The Gang That Couldn't Spy Straight

Over at TPM today, Steve Benen weighs in with an observation on the Nacchio-NSA accusations:

I suppose some of the president's allies might be tempted to spin this as encouraging. If the administration was pressuring telecoms as far back as Feb. 2001, the president and his team were taking the terrorist threat seriously long before 9/11.

That might be more persuasive if, six months after the NSA allegedly leaned on Qwest, the president didn't blow off a certain Presidential Daily Briefing, telling his CIA briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Indeed. The Baron would only add that if the administration had been conducting this kind of intensive data-mining for six months prior to 9/11 and they still missed the Qaida plot (d'ohhh!), well, it would certainly help to explain why certain unitary executives wouldn't want to testify under oath in front of a certain 9/11 investigative body, now, doesn't it?

And if I were a certain White House political operative looking to implement a certain, uhhh, electronic vote-massaging scheme, I couldn't think of a better way to kick-start the program, could you?

Just remember: It is always the same with these people. All politics, all the time. If they were spying as alleged on Americans' phone conversations in spring 2001, you can bet they weren't looking for foreign terror suspects.

(Thanks to Tristero for the Eschaton link.)

---Vitelius