President Bush: 'I Am Not A Spy'

The PR blitz continues today with the President's photo-op at NSA headquarters-

AP: Bush, Visiting NSA, Defends Surveillance

President Bush paid an in-person visit to the ultra-secret National Security Agency on Wednesday to underscore the importance of his controversial order authorizing domestic surveillance without warrants in the terrorism era.

"We must learn the intentions of the enemies before they strike," Bush said. "That's what they do here. They work to protect us."

That's great, sir. Now please explain why you authorized them to work outside the required FISA laws.

The President continues...

"We've seen that part of the terrorist strategy is to place operatives inside of our country. They blend in with the civilian population. They get their orders from overseas and then they emerge to strike from within," he told reporters, after speaking behind closed doors to NSA employees and going on a tour of the agency.

"We must be able to quickly detect when someone linked to al-Qaida is communicating with someone inside of America," he said.

That's also great, sir. Now please explain how the flexible, rubberstamp FISA system prevented you from doing that.

Of course, the article notes that:

Bush has argued that process isn't sufficiently flexible.

We already know, via James Baker's 2002 statement, that this is a lie. The President resisted congressional efforts to make the system even more flexible than previous changes had already done on constitutional grounds. Flexibility is not the issue. Transparency and accountability is; the President wanted to operate without both.

And showing he has a good sense of humor, the President said:

"The American people expect me to protect their lives and their civil liberties," he said.

Yes, we do expect that, sir. And we're hoping you'll start doing that any day now.

Sen. Clinton, hawkish on the President's foreign policy, would have none of this nonsense:

But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., issued a blistering attack on Bush's explanations.

"Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way," she said. "Their argument that it's rooted in the authority to go after al-Qaida is far-fetched. Their argument that it's rooted in the Constitution inherently is kind of strange because we have FISA and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission."

Emphasis added. She gets it.

But the President then uses fear and his greatest failure (letting Osama get away) to manipulate the public...

Bush pledged to continue to reauthorize the program as long as a threat exists, and urged Americans not to be lulled into thinking that the threat from terrorism is over because there has not been an attack on U.S. soil since 2001.

"I understand there are some in America who say well this can't be true — there are still people willing to attack," he said. "All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take them seriously. When he says he's going to hurt the American people again, or try to, he means it."

9/11! Osama's comin' to getcha!!! You scared yet? Time for me to unnecessarily break laws and issue public platitudes about fighting our enemies! And if a few political activists, Quakers, journalists, or random Americans 'accidently' get spied on along the way (repeatedly and in large numbers), well hey sucks to be them, it's war, baby! I don't need no stinkin' warrants! 9/11!



Don't let the President treat this like a public relations campaign.

Arm yourself with the facts- here, here, here, here, here, and here.

And if you're really mad, you can contact your representatives and senators and ask them to do the same.

[PS- Sen. Arlen Specter has some damn good questions for the Attorney General. Read now!]