THE PARTY LINE

Yeah, I know the title of this blog suggests yet another attack on the two political parties in this country. Not so!

The "party line" subject pertains to us as kids who dared to listen in to the conversations of other folks who shared our party line - and, yeah, we did get punished if caught.

But, it appears this is a different time. Not only are party lines a thing of the past, apparently, so is punishment. Ask Sanford and Weiner.

We have an amazing ability to forget and forgive. Partially that is due to the fact we are a forgiving culture and partially it's due to the fact the last devastating act committed by someone or some group is quickly surpassed by the news of a new and more devastating one.

This time the act in question was that of collecting a massive data base of telephone usage by millions of Americans who are not or were not suspected of doing anything wrong.

The next step was having to listen to 'the spinners"(not musicians per se)The initial responses were varied: "We need to relax. This isn't anything new". (Harry Reid). (This also apparently makes it OK).

Because we want to be unbiased, we also offer the observation from Georgian Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss: "I am unaware of any citizen who has registered a complaint about the program." ( Hey, anybody out there who had a clue your calls were being monitored?)

The administration hastened to advise us that no conversations were listened to" "It was just "metadata that was gathered - and patterns looked for - that would expose terrorists". (That's reassuring - who on earth would believe this administration would ever lie?)

You got to wish we had elected that Illinois Senator who advised us protectively in 2007:  "No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime." (Ah, s--t - we did elect him - twice!)

Of all the Senate members who came up with a reasonable comment about this so-called scandal - who would have thought it would be our globe trotting Republican member from Arizona - John McCain?

"Obviously if they are trying to track bad people, then I think there's legitimacy to it, but is there sufficient oversight? Is it sufficiently narrow in scope? We just need to hear more about it, but it is a matter of concern." (a-h-h, Johnny, that's why we voted for you.).

But, I want to retract that. Who wants to be investigated next because they uttered "The Party Line"?