I haven’t weighed in on this but I have to say I find the following Bush quotes pretty remarkable. Quote One, from the ACLU ad in the NYT yesterday, dated April 20, 2004:
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.
In a press conference, in July 2004, the president reassured us:
A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can’t move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.
The president is referring to the Patriot Act in both instances, and if that were his sole frame of reference he’d be technically correct. But his reassurances are also rhetorically unequivocal and broad. Look, I have no substantive beef with wiretapping some domestic calls in the war on terror, but I think the administration was typically heavy-handed in not seeking bipartisan consensus and not relying on existing law, when both could have brought the same result. Again: the question here is about war-leadership. Is it better to be hyper-secretive and partisan in wartime or as transparent and as bipartisan as possible? One reason the war has lost domestic support is not simply because of the recalcitrance of the anti-war left, but because the Bush administration has done all it can to alienate its supporters in the center. This latest, arbitrary and unnecessary assertion of executive privilege is typical. So, sadly, are the untruths coming out of the president’s mouth.
– posted by Andrew.
The Dish 