From MSNBC:

Feb. 20, 2006 issue - The attorney general of the United States was playing rope-a-dope. Why, the senators wanted to know, did the White House circumvent a law passed by Congress, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires intelligence services to obtain search warrants before intercepting international communications inside the United States? Alberto Gonzales was evasive and bland. Speaking in legalisms, he offered few details about the National Security Agency's sweeping post-9/11 eavesdropping program. After a series of senatorial questions had gone essentially unanswered, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont interjected, "Of course, I'm sorry, Mr. Attorney General, I forgot: you can't answer any questions that might be relevant to this."

Such sarcasm might be expected of a Democrat like Leahy. But Gonzales also came under tough questioning from four of the 10 Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, including its chairman, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. At the hearing, Gonzales argued, as President George W. Bush has several times before, that Congress gave the executive branch the power to wiretap when it passed a resolution, right after 9/11, authorizing the "use of force" to battle terrorism. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a conservative Republican, called that argument "very dangerous in terms of its application to the future. When I voted for it, I never envisioned that I was giving to this president or any other president the ability to go around FISA carte blanche."

It is not yet clear how the public feels about warrantless wiretapping. As usual, the answer depends on the question. Asked if they approve of government eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, most people say no; asked if they approve of eavesdropping to catch terrorists, most people say yes. More sophisticated polls show a roughly even split in opinion, so it's hard to know how the issue will cut in the 2006 elections. But there is no question that the solons of Capitol Hill and, increasingly, those in the Republican Party are growing restless and ready to challenge the authority of the Bush White House.

You know, I could get all excited about this... And I would really like to. I would like to think that the people who we pay to respresent us, ALL of us, really represent the best interest of Americans. But I have seen too much partisan politics in the last 8 years, and even before that, when republicans wanted to tar and feather Clinton over his "personal indiscretions." But instead, this:

Washington Post: Bob Barr, Bane of the Right? "Are we losing our lodestar, which is the Bill of Rights?" Barr beseeched the several hundred conservatives at the Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park. "Are we in danger of putting allegiance to party ahead of allegiance to principle?"

Barr answered in the affirmative. "Do we truly remain a society that believes that . . . every president must abide by the law of this country?" he posed. "I, as a conservative, say yes. I hope you as conservatives say yes."

But nobody said anything in the deathly quiet audience.

Is this what we have come to in our country... A country that excuses torture, wiretaps it's citizens and holds people indefinately without trial, some of whom have been proven innocent after over a year incarcerated. I have never liked Barr, but I have to give him credit for at least standing up for something he believes in, instead of constantly excusing and justifying the actions of a White House that is simply OUT OF CONTROL.

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