As I thought might happen, some gun-ignorant liberals are concocting stories about Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington one week ago today.

Their basic argument is that Cheney must have been a lot closer than 30 yards when he shot Whittington becuase of the way the shot patterned.

Dan Riehl deconstructs and debunks their argument rather well.

The only slight discrepancy in Riehl's post is that jumps out at me is that steel shot is only made for waterfowling loads, not birdshot sizes. Steel has too little mass to be effective in such small sizes.

And so Dan got me thinking... WWCS? (What would Cheney shoot?)

To get such a dense pattern, you need shot that hold their spherical shape very well when exiting the barrel. Shot (pellets) that deform are aerodynamically unstable, will wobble, and will cause pattern spread. Extremely hard shot keeps its shape and enables the shot string to pattern better.

I present to you, Federal Cartridge company's 28-gauge # 7 1/2 Premium Wing Shok Hi-Brass copper-plated lead birdshot. The copper-plating makes the pellets harder, enabling them to hold tighter patterns at longer ranges.

Of course, if Taylor-Marsh wants to be thoroughly humiliated, I can deconstruct her articles one-by-one, but I think liberals are against torture.

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The selection below is from an email sent yesterday by a former soldier and defense analyst I've had the good fortune to work with on several stories in the past. These were his reflections on a recent television interview about the recently released "Saddam tapes."

Background here, here, and of course, here.

Last night, Bill Tierney was on Hannity and Colmes talking about the Saddam Tapes. I was fascinated as Bill Tierney defended the information he claims to be present on the tapes. How eerily familiar he looked. I realized it was like a mirror for me.

I saw in him the frustration of knowing that the most significant reasons that President Bush led this nation to war against Iraq were legitimate reasons, yet the “conventional wisdom” is that we were at best wrong, and at worst criminal in that endeavor.

It looks to me to be the frustration of the vanquished, believing something to be true which was confirmed by your every sense, yet history being re-written round you as all that you believed and know is erased as flawed intelligence. This was obvious to me when he blew up at Alan Colmes telling him he wouldn't let Alan silence him on this issue, showing that Bill, like me is very tired of having to remain silent as idiots who have no first hand experience to the subject constantly define and redefine the issue.

Yes I recognize his frustration and for that reason I lend his words great credence on this matter. I get you Bill. Bill “knows”.

He made one bad mistake. He brought his evidence to what would seem to be the P.T. Barnum of our age, John Loftus. More and more it appears this intelligence summit is crumbling. It was a mistake for Mr. Tierney to choose the Loftus intelligence summit to be the vehicle of disclosure. It was a mistake for Mr. Tierney to allow John Loftus to take the tapes to ABC news for translation and reporting, a huge mistake.

Today, Mr. Tierney is reporting that the tapes were mistranslated and misreported by ABC news. I find this very believable from my experience working with translators with the Iraqi Survey Group.

How many people did ABC news have translate the material they had? With ISG, it was common practice to have important items reviewed by at least 2 linguists. Usually this was done by a cleared linguist as a reviewer, usually an Arab American with a security clearance. What provisions did ABC take to make sure that what it reported was accurate?

Often time's nuances are lost on a transcript, such as sarcasm. As soon as I heard the tapes I got what Saddam was saying. According to the ABC news transcript, Saddam said “This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq.” For anyone who has studied Saddam, you get the feeling that what he is really saying is “of course this is our objective, but we are getting our story straight here and now because we have told the world that we have no WMDs and this can never be traced back to us.”

Having worked with ISG in the audio and visual department, I was privy to the exact type of information that Tierney has released. The CD he has copied probably came from me or a coworker in my shop. I can not explain the level of frustration that I have had to live with for over a year now.

The Duelfer report was supposed to tell the story. It didn't, not completely. It is a fine start, but missing key evidence to form conclusions. What Mr. Tierney has in the form of those tapes has nothing to do with the credibility of Mr. Loftus. What is on those tapes has nothing to do with one translator for ABC news.

