My grandfather and I were shopping in the street markets near his apartment, on Thayer Street, far north Manhattan, in the Washington Heights neighborhood. I was just a few years old. This was and still is a big Spanish market. My grandfather didn’t speak much English, so we conversed in a blend of Spanish and English. We were out looking for a toy gun – back then, they were still sold in black – as my parents wouldn’t let me have one.

As ever in the market on a Sunday morning, people of all colors were bustling in every direction, bumping into each other, trespassing onto the street, shouting to each other over the long and short distances. Papers covered the walls of the shops and the light posts, and blew all through the streets.

We were on a particularly busy thoroughfare, filled with sun, almost noon. It was quite hot – the dirty, city kind of hot that you can feel. The sidewalk burned.

That was when I saw them.

They were a couple. The man wore a beard and that rounded hat I now know to be Muslim topping his black face. The woman wore a black full burqa – I could see only her darting eyes and the glistening black skin around them. They walked up the sidewalk together silently, at a slight distance.

What I remember was that every step they took broke up the crowd. Everyone was looking at them. Every shopkeeper peered up from his wares to mark the passing of these two, and all the buyers and talkers and hustlers in the street stopped what they were doing to watch this couple. Sentences ended midway. No one ran before them.

At my young age, I was equally puzzled as I was impressed. Who were these two wearing so much black in that heat and strolling so seriously that everyone so loud and vibrant just moments before could be struck dumb? At that age, I already had ideas of what faith was, having done my best to juggle Judaism and my grandmother’s devout Catholicism already all my life. But what was the power of this faith (for I quickly knew faith was at the core of this scene) that it should part the human sea of the market at morning?

They moved closer, till they were passing just before me. I still don’t know what look I saw in that woman’s eyes. Was it a flash of fear as she walked straight on? The man she was with wove among the crowd somewhat more. His expression may have had a bit of delight in it, as he searched around, perhaps for what they had come to market for.

When I got home, I asked my mother about these people. She was liberal and knowledgeable, but didn’t elaborate, perhaps because it would be too complex to explain to someone my age.

I think this was the moment I first knew that Islam would ever be a factor in my life, in all our lives, in the streets of the world and in our national interests. I have never stopped trying to figure out what look I saw in that woman’s eyes.

No Iraqi Battalion Capable Of Fighting Without U.S. Support.

JULES
Yeah.  I was just sitting here drinking my coffee, eating my muffin, playin' the incident in my head, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a "moment of clarity."

From The Corner:

PAGING KARL ROVE--EMERGENCY! [John Podhoretz]

Rasmussen has a new poll up in which -- hold on now -- Democrats in Congress are outpolling President Bush on national security. By a margin of 43 to 41 percent, Americans say they trust Congressional Democrats more than Bush when it comes to protecting our national security. And by a margin of 64-17 percent, they oppose the sale of the ports to Dubai.

The deal is dead. It won't survive after a 45-day extension or a 450-day extension. Congressional Republicans have no choice but to be extremely aggressive and nasty toward the president and the White House, because they will be properly terrified of looking like Bush's lapdogs on a hugely unpopular matter that goes to the heart of the Republican party's political advantage in the United States.

If the White House doesn't handle this well in the next three days, the political consequences could be catastrophic. (Hat tip: Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics.)

RE: PAGING KARL ROVE [Rich Lowry ]

Emergency, indeed: if Bush loses his edge on national security, he has nothing left.

Looks like its their "moment of clarity" over at the National Review Online.

Only at Fox would they be trying to find a scenario by which an all out Iraqi civil war would be a good thing?

From a Rasmussen Poll: 

For the first time ever, Americans have a slight preference for Democrats in Congress over the President on national security issues. Forty-three percent (43%) say they trust the Democrats more on this issue today while 41% prefer the President.

