Lauer falsely suggested only "far left" concerned about Bush's alleged civil liberties violations

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Media Matters for America

On the May 14 edition of NBC's Today, during an interview with former CIA agent Michael Sheehan about his new book, Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves (Crown, May 2008), host Matt Lauer said, "You say we've got to use more undercover agents, informants, wiretapping, email surveillance, the works. The sound you just heard, Michael, is the far left, grabbing for their remote controls, 'cause they say, you're going to do this, you're going to trample civil liberties." In fact, despite Lauer's suggestion that it is only "the far left" that is concerned about "trampled civil liberties," Americans across the political spectrum have denounced the Bush administration for alleged violations of civil liberties, including conservatives such as former congressman (and current Libertarian Party presidential candidate) Bob Barr, former Reagan administration associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein, other members of the conservative American Freedom Agenda, and members of the libertarian Cato Institute....

***

Lauer also could have pointed to reports of dissent within the Bush administration over the legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance activities. In their December 16, 2005, New York Times article on NSA "eavesdropping," Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen wrote: "Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight."

In a March 30 Times article adapted from his book, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice (Pantheon, April 2008), Lichtblau wrote: "In one previously undisclosed episode, (then-) Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson refused to sign off on any of the secret wiretapping requests that grew out of the program because of the secrecy and legal uncertainties surrounding it, the officials said."...

In addition, as Media Matters documented, Lichtblau and Risen reported on another instance of dissent over the NSA program in a January 1, 2006, Times article. Lichtblau and Risen noted that in March 2004, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey was serving as acting attorney general while then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital. Lichtblau and Risen reported that Comey objected strenuously to the continuation of the NSA program, prompting Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, White House counsel at the time, to visit Ashcroft's hospital room to obtain Department of Justice approval for "aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program." At a May 15, 2007, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Comey testified that after the hospital meeting, the program under discussion at the hospital "was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality." He also said of the attempt to get Ashcroft to sign off on the program: "I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."

Concerns over the legality of the domestic surveillance program also reportedly extended to members of the judiciary. Lichtblau reported in a January 10, 2006, Times article that "the Justice Department held an unusual closed-door briefing Monday for judges on a secret foreign-intelligence court in response to concerns about President Bush's decision to allow domestic eavesdropping without warrants." He added that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), "raised objections in 2004 to aspects of the program and instructed for a time that no material obtained by the N.S.A. without warrants could be presented to the court in warrant applications." In addition, according to media reports, Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISC in December 2005 in protest of the NSA's eavesdropping program....

Read more: http://mediamatters.org/items/200805160008?f=h_latest

[ashling]

1. Guess he hasn't talked to Bob Barr lately

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. Barr was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the subject. It was so important to him

that he joined and worked for the ACLU!!!!!

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

2. Lauer, if I remember correctly

was a construction worker who got his news reading position by being a friend of a friend. He's not a journalist and shouldn't be thought of as one.
PERIOD.

[StercusAccidit]

11. Actually

Although he might have been a construction worker originally, he first went into broadcasting when he was like 22 as a producer and eventually went on to become a reporter. If he actually did construction, I'd imagine it was a temp job he got right out of college.

[lib2DaBone]

3. He's a Ditto Head

Matt Lauer plays golf with Rush Lintball. They are good friends.

[Faygo Kid]

16. Bears repeating: Matt Lauer and Rush Limbaugh are golfing buddies.

Matt Lauer is a smug, right-wing tool. Period. He knows where his bread is buttered, and "reports" accordingly.

[Canuckistanian]

21. Limpnuts always makes fun of Tom Brokaw

For pronouncing Lauer's name like "Ma-Lowa".

I always wondered why Limpsack kept making such a big deal about it.

[mwb970]

4. Is there someone who turns to Lauer for political analysis?

You might as well watch Fox Noise. They've got Kristol and Rove.

[Ian David]

5. Matt Lauer is a giant bag of douche.

He's the main reason why I block "The Today Show" with my parental controls.

[saigon68]

7. Please don't insult "Giant Bags of Douche"

I prefer to think of him as a gallon of brown smelly Diarrhea in a toilet bowl :-)

[ticapnews]

6. He's correct.

This administration is so far out of whack that 60% of the people now occupy the far left. I don't have a problem with that. :)

[bulloney]

8. Where is Matt Lauer? As always - with his head up his ass.

I never have cared for his right-leaning bias and arrogance.