For these reasons I urge Mr. Tierney to immediately make the full tapes available to Fox News and disconnect himself from Mr. Loftus. I urge him to go on Hannity and Colmes tonight and show all his cards before no one is paying attention anymore. Wait and see until the full tapes are released and analyzed. Don't give up ground on the creditability of those tapes based on John Loftus. I watched Bill Tierney last night and he “knows”.

About the Author
Ray Robison is a Sr. Military Operations Research Analyst with a defense
contractor at the Aviation and Missile, Research, Development, Engineering
Command in Huntsville Alabama. His background includes over ten years of
military service as an officer and enlisted soldier including the Gulf War
and Kosovo operations. Most recently he worked as a contractor for DIA with
the Iraqi Survey Group. He holds a B.S. degree in Biology, Pre-med from the
University of Tampa and is a graduate of the Combined Arms and Services
Staff School.

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Harry Whittington did something today that confounded millions. He apologized:

"This past weekend encompassed all of us in a cloud of misfortune and a sadness that is not easy to explain, especially to those who are not familiar with the great sport of quail hunting," said Austin attorney Harry Whittington, who was discharged from the hospital Friday. "We all assume certain risks in whatever we do ... accidents do and will happen and that's what happened."

He added: "My family and I are deeply sorry for all Vice President Cheney and his family had to deal with this week. ...We hope he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation he deserves."

Once upon a time, such an honorable speech would have been notable. In these days, however, honor seems hardly understood.

Harry Whittington and Dick Cheney both made mistakes one week ago that ended with the Vice President felling his Whittington in the Texas brush country. Many experts - some real, some imagined - hold the Vice President solely responsible for accident. This is not right, as hunters - all hunters - have a responsibility to know where their companions are and should be, and this lack of knowledge not only led to Cheney shooting Whittington, it put Whittington in a position where he could be shot.

Luckily, both men survived with a harsh lesson learned. In this sue-happy culture, some expect and even hope for a lawsuit because personal responsibility is not something they understand. Harry Whittington could sue and would probably win in court, but as a sportsman afield, he understands that he bears at least partial responsibility for his wounds, as Cheny bears the other part. As the media and the ever-aghast howl about non-existant conspiracies, there is something about honor and personal responsibility to be learned from this tragedy.

* * *

Tying Up Loose Ends
As for the many conspiracy theories floated, most were “reality-based,” but far from having any basis in reality. Of those potential theories that did appear even slightly plausible, only two seemed worth exploring because of apparent discrepancies between different versions of stories told by actors in this series of event at one time or another.

The first item of interest was the question of shot size. While pundits right and left proved their basic firearms illiteracy by not knowing the difference between buckshot and birdshot, a more subtle question emerged when it was stated by the attending physician that Harry Whittington suffered a very minor heart attack as the result of a pellet traveling through his bloodstream and stopping in his heart. The doctor claimed that the pellet was "roughly 5mm" in size.

While inconsequential to most, I knew that the #7/ 1/2 shells fired by the Vice President do not contain pellets nearly that size, and after a little bit of digging, determined that the size shot claimed by the doctor isn't even made for the relatively uncommon 28-gauge cartridge favored by the vice president. Obviously there was a discrepancy here, as lead pellets don't grow.

The shot size issue has faded away, and profile pictures of Mr. Whittington today clearly show various small wounds that indicate he could not have been hit by the large-caliber “roughly 5mm” shot the hospital original claimed, putting this inconsistency to rest as a mistake in estimating shot size on the X-ray.

The second question was a question of position, which I will readily acknowledge that after reading various conflicting accounts, I still cannot claim to understand. All accounts I've read establish the Vice President as being on the far right side of the group of hunters, but accounts vary as to whether he tracked the quail left or right on the way to firing the shot that hit Harry Whittington.

