This DSCC fundraising email nominally comes from Al Gore:
The evidence now makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that George Bush has repeatedly and insistently broken the law and the corrupt Republican Congress has shirked its constitutional duty to hold him to account.In my view, a president who breaks the law poses a threat to the very foundation of our democracy. As Americans with a stake in the future of our country, we must act quickly and decisively. We have less than five months to win the six seats we need to control the Senate -- and pull our country back from the brink of a constitutional crisis.
"In my view, a president who breaks the law poses a threat to the very foundation of our democracy." He may actually believe this. After all, had any Senate Democrat decided to hold the previous President to this standard, Gore might have had the advantages of incumbency without the disadvantages of guilt by association. He probably wouldn't have even needed to campaign in Tennessee.
This email came out several days after the NYT handed over the details of another intelligence program to our enemies. The fact that "the evidence now makes it hard, blah blah blah" would seem to be an indirect reference to the SWIFT program. That absolutely no evidence - not even in the pages of the Times - has been presented to suggest any illegality or abuse in that program, ah, inconveniences him here as little as elsewhere.
Not one Senate Democrat has called for the discontinuation of any of the Big Three: international surveillance, phone call data mining, or financial transaction analysis. The Senate Dems, at least those in leadership, want the political gain of appearing to defend civil rights while realizing that they'll want those programs at their disposal should they gain power. Yet this doesn't stop the DSCC from sending out fundraising emails like this one all but threatening impeachment.
Of course, the notion of an impending Constitutional crisis is ridiculous. The courts are perfectly capable of resolving the legality of these programs, and there's never been even the hint of a suggestion that the Administration is interested in pulling an Andrew Jackson, or even an FDR (to name two Democratic Presidents) on the courts. Gore certainly has some experience in this area, as The closest we've come to a Constitutional crisis in the last 30+ years is the one perpetrated by him and his friend on the Florida Supreme Court.
It's almost enough to make you think they knew Gen. Casey would be briefing the President on a troop draw-down when they proposed one of their own.
