When Clinton flew to an aircraft carrier in March, 1993, it was different, and wrong, because some of the sailors didn't smile at him, and because Clinton's saluting had previously been less than crisp, and most importantly because:
(I think this link is free and legal, so you don't need Lexis.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40386-2003May10

E D I T O R I A L
Misfiring at 'Top Gun'

Sunday, May 11, 2003; Page B06

. . . Well, guess what, guys? Presidential travel is inherently political -- like when President Clinton spent taxpayer dollars to fly onto an aircraft carrier on the very day his defense secretary announced a new round of base closings -- and wore a green flight jacket to boot while he watched fighter jets catapult off the carrier. (Major distinction here: Mr. Bush got the bottom half of the outfit, too.)
- - Donald Graham's editorial board

Below the waist, that's what it's all about.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/03/candidate-machismo-watch_07.html

Sunday, March 07, 2004
Candidate Machismo Watch

. . . The background assumption, which is offensive, is that the more masculine person should be elected.

. . . "playing dress-up" and "prancing"? . . . who used those quotes, which go beyond criticizing Bush for attempting to display his masculinity and actually try to make him seem as though he were acting effeminate? Say what you will about Bush, the guy doesn't "prance." It would make more sense to ridicule his excessively masculine way of walking!

- - posted by Ann Althouse at 6:21 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050101357.html

washingtonpost.com > Nation > Special Reports > Intelligence
Intelligence Chief Decries Constraints
Update of Surveillance Law Urged
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page A07

Court orders in January that brought President Bush's warrantless terrorist surveillance program under existing law have limited the intelligence that agencies can collect, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee yesterday. "We are actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting," McConnell said during an unusual public session of the Select Committee on Intelligence . . .

http://nytimes.com/2007/05/02/opinion/02wed1.html

Editorial
Spying on Americans
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

. . . Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.

. . . The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans. That’s an all-too-familiar dodge.

. . . The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it.

. . . Mr. Bush long ago lost all credibility in the area where this law lies: at the fulcrum of the balance between national security and civil liberties.

- - New York Times

http://nytimes.com/2007/05/02/washington/02intel.html

Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement
By JAMES RISEN

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, May 1 — Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

But the Administration doesn't want to defend its legal theories in public (heck, that'd be un-Straussian).

“To this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorization that cleared that program to go or the attorney general-Department of Justice opinions that declared it to be lawful,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.

Sheldon Whitehouse is a former U.S. Attorney and knows a thing or two about the rule of law. We need more like him.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/yearning-for-tyrant-by-digby-senior.html

. . . This is a psychological problem more than an ideology, perhaps even some sort of massive sexual identity crisis. When frustrated that they cannot convince the people to conform to their will, they simply force them. That is simple authoritarianism and it's become quite the rage on the right of late, (which is darkly amusing considering their years of railing against totalitarian communism.)

We are not going to hear the end of it for a while. Their failure [is] so total, and the embarrassment so complete, that the yearning for a rightwing tyrant on a white horse is palpable . . .

- - digby

http://doverbitch.blogspot.com/2007/05/whitehouse-on-fisa.html

and kidnap a barber from Tallahassee, but not just any barber, we want one that rants and raves all day about Lincoln, FDR, the Kennedys, the Commies, the "outside agitators", and Earl Warren, but who does it with a certain amount of intelligence and wit.

Take the barber in the Tardis to the University of Chicago in the glorious age of Reagan, the 1980s. Smoothe off his rough edges, and teach him to say things like, "I'm no fan of segregation . . . BUT . . ."

Now teach him that those bogeymen he was scared of, back in his barbership, are proof that government is evil not just sometimes, but always, which means that it's evil for government to regulate or prosecute corporations. Hypnotize him into believing that unfettered corporations will make the world a great place.

When the Chicago boys are done with the makeover, the Tallahassee barber will be a new, modern, "libertarian" hair stylist. Now take him in the Tardis to 2007, and drop him into a blog comments thread, and marvel at how much smoother he is than he was back in 1962.