The Kellino Zone

...56 Democrats voted against the amendment, even though it was directed specifically against "unauthorized disclosures of classified information contrary to law and voluntary secrecy agreements." So a leak had to be unauthorized and illegal to fall within the amendment's condemnation.

1. The Supreme Court has unequivocally recognized that the Constitution vests the President with the authority to protect national security information as head of the Executive Branch and as Commander-in-Chief;

2. The Supreme Court has recognized a compelling government interest in withholding national security information from unauthorized persons;

3. The Supreme Court has recognized that secrecy agreements for government employees are a reasonable means for protecting this vital interest;

4. The Supreme Court has noted that "It should be obvious that no one has a 'right' to a security clearance";

5. Unauthorized disclosures are most damaging when they have the potential to compromise intelligence sources and methods and ongoing intelligence operations;

6. Potential unauthorized disclosures of classified information have impeded relationships with foreign intelligence services and the effectiveness of the Global War on Terrorism;

7. Media Corporations and Journalists have improperly profited financially from publishing purported unauthorized disclosures of classified information;

Therefore, it is the Sense of Congress that the President should utilize his constitutional authority to the fullest practicable extent, where appropriate, to classify and protect national security information, and to take effective action against persons who commit unauthorized disclosures of classified information contrary to law and voluntary secrecy agreements.

What is also more revealing is how the media is treating Mary McCarthy more like a whistleblower than someone disclosing American secrets.  John Kerry can always be relied upon to demonstrate his ignorant duplicity by explaining that while he is against illegal leaks, he is glad she "told the truth" -- even though the New York Times admits no one can find evidence of these secret prisions, which raises an interesting question:  is it possible that MAry McCarthy fell victim to a sting -- falling for planted information in the wake of previous leaks?  That would make Dana Priest's Pulitzer Prize for writing about leaked information even more of a joke that it already is. 

Back in December, before we knew about Mary McCarthy, John Hinderaker wrote about the CIA's secret war last December in Leaking at All Costs.

I would take issue with several finer points, but I think the main premise -- that we are in a war and that it is a war we must win -- is correct.

 

I found it odd that the title was "a different spin on the Iraq war".  It did not seem like a different spin to me, but then again I don't rely on CNN or the New York Times for my information.  That would be kind of like limiting my knowledge of theology to Marilyn Manson's Bible studies (as entertaining as they might be).

 

Too be honest I've read many articles over the years that I think have made these points much more effectively and accurately than below.  So many articles -- not sure where to start, but this one from Commentary Magazine and this one from Victor Davis Hanson.  This article by Gary Rosen goes deep into foreign policy but ends with this:

Mere cooperation among states is no promise of peace and security when what goes on within states, large and small, has assumed such potentially lethal proportions. In this respect, as President Bush correctly observed in his June 2004 speech at the Air Force Academy, realism has proved a most unrealistic guide to foreign policy.

 

None of this makes it easier—or, in every instance, practical—to put freedom “on the march,” in Bush’s phrase. But our predicament leaves few other options, and we will never discover the right combination of “carrots and sticks” for the job if, for fear of offending our friends, we resign ourselves to a status quo that nurtures our enemies.

Some feel instinctively uneasy about "American arrogance" (or in some cases self-loathing), but the context of history is a wonderful remedy.  Once upon a time there was a very unpopular war -- there were hundreds of thousands of casualties and draft riots in New York.  The President was not expected to be re-elected under these circumstances, but he was and perhaps the Union was saved as a result by President Lincoln's convictions and perseverance.  Wars are always messy and never go as planned.  But so far over 50 million people have been liberated from tyrannical regimes which tortured and killed dissidents (or infidels) and gave shelter to and perhaps even collaborated with terrorists.  We can debate if the war is moral, but there have certainly been significant accomplishments. 

 

Speaking of casualties -- and certainly not to make light of them -- so far there have been 2,358 US casualties in Iraq over three years of combat..  Between 1983 and 1996 an average of 1,286 American servicemen were killed by accidents each year -- more than double the rate of casualties in Iraq.  The purpose here is not to make light of the casualties but to provide context to the never ending drumbeat of the body count in the news.

 

And on top of all this the information coming out of Project Harmony as of late has been rather revealing.  Only a small number of documents have been translated thus far, but the body of evidence is growing daily that Iraqi leaders were not only transporting WMD (apparently chemical munitions) right up to the invasion, but also intended to strike at unspecified Western targets outside of Iraq.  We also just learned that over 8,000 terrorists were trained at Saddams's training camps between 1999 and 2002 and US intelligence believes that many of these are the "foreign fighters" that have come back into Iraq with RPGs and IEDs.  Not to mention that the camp at Salman Pak which featured a large commercial airliner where hijacking was allegedly practiced. Too soon to draw definitive conclusions, but the information that is first now slowly starting to trickle out .  Bob Kerry a leading Democrat on the 9-11 commission said just 2 weeks ago that the commission's findings should be reconsidered as a result of this new evidence.  Israeli intelligence still adamantly believes that the WMD was moved to Syria days before the invasion.

