These are things the government is telling us.  I shudder to think what it's not telling us.

Ambiguous?  Sounds more like a pro-coverup stance to me.  Or selective enforcement of the law when the perpetrators are aiding and abetting the president in his criminal acts.

There's no ambiguity that "NeoNazi" Bush has violated the Constitution with his warrantless wiretaps.  Once again the repugnant ones bring us another "Impeachment Boy" Nixon hype who will stoop to any low to maintain power rather than do it through smart governance.

We don't need any more tyrants in the White House who would steal away our rights and freedoms while they wreck our democracy.  Only Barack Obama can bring honesty and integrity back to the White House.  Let's all unite behind Barack and help him send "Democracy Hater" McCain into political retirement, where all Reagan foot soldiers belong!

Thanks to the fine crew of First Read to be up and at it posting good articles and comments.  First Read is the most democratic of all news websites and only on a liberal news site can both sides post comments, unlike Fox News where only the sycophants of the repugnant ones can post their clueless comments.

Go Obama 08/12!

McCain's interest in not looking back, as a position of policy in his Presidency, reeks of cowardice, and corruption.

Why has he not spoken out against the Bush Administration's lying, and malfeasance, regarding recent exposes by McClellen, and the bipartisan committee that released evidence of criminal behavior against America, and the Iraqi people?

Does the statute of limitations not apply to all war criminals John?

Is it any wonder our international reputation is in shreds?

Just another example of flip-flopping on behave of McCain. McBush will say anything to shore up support from the right-wing base. This change of heart is solely based on McCain needing the republican party to help him in nov.

Flip-Flop all you want McCain, you doing so only shows how nervous you are about to loosing to Obama.

"McCain believes that the president did not overreach when he empowered the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and emails without issuing warrants after 9/11."

OMG, how scary is that.  

Obama '08 & '12

The whole issue of German war crimes could have been resolved by dismissing all charges at Nuremberg, too.

Honestly, that may be the lamest argument I've ever heard for anything. The GOP position seems to be that "personal responsibility" is at best a selective concept, never to be applied to those with sufficient position or power. In fact, the only people to be saddled with "personal responsibility" will be those without the resources to exercise it.

It's not about the Constitution, Uncle Fluffy.  It's about law.

"the whole issue can be resolved by passing the FISA bill."

FISA was passed in 1978! It made it illegal for the president to do what he did. And it was still illegal at the time that he did it, regardless of whether legislation has since been passed to legalize it.

So in other words he wants to continue Bush's policy.  But he doesn't want to have to think about it very much.  

Now there's someone I want as President.   NOT!!!!!! Sorry if things like the rights of the American people apparently bore you - but that's sort of what the job of POTUS is.

Obama '08

Anybody who thinks President Bush broke the law when it comes to the wiretaps is not a true protector of America.  He did what he had to do to save the country and he has done it well.  Just more goofy kool aid drinking liberalism from a bunch of people who will cheer for our country's demise, just like some people people in this country cheered when the towers came down.  I know you liberals want to go back to September 10 2001, it is so easy to see.  You wish America attacked again and with the plans your party are making, that will have a chance to suceed this time under your goofy attempts to ensure that terrorists have a safe way to plan their attacks!

It is astonishing at the rate McCain demonstrates his incompetence! Ambiguous?  So, you support ambiguous actions in the White House?  Wouldn't you want to have this issue clearly defined before putting your seal of approval on it?  McCain is dangerous and scary with the depth of his incompetence to govern.  

His elitist postion(part of a favored group/Bush) speaks volumes to his intent of continuing the policies and efforts of the republican party which has plunged this nation into debt,put us at war and  
demolished our domestic economy.

He's kidding, right?  He's not that brain dead, or desperate for neocon votes, right?

Tell me again why people want to vote for this guy?

It's Regan Redux - "I cannot recall" "I don't remember"

The facts and truth when posted here are never put on this site to be viewed. Countless times, True statements are being deleted as they show the reality of the subject! MSNBC, can and does post articles which are biased. There are more important issues which should be posted, such as the Price of GAS, articles like wiretaps and swamps is pure garbage. In saying . Post real articles and make those want to be a President respond!

yes bush/cheney/rove/rummy/mccant don't want to look back when they break the law but if you do look out, you will be locked up and if they have their way tried and convicted and hung cause they know best regardless of the US Constitution

If you people elect this guy out of xenophobism then you deserve to be drug out into the street and shot.