Laura Rozen asks us to guess who thought up the plan to do a study of how to destabilize Iran by recruiting non-Persian ethnic groups living along its border.  My guess is the same infamous foreign policy wonks that thought the Soviet Union would be brought down by dropping weapons to non-existent partisans in places like Latvia and the Ukraine pretty much up until the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I'll give you a hint: they're just coming off planning a major military and strategic blunder and looking to do something along the same lines.

The Bush Administration's priorities are on full display with the Ports scandal:

Do the terrorists win when we attack the wrong country enraging Arab opinion?  No.

Do the terrorists win when we hold prisoners in an area where our own laws do not reach?  No.

Do the terrorists win when we circumvent our own laws in order to conduct illegal spying on Americans?  No.

Do the terrorists win when we torture our prisoners?  No.

Do the terrorists win when we illegally seize suspects in other countries, hold them in former gulags and then send them off to other nations to be tortured?  No.

Do the terrorists win when people complain about a sweetheart deal to run the ports of the U.S., given to a company owned by a country which has ties to bin Laden, which does not recognize the state of Israel, and whose record on stopping smuggling and terrorist operations in their own port is terrible?  Apparently, yes:

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told the Senate Armed Services Committee that blocking the deal could ostracize one of the United States' few Arab allies. "The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful," England said. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite."

After everything this Administration has done to make the American people be scared to death of terrorism from the Middle East, the statement is laughable.

I was listening to the news the other day when a report came up about the bill that makes abortion illegal in South Dakota and I was struck by one of the sections of that law which says that life begins when sperm fertilizes egg.  I'm having trouble finding more specifics about the law but there is text of a similar piece of legislation from May 2004 with similar language.  I guess my question is does this law effectively make certain types of birth control illegal?  If life begins when sperm meets egg but fertilized egg is unable to plant itself in the uterus due to say an IUD or the pill does that constitute medicine or an instrument that causes an abortion, and if not, why? 

I think Joe over at Americablog is on to something by looking at the ironic nature of the Administration's defense of the port deal.  Their latest line is that not letting the deal go through or engaging in some sort of double-standard would be utterly disasterous for our reputation and foreign policy goals in the Middle East but watching Iraq, an Arab country at the geographical center of the Middle East, invaded by the United States three years ago, descending into civil war.....ahhhhh, evidently not so much?  I should have probably titled this post: There's Predictions that come true and predictions that come true!

Much has been written about how the port of Dubai has been linked to money laundering, nuclear proliferation, drug smuggling as well as terrorism, but Digby brings us this Robert Parry piece describing how the port was apparently used to facilitate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri.  It appears UN investigators were able to track the truck stolen from Japan that was used in that car-bombing to the port of Dubai but after that the trail suddenly went cold.  No word on how helpful Dubai port authorities have been in providing more information for the investigation.

We can try to find some way work with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, or go out of our way to try to undermine it, in which case the Iranians and other regional supporters of radical Islam are prepared to step in with assistance.  Pretty complicated, no? 

It'd be nice to have a foreign policy built on something other than wishful thinking and an utterly reactive lack of foresight.

Update (2/24/06): Looks like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are aslo supporting Hamas and the PA regardless of what we decide to do.    Did it really only take a few years for the world's only superpower to lose so much influence and clout?  And is it just me or does that CNN headline suggest that the UAE is going to tell Sec. Rice the same damn thing?

In case you missed pictures of the shrine in Samarra that was blown up by insurgents yesterday, Eric Umansky has a before and after picture of the shrine of Imam Hasan al-Askari.

I think Josh makes a good point: If Dubai Ports doesn't have any connection to or responsibilities for security under this deal, why are we making them pledge to abide by current security arrangements or requiring them to cooperate with counter-terrorism investigations? 

Once you've digested that, ask yourself why we would then tell DP World that they don't need to keep any business records on US soil so they would not be subject to possible subpoena or court order?

The Bush Administration not only didn't go through with all the reviews stipulated by law before approving the UAE port deal but also decided to dispense with certain routine restrictions common to such agreements in order to accomodate the UAE owned company.

