSA here in America, but also by four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. A bit different than a secret domestic program personally authorized by the President of the United States bypassing the required legal steps for such eavesdropping. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that President Clinton ordered the type of wiretapping we are seeing now or that he violated the Constitution in connection with the Echelon system. Echelon was the type of satellite surveillance system we all assumed (even if we didn't like it) the governments of the world were using anyway. President Bush's program is not what we assumed was occurring. Republicans and Democrats would not be freaking out like they are if it were.

Of course, the argument is made almost moot by the source. Drudge? He led the 'Impeach Clinton' campaign. If he had known about this in 2000, he definitely would have put it top story for days as a reason why we shouldn't trust Clinton and therefore shouldn't vote for Gore. But now when President Bush does something that seems similar, but is actually far more secretive and frightening in terms of its implications, they use the Clinton story as a reason blow it off. Bill Clinton left office 5 years ago, people. If you want us to reimpeach him in our minds... fine. [*waits 5 seconds*] Done. Can we move on now?

George W. Bush is President. Let's focus on him and hold him accountable, as odd as that may sound.