The Red Defense

This is really something. Yesterday Alberto Gonzales testified (is it considered 'testimony' if they refused to swear him in?) about the secret spying. As a long time Bush crony who's professional future is dependent on the continued 'brown nosing' of W, defend it he did. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the hearings or even catch any more than a few clips of it. What I have seen was Gonzales SAYING everything was legal and our freedoms are in tact. The word of a Republican is good enough for some, but not most.

One particular defense he gave though struck me as simplistic, even for the GOP. Senator Joe Biden was trying to determine how the fact that the program was exposed in the press hurt National Security. You will remember the whining out of the White House when the revelations broke, that it damaged our National Security. But how? The Attorney General enlightened us to their logic.

BIDEN: Thank you very much. General, how has this revelation damaged the program?I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.
GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer. And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true - you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance. But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they
sometimes forget.