I guess we just have to trust them on this one because lord knows the Bush people have never gotten us into trouble by cutting corners or secret deals before, have they? 

Central Intelligence Agency did not target Al Qaeda chief Osama bin laden once as he had the royal family of the United Arab Emirates with him in Afghanistan, the agency's director, George Tenet, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States.

These are the owners of the company that will be running our ports.  Any questions?  (via Atrios).

Fox News is reporting that President Bush is threatening to veto any bill that might threaten the deal to turn over several major U.S. ports to a UAE state owned management company.  Damn we must owe them big time!

My advice to Congress is  slap that legislation together and make him go through with his threat-- there are few downsides to taking on an unpopular and out of touch lame duck President over a questionable political deal (feel free to mention post-9/11 viewpoint here) that has clear national security implications.  Besides, can there be a more empty threat then George W. Bush saying he'll veto something?  One of the only President in history who hasn't vetoed anything in six years in office? 

If he feels so strongly about it make George W. Bush go out on a limb and fight for a deal most Americans, let alone his supporters, would find simply incomprehensible after he's beaten the 9/11 horse to death for almost five years.

Odd?  Usually the Bush people pull a Reagan and go out of their way to praise a program while cutting its budget but it appears that over the weekend we saw the reverse; the Energy Department had to come up with over $5 million over the weekend so that 32 workers and researchers laid off due to major budget cuts at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory could be on hand when President Bush made a visit to the facility to promote his new "end our addiction to oil" energy policy.  Excuse: Clearly a mix-up in budget priorities over at DOE?!? 

Makes you wonder what other projects will suddenly have to be saved due to poorly thought out policy proposals thrown into the State of the Union at the last minute for political reasons?

In pour the Germans.

(Pictured, the German breakthrough at Sedan, 13-14 May, 1940).

The ungarded rear of the Bush administration is where he doesn't control--countries who have assisted him in violation of their own laws.  He can do nothing to influence court proceedings there.

Monday in Neu-Ulm near Munich, the police and prosecutors opened an investigation into whether Germany served as a silent partner of the United States in the abduction of the man, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Arab descent who was arrested Dec. 31, 2003, in Macedonia before being flown to the Kabul prison.

The German police official identified as "Sam" denied that he had visited Mr. Masri in Afghanistan and said he was "on holiday" at the time in Germany, but that he could not remember exactly where. The man was present on Monday at the police station, where Mr. Masri picked him out of a 10-person lineup.

Oops!  Picked a senior guy in the green police out of a line up!  In the good ol' U.S.A. he's halfway to conviction with that one.

Look for this trend to continue.

Update 2:00 AM Wed.  The Eastern Front: Ex-Malaysian Leader Says He Paid Abramoff

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to organize his 2002 meeting with President Bush.

Abramoff and Bush.  Quite a ring to it, no?

Veteran sportscaster Curt Gowdy, dead at 86.  His was the first major voice of sports I remember, followed very closely by Howard Cosell.  Gowdy covered it all, from sportsmen's shows to baseball to the big one, Super Bowl I.  He was a connection to an earlier time before TV.  Gone but not forgotten.

I like to think that a guy whose been in Congress for 15 years is only acting like a dumbass, naive hick because he's trying to downplay an embarrassing situation but  John Doolittle's (R-CA) recent interview with the Sacremento Bee suggests he intends to compete with Doug Feith for the title of "stupidest fucking guy on the face of the planet". 

UK Secretary of Defence, John Reid, talks around the problem of Rumsfeld's Paradox:

Troops, he will say, are now operating on an "uneven playing field of scrutiny", where the forces' actions are analysed down to the "level of the single private soldier", while the enemy "refuses any scrutiny at all and endeavours to exploit our highly prized free media against us".

