Shorter Bush

I had to break the law because Al Qaeda has CSPAN!

In addition, he defended the warrantless spying mostly by focusing on the speed factor. When one of the questioners noted that you could get a FISA warrant retroactively, up to 72 hours after the initial eavesdropping, he didn't have an answer and eventually blurted out "9/11!"

The idea that Congress was briefed 12 times is also bogus. As Nancy Pelosi spells out, Congress wasn't told "Can we do this?" but "We're going to do this." And they told the ranking members of the Intelligence Committees only, not the leadership. Now, if Nancy Pelosi then went to the House floor and disclosed this secret policy, how fast do you think the treason articles would be written? She expressed her disapproval, but since the executive branch considered (and still considers) this policy to be legally derived from the heavens, she was in no position to override it, and sworn by her position to secrecy. The Right ought to thank Pelosi for her discretion.

And saying you started this program to make sure it was secret doesn't work either. FISA is a secret court, and if you got a warrant it wouldn't by under public review. The point, to get out of the weeds, is that the executive can't just overturn laws whenever he likes. Abu Gonzales made a bizarre statement today that the President derived this particular power from the resolution authorizing force against terrorists in Afghanistan. Cueing Mr. Feingold:

Responding to Gonzales' claim, Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold (D) said on NBC's Today Show: "Nobody, nobody, thought when we passed a resolution to invade Afghanistan and to fight the war on terror, including myself who voted for it, thought that this was an authorization to allow a wiretapping against the law of the United States."

"There's two ways you can do this kind of wiretapping under our law. One is through the criminal code, Title III; the other is through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That's it. That's the only way you can do it. You can't make up a law and deriving it from the Afghanistan resolution.

Gonzales and company are true believers that the inherent powers of the commander in chief during wartime are basically unchecked. Bush likes the word "unchecked" and doesn't question how his lawyers get there. It's going to be near impossible to get a court decision on this case (someone harmed by domestic spying of this nature would have to come forward, and it being a secret program, they don't know it's happening), so Congress is the only body standing between the President and his whim. This is in a way good for the country, that because of the brazen nature of this action, we can get yet another precedent for overreaching Presidential powers. Republicans will appreciate this when Democrats return to power. Checks and balances and the rule of law simply must be respected, or else we cash in our democracy.