I still don't understand all the details, but the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department investigators on the scene surveyed the accident site, and felt informed enough to close the case. That they and the victim are in agreement makes me feel comfortable with the outcome even if I don't get it.

* * *

When all is said and done, this was a horrible accident brought about by a lack of communication and situational awareness between two hunters. Hopefully, both men with learn from this and recover to enjoy the sport the both of them and so many others obviously enjoy so much. If we are very lucky, other hunters will learn from this near tragedy as well.

Previous:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:01 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Now this is a poltical campaign sure to start with a bang.

Update: Not a campaign ad.

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It was an illicit love... of water.

Sorry.

Once the pun comes, it has to be released... and hey, if you don't like that, there's always Brokeback to the Future that has been making the rounds.

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L.A. architect Paul Murdoch's controversial Crescent of Embrace seems poised to go ahead in Shanksville, PA, as a terrorism-honoring, Mecca-oriented crescent:

The Project's last public meeting was the unveiling back in September of Paul Murdoch's winning Crescent of Embrace design, with its half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent. It is very likely that Saturday's meeting is to announce that Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has given final approval to Murdoch's design, based on the insignificant design changes announced in late November. The design is now called simply The Flight 93 Memorial instead of The Crescent of Embrace, but the half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent is still there, as are all of the other Islamic and jihadist design elements of the original Crescent design.

This must not stand.

Error Theory provides the detailed list of snail mail, email, and telephone contact information needed to make your voice known.

Please do.

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I just read the transcript of Dick Cheney's interview with Brit Hume on Fox News, and it is obvious that the Vice President is extremely remorseful, haunted by the fact he shot a friend. The image of Cheney firing at the bird, only to see Whittington drop, obviously plays over and over again in his mind.

My heart goes out to Mr. Whittington and his family, and also to the Vice President and his family. This is traumatic for all concerned, and I wish for all of them to recover as fully as God and time allows.

That said, some of the details of this late Saturday afternoon hunt are still unclear.

Obviously, I'm still very interested in discovering if the shotgun pellet in Harry Whittington's heart is really "roughly 5 mm" as Dr. David Blanchard claimed. Odds are that the good doctor was mistaken, and I hope that this is indeed the case. Ammunition using pellets of that size, which are more suitable for goose hunting than quail hunting, are not made for the Vice President's 28-gauge shotgun. I have two emails in to media contacts at the hospital where Mr. Whittington is being treated, and hopefully they will indeed confirm this is a simple mistake in judging the size of the shot.

Another thing that perplexes me is the relative positions of the three hunters in this incident. According to the Vice President in Hume's interview:

HUME: Tell me what happened.

CHENEY: Well, basically, we were hunting quail, late in the day.

HUME: Let's recall the setting.

CHENEY: It's in South Texas, wide open spaces, a lot of brush cover, but fairly shallow, but it's wild quail. It's some of the best quail hunting any place in the country. I've gone there to the Armstrong ranch for years. The Armstrongs have been friends for over 30 years. And a group of us had hunted all day on Saturday.

HUME: How many?

CHENEY: Probably 10 people. We weren't all together, but about 10 guests at the ranch. There were two of us who had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by the dogs. The covey was flushed, we shot, and each of us got a bird. Harry couldn't find his. It had gone down in some deep cover, so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and walked about 100 yards in the other direction.

HUME: Away from him?

CHENEY: Away from him, where another covey had been spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right ...

HUME: There was just two of you then?

CHENEY: Just two of us at that point, a guide and an outrider between us. And, of course, there was the entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there. But the bird flushed and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Here is where I start to get confused.

The three hunters - Dick Cheney, Harry Whittington, and a third hunter Cheney does not name, but self identifies herself in this CTV article as Pamela Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, were walking in a line when they flushed a covey of quail and all three fired and brought down birds. Cheney and Willeford were able to find their birds, but the quail Whittington shot went down in heavy cover. As Whittington sought his bird, Cheney and Willeford went off "in the other direction."

