[NSA Spying]

Bush Lies Immediately Revealed.

Before we get into today's emerging news about administration lies, let me offer a blogobservation: in past years, December has been death. No news, no readers, death. So it is into this context--I presume the norm--that we have, four days before Christmas, this amazing flurry of news. Wild.

But enough of that: we have lies to expose. Once Bush's secret illegal spying was revealed, he offered several lame excuses (documented here, in case you missed 'em). In the spirit of it-ain't-the-crime-that-gets-you,-it's-the-coverup, we have this:

We have consulted with members of the Congress over a dozen times.... Of course we consult with Congress and have been consulting with Congress and will continue to do so.

It appears that this is a lie. What we know thus far is that the Democrats who have gone on record have disputed Bush. First, Jay Rockefeller, in a letter he drafted at the time to document the lack of oversight Congress was given, wrote:

"Given the security restrictions associated with this information and my inability to consult staff or counsel on my own, I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities."

And on NPR this morning, Bob Graham said he was also forbidden from telling his staff or anyone else on the intelligence committee. He went on:

We met in the office of the Vice President. In attendance were the Chair and ranking member of the Senate House Intelligence Committees. My recollection of the meeting was focused on the issue of calls that were being monitored by the National Security Agency outside the United States--being transferred through the United States. I left the room without any sense that it was going to be done extralegally--that is, outside of the legal structure of the Federal Insurance Security Agency Act.

We could have exercised reasonable oversight over the program I've described, because that was the program that was explained to us. But you can't have oversight over a program that has characteristics that have been withheld from you.

When asked about Rockefeller's letter, Graham said:

First you have to know about the program before you can object to the program. Second, this would have been a very surprising piece of information that we were going to begin to avoid judicial permission to wiretap a telephone message or an email transmission, because that court had had a record of over 25 years of handling these kinds of cases very well.

Next, one of Bush's central claims has been that he only has used his secret, unverified spying to monitor--detect?--international calls. This NYT article says it ain't so:

A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

Lies to cover up crimes. Nice to see that Bush has brought accountability and honor back to the White House.