How does a man wake up in the morning and look himself in the mirror and see the death of soldiers and civilians and others and shave the stubble from his face without thinking about the horrors of it all?
I remember when I heard recordings of FDR say" I hate war and Eleanor hates war...." before WWII..
but they still went to war....
How can the shallow promises of nation building be  conspired to National Security?
Why is oil running in our arteries but not in our minds?
Is it a valid point to have an enemy to justify our
need not to be defeated for pride?
Have we seen red to long that now it clouds our spirit to be good?
I say with all urgency and with all candor we have
lost the ability to do good...
There are no justifications for what has  been done in the motions to stay the course in Iraq.
There has and there will never be ANY, I'll say again,  never be ANY HONOR in WAR!
Those that tell us that lie are bound to wars actions and will never allow peace and real freedom ever!
Don't vote your pocket book vote no on this war...
Vote Obama'08

Ambiguous??  He literally endorsed the warrantless wiretapping yesterday.  This is no shock from a man who graduated at the bottom of his class in the Naval Academy and probably could not understand the intracacies of the Constitution.  That's why, simply for intellectual standards we should endorse Obama, who is a Constitutional Scholar.  

This is just the idiocy that ran rampant in the last administration that must be squashed in November.

No ambiguity at all.  Bush stepped on our rights.  In an attempt to extend executive power he sacrificed the FISA courts with the excuse of national security.  Since all permission for wiretapping can be obtained after-the-fact, never and I repeat, never would there be a FISA impediment to implementation of measures for national security.

If in the name of security, you cut out the procedures that protect our liberties guaranteed by our Constitution, there would then be nothing left to secure (paraphrasing Ben Franklin).  The Republicans have lost that concept.  They are therefore guilty of attempted murder...murder of the spirit and principles that make this country the ultimate expression of personal freedoms on this earth.

BTW, I thought Hillary's speech was magnanimous and truly wonderful.  She's done a lot toward repairing my image of her and if she is true to her word in her enthusiastic support of Senator Obama (and I have no reason to doubt that she will be) that reparative process will continue.
Obama '08

He can't be serious? I think we just saw what happens to candidates who don't realize how 'out of touch' they really are.

John McCain, rasing the price of freedom (and Oil) daily.

Obama will soon too face the problem of intercepting communications of terrorists both here and abroad. If he chooses wrong and terrorism strikes then what will we say?

Translation: Please forget any criminal activities the President may have committed that I supported.

Please forget our failed war & disasterous economy.

John McCain the flip flop express!!!!

What he is really doing is setting himself up so that if he "wins" the election, he can continue on in the same manner as Bush.  He is trying to "distance" himself from Bush without really distancing himself from Bush, and his ambiguous statements are setting him up to just do more of the same.  Otherwise, he would not be trying to convince us to look the other way and forgive the telecommunications companies for what is "in the past."  Actually, it is not in the past.  It is a current situation and prosecution of the telecommunications companies is valid now.  If they are not prosecuted, McCain's term could probably be 10 times worse than Bush's current term (perish the thought).

Seems to me, working with only the information the media provides, that based on that information the phone carriers broke the law and should be punished.

There were and are processes in place for the government to legally request phone records just like tapping calls.

The government should obey the law, even at times where national security requires quick access to information.  They do have the right to wiretap and request the appropriate paperwork afterwords...

This is a nation of laws. The founding members of this country made that implicitly clear.

FOLLOW the constitution and respect and obey the laws congress establishes!

This is exactly why obama is going to win the white house.We americans must restore the worlds confidence in the united states.Many of our allies can't wait to work with a man of obama's intelligence and integity.

Bush also authorized the use of torture
This is a violation of the Geneva Convention....

i.e. A WAR CRIME

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al are war criminals

war criminals who launched an unjust war against a country tat niether attacked or threatened us


If you want more of lthe same....
........ Vote McCain

John McCain, there's no fool like an old fool

John McCain, Endless War

John McCain, more of the same

When McBush says he's not going to "dwell" on a policy of Bush's, it's code for "OMG!  They are going to nail me on this if they keep going with this train of thought!".

I say this is a clue that the press needs to "dwell" on this issue a little more, don't you think?

Women for Obama.

I dont believe that Barack Obama would be adesater to thjis country and will not be a verry good president.as raciest that he is.if he really is honist he would clean his act up. i will not vote for him with the way it is at this present time.

