01/16/2006
Al Gore: U.S. Constitution in Danger
Does anybody remember how flat and uninspired Gore's speeches were when he was running against Bush?
Gore gave a rousing speech in Washington today that took advantage of Martin Luther King Day to address the issue of illegal wiretapping, something Dr. King was subjected to for several of the last years of his life.
Here's an excerpt, via AmericaBlog:
...The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real. There is simply no question that we continue to face new challenges in the wake of the attack on September 11th and that we must be ever-vigilant in protecting our citizens from harm.Where we disagree is that we have to break the law or sacrifice our system of government to protect Americans from terrorism. In fact, doing so makes us weaker and more vulnerable.
Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws...
Raw Story has the full transcript and Crooks & Liars has a video clip of some highlights and analysis. Gore's remarks were sponsored by the libertarian Liberty Foundation and the speech received multiple standing ovations. Unfortunately, as C&L notes, the mainstream media was busy covering an overturned tanker truck.
More from Think Progress on why MLK's words regarding war are still so relevant today.
Posted 4:40 PM EST by Andy Towle in Current Affairs | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Al Gore rocks. What he says is so important and and reminds us of what we have lost in the years that Bush and the Republicans have been slowly and systematically going about dismantling everything that made America great.
Posted by: Ken | Jan 16, 2006 5:44:42 PM
A brilliant example of the timelessness of King's remarks, juxtaposing photos with his own voice [to promote a demonstration of couple of years ago] is at:
http://www.bushflash.com/mlk.html
I remember some of Gore's speeches being pretty good. Regardless, the race was so close less for his speeches than, depending on the demographic, 1. his association with Clinton, despite his attempts to distance himself; the inability of some to stop thinking of him as a politico-nerd; and the fact that the balls of most of the US press had mysteriously disappeared. The latter was the main reason among those three as they gave a virtual pass to the fake cowboy candidate from Texas, ignoring his staggering ignorance of domestic and foreign issues, his cowardly, safe-in-the-states military record [while Gore was dodging bullets in Vietnam], total absence of government leadership save for being a bully governor of a redneck state, totally in the pocket, just as he is now, of Big Oil and every other kind of polluter; and that he got to that office by, among other things, playing the queer card against Ann Richards—foreshadowing the fears he would exploit as President. Instead, the media wrote reams about such things as Gore's mid-campaign wardrobe change. For King and Gore, war is the last resort. For Bush it's simply good for business; Viagra for the right wing.
Posted by: Leland | Jan 16, 2006 6:15:20 PM
NOW HE TELLS US
From that Gore speech today:
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."
Posted by: tom | Jan 16, 2006 7:07:01 PM
I was there and it was amazing. He should have been like that in 2000.
Posted by: Archerr | Jan 16, 2006 7:23:05 PM
Whatever. Say, does Al Gore still have that beard he grew after losing the election? I think he looks better clean shaven. By the way: if you think Mr. Clinton did not have wiretaps and search private homes without the use of a search warrant, you're wrong. An NSA whistleblower reported just last week that this stuff has been going on for decades -- J. Edgar Hoover, Bobby and John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon . . . and yes, everybody's precious Billy the perjurer Clinton: the name Aldridge Ames ring a bell to anyone? The Clinton administration nailed him -- rightly so, in my opinion -- by the use of non-court approved electonic surveillance. God, some people are so naive, and then when it suits their political ends raise stuff that otherwise is common to both parties.Damn, next Al Gore will be telling us that lobbyists make campaign contributions for the purpose of influencing legislation. Of course, I'm sure neither Al, Hillary or Bill would know about any of that personally. Cough, cough.
Posted by: mary | Jan 16, 2006 7:31:14 PM
To attempt a Bushisim, if it's against the law it's illegal. Doesn't matter who did it; Bill or Bush. It's worse when it's the leader of the country and even worse still when they lie about it.
Bill Clinton is not the anecdote for the bad behavior of those who claimed to restore honor and integrity to the white house and "no I'm not but so are you" is always a lame response.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 16, 2006 8:09:40 PM
P.S. Gore would be better served by waiting for this scandal to play itself out before declaring Bush's guilt with the kind of statements that Karl Rove sprinkles on his breakfast. Let it stew, they deserve it.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 16, 2006 8:11:59 PM
Gore hit the nail right on the head with this speech. We are watching the erosion of Democracy into a government of individuals not institutions. It is disturbing and dangerous. Americans as a group need to get re-engaged with politics rapidly because if they don't one day soon they will wake up to the morning news that their voice is no longer welcome in government and we will be living in a dictatorship run by the fascist right. And least I need remind everyone, Gore got 3 million more votes than Bush did in the 2000 election and had the Supreme Court stayed out of the election as they should have, Gore would have been President. Given everything that has happened in the last 5 years if you don't think Bush and his Cabal engineered a "coup d' tat" and stole the 2000 election, you've living in a fantasy world.
Posted by: Robert In WeHo | Jan 16, 2006 9:06:21 PM
Good on Gore. But I have to disagree with Andy on whether an overturned truck is more important than Gore's rousing speech. Well, actually, cancel that - I agree, but I can say one thing.
Its cheaper to cover a truck accident because no decisions have to be made in its coverage - its an automatic 'news' event, even if its import is devestatingly low.
