I’ll be on Vermont Edition with Jane Lindholm tomorrow (Tuesday) to talk about Senator Leahy’s proposal to create a version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate various activities of the Bush administration. It’s a call-in program, running from 12:10 to about 12:40, so feel free to call in to explain how my blog has improved your powers of concentration and helps you sleep better at night.
Here’s the audio link:
http://www.vpr.net/audio_player/index.php
And you can submit email questions ahead of time here:
http://www.vpr.net/inside_vpr/contact_us/
I am going to try to use the following words in my on-air responses: “aroma”, “juggernaut” and “cowbell”. You can keep score at home.
Also, I hope you have been following the developing debate re: whether to “nationalize” the banks – it ties directly to the comments on this blog regarding Americans’ historic reluctance to embrace “socialism”. Should the government own the banks, even temporarily? Republicans are opposed. You should also be paying attention to the quiet effort by the Obama administration to tackle entitlement reform, using many of the same ideas floated unsuccessfully by the Bush administration. Here, Obama is facing opposition from the Left Wing of the Democratic party. Who said being president is easy?
“If I were Dick Cheney, I’d be concerned that the Leahy juggernaut is pretty well unstoppable as a force in the American criminal justice system right now.”
“When they wake up from these heady fiscal dreams, the aroma they’ll smell won’t be Starbucks, it’ll be Folgers.”
“The far left-wing of the Democratic ranks, I’m afraid, is jangling the usual cowbell in the night.”
I’m not sure what this will amount to? Our nation was attacked. That was an act of war and the terrorists knew that. I feel, when a nation or a people throw something at you you have the right to duck. I also feel we should have a right to defend ourselves using any means possible.
These people are sworn to kill Americans and any friends of Americans. We need to gather all the knowledge we can in that fight. And when they attacked our nation, the gloves came off. Sorry for that. But they must know that any attack on US will be defended at any cost.
The only other thing we might consider, is why are we hated and how do we fix that? And please do not be short with it’s because they hate freedom. That is not the reason.
Excellent points made in the show today. I do think there are difficulties involved in protecting the US and the complications involved in the investigation of decisions made, however I find it equally unnerving the partisanship on the part of Senator Leahy. I realize it was no better at the end of the Clinton administration and immediately after 9/11/2001 on the part of Republicans, but this is more of the same “get nothing done” Congress.
The Senator will bark, but he’s still tightly leashed by his own post 9/11 and Patriot Act skeletons that he’d rather not have fall out of the closet.
Call it the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate various activities of the Bush administration and Congress” and I doubt he would be so gung-ho.