Orrin Hatch, Flip-Flopper

Orrin Hatch is a flip-flopper and not the sort of flip-flopper who flops on issues once more information is available. He's a political, partisan flip-flopper.

Read this excerpt from an article that appeared in todays Tribune.

CNN reported in its online edition July 30, 1996, that Senate Republicans opposed President Clinton's anti-terrorism legislation and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was particularly concerned about - get this - Clinton's proposal to expand wiretaps to catch terrorists.
The story said Clinton knew there was Republican opposition to some of his proposals, but, the president said in a news conference, "We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue."
It quoted Hatch, who was then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee: "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."
Hatch also called Clinton's proposed study of taggants - chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists - "a phony issue."
The story also quoted Hatch as saying that he had "some problems" with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping. Of course, that was a Democratic president.

These are the kinds of partisan politics that damage America. I'm not saying Hatch was right then or now, but it's horribly convenient that Hatch would trust such over-reaching powers to one of the most power-hungry, war-mongering and ignorant presidents we've ever had merely because he's a Republican. I mean, Clinton did a lot of bad things, but he wasn't exactly a bad guy on the level Bush is.