A Brilliant Legal Mind

He's incisive, clear-thinking, and his immediate grasp of subtle implications is profound.

"This is not a backdoor approach," Gonzales said at the White House. "We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance." He acknowledged that the administration discussed introducing legislation explicitly permitting such domestic spying but decided against it because it "would be difficult, if not impossible" to pass.

Yes, that's right, they decided against introducing legislation for something that Congress had supposedly already authorized, because it might be impossible to pass.

Must be something about their party having control in both the House and the Senate (and a demonstrated willingness to break the rules to pass whatever the leadership wants), I guess. Lesser minds like mine might have thought that difficulty in passing legislation would suggest that Congress hadn't authorized that kind of surveillance, but that just goes to show why Mr. Gonzales is our Attorney General.

Update: There are some Senators who seem to have forgotten authorizing that surveillance:

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) joined three Democrats in a call for an investigation.

"At no time, to our knowledge, did any administration representative ask the Congress to consider amending existing law to permit electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists without a warrant," the five senators wrote.

At least Alberto remembers it.