I hate to miss any of your excellent points. See bullet three - the boldface takes over, and I think part of the sentence is missing.

I only add, "Shame, shame, NY Times." Get Savage on this one!

I saw Lichtblau's article yesterday and was stunned and horrified at the obvious duplicity. I was so shocked, I tried to figure out who this Lichtblau guy is (I really don't keep a scorecard on media types)... only to find that he apparently got a share of a Pulitzer for original reporting related to disclosing the existence of the illegal wiretapping program??? What's with that, who got to this guy and how did they do it?

But I was hoping to see a GG post today in response to the bile in Lichtblau's article, and am grateful for Glenn's analysis/debunking this morning.

Nothing could be more disgraceful than the Dems actually caving on this fear mongering as a last gift to W before shipping him off to the Hague. There is no conceivable excuse for the Democratic Party to do anything other than extend current law beyond the inauguration so that the next administration can address the whole structure of the law without regard for what Bush and his cabal would "demand".

Send Glenn's article to your congressional delegation. Don't let them betray us yet again.

I was at your talk at Firefly last night, which I thought was a good talk, thanks for coming out! I had wanted to talk to you about this same article yesterday, having read it on my way out see you, but you didn't pick me :(, so I'm glad to see you comment on this article this morning.

I just can't believe that this argument the surveillance hawks are using would work, but I'm afraid it might. They're essentially saying "We can go back to the old way of doing things, because breaking the law has become too operationalized, that reverting back would put us "in danger""

I hope the arrogance and vapidness of that argument is recognized by the American People (not that any are paying attention to this issue). They're suggesting that we should give up some of our civil liberties because not to do so would be temporarily burdensome on a few people. Surely hiring a few more people to help would be sufficient, if it really is that burdensome. And I don't even want to address the fact that it might put us in danger... that's such a full of shit argument, it makes me angry to write about it.

Does anyone suspect that the reason this administration keeps telling us that we're in danger, yet refuses to disclose what they're doing to find it out, or to tell us what they actually find out, is due to the lack of any meaningful threats or intel?

You've provided all the details and rationale to show the perfidy of both sides of the congressional isle and shoddy journalism by the Times. They need an op-ed from you today to show the Times readers what the article should have said.

I was struck last night watching Dennis Kucinich list for over three hours his 35 reasons to impeach Junior and our weak fish Democrats believing that impeachment would be divisive and hurt fall election chances. And their opponents went vigorously for impeachment over a BJ. When and how do these misguided representatives of the people think they have a chance to stop the bullies?

All they have is fear.

That's how pathetic the republicans, the 'press', and our nation have gotten...

McCain says the Obama administration would be Carter's second term. Didn't Jimmy Carter get literally tossed out by the Reagan dirty tricks operation regarding Iran?

Odd that most of the perpetrators of that great con are in the current Bush administration...

I'm sad and sickened by politics and society in this country. Maybe the Fox News jackals retort 'then move to France' isn't such a bad idea but how long till the cancer eating America infects them too...

Are they being bullied into supporting warrant-less eavesdropping and telecom immunity, or are they making believe they are being bullied while secretly wanting access to the exact same powers?

It's hard to believe they are being bullied by a group despised by the citizenry (except for the 28% "dead-enders").

BTW, it would be nice if Obama took the lead on this, and showed all the talk of "change" is more than just a campaign slogan.

my previous post should read "we CAN'T go back...." instead of "we CAN go back"

= Dick Cheney.

We know that from the time he let his cover slip by using the first person when recounting a foreign trip he'd been on.

I submit that it is applicable to all uses of the term "senior administration official" until proven otherwise.

Didn't the Times already issue some kind of mea culpa on the unrestrained use of anonymous sources? Did anyone who works there actually read it?

How does it feel to be so ashamed of your position to decline comment?

I look at Harry, Nancy, Steny and the other pathetic excuses for the leadership and weep. I look at Rockefeller and wonder: why is this guy Chair of anything?

Whenever the FISA debate comes up, I'm always reminded of a post Josh Marshall made a few years back wherein he cited a study by EPIC that tallied up the number of FISA warrants granted and denied by year. I've dug up the link here:

http://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html

The list has been updated since I last viewed it. From 1979-2007, the FISA court has approved over 25,000 warrants and denied a grand total of nine. Of those 25,000 approvals, a full 49% have been approved during the Bush administration. Tellingly, all nine denials have come during the Bush years.

That's staggering. Clearly the FISA court will only deny a warrant if there's some gross violation of the rules. They didn't deny a warrant for over 20 years.

This article, and Glenn's assessment of it, are critically important. Thanks again, Glenn for your dogged pursuit of this issue. So many of us appreciate it.

But equally important, IMHO, is how this serves as stark and incontrovertible proof that Congressional Democrats also simply cannot be trusted to uphold any meaningful sense of the words "public interest" or "public trust."

Vote..........them.......ALL.......out.....of.......office.

You may think that is an oversimplified answer that may do more harm than good, but really, think about that again. It's just not possible.