Some comments on yesterday's stories....

I was a little busy setting up a big birthday party from my four-year-old niece, so I wasn't able to get on the blog to check out the stories. And there were some big ones here. So I'm going to make some generalized comments on some of yesterday's stories here.

The first one I want to talk about is from the ABC News blog, titled Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling. It is essentially a major news story where the government is keeping track of phone numbers and records of calls of major news reporters and organizations. The government is keeping track of phone records of reporters working at ABC News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, as a means to track down government leaks in the Valerie Plame scandal, the secret NSA wiretapping of domestic Americans, the secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, and even the recent USA Today story of the NSA getting phone records from the telecom companies.

The logo of the National Security Agency hangs at the Threat Operations Center at Fort Meade, Maryland, (AFP/File/Paul J. Richards).

The Bush administration is spying on mainstream press. I can't even comprehend the social and political damage this country will face as a result of this action. We no longer have any sort of watchdog against an abusive government here. American citizens will no longer have a means to determine if government is accountable to its people, rather than unto itself. That is the importance of a free press--to expose these excesses of government to the American people, to reveal the secret CIA prisons, the illegal domestic spying programs, and the use of torture on prisoners. Without a free press to watch over the government, American citizens will be forced to view state-sponsored news and government propaganda--does anyone still remember the old Soviet propaganda machine, and the ridiculous lies they repeatedly told to the Soviet people?

But that is not the worst of that story. The comments are even more frightening. Consider some of these comments from the posting of this article--spelling mistakes are by the authors of these comments:

Good! I hope they do find out who is leaking national security info to the press. I'm tired of the press helping our enemies. Maybe you guys should start trying to "FOR the USA" instead of "AGAINST the USA" ALL THE TIME. I hope the FBI nails lots of idiots who are out to destroy the intelligence agencies and cost us more soldiers and spys!

"'Bout time you guys are roped in."

"Excellent the Media needs looking after, Traitors most of them......."

"good, you seditionist creeps deserve what you get. who knows how many serviceman have died because of your 'right to know'"

"I hope the information they gain allows them to catch the scum that leak information, and helps them arrest the communist scum who publish it."

"well maybe ABC news better stop leaking classified information. This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US."

"I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.
I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights."

"I think that this is very good news. Something has to be done to investigate the main-stream media as the MSM has obviously declared war against the President in regards to the war on terror and and the liberation of Iraq. It is outrageous how they are working to leak classified information and to undermine our security at every turn with their reporting. It is also outrageous how they fabricate stories against the President or in a timely fashion recycle old stories as if they were new. I personally no longer trust the MSM at all and feel extremely threatened by their agenda."

"I am tired of thae news media leaking secret information in order to hurt PREDIDENT BUSH. I would prosucute the news media leakers for treason like LINCOLN did. We are at WAR with a enemy who whants to take over the world by force or kill all of us."

"You commit treason and expose classified national securtiy information - the goverment is going to come after you - as they should."

These were just some of the comments supporting this spying program and the Bush administration. Reading them is especially chilling--these people are so willing to give up their rights and freedoms for "security?" It is incredible.

There were certainly a large number of comments that criticized the Bush administration and this program of government spying on journalists. But I found one comment that I think really sums up this entire story:

"We used to make fun of the Soviets for this sort of thing. Now, it's us."

The second big story that occurred yesterday was President Bush's speech on illegal immigration. No big surprise there. I will say that Bush gave a number as to how many National Guard troops should watch the border--Bush will deploy 6,000 National Guard troops. These troops will be armed. In his prime time address, President Bush said, "[W]e do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that."

US President George W Bush sits in the Oval Office of the White House after addressing the nation on television in Washington, DC. Bush ordered up to 6,000 National Guard soldiers to reinforce the border with Mexico against illegal immigrants.(AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Unfortunately, President Bush will fail on the immigration issue. Sending 6,000 armed National Guard troops will not control the border. President Bush is executing a simplified political solution to solve a complex policy issue--again, politics over policy. I've already written extensively on this issue of deploying National Guard troops to the Mexican border on a May 13th 2005 posting here.

The real reason for this televised Oval Office address was to show the Republican base that President Bush is a strong leader, and that he is solving this immigration debate. The reason the immigration issue has come to the forefront is because of the strong protests by Hispanic Americans for immigration reform over this past month. This issue of illegal immigration has been going on for the past 25 years--perhaps even longer. Does anyone remember the Charles Bronson movie Borderline? It was a cheesy action movie, where Chuck Bronson plays a border patrol agent who takes down a sophisticated illegal alien smuggling ring. Borderline came out in 1980. Two years later, Jack Nicholson plays an El Paso border agent who accepts payoffs to allow illegal immigrants to enter the country in the film The Border. I know it is silly to list these two movies as examples of the longevity issue of illegal immigration into the United States, but Hollywood has a way of capturing the imagination of the American public, when that public is confronted with new issues, ideas, or events. The issue of illegal immigration existed back in 1980--just as it exists today. And yet, with the president dropping to 29 percent approval ratings, we get this cheap political solution as a means to pander to the Republican base, and hopefully maintain Republican Party control of Congress, over that of any real policy reform.

Politics before policy.