WASHINGTON- Beltway insiders are trying to cover up yet another misunderstanding by President George W. Bush. In a series of recent high-profile speeches, the President has defended his orders to tap phones in the war against terror. Initially, it appears, Mr. Bush OK'ed the wire surveillance immediately after the 9/11 attacks because he thought they were tapping kegs. Now, according to a speech Sunday, “It wasn't a mistake.”
Backpedalling, the administration has turned up the rhetoric by claiming whoever leaked the program's existence to the media was “like the kid who ratted out where the kickass open house party was going to be on Friday nights in high school.” President Bush's speechwriters said it more vituperatively, calling the action of outing the quasi-legal wiretaps as “helping the enemy.”
When pressed by members of the media after the New York Times broke the story on Friday, President Bush admitted to authorizing the taps. Wiretaps are not, in themselves, illegal. However, protections have been built into the law to prevent abuse by the government. Typically a court must review a petition to allow intelligence officers to begin surveillance on American soil. These taps completely circumvented the courts.
This has drawn ire and fire from both sides of the aisle in Congress. Republican Arlen Spector and Democrat Edward Kennedy both decried the program as fundamentally flawed and troublesome. Mr. Bush insisted that the program would continue because it was a vital part of fighting the ongoing war on terror. Other White House officials apparently agree.
White House Deputy Assistant Underspokesman John Abbott was caught on audio tape snickering about the flouting of law and due process.
“What the f*&% are these people complaining about?” Abbott was overheard saying. “The way the federal courts are stacked now, who on the f*&%ing federal bench is gonna say no to the f*&%ing president? When the f*&%ing press asks us, we can say, “They [the federal courts] are all backlogged with cases. We promised the American people to reduce the amount of government red tape. Is this not keeping the promise, the f*&%ing mandate you wanted?'”
Abbott mumbled something else unintelligible about shoving Pez dispensers into various orafices of The New York Times staff. He is the same White House staff member who was implicated in a bizarre tale of luring small boys from school buses in the Georgetown neighborhood in Washington with Pez candy. No charges were ever filed, but the small boys allegedly involved all mysteriously disappeared within six months of the stories surfacing.
A well-known Democratic policy adviser asked to speak with anonymity about the initial misunderstanding by Bush.
“I'm certainly not defending the president, lord knows. But let's look at the situation from his perspective. He's totally ill-equipped to deal with foreign policy. A year before the attacks in New York and Washington, he'd only ever left the country to go on benders to Mexico. A lot of stress for him and his people. I don't think he fell off the wagon, per se. But it wouldn't surprise me if he thought when advisers encouraged him to OK tapping, ‘heck, the folks here sure could use a little party. Tap away!'”
Flip to BBC.co.uk
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