It all seems just a little too neat…

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including sections 302 and 303 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (“Act”) (50 U.S.C. 1801, et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, and in order to provide for the authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes

as set forth in the Act, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.

Signed Bill Clinton, Executive Order #12949 signed 2/9/95
(H/T this Ldot thread)

This whole NSA/FISA non-scandal seems just a tad too neat, for me. It just seems too easy, almost indiscreetly easy.

A president about whom the press has complained is not “forthcoming” and “will not admit mistakes” etc, etc doesn’t just get out in front of the story – he acts as drum major. Hmm?

The president is a man who – for all his chucklemouthed mispronunciations – is careful about what he says. He doesn’t give much away. He is famous for playing things close to his vest…so…all of a sudden, he’s out there saying straight up that he ordered wiretaps (which by all accounts seems to be quite the right thing to have done). All of a sudden he is taking sole responsibility – he’s thrusting out his chin and saying, “yeah, I did it. Whach’all gonna do about it?”

Of course, he had to know full well what “they” were going to do about it. He had to know that the left would scream in glee and fake horror and immediately begin to talk “Impeachment.” Which of course, they did – reflexively, unthinkingly, giddily.

Seems too easy, doesn’t it? A Texas poker player suddenly shows his hand – and he does it confidently?

Only if he knows what everyone else is playing with.

The Democrats are too blind at this point, too intent on their feeding frenzy, too hobbled by hate, they have no more instincts and their perspective and their sensors are completely skewed. If they’re being set a trap, they can’t even see it.

Perhaps Bush WANTS to get them this riled up and set for impeachment, in order to coalesce the base…or…perhaps he finally has data that he can’t wait to show and he wants to show it in a certain way, and take down as many as he can.

If so, then some doggedly unserious Democrats, and all of the unserious press have taken the bait. Smarter pols are waiting to see how things play out in the public before commenting – we know who they are; they do nothing without first testing the air – and the smartest pols (there are so few on either side, it seems) will recognise that Gorelickian/Clintonian doublestandards have lost their charm and simply tell the NY Times to try straight reporting, for a change – but that may, sadly, be beyond their ken at this point.
Krauthammer makes his points

This is gonna be interesting to watch.

Tom Maguire has the ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE breakdown and round up on this. A total must-read.

AJ Strata writes:
Well, whatever the logic to the madness, the madness continues. The desperate need to impeach Bush has caused the left to overstep and get themselves into a terrible position. Not only are they trying to impeach Bush for finding terrorist contacts living in our neighborhoods, but they alerted all these terrorist contacts of what we were doing to watch them – and now they have gone underground.

I do not have the transcript, but Sen George Allen said last night on Hardball that there had been a change in communications strategies by the terrorists due to the news being leaked, and the intel coming in had been impacted. The NY Times better pray that no attacks come of this news. But a normal response by the terrorists would be to accelerate their timelines because the Feds probably mobilized immediately to bring them in. This is not some partisan game the left is playing – it is deadly serious. Politically they are toast. Now the question is are the legally in jeopardy as well.

Related: A year end round up of NY Times being over-the-top
Stephen Spruiell’s excellent recap of an entire year of “get Bush” stories
Department of Justice lays it out (H/T Hugh Hewitt)
Powerline on the case, extensively
Cass Sunstein, “known liberal” says Bush was legal
Taranto gets in a few licks

Seems to me if you’re consulting with congress a dozen times, if your predecessors claimed “inherent authority” and if your country has just been attacked, and you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, and anthrax is floating around…you do what you have to do to protect your country and your citizens. And please don’t tell me about “civil liberties…” Last time I checked it wasn’t conservatives shouting down liberal speakers at colleges, it wasn’t conservatives throwing pies in the faces of liberals, it wasn’t conservatives trying to get their mitts on a man’s medical records for no compelling reason. It is not conservative America but liberal and “enlightened” Europe that is prosecuting people for daring to criticize Islam.

I’m not really worried about conservatives and my civil liberties. Although I will concede that I am concerned about some precedents set under this presidency, and how they might be misused by future presidents.

But from everything I’ve read, seems to me this is one more “get Bush” story that, in the end, is gonna blow up on someone else.

Because, as I said…it’s all a little too easy. And Bush almost seems to be enjoying this fracas.

Section 1802 of the FISA law: “the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order… to acquire foreign intelligence information…”

Heh…and seems I am not the only one who has noticed that seriousness is an issue lately: “Like radio’s six-second delay to catch obscenities, maybe Washington needs a 12-hour delay on the public comments of senators to spare the public’s ears of offensive inanities.” – Daniel Henninger