The WaPo Stands Kinda Tall, Maybe....

The President's End Run
Monday, January 23, 2006; Page A14

THE MOST detailed legal justification to date for the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance has emerged from the Bush administration, but the 42-page version isn't any more convincing than its shorter predecessors. In some ways -- particularly in its broad conception of presidential power in wartime -- it is more disturbing....

Paging Sam Alito, I believe this is the definition of unitary executive that you refused to give.

The administration cites this sweeping language and the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld , in which a plurality found that the AUMF allowed the president to detain U.S. citizens captured on the battlefield as enemy combatants. The administration says that reasoning applies equally to "all traditional and accepted incidents of force . . . Including warrantless electronic surveillance to intercept enemy communications both at home and abroad."

Even though the Supreme Court never indicated this in their decision, but why should that stop Shrub from wire tapping those evil Quakers? One could argue that Shrub makes the best argument against himself

Blogger Brendan Nyhan has catalogued Bush impeaching himself with a large selection of #1 hits!"

Remember cruising to this classic:

President Bush -- April 20, 2004: gs as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it cSecondly, there are such thinomes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Reminiscing on long summer nights with your girl at your side grooving to:

President Bush -- June 9, 2005: One tool that has been especially important to law enforcement is called a roving wiretap. Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow suspects who frequently change their means of communications. These wiretaps must be approved by a judge, and they have been used for years to catch drug dealers and other criminals. Yet, before the Patriot Act, agents investigating terrorists had to get a separate authorization for each phone they wanted to tap.

and who could forget this hit:

President Bush -- July 20, 2005: The Patriot Act helps us defeat our enemies while safeguarding civil liberties for all Americans. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're talking about. And they are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States.

Does the WaPo editorial meniton any of this. BWAHAHAHAHA! Are you for real! No instead after almost insinuating the very beginings of the inklings of an opinion they play good soldier and chicken out. First watch the patented Shrub 180:

President Bush, the paper says, "determined that the speed and agility required to carry out the NSA activities successfully could not have been achieved under FISA." Because those activities "are necessary to the defense of the United States from a subsequent terrorist attack, FISA would impermissibly interfere with the President's most solemn constitutional obligation -- to defend the United States against foreign attack."

And watch as the bastion of the "liberal media" gets all reflective an squishy:

Especially without knowing the parameters of the surveillance, we hesitate to second-guess the president's argument (note- Except that is your freaking JOB!) that FISA's limits are unduly constraining.

(note- Getting a warrant 72 hrs AFTER the fact is constraining? Are you for real?) The surveillance may be critical for national security, and a law written in a different technological age may well need to be refurbished. But the proper way to handle that -- which the administration rejected -- would have been to seek changes in the law, not to do a stealthy end run around the legislative process. In such an amorphous, long-running conflict as the war against terrorism, it's critical to ensure that limits are in place to prevent the executive branch from overreaching.

You get all this and more with a 5 second Google search ladies a gentlemen. Remember order "George Bush Self Destructs" and you get Democracy back free!!!

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