I am indeed "one of those guys" who think it's O.K. for the President of the United States to protect American lives whatever the cost, even if it means his impeachment. FDR also did some things during WWII that he privately speculated would be impeachable offenses had the Congress found out. Luckily, the Congress did not. And, they didn't impeach Truman for dropping two A-Bombs either. Maybe if you had lived through THAT war, you'd see things differently.

Bottom line, if I were POTUS and faced the choice between saving American lives or being impeached, I know what I would do. Do you?

Speaking of the press. Tim Russert was on The Daily Show last night…apparently pushing yet another book about fathers that he's written. Stewart came out of the gate asking why Russert doesn't have Karl Rove, the man behind everything, on his show. Russert said that he's asked & Rove refuses. There was some back & forth about this, which included Russert mentioning the first amendment rights as some sort of reason that our public officials refusing to answer questions. Russert then tried to steer the discussion to the candidates. He said that he's offered the full hour to each of the candidates and they're not taking him up on it. Stewart, to his credit, responded with "I'm not finished with this administration yet." So apparently the press, or at least Tim Russert, is finished with the current administration.

BTW, I dugg, though I have to admit I don't have an understanding of how that system works.

excellent, simply excellent. To my mind, maybe your best blog yet. This is so reminiscent of exactly what brought Nixon down. May it do the same for the currently resident thugs.

One thing, though. You say the question of whether warrantless eavesdropping on Americans occurred is still unanswered. Is it? My understanding is that NSA had a deal with AT&T to "drift net" all calls in their system. That's not tapping individual phones, but it's certainly gathering data without probable cause, and of course without a warrant.

At the risk of DIGG-whoring, this post truly deserves it. One painless way to help spread some of GG's insight on this topic is to simply hit the little DIGG button at the bottom of the post. It's easy, folks. The DUGG list over there is missing a lot of the regular commenters from over here (hint, hint).

...and the subsequent description of that scene by those who were there, is strongly reminiscent of the kind of thing that happened in Hitler's crew when one of them was ill. There is a scene in Albert Speer's memoirs in which Speer is so sick he's hospitalized, and he has to counter skulduggery from his rivals from his hospital bed.

These guys strike me in exactly the same way. Bush and his people trace straight back to Goebbles and Goering and Bormann and the rest. It's not even a stretch to point it out.

Joe Klein's piece in Swampland about warrantless wiretapping (http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/05/the_comey_testimony.html) seems to be an inaccurate (and is certain respects downright bizarre - selling spanish stocks?) assessment of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. Leaving aside, for now, what seems to be Klein's misunderstanding of how data mining works (as I understand it, data mining doesn't detect 'patterns' of calls from a particular cell phone, whatever that might mean, but rather looks at much broader patterns among thousands and thousands of calls), and even leaving aside what appears to me to be an inaccurate statement that a FISA warrant would allow investigators to look into 'private records' of a stockbroker (what kinds of records - telephone or paper records?). The major problem in Klein's piece seems to be his assertion that Bush's warrantless program was just about data mining, rather than about actually eavesdropping on communications. Glenn, what do you make of Joe's piece?

That was too corn-fused for me.

I do know how to kiss a Moose. ~.~.

I send that out/in TITO who ever will kiss. ~<>~ It's needing some improvement.

This Salon reminds me of a kissing meditation practice assignment. I'm wanting a ~~<.>~~ next to Anonymous sentiment.

Glenn does rest us under the trees

And overhanging baskets of fruit can we sure enjoy,

Where Robbins chant their litanies,

And in all this strife there is canticles of joy.

thanks, I got parole required attendance on each Wendy'days. No eat hamburgers.

Just curious if you think leaders of any country can do anything they want to protect their citizens during a time of war?

I believe Saddam was hung for protecting his citizens during a time of war (against Islamists, no less).

Not that it isn't obvious that W broke the law, I'm just curious if you are one of those "it's OK when my guy does it" guys.

I think, in evaluating the program, you may be being a little too lawlerly here. Refashioning of the "President's Program" wouldn't have to be, wouldn't even necessarily be about whipping up a new (AUMF) justification. After all, that takes no more time (or effort) than writing a legal brief.

The only problem with your comment is that you think I made the opposite point of the one I actually made. The whole point of the post is that the 2004 "refashioning" was NOT confined merely to creating a new legal theory, but instead to changing the scope of the program itself.

It's true that people can be "too lawyerly" in how they approach an issue. But there are some good attributes to being "lawyerly." Reading what one writes carefully before responding is one of those attributes.

No Stars

Add me to the impromptu petition for a starless commenting section.

I'm hoping that whoever it is who had this little burst of enterprise and excess time over the past few days to assign stars here is going to have their enthusiasm peter out or get busy again or something. Let's hope it fades away on its own over the next couple of days, and if it doesn't, I'll make an affirmative cease and desist request.