Should we be loyal to a President/Wiretapping

Some state that because President Bush is commander-in-chief and duly elected that we should be united behind him. But the fact is that even though he is the president and CIC that doesn’t mean the American people forfeit from the day he takes office to the day he leaves, their right to disagree and dissent with his policy be it foreign or domestic. Nothing in the Constitution states or implies that we are obligated to do so, wartime or not. A president is not above the American people.
Conservatives such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Phil Gramm all opposed President Clinton strongly on the Kosovo and Serbian campaigns. They were not un-American for doing so. They took action on opposition to something they felt was immoral and wrong. That is the height of patriotism. When Clinton was criticized over Kosovo, no Democrat stated that such criticism was un-American, unpatriotic or treasonous. If critics of the war are wrong, then it should be easy to show on the merits why they are wrong.
The simple fact is that Americans are not obligated to support anything the president wants to do, just because he is the president. We do not check our brains at the door during a presidential term. Congress and the American people forfeit their rights and free speech to a President.



Letter in Regards to the issue of Wiretapping:

First of all Wisconsin Sen. Feingold’s opposition to Bush’s wiretapping program doesn’t mean he opposes wiretapping of terrorist suspects but that the President is obligated to get a judicial warrant. The concerns have been about the lack of judicial warrants for these wiretaps.
Are Democrats the only ones concerned? No.
Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated that Attorney General Gonzalez’s belief that the 2001 Resolution authorizing force against those responsible for the 9/11 attack superseded the 1978 FISA requirements was that it “defies logic and plain English.” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham stated that Gonzalez’s reasoning was “very dangerous” and “II never envisioned that I was giving to the president or any other president the ability to go around the (1978 law) carte blanche.”
The simple fact is that the President does not have any power, implicit or explicit, to be absolute in his powers be it either in peacetime or war. The idea that a President does have such a power, free from any checks or balances ceases to make us a democratic republic and puts us at the whims and discretion of a President, be it Republican or Democrat. That the Bush administration informed Congress about getting around judicial oversite, doesn’t excuse this act.
The law doesn’t allow for exceptions based on informing Congress. One needs to change the very law itself. Some state that we should be united in the war on terror. But, why should we be absolutely united behind President Bush? Has he shown himself free of mistakes? Probably most of the weapons being used against the U.S. military in Iraq were part of the cache of weapons that the Bush Administration failed to safeguard during the invasion in 2003. The Bush Administration ignored the needs, stated by high ranking military officials, to have enough troops on the ground after the initial invasion. Simply, the idea that we should unite behind an imperfect leader and hope that he magically gets it right from now on is the height of folly.
We are a nation of free peoples and the President works for us. We don’t work for him. Many on both sides of the aisle want to win the war on terror, but there are disagreements on how to accomplish that. That is fine, in a democracy the best ideas should win. But to have the best ideas win, debate needs not only to be allowed but encouraged. So, it isn’t necessarily a good thing to be united when the policy we are united upon might be bad or incompetently run
Teddy Roosevelt stated about a century ago, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” I think we need to remember the Rough Rider’s words once again.