The Bush White House is obviously anxious, almost desperate, to reshape the debate over the war in Iraq, but the burgeoning scandal over the administration’s spying on Americans, on American soil, without a warrant, is only becoming more serious for the president as members of his own party break ranks over the issue.
On Friday, it was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) reacting negatively to the news and vowing to hold hearings after lawmakers reconvene in the new year. Yesterday, Senate Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expressed some concerns of his own (.pdf).
“If he has the authority to go around the FISA court, which is a court to accommodate the law of the war of terror, the FISA Act was–created a court set up by the chief justice of the United States to allow a rapid response to requests for surveillance activity in the war on terror. I don’t know of any legal basis to go around that. There may be some, but I’m not aware of it. And here’s the concern I have. We can’t become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process, because that’s what a democracy is all about: a process. […]
What executive order or constitutional provision would give the authority of the president to avoid the warrant requirement? There may be some. I just don’t know of it. But if there is not any, that’s a problem.
John McCain was more reserved about his concerns yesterday on ABC, but nevertheless said he would welcome congressional hearings on Bush’s policy, describing the questions that have been as “legitimate.”
If we expand the field to include former lawmakers, former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), hardly a liberal, was nearly apoplectic on CNN describing his concerns, literally accusing the president of criminal activity.
“Well, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution is the Constitution, and I took an oath to abide by it. My good friend, my former colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, did and the president did. And I don’t really care very much whether or not it can be justified based on some hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that, if you have any government official who deliberately orders that federal law be violated despite the best of motives, that certainly ought to be of concern to us.”
If Barr doesn’t like what conservative House Republicans are saying in defense of the president, he really won’t like what conservatives are saying on Fox News and right-wing blogs.
Bill Kristol, for example, praised Bush for circumventing the law and said on Fox News that Clinton should have done the same thing.
“I wish Bill Clinton had done this. I wish we had tapped the phones of people that Mohammed Atta, that Mohammed Atta here into the United States, if we discovered phone calls from Afghanistan to him. That’s why 9/11 happened. That’s what connecting the dots is.”
Powerline, meanwhile, wants “criminal proceedings against those responsible” for alerting the New York Times to Bush’s decision to sidestep the law.
To reiterate a point Atrios raised last week, this is “the test” for conservatives. Either you’re troubled by the White House sanctioning the NSA to spy on Americans, without an easily-obtained warrant, or you’re not.