What About Classified Don't You Understand?
More on Snoopgate

I'm sorry to have been so slack in my posting. Agen and Mrs. F are here for Christmas, and we have been very busy teaching Agen all our holiday traditions and eating chocolate. We made our wrapping paper yesterday and could hardly drag my daughter (Mrs. F) away from the tissue paper and food coloring to eat dinner last night. We still have one tradition to go--making decorated Christmas cookies, but we all the sprinkles, etc., ready to go. I have also been busy playing with my new laptop, bought under Agen's supervision. Now I can blog anywhere. At any rate, we have just come from a Christmas luncheon party, where we all ate way too much and are taking a quiet time to digest. So here's my first post. It regards the claims that Democrats were briefed about Bush's secret spying and were thus complicit. It is from the Daily Kos at: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/21/143035/30

It appears that one of the GOP talking points on the domestic spying scandal is to denigrate and even ridicule Jay Rockefeller's and Nancy Pelosi's letters protesting the spying policy divulged to them in classified meetings. This morning on NPR I heard GOP Representative Peter Hokestra claim that if Senator Rockefeller was really concerned about the domestic spying program revealed last week by the NYT, then he could have done more than write a letter.

Bullshit.

Well, let me clarify that. Rockefeller could have publicized the existence and actions of the program, but if he or any of the other members of Congress briefed on the program went public with their opposition, they would have been breaking the law. To fail to acknowledge that anyone briefed on this program essentially had no way to oppose or publicize the existence of the program without breaking the law is bullshit.

[ . . . . ]

But the most important thing to remember is this: because of the laws and regulations governing national intelligence and Congressional oversight, Congressional critics of the domestic spying were legally prohibited from publicly voicing their opposition to the program. How fitting that GOP shils, who themselves don't seem troubled by the fact that the administration isn't troubled by the fact that a CIA agent's cover was blown for political reasons, proffer Democrats' refusals to break intelligence and espionage laws as evidence that they weren't troubled by domestic spying on Americans.

According to the White House, leaks don't count, unless they hurt us.