Howard Dean: Gen. Hayden Unfit to Run CIA

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is calling on Senate Democrats to vote against the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to run the CIA, saying his efforts to wiretap terrorists while he was running the National Security Agency make him unfit for the job.

"After [Thursday's] hearings, it's obvious that Hayden's involvement in the NSA's domestic spying program disqualifies him from heading the CIA," Dean declared, in a message emailed to Democrats on Friday.

"We need a CIA chief committed to protecting Americans without misleading them," Dean said. "Hayden, through his involvement in the domestic spying program, has shown that he cannot."

"We cannot stand for that," the top Democrat added.

Apparently Dean realizes that he doesn't have much clout left with Senate Democrats - so he's calling on the grassroots to bombard them with calls and emails.

"When the Senators meet to decide on Hayden's confirmation, they must hear the voices of their constituents," he urges in the email. "We want to deliver the voices of 100,000 Americans who oppose this nomination."

Every now and again I get the urge to scale down my political philosophy to simple logic: "If Howard Dean Is Against It, I'm For It".

In other words, now that Dean's filled us in on what he thinks, the Democrats need to do the right thing and make sure Hayden gets passed.

Thankfully, George W. Bush Is Not A Xenophobic Bully

Extreme-right conservatives love to display their arrogance. You’re not a true conservative unless you agree with their reactionary views and demands. They don’t think longterm, even when the negative far outweighs the positives. Because their brand of logic includes no middle ground, much less any sort of compromise because they’re gospel is "the truth". This mindset is clearly on display here in R-Johnny Isakson’s "solution" to illegal immigration:

"I will fight as hard as I can to see to it that whatever passes this United States Senate requires first and foremost the securing of our border before the extension of any guest workers or creation of any new guest worker program," Isakson said. "If we don’t, we’ll have recreated the problem we created in 1986. We will deal not with just 3 million illegals coming, but millions and millions and millions more – all because we looked the other way."

The idea that George W. Bush is supposed to round up more than 11 million illegal immigrants, charge them with felonies and deport them all is both ludicrous and for all intents and purposes insane. And the idea that illegal immigration began with the President, so he and he alone should fix it, is so laughable it shouldn’t be afforded any credibility. But of course, when you’re a member of the self-righteous Republican camp like Michelle Malkin (who would undoubtedly use racial profiling tactics to round up any person she even suspected of being here illegally, toss ‘em all in internment camps to be deported at a later date), it’s either their way or again, you’re not a true conservative and maybe we’d all be better off with John Kerry fixing this thing.

But thank God George W. Bush is not a racist and thank goodness that for all his faults our President actually listens to people besides the more radical members of his camp.

You see, illegal immigration has been going on for decades and this country needs to take more responsibility for its lax security and lax border control that’s given a free pass to millions of people who are living here illegally.

In his speech last night, the President didn’t cater to any of the extrme members of our political parties. Instead, he compromised. Placing a prioritization on a problem his administration can begin to fix, but shouldn’t be expected to fix altogether. Bush basically told the illegal immigrants living here already to pay a fine, learn English, pay your taxes, get a job, stay out of trouble and you could be in line for legalization.

Sounds fair enough. And that certainly doesn’t sound like amnesty to me.

Especially in light of the fact that any effort for a mass deportation of illegals would risk a huge backlash from an ever-increasing Hispanic-American populace that the President has leaned on greatly in his past 2 elections. Especially in light of the fact that many a Republican (much less the megarich idiots on the Hollywood Left who have been largely silent on this issue) now calling for all illegal immigrants to be arrested and charged with felonies, have benefited greatly from their cheap labor. Especially in light of the fact that the flow of illegal immigrants has remained steady despite the United States increasing its funding by nearly 400% to fight illegal immigration ifor the past decade. Yet, the Republican cultists think that adding 6,000 troops to our borders is a bad thing?

Bottom line, the President got tough last night without acting like a xenophobic bully.

Good for him and good for our nation.

With Rosie On Board, Will Elisabeth Hasselbeck Still Play Nice?

Now that Rosie O'Donnell is officially coming on to ruin what's left of "The View", the question shouldn't just be about whether or not Star Jones will stay, but whether or not Elisabeth Hasselbeck (a Republican who's supposed to provide a conservative viewpoint to the show) will continue to be feeble and allow the monster that is O'Donnell to literally crush her to death.

Quote of the Week

"I think right now what we're seeing with these [low] poll numbers is a lot of fun in the press with taking a poll every other week and putting it on the news, on the front page of the newspaper. When his polls were really high, they weren't on the front page."

- 1st Lady Laura Bush

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