 

Also worth noting that this essay was written before the riots in France last year (not this month's protests on the CPE).  As Mark Steyn points out it may already be too late for Europe. 

 

Wow.  Sorry this is so verbose.  Every time I finish a paragraph a new thought enters my mind.  Anyways that's my $0.02.

“The OSU Mansfield faculty is attempting to label a librarian as a ‘sexual harasser’ because they disagree with his book suggestions,” said French.  “It is astonishing that an entire faculty would vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit such suggestions.”

“…we celebrate and learn from our diversity and we value individual differences. Academic freedom is defended within an environment of civility, tolerance, and mutual respect.”

'Republicans Hate Latinos'' read the headline on Friday's front-page in red, all-capital letters. No attribution. Just stated as fact.

 

That quote has been in the news since labor activist Dolores Huerta used the phrase in an April 3 speech at Tucson High School. The statement appeared as a quotation above four photos, including one of Huerta.

 

Yet in the Star's presentation, the quote was not attributed, instead presented as fact and in eye-catching red.

"Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified."

She signed petitions. She boycotted veal. She canvassed for Greenpeace. She donated to Planned Parenthood. She read the Nation, the New Yorker, the Utne Reader and Mother Jones. She agonized over low wages for overseas workers every time she bought a $40 leather purse.

Then George W. Bush was elected. Then came 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the Patriot Act, secret prisons, domestic eavesdropping, the revamping of the Supreme Court, and the thought "It has come to the point where the worst people on Earth are running the Earth." And now, "I have become one of those people with all the bumper stickers on their car," she says. "I am this close to being one of those muttering people pushing a cart.

"I'm insane with rage and grief.

"But I also feel more connected than I ever have."

 

"The testimony, cited in a court filing by the government late Wednesday, provides the first indication that Mr. Bush, who has long assailed leaks of classified information as a national security threat, played a direct role in the disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq at a moment that the White House was trying to defend itself against charges that it had inflated the case against Saddam Hussein," says the New York Times .

"If Mr. Libby's account is accurate, it also involves Mr. Bush directly in the swirl of events surrounding the disclosure of the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer."

She and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) no longer speak, not even to exchange greetings when encountering each other in the Capitol hallways, said two House Democratic sources. Pelosi twice turned down McKinney’s request to regain her seniority after she was defeated and then reelected in 2002 and 2004. McKinney first came to Congress in 1992.

I seem to recall a certain Senator from New York claiming that it was Republicans who run congress "like a plantation" to a black audience on MLK day.  Again, where are the minorities that have been elevated to leadership positions in the Democratic party? 

Sexually charged music, magazines, TV and movies push youngsters into intercourse at an earlier age, perhaps by acting as kind of virtual peer that tells them everyone else is doing it, a study said on Monday.

“This is the first time we’ve shown that the more kids are exposed to sex in media the earlier they have sex,” said Jane Brown of the University of North Carolina, chief author of the report.

The subtitle of this article specfically mentions movies:  "Sexual content in music, movies, TV can lead to intercourse at younger age"

Exhibit B:  "Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States"

That was director Paul Verhoeven, who directed "Basic Instinct" and "Showgirls", which appeared in an article discussing Basic Instinct 2's box-office failure:

"Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."

The same article also quotes a script writer Nicholas Meyer -- who was a writer for "Fatal Attraction:

"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"

Yes, these articles did appear on the same day.  In the same country.  In the same universe.

If you're having difficulty determing which article is more accurate, here's a hint:

Those who suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome are not known for their intellectual honesty...

Cynthia McKinney in particular comes to mind.

UPDATE: 

Just fired up my RSS reader and I see that Powerline found Verhoeven's and Meyer's comments profoundly amusing as well. 

Chairman Specter: I think the thrust of what you are saying is the President is bound by statute like everyone else unless it impinges on his constitutional authority, and a statute cannot take away the President's constitutional authority. Anybody disagree with that?

[No response.]

Chairman Specter: Everybody agrees with that.

Briefly, here are comments made by two of the judges:

Judge Kornblum: I think--as a Magistrate Judge, not a District Judge, that a President would be remiss in exercising his Constitutional authority to say that, "I surrender all of my power to a statute," and, frankly, I doubt that Congress, in a statute, can take away the President's authority, not his inherent authority, but his necessary and proper authority.

and this:

Judge Stafford: Everyone is bound by the law, but I do not believe, with all due respect, that even an act of Congress can limit the President's power under the Necessary and Proper Clause under the Constitution.

So in summary the program is completely legal.  I summarized in a previous post why the program was precendented, legal and necessary.  In fact these judges even infer that a President could be impeached for NOT following their Article II responsibilities in the Constitution.