We aren't told exactly what the course change was, but most people, I think, would assume a reversal of course of 180 degrees. At this point, the explanation becomes unclear to me.

Cheney and Willeford have apparently left Whittingon somewhere behind them as they sought a second covey of quail, with Cheney explicitly stating he was on the far right. A quail flushed, as Vince President Cheney recounts:

...and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Let me see if I get this.

The two hunters had separated from Whittington and had gone off in "the other direction," meaning a returning Whittington came up from either the dead rear, left rear, or right rear of the party. Let's look at how this plays out.

Whittington advances from the center rear
First off, a center rear (straight behind) situation doesn't make much sense. A hunter would have had to pivot and bend to an excessive degree to have hit Whittington, who would have been on their inside. None of these AARP-aged folks would appear to be capable of that sort of Cirque de Soleil contortion. Let's rule that out as a strong improbabability, (but not an impossibility).

That leave us with the more logical situations of Whittington angling in from either the right or left rear.

Whittington advances from the right rear

In the crude image above, the green circle represents Willeford, the blue circle represents Cheney, the red circle coming up from the right rear is Whittington, and the the black circle is the quail, with the curved, dotted line representing the bird's flight path, and the short dotted line between the blue circle (Cheney) and the red circle (Whittington) representing the path of the birdshot from Cheney's shotgun.

Assuming all three hunters were moving in roughly the same direction (towards the top of the page), what do you notice? A hunter on the right, swinging right, would have most likely shot a forward-facing Whittington on the left side. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident reports states that Whittington was shot on the right side of his body.

Whittington advances from the left rear
Now, I suppose it is possible for the shooter on the right to swing to the right and hit a person on their right side, but only if the victim turned aggressively inward, and it seems questionable that a 78 year-old man would have the reflexes to make that turn quickly.

It would, however, seem to make sense that a shooter on the left, swinging left, would almost certainly hit the victim on the right side as Whittington was struck.

If the hospital is correct in estimating the size of the pellet in Mr. Whittingon's heart (and that is indeed the major point of contention), then Vice President Cheney could not have fired the shot, because ammunition is not made for his shotgun using pellets of anything approaching that size.

In addition, it seems quite puzzling how a hunter on the right, swing right, could have hit Harry Whittington on the right side of his body.

I'm very glad that it appears Mr. Whittington will survive this horrible accident, and I'm glad that the Vice President has now given his side of the story.

I just wish what I've heard reported made more apparent sense.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

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The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper at the University of North Carolina has stepped foot into the Cartoon Wars.

The UNC Muslim Student Association, of course, is having a fit. Not that the image is inaccurate (in my opinion, this cartoon is editorially superior to most of the other cartoons I've seen on the subject, even if the cartoonist hasn't fully developed as an artist), but that the University allowed the cartoon to run.

It's real simple folks.

You can live in a country that values freedom of expression and learn to develop tolerance as a result, or you can live in a country without the freedom of intellectual diversity, and deal with stagnant minds and derelict cultures.

The choice is yours.

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Somehow, this seems so familiar...

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Austin lawyer Harry Whittington was shot during a hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday. This afternoon, he suffered a slight setback as a birdshot pellet in his bloodstream became trapped in his heart... and what an interesting pellet it was.

Via CNN (my bold):

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said Whittington suffered an "asymptomatic heart attack," meaning Whittington did not display symptoms such as chest pains or breathing difficulty. He said a roughly 5 mm piece of shot became lodged in or alongside Whittington's heart muscle, causing the organ's upper two chambers to beat irregularly.

The physician quoted is Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital. Only “T” and “BBB” shot - at 5.08mm and 4.83 respectively - are close to that size range.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident report, Vice President Cheney was hunting with a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge shotgun using factory-loaded #7 1/2 shot.

#7 1/2 shotgun pellets have a diameter of 2.41 mm, half the size of the pellet found in Harry Whittington's heart.

