Protecting America

President Bush has been a busy little media beaver of late. Since Wednesday he's had the MSM aghast on a daily basis as they breathlessly describe yet another 'rare media event', each time reacting as if the Wizard of Oz just lept out from behind the curtain.

One might opine this hectic schedule is just push-back politics based on recovering some political capital after the Iraqi election story was torpedoed by the secret NSA snoop leak and Patriot Act setback. Make no mistake his cord was yanked--and yanked hard, and he's fighting back.

So there was yet another shocking media event this morning, a press conference, where he tried to explain the NSA wiretaps:

"After Sept. 11, one question my administration had to answer was, how, using the authority I have, how do we effectively detect enemies hiding in our midst and prevent them from striking [us] again? We know that a two-minute phone conversation from someone linked to Al Qaeda here and to Al Qaeda overseas can cost millions of American lives," he added, saying some of the Sept. 11 hijackers made several phone calls overseas before the attacks.

The term "two-minute" was used to illustrate we can't always wait for a court order lest we miss that important 'go call'. That seems to back up my earlier claim that the NSA wiretaps are not random drops on international calls to Grandma in Milan, rather are focused against specific individuals suspected of being receivers of messages to push a button, light a fuse, or lick a stamp. The concept of such pre-positioned operators shouldn't be a stretch, since not long ago we had 19 pre-positioned hijackers here in our great melting pot.

The press and the left did make light of this little slip-up:

"In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said.

"And guess what happened. Saddam ...Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated. We're at war. And we must protect America's secrets."

We all know Bush is no stranger to sentence destruction, so caveat emptor on making much out of this. However, he certainly seems to have Saddam on the brain lately, with very little mention given to Usama bin Laden. Speaking of Sada..er UBL ..where has that sucker been lately?

This post is quite long so for anyone still with me, thanks much, but let's pause for a brief recap. In the span of a few short days we've had an important vote in Iraq (a success by all accounts), the leaking of a secret NSA domestic eavesdropping program, a setback for the Patriot Act, Bush running amok in the media with a concerned and terse tone, Cheney making his first trip to Iraq, then Saddam allowing a strange interview to the same tabloid that earlier showed pictures of him in his underwear, an interview blessed by his lawyers only a few days shy of the resumption of his trial..for murder.

What could possibly be next? Well, today we got this:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq are freeing "Dr Germ" and "Mrs Anthrax", two of Saddam Hussein's leading biological warfare experts, following the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, lawyers said on Monday.

That sounds like we threw someone a bone. Who? Why?

It always amazes me how Bush dodges the question of why it was correct to invade Iraq, even with no WMD stockpiles. Lately he's remarked he would have invaded anyway, even knowing what he knows now. Assuming for a minute he's not covering tracks or trying to plunge the country into a fascist dictatorship, just what does he 'know now' that makes him so resolute?

MORE 12/20

This article and this one are proof the war at home is escalating faster than the one abroad. Not surprisingly our port side warriors are displaying another case of collective amnesia, just like they did with Saddam.

It's certainly an interesting revelation that Bush called the Times brass into the Oval Office in a face-to-face attmpt to dissuade them from publishling the NSA story. In my view that seems to allow two scenarios:

1) Bush was desperately trying to save his fascist spy program from being revealed and himself from being impeached, or

2) Bush was holding some very nasty intelligence under his hat regards a looming threat and needed the NSA snoop program to monitor that threat...so much so he'd confide in a notoriously liberal newspaper already undergoing a thorough beating due to their pre-war Iraqi WMD reporting, which came from sources inside the Bush camp.

The backpeddling from Congresspeople and caterwauling from democrats about impeachment is as predictable as the sunrise. But things really don't add up about the conventional wisdom of this White House meeting. First, if Bush was any kind of respectable fascist he wouldn't have asked them, he'd have told them not to publish. Then maybe issued a few executive orders to back it up along with some muscle to enforce it. Geez, is Bush also an incompetent dictator, too?

Second, if this was just a spin attempt to get the paper off the story, it would seem an incredibly risky one. The adminstration knew a year ago that the Times had the scoop, yet they continued to ask for extensions to the program. That's nearly unimaginable, unless of course they were telling the truth.

Based on the above scenarios number two seems more likely to me, if nothing else due to the level of aggravation and concern from Bush of late. Now we hear that Vice President Cheney has cut short his worldwide tour and will return to DC immediately, reportedly to "be present should a tie vote occur in the Senate" on a budget bill. Uh, right-o.

There are no warm fuzzies emanating from scenario two. For some strange reason my mind goes back to Scooter Libby's cryptic letter to Judith Miller. If you recall, it was the one mentioning the 'roots of Aspens' and Miller's 'important work' covering stories about chemical and biological warfare. Apparently the Times brass didn't think as much of Miller's work as Libby did, since they canned her following her 'narrow testimony' about Libby.

But recall those same Times honchos apparently knew about Miller's other sources, the ones she apparently went to jail trying to protect.

Regardless of the above, the Times and many democrats appear giddy with the latest developments and are prepared to fire away with both barrels of their Snoopgate smoking guns. Have fun guys but just remember, smoking guns are hot and they can sometimes burn people.