Rumsfeld's Paradox is as follows:  When one is trying to prevent all bad news from Iraq coming out, one cannot put on display the inhumanity of one's opponents without making it appear like the mission isn't being completed.  Thus, it seems like all bad acts are coming from American soldiers.  Its time for Bush to admit the mission is a mess.  If he really wants to stay the course, his best course of action is to admit that things are bad and lay out the inhumanity of those who attack our soldiers and Iraqis.  Don't bet on it.

I once had the opportunity to share some beers for about half an hour with someone who had spent a significant amount of time with Cheney.  The person was famous, and the revelation of the name would damage him or her professionally.  The person, who was somewhat sympathetic to the Administration was very clear about their opinion of Cheney.   "He's a maniac," I was told.  Its no suprise then, to read Newsweeks lengthy dissection of the VP:

Has Cheney changed? Has he been transformed, warped, perhaps corrupted—by stress, wealth, aging, illness, the real terrors of the world or possibly some inner goblins? The few who know him (and few really do) aren't saying much, except to argue that he takes a longer view than the mean politics of the moment. But there is no doubt that Cheney has become less amiable, less open, less willing to conciliate and seek common ground than he was as a younger politician. A man who was shepherded by the Secret Service to his bunker during 9/11 has stayed there—even when that has not been helpful to the president.

Even more frightening is Cheney's willingness to lie:

Cheney testified to the 9/11 Commission that he spoke with President Bush before giving an order to shoot down a hijacked civilian airliner that appeared headed toward Washington. (The plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after a brave revolt by the passengers.) But a source close to the commission, who declined to be identified revealing sensitive information, says that none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events.

A draft of the report conveyed their skepticism. But when top White House officials, including chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, reviewed the draft, they became extremely agitated. After a prolonged battle, the report was toned down. The factual narrative, closely read, offers no evidence that Cheney sought initial authorization from the president. The point is not a small one. Legally, Cheney was required to get permission from his commander in chief, who was traveling (but reachable) at the time. If the public ever found out that Cheney gave the order on his own, it would have strongly fed the view that he was the real power behind the throne.

  One heartbeat away.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Donald Rumsfeld apparently doesn't even use e-mail so obviously he knows what he's talking about.

Iraq is worse off than when we showed up:

Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, told the Senate budget committee that production of crude oil and electricity was down from three years ago. Attacks had also hit oil exports.

Ms Rice initially asserted that “many more Iraqis” were now getting potable water and sewerage services. However, under intense questioning from Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, she conceded that although “capacity” had increased, fewer Iraqis were actually receiving those services.

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, told a separate House budget hearing on Thursday that political and economic progress was being made. “For the most part, the country is functioning,” he said. It was not “a pretty picture”, but not everything was horrible. “We’re not there to do nation-building. It’s going to be an Iraqi solution ultimately,” he said.

People wonder why Bush is at 40%?  When does the media finally just call him an idiot?

Yes, the world's only superpower, the richest nation on Earth with a $12 trillion economy, a national budget of $2.8 trillion, a Defense Department budget of roughly $500 billion, a White House PR budget in the billions and the home to the largest commercial advertising industry in the world is in the words of the great sage, Donald Rumsfeld, totally unable to match the public relations abilities of a relatively small loosely constituted transnational terrorist organization. 

Update (2/17/06):  Is the solution to most of the Bush administration's foreign policy problems really better PR?  Didn't anyone go talk to Don Rumsfeld before the war and tell him invading an Arab country in the heart of the Middle East might be something of a tough sell to most of the people in that region?  Of the people Bush would most likely pick to solve this problem, who would be the most ineffective: Condi Rice or our minister of public diplomacy, Karen Hughes?

Harry's fine; its poor Dick Cheney and his family we should worry about.

I don't know what it is about this deal that makes me wonder if a certain administration needed to scratch the back of a friendly Middle Eastern government that hosts US military support facilities for the Iraq War in a region of the world where the United States and its foreign policy really aren't all that popular and made it known that it wanted the deal to go through?  Then again, when in doubt never leave out the possibility that the deal was approved by John Snow's Treasury department due to complete ignorance, incompetence or negligence.

