Specter Believes Bush Broke the Law

Not good news for Mr. Bush, when the chairman in charge of looking into your domestic spying/lying program goes on Meet the Press before the hearings and is less than convinced of your innocence, based on your administration's statements:

From AP:

Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday he believes that President Bush violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secret court to consider and approve such monitoring. The Pennsylvania Republican branded Gonzales' explanations to date as "strained and unrealistic."

And when Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the very same Judiciary Committee suggests that the administration will be less than forthcoming with information and predicts subpoenas will need to be sought to gain cooperation, you can almost hear Specter sigh:

Specter said he would have his committee consider such a step if the attorney general does not go beyond his prior statements and prepared testimony that the spying is legal, necessary and narrowly defined to fight terrorists.

Specter also took a swipe at Attorney General Gonzales' reasoning that "speed and agility" required bypassing FISA, calling that contention "very strained and unrealistic," pointing out that Bush could have ... you know ... gone to Congress, the legislative body, to ask for a change in the legislation.

These are hopeful signs, of course, that the Judiciary Committee sincerely means to get to the bottom of what's going on with the NSA program and its illegality. On the other hand, this is Specter, the man who vowed he wouldn't support a Supreme Court nominee who would undercut Roe v. Wade ... until he was faced with a judge who'd written extensively about strategies to overturn it.