Since McCain doesn't think Bush overstepped his constitutional authority to wire tap me, what else hase Bush done that McCain thinks is okay? I just hope and pray that the statute of limitations hasn't ran out on those criminals, but, it shouldn't have, since they have all commited murder, on my soldiers, on the Iraqis, and on how many we don't even know about? we need to put them all in Gitmo, and let those innocent people be their prison guards.

I'm raising funds for a search team to look for McCain's bearings. Any donations are welcomed.

What is that sound?  Its the collective groan from the GOP after Hillary endorses Obama, helping unify the party towards an landslide presidential victory in Nov.

Great speech, Senator Clinton!  Best of her political career.

It is absolutely stunning that the USA has become a lawless thug nation led by a rogue government at home and abroad. When the leading figures in the USA politics support willful neglect or active contravention of arbitrary laws, what is left for the US to lead? The rotten behavior at home seeps into the nation's face abroad. The shame of the lawless USA is amazing and the nerve of the US to speak of its long abandonned principles is nothing less than a body of contrived, self serving lies told by a criminal nation, led by an incompetent liar, enabled by fellow conspirators.

No wonder torture, abu Ghraib and GITMO have been  tolerated, and encouraged for so many years. Mistake stacks on horrendous and deadly mistake. McCain is revealed more every day as incompetent as Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush himself.

The Democrats are brokering a deal to get FISA passed that will still give Bush most all of what he wants.

If Bush/McCain are "war criminals", will that make the Democrats who vote to pass this bill "collaborators"?

If Barack Obama votes to pass the compromise, will that make him a "war criminal" or "collaborator"?  How about Hillary Clinton?

I don't like McCain's "ambiguous" statement, but what about the Democrats aiding and abetting this nonsense?

Remember that the Democrats ran the last House/Senate campaign on the promise they would get us out of Iraq.  We are still there.

Before the left starts throwing rhetorical bombs like "neo-nazi" and "war criminal" at the right, they need to look within their own camp at the "collaborators" who aided and abetted in the execution of war on terror and the attacks on personal freedom.

Let's move forward by learning from the past!

OBAMA 08

Open up a line to the celestial head office. I have a question for Big G, himself. "OBAMA and MCCAIN? That's our choice? JESUS H. CHRIST! Cut us some slack. Whatever we did to piss you off we are SORRY. We WON'T do it again. C'mon. You are joking, right? Right?" Damn. The line went dead.

America's choice...(to all the insomniacs"

I write this not in jest, but in true respect towards John McCain. I have battled with insomnia over the past 4-5 years. I wake up after 4 hours of sleep and cannot fall back into sleep. Then I sometimes go to bed, hoping that I will fall asleep, but lay there for hours tossing and turning with no hope whatsoever. But all this changed on that beautiful Tuesday, June 3rd. As I watched John McCain speak, I began to relax. I felt bored. Lethargic. Nothing really mattered in this world. I did not understand a word he was saying...but slowly...ever so slowly...he put me to sleep. For the first time in about 5 years, I fell asleep with no problem whatsoever. And when I did wake up 4 hours after...like I usually do...I just turned on MSNBC and watched John McCain speak...and I fell asleep again. Now that is what they mean when they say "We will look after you and make sure you can sleep with no worry in the world"

Fellow Americans, especially insomniacs...think of the great power this man has. Instead of going to war, he can put Ahmadinejad to sleep by just talking to him. Actually if we can infitrate the radio systems of Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Al Qaeda we can let John McCain speak and then just carry the sleeping beauties and put them in jail. We will just win every war! I dont think America will ever again have an opportunity to pick a president with so much power.

When it comes to the economy and the hardships we face...he can put OPEC to sleep and then make them increase the supply of oil and thus decrease oil prices. Better yet, when our people are fighting hard to get the next meal and earn the next dollar...he can put them to sleep and then they wont feel that hunger or will forget their worries. Not to be cavalier about it, but another solution would be to put the workers in China, Korea and the rest of the world to sleep and then export American goods and give our people a chance to compete in a global economy. Brilliant!

Finally, with all the sleeping, we will not have to worry about climate control. There will be no pollutants because obviously everyone would be asleep and then global warming will disappear. And lest we forget...we will be a united nation...a nation united in our sleep.

