Rep. Jane Harman Focus In Yet Another Warrantless Wiretap Scandal

Many different sources are talking about the latest scandal surrounding the warrantless wiretapping program. Incriminating evidence against California rep. Jane Harman was apparently captured some time ago on a legal NSA wiretap. However, Attorney General Gonzales supposedly intervened to drop the case against her because (and this is where the irony meter explodes) Bush officials wanted her to be able to publicly defend the warrantless wiretap program. "Jane Harman, in the wake of the NSA scandal, became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, using her status as 'the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee' to repeatedly praise the NSA program as 'essential to US national security' and 'both necessary and legal.'"

Comments

A Setback for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts

[Anonymous Coward]

If nothing else, this Jane Harmon scandal is going to continue to undermine the USA's credibility as an "impartial" mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regardless of what Jane Harmon may have done, it's rather shocking that AIPAC has enough pull in congress to be able to hold out committee chairmanships as bribes.

Re:Treason

[RobertB-DC]

Seriously, many of the things the public blamed Bush for are the actions of Congress, which has been under Democratic control for several years. CNN isnt going to report that though, its not favorable to their agenda.

It's not favorable to CNN's agenda, but not for the reason you imply. CNN may lean more left than Fox (though that's not saying much), but what makes news has almost nothing to do with political slant. It's all about ratings, eyeballs, "buzz", and ultimately, advertising dollars.

Reporting the truth, that the Democrats and Republicans acted together to get us into this mess (name your mess, they worked together on it), isn't flashy. It doesn't grab headlines like the Pirates of the Carribean, I mean Somalia. It doesn't turn on the tears like the latest suburban child-killing mom. It doesn't generate tempest-in-a-teapot "controversy" like Lou Dobbs' latest proclamations on border security.

Neither CNN, Fox, nor any of the rest of the corporate media shills will report on what's going on, because they think we're too dumb. And in fact, they have a vested interest in keeping us dumb -- smart people make poor consumers of advertising.

And we're getting screwed by both major parties. It's better now than it was for the previous eight years, but putting on a condom doesn't make it any less a rape. That's why I still couldn't bring myself to vote for a D or an R -- I voted for Cynthia McKinney (even though in Texas, I had to write in her name).