Yes, the President is not as foolish as he sounds

My biggest agreement with him to date was his refusal to sign the Kyoto Treatly. China and India are not developing nations, and to treat them as such with respect to this treaty is ludicrous.

I agreed we should go after Bin Laden, and with Afghanistan’s freedom in principal. I still think we did a great service ousting Hussein—but the reason for doing so was based on faulty and covertly hidden intelligence.

I’m also with you in regard to the telecom immunity issue.

_China and India are not developing nations, _
I think that in the context of Kyoto, China and India are developing countries because they still have a lot of developing to do. I agree that they are not poor third world countries that need a lot of assistance from wealthier countries, but their citizens aspire to our standard of living and have a reasonable chance of getting there. Given the current trajectory of their economies they need to maintain industrial expansion in order to achieve the good things we have, and to do this will require that they generate a lot of pollution. The way they see it, we did this in the 19th century so why should they listen to us saying they should not so it now.

When the senate voted for telecom immunity by an overwhelming majority, I was completely incensed.
I was also appalled by the telecom immunity provision, but I can see a shameful defense for the carriers (and the senators) in that the very top level of government asked/begged/threatened the carriers to do interception without warrants. I am presuming here that the White House crew threatened them, called on their patriotism, forecast dire consequences from terrorism, and assured them that there would be no come-backs. So, when the legal challenges came, the senate felt a misguided sense of obligation to approve retrospective legislation. The first act of immorality by the Administration appeared to require a second act of immorality by the legislators. There is no escape from responsibility possible for the President and his administration.

There was a reasonable alternative to the legislation available from the third arm of Government, and that is why we must maintain the separation of powers. Those carrier execs who broke the law should have been punished (heavy fines) taking account of the mitigating circumstances of how they were coerced, and the official instigators should have received more severe (serious jail time) punishment because they knew better and had a greater responsibility for protecting citizens and adhering to the law.