According to 28-gauge aficionados, the size shot found in Whittington's chest is not made for the caliber of shotgun Cheney was shooting.

The most logical explanation is that the hospital equipment is merely inaccurate in measuring the size of the pellet, in which case they should recalibrate their machines.

If the hospital equipment is accurate, however, then someone using a shotgun other than a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge fired the shot that wounded Harry Whittington.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:34 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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This is the face of the professional media. Michelle Malkin has the video of an utterly pathetic attempt to mock a near tragedy.

I can only imagine Milbank enjoys popping balloons near Jim Brady and making gargling noises near the Kopechne family.

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The paleo-Sheehan of the anti-gun movement has emerged in the wake of the Cheney/Whittington shooting incident:

"I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time," Sarah Brady said. "Now I know I was right to be nervous."

This is the same Sarah Brady that established the radically anti-gun Brady Center.

This past fall, the Brady Center proved that they are willing to make untrue statements about upcoming civil lawsuits they intend to file, apparently in an attempt to push defendents to settle potentially unpopular cases before they come to trial.

Sarah Brady should be nervous, just not for the reason she has in mind.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:51 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This will be liberal blog fodder until 2009. Via the Associated Press.

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.

[snip]

Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

Luckily, Mr. Whittington's wounds, while painful, are not life-threatening, and the presiding officer of the Texas Funeral Service Commission will not yet become a client.

Some will enjoy blaming the Vice President for this one, but Harry Whittington bears a large degree of the blame for his shooting. You simply do not come up behind a hunter unannounced, especially while bird hunting when a passing shot is a distinct possibility.

I'd guess (this is hypothetical) that Whittington, having been shot in his right side, came up from the left rear quadrant of the Vice President. If the Vice President is a right-handed shooter as the majority of people are, Whittington would have been in Cheney's blind spot as he swung on a bird passing right-to-left. There is very little the Vice President could have done, except, perhaps, having gone hunting with someone a little more intelligent.

Regardless, I hope Whittington has learned something from this very painful experience.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:54 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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shop


Because real freedom means the freedom to be offended.

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The Daily Kos kids are holding a rather unique fundraiser, auctioning off a Speaking Engagement with Cindy Sheehan on eBay. The proceeds will go to their version of a good cause, namely, the YearlyKos, an organization (non-profit status pending in the state of Pennsylvania, or so they claim) "dedicated to organizing and supporting an annual meeting of progressive netroot activists."

As compassionate conservatives, we feel their excruciating pain of being—what, 0-17 so far?—in state and national elections. Actually we don't feel their pain because we won the 17 elections they lost, but it's all about the empathy.

I therefore we move that we conservatives unite to help the YearlyKos with their futile effort, by sending Cindy Sheehan to a speaking engagement of our choice. As an activist, Mother Sheehan has a professed and world-recognized interest in meeting with influential politicians, and in keeping with her interests, I'd suggest that we raise the funds to send Cindy Sheehan to speak before the duly-elected and newly certified Iraqi Parliament.

It would be quite moving, one would think, for Mother Sheehan to have the opportunity to speak before such an influential body of legislators. Mother Sheehan would have an opportunity to express her true feelings about the war to those most directly affected by its outcome.

Speak truth to power, Cindy!

I'm sure the Iraqi people can hardly wait.

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"Yeah, tech support? Medal of Honor: Rising Sun keeps crashing my HMMWV..."

Somehow, I don't think that is what they have in mind:

IBM, the world's largest maker of business computers, on Wednesday introduced new computing systems that it said extend the processing power of video-game microchips to corporate data centers.

The systems will open up new capabilities for businesses in the medical and military sectors, for example, as companies seek ways to use increasingly demanding and graphics-intensive computer applications, IBM said.

Driving the systems is the so-called Cell processor, developed by IBM, Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. for gaming consoles including Sony's PlayStation 3, scheduled for release later this year. IBM is now installing the Cell in its "BladeCenter" computer servers, a compact way of building large data centers that run corporate networks.

