wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

The beauty of the American system...
forget it, my dear americans, you blew it.
If you care about warrants, laws and sush - move to Canada.
We are the biggest bannana republic now and seem to be tolerating it.

I very much miked Savage's book. I would like to point out something that Savage (I think) has failed to do in this interview: FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, does allow the president to begin surveillance without a warrant so long as the president goes to the secret FISA court within 72 hours after the surveillance has begun. So anytime you hear Bush say that getting a warrant is too cumbersome, it's complete bull.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting a warrant. It provides the necessary protection that a free society demands so that government can't search your house, listen to your phone calls, etc. solely to harass you or embarass you. If the government has evidence to show you might be involved in criminal activity, then the president or police should have no problem convincing a judge to issue a warrant.

We fought the Cold War against a system that wanted to know anything and everything about its own citizenry. It's a shame Americans are going down the same road. Someday when the government knows all the embarassing things about us in order to blackmail us, we'll all regret failing to stop this president and vice president.

George Bush either lacks the desire or lacks the necessary skill to be king, but he or his people have tested every barrier toward that goal in our system. And in each case the barrier has found to be lacking or non-existent. The way is paved for anyone who wishes to be a dictator.

We as Americans have forgotten that some politicians will do anything for power. The beauty of the American system that staved off dictatorship for all these years was because we would not let them. But now we assume that no politician would go that far. If anything, almost 150 years of political stability have laid the groundwork for a collapse of that stability because we've become complacent.

So Bush will not be an American monarch, but perhaps President Hillary will. Or the next one. The power of the President has only expanded since the end of the Civil War, and no one is willing to give that power back when they hold it.