The New York Times must have been watching the testimony from an alternative universe as this was the analysis that was printed:

In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order. They also suggested that the program could imperil criminal prosecutions that grew out of the wiretaps.

Where exactly was the "skepticism" that the New York Times found about the legality of the program.  Read the testimony for yourself and see if you can reach the same conclusion that the judges were skeptical about the legality of the program.  Of course the NY Times does not want you to read the testimony and think for yourself -- you're just supposed to read their version of events and accept it for fact.

John Hinderaker from Powerline comments on this in far greater detail here and here.

And keep those impeachment movements going against our President for choosing to prosecute a war on terror.  That's going to be a great campaign platform for the Democrats.

The only thing more despicable and transparent is the Democrat's campaign pledge announced today by Harry Reid to once and for all win the war on terror by "eliminating" Bin Ladin. 

Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters finds this new security minded approach amusing in the light of a Democratic Congresswoman punching a police officer near a metal detector. 

UPDATE:

Scott Johnson at Powerline chimes in.

The testimony that Scott quotes clearly demonstrates that the judges did not accept the premise that the survelliance was domestic, but insisted that it was international.

Also I neglected to post this portion of the testimony -- which was quoted in the Washington Times -- which is especailly important:

"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."

If the film's look and feel refuse to flee from the real world, its dialogue takes every chance to connect to it. We are told about the recent past, that "America's war grew worse and worse, and eventually came to London." Hot-button terms like "rendition" are sprinkled about; dissidents are handled as in a third-world dictatorship; and our hero (who calls himself V) lectures citizens who have surrendered their liberties to a government that promised to protect them from terrorism. 

One thing is clear about Russ Feingold's move to censure Bush: Republicans love it and Democrats hate it.

"school choice, whose value I had shown in the broadcast, would "take money away from . . . our union leaders" and a special program they had built to pay college tuition for a special-interest group within their union."

• When was Bush warned that the dam might fail?
• Was funding for the dam reduced under the Bush administration?
• Since Bush's father was Vice President when the dam was built, what was George W. Bush's role?
• Was Bush on vacation when the dam broke?
• Has Bush ever played golf in Hawaii?
• Did global warming cause the dam to break, linking the event to Bush's rejection of the Kyoto protocols?

Enquiring minds want to know. 

And perhaps we can switch David Gregory's choice of recreational beverage to Kona so that he can avoid embarrasing moments like this.

In "V," Big Brother has taken over Britain. The fascist leader of the country (played by John Hurt) is a Hitlerian tyrant who spews invective on giant monitors placed everywhere. Free speech, homosexuality and artistic expression have been outlawed; citizens must abide by a curfew; and the streets are controlled by secret police. The government has conducted gruesome medical experiments on innocent citizens, with tragic and horrific results.

In short, the London in "V for Vendetta" looks like the world if Germany had won World War II.

Roeper concludes:

These are the power elite that V wants to destroy. The London in "V for Vendetta" is not the real London. In the London of "V," taking down the government would be an act of heroism, not terrorism.

I essentially agree with this conclusion and this is certainly part of the reason America went to war against Nazi Germany (and along with the British, bombed civilian factories there).

But I think Roper is missing the bigger point of the concern about this film.  Does this film send a positive message in the context of the moment?

In America, many are in an uproar about what they percieve as "illegal domestic spying" (which I commeneted on in detail here) and in Britain cameras are deployed everywhere to monitor the population in public areas.  These very cameras ultimately proved indespensible in identifying the London bombers.

Add to this that The American Hard-Left -- which is now the base of the Democratic Party -- associates President Bush with Nazis and Hitler. 

How many Kos Kids are going to see this film and afterwords going to fantasize and perhaps even discuss openly how they might go about blowing up the White House to destroy the evil BushHitler?

An article in the London Telegraph points out that the original comic book on which the film is based, was originally written as a protest against the Thatcher government of the 80's.  Alan Moore -- who wrote the original comic book -- has removed himself from the movie and dismissed it's screenplay as "imbecilic".  The screenplay seems to many to be a protest against preceptions of spying by the Bush and Blair administrations and this is cetainly how many will see it.

The actors and directors of the film hope it will stir discussions.  I have no issue with that provided those discussions aren't how to blow up the White House or Parliament or even why one would like to see this come about.

In this day and age it seems terribly inapproriate to glorify an act of terrorism -- with gratiuitious scenes of Paliament being blown up by a violent exploision. 

If movies like The Sum of All Fears can have the villans changed from Islamo-fascists to neo-Nazis so as to not offend Muslims, why couldn't the film have been modified to use a fictional fascist government rather than destroying the government of a country that currently represents the free world?  I guess the opportunity too blow up Parliament on film just looked so cool that they couldn't pass it up.