1 Boring Old Man

With congressional hearings set to begin on this issue Feb. 6, Bush kicked his administration’s new intensive public relations effort to win support for the program run by the National Security Agency. As part of that, he gave it a new label — the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

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"It’s amazing that people say to me, `Well, he’s just breaking the law," the president said, with Roberts sitting behind him on stage at Kansas State University. "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"

Bush said the spying program was targeted at communications between people in the United States and al Qaida associates overseas. He said he made sure he was acting within the law before authorizing the program after his aides suggested it.

"I’m mindful of your civil liberties and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process," Bush told some 9,000 students, soldiers and dignitaries in the audience.

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"Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn’t prescribe the tactics," Bush said, adding that the government needs to know why people linked to al Qaida are calling into the U.S. "One of the ways to protect the American people is to understand the intentions of the enemy."

Bush Calls Surveillance Legal, Necessary

This morning, I was ranting to a friend that it was obvious from Rove’s recent speech that a campaign was being mounted to turn the N.S.A. domestic eavesdropping without a warrant into  heroism instead of criminal behavior, and to paint the picture that his critics were soft of National Security. The thing I was raving about was that it’s completely clear that Rove knows it’s not true. The opponents have stood on their heads to make it clear that it’s the part about warrants that they’re upset about, not the part about National Security. My friend called later and joked to my wife, "don’t let him know Bush is speaking on t.v. right now." I took him seriously though. I just can’t watch Bush. It’s not good for my mental health. But I read about it.

So the kids at the University of Kansas and a bunch of young soldiers get to hear a speech from the President of the United States. That should be a memory for a lifetime. And what do they hear? They hear President Bush stand up in front of them and tell a baldface lie, something he knows is a lie. That’s going to be their lifelong memory. "You know son, when I was a young college student, I got to hear President Bush lie through his teeth, and use his encounter with us to suggest that his willful ignoring of the Constitution and the laws of our country was heroism. He called it the Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The sequence here couldn’t be clearer. He asked Congress to let him do warrantless surveillance. Congress said no. So he did it anyway. He kept the New York Times from reporting it for a year. As a last ditch effort, he called in the publisher and editor to try to talk them into not releasing the story. When it was released, he first attacked the messenger. That didn’t fly. So then they tried silence. That didn’t fly either. So then they  tried to minimize what they were doing. Another dud. Now, they’ve got the swell idea of saying their critics are weak on National Security, and traitors siding with the enemy. At no time do they say why they wanted to skip the F.I.S.A. court [because there is no rational reason]. This is going to be the big test. Can they lie spin their way out of this one like they’ve done repeatedly before, or will we finally wake up and say "enough!"? 

Update: I don’t know where HuffPo got this photo, but I just can’t pass it up. It’s the ultimate Bushograph. And the tie matches the backdrop…