I'm a huge fan of Knight-Ritter--they are doing the best reporting out there right now.  But this report about an Iraqi city has serious problems with it:

The 2nd platoon and two others - about 120 men total - are based at the Alamo and at another base on the edge of town. They replaced three companies from the 3rd Infantry Division that had a total of more than 400 soldiers.

Reading the transcript of Vice President Cheney's interview with Fox News, I was reminded of my days playing town-team amateur baseball and watching one of our old-timers stand at the plate and taunt the pitcher yelling, "Throw that pumpkin in here 'cause I'm gonna blast it!"   Christ, couldn't the White House just save time and have McClellan or Matalin interview him or something?  Most people go to Larry King when they screw up and want the softball treatment but evidently leading Republican politicos go on Fox instead.

Kevin Drum provides some interesting observations on the interview including the VP's implying that he didn't report it sooner because his credibility is so godawful no one would believe anything he said, outside maybe Brit Hume?    I personally like the part where Cheney says he saw Harry Whittington but then he didn't see him...until he shot him.  Hmmmm? 

From Editor and Publisher.

Apparently, the man Cheney shot had a heart attack.  More when we get it folks.

From Nedra Pickler's AP report on Cheney's got a gun: 

Both the sheriff's department and the state have determined that alcohol did not appear to be a factor.

That sentence is conspicuous for what it does not say.  I ask you, Mr. McClellan, was the Vice President drinking on Saturday?

Also, you can see that they make use of the latest open-source intelligence, mainly Google maps. In one part of the video, the plotters are shown poring over printouts of the neighborhood, marking routes of access. They look exactly like Google maps. The maps are also later used to show the planned points of attack.

Rob Courdry joined in.

Courdry: "Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time-there-were-quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be the 78 year old man. Even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists-he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face.

Whittington is an allegory.  When real life uses fictional devices to get its point across, you know things are messed up.

We find out that Scotty McClellan's most important job is that of First responder:

Q Scott, do you think that the shooting accident involving the Vice President on Saturday should have been disclosed to the public on Saturday?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, personally, was informed by the Situation Room that there had been a hunting accident, and that is was a member of the Vice President's hunting party. But I didn't have additional information other than that at this point.

"Squad 51 . . ."

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that the first priority was making sure that Harry Whittington, Mr. Whittington was getting the medical care that he needed, and I think that's where everybody's attention should have been focused and was focused when the hunting accident took place.

And it's important always to work to make sure you get information out like this as quickly as possible, but it's also important to make sure that the first priority is focused where it should be, and that is making sure that Mr. Whittington has the care that he needs.

MR. McCLELLAN: So there is some different circumstances. And the other circumstance here was that someone was injured and needed medical care. And the Vice President's team was making sure he was getting taken care of and that he got to the hospital and received additional treatment.

Good to see that Scottie's first priority was getting medical care for the wounded, not doing his own job.

Polling data shows that the American people utterly overestimate the threat that Iranian nuclear weapons pose:

Fifty-nine percent thought Iran would use nuclear weapons against the United States, and 80 percent thought the Iranians would hand them over to terrorists to use against the United States.  More thought Iran would use the weapons against Israel -- 77 percent -- and about as many -- 81 percent -- thought Iran would give them to terrorists who wanted to use them against Israel.

I do believe that a nuclear-armed Iran is not in the best interests of the United States or the world.  However, its incredibly unrealistic to think that there is a 51% chance that Iran will use nuclear weapons against the United States.  We have enough striking power to take out the country--utterly.  They'd be fools to do so.  They are rational, if misguided actors.  We should stop them from building a bomb if we can, but this is ridiculous.

Check out this quote from the Volokh Conspiracy (via Kevin Drum) and take a guess who said it.  I'll give you a hint that he's been in the news the last couple months but I guarantee you'll be surprised by the answer and the chutzpah of it all.

