Russert on MSNBC: "YES, Mr. President, do whatever you have to do"

Just now, Russert being interviewed.

"The White House is quite comfortable taking this fight to the court of public opinion because they will say "Let the lawyers and law professors have their day, the American people will say "YES, Mr. President, do whatever you have to do in order to protect us."

GOOD job, Tim. Check's in the mail.

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/+2004/russert-tim.jpg

and we don't.

Nice guys finish last, remember?

Whow knows how to fight what? Chimpy knows how to fight terrorists? Is that what your saying? You need to lay off the Oxycontin.

..at least I think that's what the OP is saying. This is a prime example of something we've allowed to have done to us time and and again and we (meaning the people in power in both the dem party and the media and thusly the american people) fall for it every time.

What's happening now is that this is they immediately framed this as a debate as to whether the people want the president to be able to tap people's phone or do surveillance. Duh. Nobody saying you can't do those things, just that you still need to follow the letter of the law. But quickly it got turned around and now anyone oppossed to this is painted as being "against surveillance of criminals and terrorists" instead of "pro-law".

pay off BIG for the fascists by 2000.

everyday normal Americans. He really should take his head out of his Beltway ass.

get the press to support them--they got it made. DU this poll http://www.capitalnews.org/

My liberties are very important, and I don't give them away to anyone. Besides, Bush has a proven track record that he doesn't do much, if anything, to protect Americans in general.

of what the Administration is doing - and how they are ignoring even after the fact legal procedures - and that the White House is just counting on people thinking this is necessary. Russert described it as quite a gamble.

So, no, Russert wasn't licking Bush's boots here.

Yes, instead of Russert pointing out that it's illegal and asking why impeachment proceedings haven't already been initiated, he describes it as "taking a gamble".

Russert is a boot-licking, scum-sucking, on-the-payroll first-class toadie.

He didn't say he approved of it at all.

...primarily because I was so horrified by what he said in the quote I posted here. So you may be right...but Russert is still Russert, and in many cases, "spots" equals "leopard who has them and can't change them."

It IS a gamble...and a BIG one...but I wonder to what degree people like Russert and Matthews and Blitzer are crossing their fingers and hoping it will pay off?

Remember, Tweety is still on a vigil, awaiting the return of Bush's "sunny nobility"...

They discussed how Bush deliberately avoided referring to not using the 72 hour clause in dealing with FISA after the fact, and why that wasn't good enough.

Because then someone will know what they're up to!

Ya think Jefferson would be analyzing legal distinctions when we're at war? Of course not! He'd be rolling up his shirtsleeves and getting the job done!

nice work Timmy, you really leave nothing to chance when a doubling of your Christmas bonus is still possible, do you?

want their pretty pink children nice and safe. They don't really care about privacy or laws. That is how the Nazis came to be. They got the moms and the dads with the pretty blonde children to fall in line as a safe family unit. Picnics and parades with a strong leader putting on a big show.
It will only be the educated ahd aware that understand where this is heading.

I don't understand how come people here on DU don't understand that how we think and what we think is not what the unaware masses think. Tim is just stating what is going on out there on the ground in the mid-west plains states.

,,,maybe Bush can trot out that pre-teen girl...what was her name, "Ashley?"...who said "he's the President of the United States, and all her cares about is PROTECTING ME..." Then he can hug her and they can both cry and he can head off to his Crawford Christmas and watch his "West Wing" re-runs on Bravo.

It's hard to swallow the "Bush is my Protector" line when he's grinding his jaw and looking down at the floor and holding back his venom in a VERY ineffective manner.

But hey...I see the soccer moms where I live, with the mini-vans and SUVs with the yellow ribbon magnets on them, dragging their howling kids into the market to stock up on Froot Loops and Spaghetti-Os, and you're 100% right. I can HEAR them say "Do whatever you have to do to protect us, Mr. President."

:grr:

I'm not some namby-pamby backwoods racist that needs a Big Brother government spying on US citizens to keep me safe. Daddy Bush can go back to pumping gas or ass or whatever. I want a government that works FOR the people, not AGAINST them. And I don't want a government that swells it's own penis (military) at the expense of all other parts just because right wingnuts are insecure about their shriveled members and need Daddy Bush to keep them safe.

What a whore Russert is.

Look at how parents want to monitor their college-age kids, with constant e-mails and cell-phones.
Look at the popularity of personal GPS systems, that keep track of you everywhere.
Look at the increasing popular cottoning to the notion of implanted computer chips---for pets, for Alzheimer's patients, for children, for....
Look at the total acceptance of public videotaping from traffic lights and buildings, and within stores/malls/offices/etc.

No doubt some in the media will help Bush frame the issue this way, and feel free if you want to think that Russet will be one of those, but here he is just giving a good read on the tactics the Republicans will employ. It is yet another way for Bush to change the channel and wring a few more percentage points of public approval out of 9/11. The only area that Bush still polls positive on is fighting terrorism, which is why they think they can get away with this. Frame the Democrats as being out of touch with harsh reality, and soft on terrorism.

The ACLU always has an uphill fight defending the Constitution because most people intrinsically think that good citizens never get in trouble with the government, it's just the "bad guys" who have to worry, and that liberals are more interested in protecting the abstract rights of rapists and murderers and terrorists, than they are in helping protect the real victims of crime, average Americans. It is an updated version of "crime baiting". Remember "soft on crime"?