BUSH and the NSA: DON'T QUESTON ME.

Sad to say, our only overseas communications this year involved the wedding of Maureen and Michel, bridesmaid dresses and the wrenching loss of our house rabbit Fanny. No enemies list for pipsqueaks like me this year. The bloggers at The Washington Note sure were eager to know who was on the list, but that was December 16, and by now the list is about as exclusive as toilet paper.

The New York Times, under the stewardship of Arthur Pinch "Rich and Powerful People are Nice to Me, Therefore We Trust Them" Sulzberger, waited until Christmas weekend to reveal that Bush's spying without a warrant was NOT limited to people who might have stood next to a terrorist once. It seems the National Security Agency has without court-approved warrants, been plugged right into tapping directly "the American telecommunication system's main arteries".

And John Conyers-- a Michigan boy, I'm pleased to say-- was first on the board to utter the "I" word, impeachment, in public. Too bad fellatio wasn't involved, or Henry Hyde could jump on there with him. Does anyone else think it odd that a drunken woman picked this week of all weeks to start a public bar fight with Mrs. Conyers?

Of course, the American telecommunications corporations rolled over like micturating daschunds to help the NSA get in the electronic back door. And lots of "concern" has been expressed by judges and agents, but not enough concern for more than one of them to resign.

"Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda." Is there anyone who believed that? Well, the lickspittle Attorney General, of course. And Idaho. Cheney doesn't believe in anything, he just bulliies you into this week's party line. He's kind of like a short, balding Patsy Stone-- "Don't question me!" And Rumsfeld, the very avatar of arrogance, thinks EVERYONE'S stupid and can't even brook the mildest line of questioning from an NPR reporter without insulting the interviewer. Sadly, this tells us more about Rumsfeld's insecurities than he wants us to know.

The Bush administration says it wants "to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out". The consensus of the people-who-know-better-than-me seems to be put us at a 70% chance of a terrorist attack with a weapon of mass detruction on US soil within the next 10 years. Nothing in Bush's efforts is likely to better those odds; indeed, this adminstration seems determined to increase the terrorist population. See Also: Jekyll & Hyde President, , St. George vs, the Pagan Knight, ,Missing Link, ,NeoCon Blogging, , Hating the French, The Worms Turn