Okay, everyone know Vice-President Cheney accidentally shot someone in his hunting party over the weekend which doesn't look great on the evening news, but Josh Marshall points to another embarrassment; the effort by friends and supporters of Mr. Cheney to downplay the injuries of the man he shot.    Eyewitnesses would have you believe that Cheney's shotgun blast barely "broke the skin" of Mr. Whittington, yet Mr. Whittington's injuries are so minor that somehow he's still in an intensive care unit two days later? 

These people really need to put their energy into something else because covering Dick Cheney's ass at this point in his political career is definitely a lost cause. 

Oops!

A former top aide to California Republican Rep. John Doolittle traveled to Puerto Rico on a trip paid for by Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm, records show. 

Looks like the Abramoff probe is inching closer to one of my favorite Republicans, John Doolittle.  Having lived with two of his staffers, I can tell you that the man's policies are to the left of Vlad the Impaler.  Of course, there's more:

The trip is the latest example of connections between Abramoff's interests and Doolittle, a conservative ally of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and a member of the House GOP leadership. Those ties have caught the attention of federal investigators.

Doolittle accepted at least $14,000 in campaign money from Abramoff and tens of thousands of dollars more from Abramoff's tribal clients, and wrote letters to the Interior Department on behalf of two tribes that were clients of Abramoff's firm.

Doolittle's wife did fundraising work for Abramoff, and another former Doolittle aide, Kevin Ring, later went to work for Abramoff as a lobbyist.

The reporter on this has been out front on the Doolittle-Abramoff connection for some time.  I can't wait to see where this goes next.

Security needs money,
Money comes from oil,
Oil needs foreign investment,
And foreign investment wants security.

I've been trying to find a "realistic" candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 2008.  But Russ Feingold keeps trying to steal my heart away with his appeals to law and order on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA’s domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and I think even some Democrats.

The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Congress has lost its way if we don’t hold this President accountable for his actions.

The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn’t understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President’s decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that “we must always be clear in our principles” to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let’s be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

In December, we found out that the President has authorized wiretaps of Americans without the court orders required by law. He says he is only wiretapping people with links to terrorists, but how do we know? We don’t. The President is unwilling to let a neutral judge make sure that is the case. He will not submit this program to an independent branch of government to make sure he’s not violating the rights of law-abiding Americans.

So I don’t want to hear again that this Administration has shown it can be trusted. It hasn’t. And that is exactly why the law requires a judge to review these wiretaps.

At the hearing yesterday, I reminded the Attorney General about his testimony during his confirmation hearings in January 2005, when I asked him whether the President had the power to authorize warrantless wiretaps in violation of the criminal law. We didn’t know it then, but the President had authorized the NSA program three years before, when the Attorney General was White House Counsel. At his confirmation hearing, the Attorney General first tried to dismiss my question as “hypothetical.” He then testified that “it’s not the policy or the agenda of this President to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.”

Well, Mr. President, wiretapping American citizens on American soil without the required warrant is in direct contravention of our criminal statutes.

We need answers. Because no one, not the President, not the Attorney General, and not any of their defenders in this body, has been able to explain why it is necessary to break the law to defend against terrorism. And I think that’s because they can’t explain it.

Instead, this administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms have a pre-9/11 view of the world.

In fact, the President has a pre-1776 view of the world.

The President was right about one thing. In his address, he said “We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.”

Yes, Mr. President. We do love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it. We will fight to defeat the terrorists who threaten the safety and security of our families and loved ones. And we will fight to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans against intrusive government power.

As the President said, we must always be clear in our principles. So let us be clear: We cherish the great and noble principle of freedom, we will fight to keep it, and we will hold this President – and anyone who violates those freedoms – accountable for their actions. In a nation built on freedom, the President is not a king, and no one is above the law.

I yield the floor.

So you're the new House Republican Majority Leader who ran as the "reform" candidate after the previous Majority Leader got in trouble bilking the DC lobbying community, what's your first move?  That's right, immediately oppose your own party's proposals for lobbying reform.  Brilliant!