[extropy-chat] Impeachment of President Bush What odds am I offered?

[David Lubkin]

Brent wrote:

>A Justice Department that has a record of dubious interpretation of 
>the law writes a formal letter.

What interpretation of the law is not dubious? What positions has the 
Justice Department ever held throughout its history that were not 
disputed by someone? Does "dubious" here mean anything beyond that 
*you* don't agree with them?

A reasonable metric, I think, would be to look at adjudicated cases 
in which the United States was a party, aggregated by administration, 
and rank them by how often DOJ's position prevailed. I'm not sure who 
gets credit or blame for cases that straddled multiple administrations.

>A Senator who was involved in the passage of the law referenced 
>says, "No, we explicitly left that authority out."  A quick check 
>confirms that the section reads as he stated.

Senator Daschle claimed that a proposed modification to the text was 
rejected by him. If true, its absence does not settle the meaning of 
the statute as signed into law and interpreted by court. At best, it 
settles what *he* thought it meant, not what the remaining 534 
members of Congress thought. And, of course, courts do what they 
will, often without regard to legislative intent.

More significantly though, as my posting explained, the DOJ letter 
provided several independent legal justifications for the NSA 
intercepts. If Daschle's remarks were sufficient to rebut one line of 
reasoning, it would still have no effect on the others.

>That seems like a no-brainer to me.

This suggests you have not had much exposure to legal reasoning. 
Lawyers and judges are boundless hair-splitters.

>You know, just because people cite things doesn't mean they cited 
>them correctly.

The same is true for senators, reporters, and extropy-chat posters.

>That you would assume that a formal letter with citations is more 
>correct simply by that virtue shows a remarkable lack of critical thinking.

I have elided a reciprocation of your personal slur. But I do wish to 
bring your incivility to the moderator's notice.


-- David.