Wow, Who Could Have Seen This Coming?

Fuck. Me.

The day after President George W. Bush marshaled political forces in Congress to grant him greater authority to engage in counterterrorism-related spying, the president stated that he would seek greater changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when the legislative branch returns to work in September.

What changes would those be? Why immunity for telecom companies that were complicit in the illegal warrantless wiretaps that caused the first FISA firestorm, of course. Oh, wait. I mean allegedly complicit, of course, in the event that their illegal activities are somehow held up as being, yes, illegal.

"When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001," he said.

One constitutional scholar derided Bush's reasoning, particularly the tortuous language in his statement.

"Apparently 'allegedly helped us stay safe' is Bush Administration code for telecom companies and government officials who participated in a conspiracy to perform illegal surveillance," wrote Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin in a Monday morning blog post. "Because what they did is illegal, we do not admit that they actually did it, we only say that they are alleged to have done it."

The 16 Senate and 41 House Dems who voted to take the minimal oversight that existed on this away from the courts and hand it squarely to Alberto "How Can You Tell I'm Lying? Are My Lips Moving?" Gonzales can kiss my ass. At this point we can't keep heaping blame on Bush for continuing to take every treat the Dems eagerly throw him and then demand more like an untrained dog or unruly two-year-old. Your job is to rein this out-of-control bastard in. You have failed.