So Americans...as you think about your choices for this upcoming election. Think about this...who would you rather have? The man who can inspire you to become better and make this country stronger and better within as well as with the rest of the world. Or the man who can put you and all our compatriots and enemies to sleep and thus make the world a better place!!!
The answer is obvious...
Now I am gonna go get some sleep.......MOM...can you play that replay of McCains speech. It does not matter which one...any of them!  Bye bye

Well anything with NBC on it moot.
What a dishonest bunch.
President Bush ,for you history revisionists, was supported by both houses of the legislature and approved.  Both houses had select intelligence breifings and not one of these representitives spoke a word about faulty intel. Hipocrits, the whole lot of them.   always blame the president but never look at the relction in the mirror..  shame.. shame .. shame

Pelosi has stopped all attempts to impeach Bush---blame her and her friendship with Bush.Sharing dinners and lunches with George and Laura.

Bush is a traitor to the the Constitution of the United States and the American way of life, McCain is a clone of this policy. Obama 08.

Of course McCain doesn't want to look back at the Bush Administrations illegal acts, he does't want to be reminded of how often he's had a lip lock on Bush's derriere.

Mr. Straight Talk is obviously tied up in knots over how to appear to distance himself from his mentor GW Bush, and yet continue to support and continue Bush's failed agenda.  He doesn't want to dwell on Bush's illegal wiretapping, he just wants to see it continued.  He doesn't want to dwell on torture, he just thinks it's ok if the CIA doesn't tell anyone about it.  He doesn't want to dwell on lobbyists running his campaign, he just wants no more probing questions about their influence.  He doesn't want to dwell on his supposed support for the troops fighting Bush's War while at the same time he opposes the new G.I. Bill.  He doesn't want to dwell on anything, let alone difficult questions like his 100 year plan for staying in Iraq and why his opposition to Bush's tax cuts evaporated (flip-flop), why he thinks health care is only for Senators and Congressmen, and why we have billions every month to invest in Iraq, while the U.S. sinks into recession and unemployment continues to climb.  McCain's tied at the hip with Bush so no wonder he doesn't want to "dwell"...

What happened to the McCain I use to respect???

I agree with Mc Cain - let us not look back. After we have elected Sen Obama to office of President of the United States we will have all the time we need to prosecute the murderous criminals that cost our nation the death of OVER 4000 of its children and 1o's of thousands wounded and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens.  Looking back - we will find you people - GUILTY of these
deaths.  John McCain - I can only surmise that you suffer from some sort of bizarre form of "Stockhold Syndrome" especially after the Bush smear campaign of 2000.  It really is not all that important because there will NOT be a Mc Cain presidentcy.  NOW we look  forward to the Obama Presidentcy.  
Katherine, Naples

This more evidence McCain is Bush 3.0.

McCain would like this to go away, because he has flip-flopped on this issue in order to appeal to the extreme right-wing of the Republican party.

His position is the only thing that's ambiguous.  We're not sure where he stands on this issue. Either he supports the rule of law or he supports the Presidents right to ignore the law.  You can't have it both ways.  


"McCain said today that, in his own presidency, he would abide by laws passed by Congress; he has criticized the Bush Administration in the past for its use of presidential "signing statements," for example, that permit non-enforcement of Congressional action."

"McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as increasingly aligned with those of the Bush Administration, according to the writing of a key adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin. Holtz-Eakin wrote in a letter to the National Review that Sen. McCain believes that the president did not overreach when he empowered the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and emails without issuing warrants after 9/11."

Whatever happened to the "straight talking" McCain?  It sounds like he has caved-in to the right-wing again...

While he may not consider Constitutional rights to privacy and due process as important issues, the majority of Americans would disagree.  

There's nothing ambiguous about McCain's stated intent to continue Bush's policies and especially Bush's War in Iraq.  He refuses to distance himself from the failed Presidency of GW Bush and though he's afraid to be seen in public with the Pariah President, he's more than happy to appear at private, closed door fund raisers with GW laughing it up by his side.  Of course he says he wants to "move forward" - he has no interest in learning from the past and no interest in correcting the onerous and anti-democratic policies of his mentor.  Bush never learned from the past either and look what his my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing has wrought on the U.S.  John McCain is no different.

Wow, this guys wants to lead the most powerful country on earth.

Well, he certainly has the Bush/Republican way of dealing with things down. There are any real answers, only the ones that don't make them look bad.

PATHETIC

The whole issue with FISA is that some are saying that the telecom's shouldn't be prosecuted because they did their actions at the request of the federal government.  Basically, don't punish us for breaking the law because the government wanted us to break the law.  Eventually the business lobby and this administration will recognize that neither of them are above the law.

What is ambiguous is John McCain's actual position on these issues. For example, how does he feel about habeas corpus? Spying on his fellow Americans? Accountability for those who have continually perpetrated these violations? Doing nothing indicates tacit approval.

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