Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:41:36 PM
President Bush today issued his first veto threat against the most recent House version of a bill that would permanently update foreign surveillance laws, saying the measure would compromise U.S. national security.
Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters on the south lawn of the White House, faulted House Democratic leaders for not meeting a self-imposed deadline to pass the bill and criticized a portion of the law that would investigate intelligence activities.
"It seems that House leaders are more interested in investigating our intelligence professionals than in giving them the tools they need to protect us," Mr. Bush said.
"Congress should stop playing politics with the past and focus on helping us prevent terrorist attacks in the future," he said.
The House is expected to vote on the bill today, but Mr. Bush urged them to retool the bill and pass a bill he will sign before the leave for recess over the Easter break.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, one of 29 senators to vote against the bill when it passed out of the Senate last month, shot back that the president was trying "bully the Congress and mislead the American people."
"The president wants Congress to pretend that his administration did not conduct a massive, illegal, domestic warrantless surveillance program that was one of the most outrageous abuses of executive power in our nation"s history," said the Massachusetts Democrat.
"Rather than accuse Congress of playing politics, the president should stop playing politics with our national security," Mr. Kennedy said. "He is the one who has repeatedly blocked extension of the law, insisting that the phone companies must be protected, even though he claims that American lives are at risk."
The President of the United States has officially concluded that American lives are at risk and Ted Kennedy only cares about whether or not phone companies are being protected against prosecution for doing what the President of the United States ordered them to do. Wouldn't they be prosecuted if they didn't comply? This is what the Democrats do with their power in Congress. Remember this parents when you think of your children and whether or not they're safe and snug from Islamo-fascist terrorist monsters. Democrats aren't just indifferent to national security, they despise national security and everything it stands for. It's almost as if they want death and destruction so that somewhere in the bowels of their sick little minds we'll turn to them to save us from the evil Republicans who are attempting to enforce totalitarian rule across the land.
Who cares if people die and terrorists flourish around the world. Who cares if a few more skyscrapers go down in flames with thousands of innocent people inside. Who cares if regular civilians minding their own business as passengers on an airplane have to all of a sudden become soldiers for their country and die in the process. Who cares if Islam infiltrates the country and plots against us in the most horrible ways imaginable. Not the Democrats, that's for sure; and certainly not Ted Kennedy.