I'm a little puzzled (my usual state) about the new allegations that George W. Bush authorized illegal wiretaps of folks living in this country. For one thing, though all the Liberal sites tell me it was a prima facie violation of the law, there are Conservative sites (this one, for example) explaining how it isn't illegal. For another, if I read the law correctly in my layman's way, it would have been very easy to secure clear authorization for these wiretaps but the Bush administration didn't go that route. That seems to be leading some to the conclusion, perhaps erroneous, that the outrage may lie not in what was done but in who it was done to, and for what reason. The American public will probably forgive some bending of the law to go after people who could reasonably be thought to have links to known terrorists. They won't be as forgiving if it's spying on citizens whose "crime" was to oppose George Bush.
But what really confuses me is that I think I'm on the same side of this issue as Bob Barr, a man who I think twisted the law into pretzels to use it against Bill Clinton. He has somehow turned into a champion of Civil Liberties, which is a little like O.J. Simpson opening a marriage counselling service with Robert Blake. Still, there's this short debate he had on CNN yesterday with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Here's a video link and here's a link to a transcript. It's an odd discussion since Rohrabacher is a pretty solid "those of my party can do no wrong" guy. Having Barr debate him is like having Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol argue with himself before he met those ghosts…but ol' Bob pretty handily wins the argument. In this country, we don't allow our Chief Exec to decide which laws he'll obey and which ones he won't. I think every Republican who wants to defend Bush on this one should be forced to utter the sentence, "I would not hesitate to see President Hillary Clinton have the same authority."