Here is how Dems can start winning on wiretap issue - very easy...

[HardWorkingDem]

All they have to do is start demanding to know if reporter Christine Amanpour was spied on. This is such an easy tactic to use and has shown great promise in the past.

People in Washington thrive on their own self interest and the one way to get this moving is to get the press actively involved, just like the Cooper/Miller leak angle.

The press is like everything else - it just loves it when it becomes the attention getter. Some Dem in Congress should have demanded to know if she was caught in their wiretaps. Then the press would follow that story like lemmings before a cliff.

I just don't get how Dems are so oblivious to tactics like this.

[Quakerfriend]

1. Yes, hardworkingdem,

Several weeks ago when this story first broke I had the same thought. Especially because Amanpour is so widely respected.

And, the fact that her husband Jamie has had several high level positions with Dems and is so well versed in foreign policy AND so outspoken makes this one a no brainer!

[spuddonna]

2. That is a great idea...

I'm sure the illegal wiretapping goes all over the place... This admin has no respect for the rule of law, so any reporter that wasn't doing their 'dirty work' was probably a target...

[radio4progressives]

3. First: stop calling it Wire Tap - it's "Domestic Spying"! "wire tap" is

how they get away with white washing over the actual issue.

[drm604]

4. Domestic Spying.

Absolutely. We know they've spied on Quakers and peace activists. It's all one issue, whether it occurred by electronic eavesdropping or undercover agents attending innocent gatherings. It's unconstitutional, it's un-American, and it's wasteful of crucial resources.

[HardWorkingDem]

5. I'm not disagreeing, but....

first we've got to get people outraged and moving along on this. For the life of me, as Eric Alterman suggested in his book "What Liberal Media", we simply do not "work the refs" like the rightwingers do. I just don't get how our politicians don't use simple debating tactics like the rethugs do. For one, we are terrible at staying on message.

Here's an example. I can't recall the exact topic, but I was watching the Tweety show the other night and he had a Dem on and at the very end made some sort of comment that was simply untrue. Then he was going to a break and have someone else on and then after that have another Dem on. Now, when the Dem came on he should have said, "Chris, first, I want make a comment about the earlier comment you made." No, it was was all forgotten and left alone.

I mean every Dem consultant, politician and activist when talking to the media should ask them, "doesn't it piss you off that the govt was spying on a fellow journalist?!?!"

[kenny blankenship]

6. "Illegal wiretapping"

Always mention the illegal part, after all that's the problem not wiretapping.
(or "illegal spying". the common denominator in all Democratic remarks and references to this subject should be "ILLEGAL")

[BillZBubb]

7. Bingo! We have a winner!

We must always frame it as illegal. Hell, that's the truth. I would even throw in UNCONSTITUTIONAL every other time as well.

Illegal Domestic Spying. Unconstitutional Domestic Spying. Has a nice ring to it.

[HardWorkingDem]

8. It doesn't matter what it is called if no one is talking about it...

the fire has to be put under the asses of the media to get on this story. And the only way to do it is to remind them that one of them most likely was spied on. I guess what that would take is to get the Biden's of the world to quit talking about themselves and demand an answer from those that can give it in one of the congressional hearings.

I mean, can anyone imagine if a senator grilled Gonzales on this one question alone? If so, then THIS would be the story on the nightly news that night.

[radio4progressives]

14. No No No No!!!! NO ! ABSOLUTELY NO! Please understand this is exactly

the problem and why Feingold is fighting so hard to block those evil provisions in the new PA re-authorization.

Listen up. Here's what's going on. The DLC and the Bushies want to contiue DOMESTIC SPYING - and the whole idea around all this Orwellian Double Speak is to make it OK TO DO DOMESTIC SPYING - to MAKE IT LEGAL FOREVER. That's why the dems are calling it "illegal wiretapping" and the white house is calling it "terrorist surveilance" - it's none of that.

All of the machinations that are going all week long, the one Senate hearing and the cable news talk shows - it's been said all week long, what it all boils down to is everybody is working together to make all this retroactively legal and then legal moving forward. The Jane Harmons, the Joe Biden's, the Joe Lieberman's and Bayh's et al (the DlC)and Bush Co. are working it out so all of this will seem like a tempest in a teapot, and the way it is presented is a "technical legality" issue. Kind of like coming to a complete stop at the red light before making that right hand turn, or were your wheels still rolling.

Parsing out what "Is" is, is not the technicality we should be fighting against, and that's what is being presented to the American people.

Language is EVERYTHING. It shapes PERCEPTION.

What the Bush administration has been doing is DOMESTIC SPYING. I don't give flying hoot, how they've been doing - (and neither should any other American)
the fact is, that they have been engaged in DOMESTIC SPYING since they came into office, nine months before 9/11.

Domestic Spying is not only illegal, it is a HIGH CRIME and Misdeamor and we need to present the issue in just those terms. And we need to let the DLC and the Bushies know, we're not going to allow this another moment longer.

Domestic Spying is the issue.

[HardWorkingDem]

15. Yes, but.....

it does no good whatsoever when no one is really talking about it. That is why the fire must be put under the asses of reporters. They need to be force fed this issue so they will get as hot about it as they did when Cooper and Miller were in the news. For the life of me, I can't believe they are not all ready hot about Amanapor being monitored.


And the content of your post shows another weakness of the Dems when it comes to the minds of the American voter and why we must retake the house so that people like Feingold can really do good. Your post contains well thought out and nuanced information that is being lost upon the American voter because they give more shit about shows like American Idol than that of the US Constitution.

DailyKos has an interesting diary about scandal fatigue facing the Bushies - that there are so many scandals plaguing them that the media is spread too thin to cover them all. That makes sense to me.

[Blue Shark]

9. Perhaps even more important...

...is the point that lets say BushCo actually manages (against all odds) to wiretap a terror suspect planning a nuclear strike perhaps.

...well guess what? all evidence acquired illegally, which the wiretaps clearly are is INADMISSABLE in a court of law as fruit of the poisoned tree.

...they blow any and all cases resulting from any of these wiretaps by virtue of their illegality.

...This is the stupidest excersize in power in a long string of phenominally stupid excersizes in (non)governance.

...This in my opinion is what the Dems should hammer on. The wiretaps are blowing any criminal case even as they are being conducted.

[BillZBubb]

10. The problem with that...

is that Bush has already ASSUMED THE POWER to lock up anyone he pleases without a trial. We don't need no steenkin' trials! They'd just throw the culprit into Gitmo and the public would be as happy as clams.

[Blue Shark]

11. True...

...however that has really only been foreign nationals (I believe)...if it is Americans the hue and cry will be far louder IMHO.

[AX10]

12. kick

:kick:

[Disturbed]

13. An American citizen has been in Abu Grahib for...

15 months without any charges filed. The DOD refused to release his name until his family finally through their Attorney forced the issue. Any big stories in the RW Corp. Media on this?