Whereas coverage of Gore's speach would have to be defended according to news standards of objectivity, no doubt contrasting Gore's speech with a republican counterpart.
Posted by: Peter | Jan 17, 2006 12:05:30 AM
Now, Chad, don't be so hard on Mary—Towleroad's talking vulva for the right wing. She's just reciting from Chapter One of their playbook: incessantly try to deflect indictments of your own defenseless behavior by pointing a sticky finger at someone else. You can still smell the Bush Berry flavor Kool Aide on her breath. Drink it all, Mary, and then keep calling others "naive."
Posted by: Leland | Jan 17, 2006 2:45:51 AM
>>...The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real.
For years now, Gore has stood on the sidelines being the critic, but never offered a better answer to any problem. That's why he lost. He can see what's wrong, but he has no vision when it comes to making things better.
We also know that he's a sore loser. If Bush reacted to failure the way Gore did, he'd have resigned as president on Sept. 12th. What this country needs is a leader with a vision of the future, not a "mommy" who'll tell us what we want to hear, and warn us to be careful. It no longer matters what Bush did wrong. What matters is, who will take us beyond our current problems, and lead us in the right direction.
Who will solve our energy problems? Who will solve our immigration problems? Who will improve our healthcare system? Who will ensure retirees have Social Security and Medicare benefits? Who can do all these things, plus run the country, clean-up after our disasters, balance the budget, and protect us from terrorists.
When Al Gore answers those questions, I'll tell you whether I'll vote for him. Meanwhile, I'm still looking for the person who can adequately answer ALL of those questions, and I don't care if he's a Republican or Democrat.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Jan 17, 2006 2:47:17 AM
Andy
Nice to see so many of your readers tuning in to this story and having an opinion... where were you all during the election? Sadly in Democratic States only.
Posted by: J.B. | Jan 17, 2006 7:35:17 AM
Maybe CNN is not obligated to carry a speech by a former vice president, but I do think responsible news organizations should ask themselves if there's actually any way that a prominent Democrat could get a full speech aired live on their networks, especially since they've run Bush's stock speech in full about 700 times now.
Is there no way for the minority to ever have a few moments to get their message out?
Posted by: Ken | Jan 17, 2006 8:27:05 AM
Jay makes a good point, but I'd take it a step further. Why are we waiting for some talking head to "lead" us? The answer isn't some messiah to come and solve all our problems for us. The vision for the future should be within ourselves. Wanna solve our energy problems? Stop buying big behemoth SUVs and take easy, painless steps to decrease the amount of energy you consume in your daily life. Many of our daily problems could be made much better if only our population would take an active personal interest. People like Bush and his cronies rely on the apathy or stupidity of the American public to maintain power... as long as he keeps distracting them with non-issues, he'll stay in control. It's the oldest trick in the book... even the Romans used it. He who controls the mob controls the country. The only times substantive changes have been made to any society have been when the mob has taken a personal and immediate interest and then acted on it en masse. Likewise, when progressive people finally stop bickering about minutae and take action, we'll have the change that we're talking about. The federal government does many things that individuals cannot do, but there are lots of ways in which individuals, working together, can take care of things by themselves.
Posted by: Brian | Jan 17, 2006 10:30:54 AM
Gore is still HOT. I'd love to top him!
Posted by: Larry | Jan 17, 2006 4:11:16 PM
I don’t hear anyone making this point here or in the media so I guess I will. When the story broke about the warrantless wiretapping, and for weeks after, the president and his associates gave two basic defenses #1) I had authority under the patriot act and #2) I had authority under the constitution. On #1 they are vague about the actually piece of legislation under the PA that gives them that authority, with people like Rice, Rumsfeld, et al making statements supporting this defense but when pressed on the actual law under the PA that gives him that authority they respond, “Well I’m not a lawyer…” and then mention #2 and round and round we go.
On defense #2, Bush claims to have authority to go outside the legal system because he is bound by the constitution to protect American citizens. Funny, this is precisely the same argument that Gavin Newsom used when he issued same sex marriage licenses and Newsom of course made a much more eloquent case for what he did. Basically he said, “I am obligated to uphold my states’ constitution that says I cannot discriminate against the states’ citizens.” So if they’re both using their constitutional obligation to support breaking the law for the greater good where are the frothing masses who called for Newsom to be thrown out of office and into jail now that Bush has done the same thing if not worse?
Are they standing outside the white house in the rain every night until this activity stops?
Are they in the courts trying to put and end to this activity?
Of course not.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 17, 2006 8:49:52 PM
I happened to be flipping about the channels and caught the whole speech. He was incredible. BUT WHY THE FUCK DIDN"T HE DO THAT WHEN HE WAS A CANDIDATE!!?!?!???!?!??!?!
Posted by: brian | Jan 18, 2006 1:44:26 AM
"WHY THE FUCK DIDN"T HE DO THAT WHEN HE WAS A CANDIDATE!!?!?!???!?!??!?!"
Because he was running for president.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 18, 2006 9:18:56 PM
Nice...six years too late to have passion and a point of view. Another tired democrat...move old guard; make way for the mark warners of the party.
Posted by: joeinsf | Jan 22, 2006 11:01:45 AM
Yeah, I vote for republicans who work to undermine any attempt to define gay people as equal to heterosexuals because some democrats don't live up to my unreasonable expectations.
Fight the "power"!
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 23, 2006 12:27:15 AM