President Bush doesn't like democracy so much today. Bush took questions today on whether the U.S. would deal with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. He same some stuff about how good it is for people to say "hey, vote for me!" ... (Let's review: it was Washington that pushed the Palestinian Authority to hold elections now, and to allow Hamas to participate. It was also Washington that called off the Israeli hawks to allow Hamas to campaign in East Jerusalem. Both supportable decisions, but decisions the U.S. must now live with, like it or not.) Here's an interesting quote from Dubya today:
"Well, aren't we surprised at the outcome?" or this, that or the other. If there is corruption, I'm not surprised that people say, "Let's get rid of corruption." If government hadn't been responsive, I'm not the least bit surprised if people say, "I want government to be responsive."
Glad you feel that way, Mr. President ...
On the warrantless wiretaps, Bush essentially said "they're legal because I say they're legal" -- and he referred to FISA, not as a law he is duty bound to follow, but as a "tool..." interesting take... Bush also pinned down the origin of the spying program (call it the "prosecute the other guy" gambit):
Right after September the 11th, I said to the people, "What can we do? Can we do more?" -- the people being the operators, a guy like Mike Hayden -- "Can we do more to protect the people? There's going to be a lot of investigation and a lot of discussion about connecting dots. And we have a responsibility to protect the people, so let's make sure we connect the dots."
BUSH: And so he came forward with this program. It wasn't designed in the White House. It was designed where you expect it to be designed, in the NSA.
And he said he ain't showing no stinking Abramoff pictures, because they'd be used in the wrong way by his political foes.
Best question of the day:
QUESTION: Your explanation on the monitoring program seems to say that when the nation is at war, the president, by definition, can order measures that might not be acceptable or even perhaps legal in peacetime. And this seems to sound like something President Nixon once said, which was, "When the president does it, then that means that it's not illegal in areas involving national security."
So how do the two differ?
See any number of RNC talking points for Bush's answer. Not much different...
More on the presser from Newsday
Transcript of the presser from WaPo
BTW Blogger is down (no surprise there!) so I'm emailing it in, which means no edits. (sigh).
