There was probably a point, mid-week last week, in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed to appear on Meet the Press to discuss the recent Iraqi elections. She probably regretted the decision sometime Friday, when she realized that the warrantless spying story would be Topic A. And when she did sit down with Tim Russert, it didn’t go well.
Russert pushed Rice to explain where Bush derived the authority to allow the NSA to spy on Americans with no warrant.
Rice: [T]he president has drawn on additional authorities that he has under the Constitution and under other statutes.
Russert: What are the other authorities?
Rice: Tim, again, I’m not a lawyer, but the president has constitutional authority and he has statutory authorities.
On and on it went. Rice would say Bush has the authority, Russert would ask why, Rice would say she’s not a lawyer. It was a painful 25 minutes.
Given that Rice and the vaunted White House political machine had 48 hours to prep for the appearance, I was anxious to see what kind of spin they’d collectively come up with. Apparently, even this gang had trouble. Here’s the best pitch Rice could come up with:
Rice: This is a program that is very thoroughly controlled and reviewed and it has been reviewed not just by the White House counsel but by the lawyers of the Justice Department and by the lawyers of the N.S.A., the National Security Agency, and by the inspector general of the National Security Agency, and it has to be reauthorized every 45 days.
In other words, the warrantless spying was permissible, because Harriet Miers, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Bush’s other lawyers told him he could get away with it. In addition to this being a pretty weak talking point, it also offers the Senate a compelling list of witnesses to call when the hearings begin.
Post Script: At one point in the interview, Rice defended the president, saying, “He took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Given the circumstances, does Rice really want to go there?