That's just sloppy media work anyway you look at it.  The bigger question is whether or not McConnell knew he was being untruthful when he testified.  I would hope that he had a better handle on the issues he was testifying on and just was not "confused" as he will probably claim later.

At the very least, he owes the Congress an explanation.

UGH "any way" not "anyway"

Psst.  A Bush nominee fed us a line of BS.  Shhhhhhh!

as if there was any problem getting warrants before this law.  you could go ahead and listen in and then afterward get the warrant from the court.   they were all but automatic.   but it's easier to keep portraying the government as hamstrung by all those silly rules. 

Why is this here?

One of Bush's toadies toed the anti-Constitutional line, carrying water for Bush's agenda without regard for the facts, and the media followed along, nodding its collective head without lifting a finger to do any journalism. Stenography is the order of the day.

Move along. Nothing to see here!

It's not so much the process of getting warrants that the current administration objects to, they've never encountered any significant difficulties in getting them.  What their real problem is, is that going through the legal process creates a document of who they are surveilling and the reasons they put forward for conducting the surveillance.  The Bush Administration hates paper trails, even classified ones.

This item is very well written, and comprehensive; and with all the links provided, it makes for the basis of a complete understanding of the matter.

Thanks MMFA and S.S.M.

Of course, it also highlights how clever and manipulative and self-serving are the many members of the Bush administration, in this case DNI McConnell. He claims a credit for something he did not do; not him or anyone else in the Bush administration.

Typical of them.

But you know what else that indicates to us, what else it is we already know about the many members of the Bush administration?

This is nearly the same thing as what we've seen them do so many times before, which is to accept no responsibility or blame (discredit!) for things they have done (or failed to do)...

...it's simply a weasel-like flipside, to claim credit were none is due, to the other side of evading responsibility and blame, when it is truly due.

And that's where the recently revised FISA comes into consideration.

Were the Congress to hold out against the pressures being brought by the Bush administration (DNI McConnell most particularly), to revise and expand the FISA, then they would have been giving the weasels of the Bush administration an excuse to use (and they love to use excuses) in the event that any attack had occured against the American People.

In such a tragic circumastance, they the weasels of the Bush administration, would have shouted with a phony righteous indignation, that had they been given the expanded FISA by Congress, they would have stopped or otherwise detected in a timely manner, the attack...

You know this as well as I do, that this is how those weasels work.

Well, seeing as they hold all the cards in this matter (they administer the various Intellegence agencies, and the various Law Enforcement agencies involved), and seeing as they hold these cards closely (which is how they're to be held in these matters; without disclosure or transparency), the Congress knew what barrel they were over...

...and they granted the revised and expanded FISA...

...and in so doing, they at least removed an excuse, that those weasels without a doubt would have used, were any dreaded thing to happen, in this matter.

It's not so easy to understand and appreciate, I know, but it is the best I can do to explain why it was necessary, to give the Bush administration and DNI McConnell the FISA they requested.

They hold nearly all the cards in this matter, we were over a barrel, but we removed from them the excuse that they would have loved to make, that the provisions of the FISA had handicapped their efforts, and that the Congress was to blame for that.

We're a little bit at their mercy, and will continue to be so, until we take back the administration of our Federal Government, from the weasels of the Bush administration.