Over the weekend, it seemed Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) had finally shown some independent thinking and was ready to exert some oversight on the Bush administration. After years of carrying water for the White House, Roberts’ change of heart on the president’s warrantless-search program was welcome and encouraging. It almost lasted a whole day.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Roberts wanted the NSA surveillance program to be brought under FISA court authority, a move the White House has strongly opposed. Better yet, breaking with his own comments from last week, Roberts also said he would like the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees to have regular briefings on the program, a position which is also at odds with White House policy.
“I think it’s the function and the oversight responsibility of the committee,” he said, adding, “That might sound strange coming from me.”
Indeed, it did sound strange coming from him. As a New York Times editorial asked rhetorically on Friday, “Is there any aspect of President Bush’s miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up?” The answer was obvious, which is why Saturday’s report about Roberts’ flip-flop was such a pleasant surprise.
As it turned out, it took less than a day for Roberts’ office to flip back.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program. But less than a day later, a top aide to Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., sought to clarify his position. […]
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s majority staff director, Bill Duhnke, said the Times story did not reflect “the tenor and status” of the negotiations between Congress and the White House, as well as within Congress.
Duhnke said Roberts is looking at changes within the federal law but not necessarily involving the approval of the court.
Ah yes, there’s the Roberts we’ve come to know. Show some backbone on Friday night; send out a staffer to say he didn’t mean it on Saturday morning.
The LA Times editorialized yesterday, “That the United States Senate has a body called the Intelligence Committee is an irony George Orwell would have truly appreciated. In a world without Doublespeak, the panel, chaired by GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, would be known by a more appropriate name — the Senate Coverup Committee.”
Sounds right to me.