[snip]

"We see a commercial application for that Cell processor" in corporate data centers, Balog told Reuters. "Several customers approached us to take advantage of this highly graphics-intensive engine, which can render whole cities and landscapes on the fly."

The Cell chip already has found some uses beyond gaming, but the technology being introduced on Wednesday is meant to broaden the potential applications and customers, Balog said. IBM in June agreed to license the Cell processor to military equipment maker Mercury Computer Systems Inc.

With some military companies either currently able or close to being able to monitor real-time battles conditions via layers of GPS, airborne, ground-based and satellite video feeds, layered thermal, chemical scans, and constantly updating individual GPS data currently being tested, a live action, video-game surveillance view for commanders may be exactly what is around the corner in future battle management.

Now if they can just figure out how to add bonus lives...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yankee Wife and I have been house hunting off and on since we moved back to North Carolina last summer, and seem to be narrowing things down to the southern Wake County area, and a specific three-bedroom homeplan in a developing community where we had to stop for a doe and two fawns crossing the road tonight. Absolutely gorgeous.

But more important than those details, who wants wants to buy the house for me? A few hundred grand through that PayPal button on the right ought to do the trick. Baby needs that jetted tub upgrade...

All kidding aside, I would like to pick up some writing gigs to help finance this puppy, so if you hear anything, please pass 'em along.

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Thanks to the constantly impending Bushitler-Halliburton Recession, it's like 1929 all over again... isn't it?

At a time when unemployment was at 6.5 percent, and GDP was forecasted to be 3 percent in 1994, Time Magazine wrote, "which would be no boom, but maybe something much better: a pace that could be sustained for a long time, keeping income and employment growing without igniting a new surge in inflationÂ…. The circle (of spending, production and hiring) may not spin fast enough to produce a boom -- but who wants one anyway? Moderate, steady growth is better."

Now compare it to the one Time Magazine article ("How Real is the Squeeze?") written about economic recovery under President Bush. Keep in mind that at the time the article was written GDP grew 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2004 (which was subsequently revised upward to 4.3 percent) and unemployment was at 5.6 percent.

"Jonathan Thornton finally found a job this spring after six months of unemployment...

While economics is not my bag, the obvious bias in the tone of in economic reporting between the Clinton and Bush presidencies speaks for itself, I think.

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Jim at bRight & Early rewrites Stairway to Heaven in (dis)honor of the Cartoon War:

There's a feeling we get

When we look to the jest,

Printing cartoons depicting Mohammed.

It just makes us see red

You should all end up dead,

For defying our peaceful religion.

Ooh, it makes us wonder,

Ooh, it really makes us wonder...

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Raw Story has what it claims was an advance copy of a prepared speech Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) gave on the floor of the Senate regarding the secret NSA surveillance program authorized by President Bush in 2001 to intercept international communications between suspected al Qaeda terrorists overseas and their contacts in the United States. I sincerely hope that this is an accurate transcript, as it a damning indictment of the level of dishonesty Senate Democrats are willing to stoop to in an attempt to damage the White House, national security concerns be damned.

It begins (My bold):

Mr. President, last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America's leadership in the world, and called on all of us to "lead this world toward freedom." Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.

But, almost in the same breath, the President openly acknowledged that he has ordered the government to spy on Americans, on American soil, without the warrants required by law.

This is not just one lie, but three blatant, calculated lies in one breath.

The executive order signed by President Bush and implemented by General Michael Hayden was designed not to spy on Americans, but to intercept communications with suspected overseas terrorists. As Hayden himself made clear, any information identifying Americans was sanitized, meaning that information was redacted. Stricken. Not used. Destroyed.

Nor was this program operating "on American soil." The program captured targeted, specific communications as they entered or left the country, much in the same way a customs official has the right to search luggage entering or leaving the country, also a practice that happens legally without a warrant, I may add.

