Perhaps he was referring to telephone wires, and this new thing I think is wireless. Perhaps there are two kinds of taps. Wired and Wireless. The wireless is open to the public. Which is a bit weird. Yet I think that is the case.

It’s frustrating that the same people who would be frothing at the mouth if a Democratic president lied so directly are no doubt making excuses for Bush.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened. Clinton lied under oath, committed perjury while in office, so they impeached him. There were mitigating circumstances, though: first, it was in a civil case that concerned his sex life, and otherwise had zero effect on the nation or the world; second, the case was not a legitimate one, but rather was fabricated and fully paid for by voracious Clinton-hating conservatives bent on taking him down; and third, his perjury was forced, in that they knew he had committed adultery and had evidence on him, but kept that knowledge secret and instead used the legal system to force Clinton to appear in public and on camera where they forced him to admit to committing adultery. They wanted him to perjur himself, they hoped that he would perjur himself. They intentionally, purposefully created the environment with the intent of making the president commit a crime–in short, entrapment.

On the other hand, what Bush did had no mitigating circumstances. First, what he did had a direct effect on the civili liberties of thousands of Americans, and an indirect though greatly significant effect on all Americans; second, there was no justification, as he had the absolute legal means of doing the eavesdropping he claimed to be doing–the only purpose of foregoing warrants was if he knew in advance that the eavesdropping would be patently illegal and not allowed; and third, he did it completely of his own accord. And while he did not commit the additional crime of perjury (on top of his crime of violating the Fourth Amendment and various other laws), he did directly lie to the people about what he was doing.

But this is typical; there have been more than a dozen instances in the Bush presidency where he has committed wrongdoings which, had Clinton done them, then Republicans would have gone completely and utterly apeshit and demanded investigations and impeachment.

Par for the course. Except this time Bush clearly violated the law, had admitted to doing this act, and there is, for the first time, a clear path to nailing him for it. He can’t blame this one on a legal aide. Though he will, of course, try yet once again to use 9/11 to get out of it.