Spinning For Bush

Republican pollster Frank Luntz had this to say on the NSA revelations-
"There is a very fine line between national security and personal oppression. The public is prepared to accept a degree of intelligence intervention but this may have crossed the line. I think a majority of Americans will be opposed to this."

The more recent Newsweek poll is proof of that. The quickie Washington Post poll hasn't held up.

As public support proves thin for this, the right-wing spin will grow louder. Let's take a look...

The main talking point from the right (Powerline is always a good place to gauge the conventional wisdom there) is that, surprise, anyone who opposes this program is in league with Osama and wants Americans to die and wants the economy to be destroyed. Polling would indicate that the average American has wised up too much for that trick to work anymore. The Powerline folks also insist that this is no big deal and that, frankly, no one should expect privacy of their phone records anyway. Somehow I doubt that if the President were a Democrat, these so-called conservatives would embrace these radical big government intrusions.

One example I saw there to prove how this is all normal was that you can Google your phone number and your name and address will likely come up. That is correct... you can look up somebody's phone number. It is something we here in the real world call a phone book. If I expected my phone number was private, I'd have an unlisted number. A second example they used along that same front was that phone companies have sold customers' information to telemarketers, so why complain when they gave info to the NSA. Two points there- a) telemarketers get our phone numbers, not our entire phone records (etc), b) few people are okay with telemarketers having that info and many restrictions have been passed (ie. Federal Do Not Call list) to curb this activity. The issue here isn't that the NSA has numbers, but they are collecting a massive database- the largest in history- of people's records of calls.

Also, a new post brought up the recent story that people's cell phone records could be purchased online through some shady sites. They then lie and say that liberal blogs were trying to buy the records of Republicans to embarrass them and are therefore hypocrites. The opposite is true. Americablog proved how dangerous the record purchases were by buying Democrat Wesley Clark's records and using that as a way of making the case to lawmakers that it should be illegal. They were heard and, thanks to liberal blogs, Congress has approached legislation to make such sales of records illegal. I sometimes wonder how much of their spin they really believe and how much they simply need to believe.

In the end, most of their spin involves misstating the basic facts of USA Today's revelations.

Michelle Malkin also tries to blow off the controversy over this by echoing the Washington Post poll showing most Americans initially supported the program. What was interesting to me was this- She says to the 'fearmongers' trying to make this story a big deal that "We're not scared". Getting a lecture on fearmongering from the far-right is amusing. Fear is one of the main unifying factors that brings Bush supporters together.

It's telling that the same folks who considered publishing the Mohammed cartoons to be a matter upon which the very survival of western democracy hinged now are ridiculing Americans for feeling upset at such a monumental intrusion into our privacy on Presidential orders.

Media Matters has a great roundup debunking the various falsehoods floating around.

Ultimately, though, we are expected to take the President on his word when he says that they are not "trolling" through our data and that privacy is "fiercely protected". That's asking a lot. People also took Bush at his word in 2004 when he said "any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so." We were meant to take the Attorney General at his word when he assured the Senate that all surveillance activities were "consistent with FISA". And we were also meant to take Bush at his word in December 2002 when he said "You said we're headed to war in Iraq -- I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war in Iraq." This administration long ago gave up the right to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, the spin by the right that this is no big deal is betrayed by the numerous Republicans- Sen. Specter, Rep. Boehner, Joe Scarborough, Newt Gingrich, etc.- in Congress and elsewhere who have expressed great concern. This Congress in particular has tended to give Bush a pass on most issues, so if their heads were turned by this, it's obviously a big deal. In addition, newspaper editorials (from across the country and political spectrum) have also denounced this program. Time Magazine's Matt Cooper also echoes my sentiment from a couple of days ago that this latest news may be the tipping point for this scandal.

The Sunday morning shows should be interesting. No doubt we'll see lots of spin and little information.