GOP disillusionment with Bush grows...

[Peter Frank]

While die-hard Republicans try to present a unified front in support of President George W. Bush’s evasion of the law and Constitution in ordering nonstop spying on Americans, splits are showing in the GOP ranks.

“What's wrong with it is several-fold,” former GOP Congressman Bob Barr says of the domestic spying. “One, it is bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it's bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without a court order.”

Barr, one of the most conservative members of Congress when he served in the House, leads an increasing group of disenchanted Republicans who have had enough of Bush’s misuse of the law and encroachment of civil liberties that are supposed to be protected by the Constitution. He has joined with fellow conservative firebrand Phyllis Schlafly and the ultra-liberal American Civil Liberties Union to fight renewal of many of the rights-robbing provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

And he’s not alone. Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho and Olympia Snowe of Maine question Bush’s actions along with Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.<snip>

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7913.shtml

[peekaloo]

1. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Barr and Schafly aligned with the ACLU.......although to be fair Barr has been speaking out against the PA for some time now.

[Atman]

2. In the end, they'll do nothing, and toast themselves at the next party.

Fucking fuckers. Fuck you! DO SOMETHING, goddamn it!

[WilliamPitt]

3. Wow. Actual names.

[Peter Frank]

4. Yeah; and Bush is angry...

<snip>Frist, hampered by questions over his insider stock sale of Hospital Corporation of America holdings, couldn’t keep GOP anger from helping derail Bush’s push to make the USA Patriot Act a permanent law of the land.

“The White House is particularly pissed at Frist,” says one longtime GOP consultant. “They want him out as majority leader and a more hardball leader in the style of Tom DeLay in his place.”

Bush is also angry with Craig, a conservative who joined with Democrats in a filibuster to defeat permanent renewal of the Patriot Act. As a meeting recently, Bush referred to Craig as “a goddamned traitor” and told the National Republican Senatorial Committee to start recruiting someone to run against the Idaho Senator in the GOP primary in 2008.

Such anger against those who dare oppose him is typical for a President who all too often launches into obscene tirades when his policies are questioned. Bush, on many occasions, has called political opponents “traitors’ and, in private, refers to Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter as a “lily-livered bastard.”<snip>

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7913.shtml

[tinfoilinfor2005]

15. This Christian president taking the name of the Lord in vain?

Why, I'm shocked! Shocked!

:wow:

:sarcasm:

[existentialist]

5. Barr's Comments

I read Barr's article on the Huffington Post.

Interestingly, the focus of Barr's comments were mostly on comparing Bush with Clinton. Most of us, of course, (even if some suspect Clinton of having been a Republican in Democratic clothing) don't consider Clinton's transgressions to even be on the same scale as Bush's crimes.

Barr, however, can fairly be described as a wing nut, and his comparison of Bush to Clinton (and just slightly with Nixon) speaks volumes. It is as if Barr was making the strongest case he could against Bush--namely comparing him with Clinton.

[Peter Frank]

6. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows...

Go Barr!!! :applause:

[gratuitous]

7. Republicans Splintered! They Have No Plan!

What are "headlines you'll never see in the popular media," Alex?

[Peter Frank]

8. Are you trying to say that...

...the mainstream media is not as liberal as reported by the "RW pudits" (the "n" is silent).

[MrMonk]

9. " ultra-liberal American Civil Liberties Union "

Well, it is Capitol Hill Blue.

[DuaneBidoux]

10. Yeah, hasn't this "ultra liberal" group defended Nazi's right to...

demonstrate? How is being an absolutely staunch defender of the Constitution make you either liberal or conservative?

[Disturbed]

11. Staunchly defending of the Constitution ...

is a dangerous thing to do these days. It is radical and anti-Amerikan.

[mom cat]

13. You mispeled "Mercan"!

[meganmonkey]

12. If you take the word "liberal" out of the context of the political parties

and take it at its true meaning, it is an appropriate word to describe the ACLU :shrug:

[MrMonk]

14. They've defended Rush Limbaugh's right to privacy in his medical records

[Peter Frank]

16. I'm beginning to wonder...

...what the NSA might have on the ACLU.