Not too long ago, John L reinforced his ideas on supply side economic lessons to me by offering Jude Wanniski's site to me in a PM -- after I PM'd him asking for the URL. I went there and signed up for the lessons and to receive emails too. Well I got one heck of a copy of an email, in my inbox, that Patricia Wanniski sent to Dubya -- and what can I say; she says it all! In other words: Wake Up Dubya!

Patricia Koyce Wanniski's Letter

Second Term Scandal Sets In

To: President George W. Bush
From: Patricia Koyce Wanniski
Re: The "I" Word

It seems as though all second-term presidents for the last 40 years or so have had to contend with a second term scandal. Your administration has been no exception. 'Snoopgate,' as the domestic spying revelations have now been dubbed, is gathering steam. Earlier today, two lawsuits were filed in Federal District Court questioning the legality of your secret executive order giving the National Security Agency the authority to bypass the usual channels in obtaining surveillance wiretaps. Yesterday, your former opponent in the 2000 presidential race, Al Gore, gave a speech damming the practice bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Gore notes, accurately,

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.
An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.


As I wrote on December 21, when Senator Arlen Specter announced he would be holding Judiciary Committee hearings on the issue, the issue wasn't so much the idea of domestic spying, but avoiding the checks and balances of the court system to do it. I'm still scratching my head trying understand your rationale. As Jonathan Alter points out, why didn't you simply ask Congress to amend FISA, if you felt the tools to catch terrorists weren't adequate? And, as a team of reporters announced in The New York Times this morning, the wiretaps apparently have not been an effective tool in the war on terror. So what good is all this snooping, anyhow?

Maybe you don't feel it in the Whitehouse or at your ranch in Crawford, but some Americans are beginning to feel threatened by what they see as an increasingly imperial president, not bound by the law or constitution. Now with this perceived abuse of power of NSA snooping, there are some serious constitutional questions being raised in surprising quarters. This weekend Senator Specter broached the issued of possible impeachment, albeit in a theoretical context, in a reply to a question from George Stephanopoulous on Sunday's "This Week."

Stephanopoulous: There was a lot of talk about that at the Alito hearings, and listening closely to you I certainly seem to take away that you believe the president does not have the right, does not have the inherent power under the Constitution to circumvent a constitutional law and as far as you are concerned, the FISA law is constitutional, isn't it?

Specter: Well, I started off by saying that he didn't have the authority under the resolution authorizing the use of force. The president has to follow the Constitution. Where you have a law which is constitutional, like Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, there still may be collateral different powers in the president under wartime circumstances.
That's a very knotty question that I'm not prepared to answer on a Sunday soundbite. But I do believe that it ought to be thoroughly examined. And when we were on the Patriot Act and found the disclosure of the surveillance, I immediately said the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings, and I talked to the attorney general, and we're going to explore it in depth, George. You can count on it.

Stephanopoulous: You know, if the president did break or circumvent the law, what's the remedy?

Specter: Well, the remedy could be a variety of things. A president – and I'm not suggesting remotely that there's any basis, but you're asking, really, theory, what's the remedy? Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George, under our society is to pay a political price.



Once a member of your own party begins using the "I" word, even hypothetically, you've got a problem you can't ignore or joke away. It won't matter that your motive was to protect the American people, although I believe it was. You should bow to the democratic impulse and retreat on this issue, before your presidency is crippled any further. Anyhow, you'll still have the ability to eavesdrop on American citizenry under FISA.

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(Note to John L: I have finished with two lessons, and I MUST keep going with these things! Fascinating Site!)

I must admit that I am heartened to see that you are indeed reading from SSU. As I told you earlier, this is a non partasin site, the tries to teach both sides of the Isle. I am glad to see that you are finding this to be the case.

I have enjoyed Uncle Jude's remarks for years. However, I honestly believe he went off the deep end, over the Iraqi invasion, and his main thesis for this was that Saddam never used nerve gas on the Kurds. He even went into detail about it, and I followed with real interest.

However, he did not close any intellectual deal with me on this because, having been to CBR(Chemical, Biological, & Radiological Warfare) School, I know quite about Nerve agents, and their characteristics. Much of what he stated simply did not wash out. I won't go into this much, but he blamed the Iranians, not the Iraqis for this act. His explanation was that the colour of the skin showed that is was clearly an agent that the Iraqis did not posess. This is patently false. The Iraqis most certainly had GA(tabin) in the early 80s, along with the Iranians. It is a relatively easy pesticide to manufacter, and he had no proof that the Iraqis did not have any.

That was my first disagreement with him. I even tollerated his rubbing shoulders with Louis Farrakham. But his adament, and to me irrational, ranting about the innocence of Saddam, turned me off. I noted that almost All the Obits from his Supply-Side friends mentioned his eccentricity here.

That does not, however negate the wonderful work and time spent attempting to set economics back on a true course, a course that has taken a terrible turn in the last 75 years. For that I can forgive anything he has ever done that I would disagree with.

But I would take his Memo's on the Margain that go on about Iraq with a serious grain of salt. And too, Mrs. Wannaski is simply parroting his thoughts here.

In deference to Uncle Jude, I can imagine that his eccentric last few years will be forgotten, when all is said and done. He will go down as one of the most important economic sages of the 20th century, and by far the greatest cheerleader for Dr.s Mundell and Laffer. Both deserve the credit that is due them, and also to Jude Wanniski. He was a great and gracious gentleman in person. Only his Memos tended to show a bit of the grandious within him.

Anyway, you keep up with the lessions, as there is much to learn there, and his economic theories are very sound. And note that he never attained an economic degree, yet he understood economics better than almost all the economic professors in academia, or government.

That is a tremendous accomplishment on his part.