As the President, two Attorney's General, White House counsel, and cohorts of National Security Administration and Justice Department Officials have maintained and existing case law such as the FISA Court of Review's decision in In re: Sealed Case, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld , and other evidence in this 42-page brief (PDF) strongly asserts, warrants are not required for this kind of international (occurring in more than one country, hence not domestic) surveillance.

That's a whole lot of hyperbole and straight-up lying packed into one sentence, but the Senator is far from done.

The President issued a call to spread freedom throughout the world, and then he admitted that he has deprived Americans of one of their most basic freedoms under the Fourth Amendment -- to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA's domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and even some Democrats.

The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Senator Feingold is, once again, lying, so of course he should feel ashamed, if that emotion still resonates in a being so morally vacuous.

The Fourth Amendment is not applicable to the NSA program whatsoever. The Fourth Amendment clearly states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What terrorist supporter on this planet that the interception of international terrorist communications does not meet the well-established exemption to the warrant requirement and the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement? Apparently, Russ Feingold.

As stated before and stated often, this is a targeted program intercepting international communications of terrorists, and it does not exceed the President's constitutional powers.

Once again, this is not a domestic spying program. No matter how many times shrill Democrats and their allies in the media repeat that hysteric refrain, it remains a targeted program intercepting the communications of suspected terrorists outside of this nation, trying to slip messages to their agents within our borders. These are the people Russ Feingold is trying to protect, and they are hardly loyal Americans.

The President is not misleading the people, he has laid out his legal case as clearly as prudence will allow without compromising the program, and many scholars and practitioners of the law from all political persuasions agree. There is misdirection and misleading going on, but it is being led by Senate and House Democrats who desire a perceived temporary political advantage more than the security of America's people.

Feingold continues with a shockingly honest (and probably quite accidental) admission:

Congress has lost its way if we don't hold this President accountable for his actions.

The President, in reasserting the power of the Presidency as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, is directly challenging an overreaching Congress. They seek to hold onto a momentary illusion of power that they do not legally possess, and hope to bluster their way though against a president they see as weak, and they challenge the power of the Commander in chief to lead military surveillance against a foreign enemy during a time of war as they plot attacks on our soil, against our citizens.

The congressional way of bluster, accusation, and usurping of executive power enabled by a weak-willed President Carter must not stand, or this nation cannot defend itself. Wars are not led by committees, but by commanders. Congress does not want to acknowledge their own limitations. Acknowledging that Congress will be exposed as having lost its way is Feingold's only accidental honesty.

The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn't understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

But not if that commitment involves recognizing that the Congress has overreached. Perceived Congressional power is far more important than American lives.

Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President's decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

Once again, Feingold is accidentally correct.

Defeating terrorists should be our top national priority, but instead, members of both Houses, led by Democrats have made upholding their own perceived importance to be a higher priority than enabling the President to carry out his constitutionally mandated duty to carry out foreign surveillance.

This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that "we must always be clear in our principles" to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let's be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government. Instead, the President says - "Trust me."

Feingold is more guilty of projection that he could ever imagine. It is Democrats that have broken faith with the American people, hoping to turn a crime (government leaks) into a scandal for political gain at the expense of the security of average Americans. No Congressman or Senator-let me rephrase that-no honest Congressman or Senator can assert that the President's duty to protect this nation in a time of war is subservient to an unconstitutional statutory law.

The President is accountable to a higher standard than the hyperbole and bombast of a shrill Senator with a track record of trampling on the Constitution.

Being a Senator, Feingold does go on from there... and on, and on, and on, regurgitating the talking points you have not doubt already chanted a hundred times.

Unfortunately for Feingold, this mantra of deceit is all he has, and history will remember him for the small, self-serving man he continually proves himself to be.

Update: Reliapundit fisks Feingold's "BDS to Power" speech as well.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:50 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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