I think they hit what counts as his brain when he had his hair buzzed.

[tabasco]

9. So, people who are concerned about the Constitution are now the "far left."

This is what we get from the corporate media. Nothing but propaganda.

[ToughLuck]

10. This is typical of the disgusting standard of the MSM, a clueless, uninformed hack, making a claim

that is completely wrong. You Matt Lauer, are uninformed or a liar..which is it? So many true conservatives, one in particuliar, Republican Mickey Edwards. This man recently wrote a book titled,"Reclaiming Conservatism." He has condemned Bush for the expansion of the executive branch, condemned Cheney for his recent "So" remark regarding the publics opinion of Iraq. Edwards has spoken out against Bush and has literally referred to him as a King with regards to how this administration has goverened. How many sitting presidents, have a fellow conservative Republican, who is also a Constitutional scholar, refer to their parties president as a "king"?

Fuck you Matt Lauer, for trying to dismiss the importance and damaging effects of this administration.

[Joe Bacon]

12. Matt Liar needs to wipe the brown lipstick off his face!

Meanwhile, Dave Garroway turns in his grave...

[Supersedeas]

27. graves are turning in so many places

[ogsbee]

13. Lauer's only a minor cog in the propaganda machine

One more news pimp, newswhore, presstitute. GE's Jack Welch always said GE should be able to use the newsprogramming to increase the value of GE shares, forget any loyalty to the truth. Many of the news sites have contact info (often anonymous), let's use it to let them know how we think. They are unAmerican, anti-Patriots who deserve to be put on trial along with their masters.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. This is now a media story line, they know they are in trouble

legally that is

So do this and change the conversation... only lefties care about the law, and we can ignore them, since they are FAR lefties

This is out of the nazi play book

[Algorem]

17. You can say that again!

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. This is now a media story line, they know they are in trouble

legally that is

So do this and change the conversation... only lefties care about the law, and we can ignore them, since they are FAR lefties

This is out of the nazi play book

[baby_mouse]

26. Nobody listens when they say "far left" anymore. America HAS no "far left".

Its a meaningless term in American politics.

[Lochloosa]

18. I think John Dean would disagree with Lauer

"And I was stunned at the secrecy of this Administration. I knew that there’s no good that can come out of secrecy. So I began looking closely at Bush and finding the striking Nixonian features of this Presidency: It’s almost as if we’d left an old playbook in the basement, they found it, dusted it off, and said, “This stuff looks pretty good, we ought to give it a try.” As I dug in, and still had some pretty good sources within that Presidency, I found the principal mover and shaker of this Presidency is clearly Dick Cheney, who is not only reviving the Imperial Presidency but expanding it beyond Nixon’s wildest dreams.
The reason I wrote a book with the title “Worse than Watergate,” and I was very cautious in using that title, is because there was a real difference: Nobody died as a result of the so-called abuses of power during Nixon’s Presidency. You might make the exception of, say, the secret bombing of Cambodia, but that never got into the Watergate litany per se. You look at Bush’s abuses, and Cheney’s—to me, it’s a Bush/ Cheney Presidency—and today, people are dying as a result of abuse of power. That’s much more serious."

John Dean

[Raster]

19. Liar is only doing his job. He's been a tool from day One.

Limpball's golfing buddy, eh? I wonder if he also shares Limpball's affinity for child prostitutes in the Dominican Republic?

Only an idiot would place ANY stock in ANYTHING Matt Liar says.

[buckrogers1965]

20. I'm a conservative republican.

Impeach Bush and Cheney and hand them over to the international courts for a good old fashioned war crimes trial.

There, his argument is completely wrong, with me as a living example.

[DeepModem Mom]

22. Hi, buck! Thanks for your post.

[JerseygirlCT]

25. Glad to hear it, Buck.

Those who don't see this simply do not want to see it.

[Supersedeas]

24. a shill that has fewer and fewer views to call him on it

[spanone]

28. lauer is on the today show....he's katie with a suit

[LWolf]

29. That's blatantly false. I'm more incensed, though,

at the assumption on everyone's part that, if it's "just the far left," it doesn't matter.

THE LEFT DOESN'T MATTER.

:grr: