Okay, the height of hypocrisy is anyone in the Bush administration challenging anything as "highly misleading." Liars don't have the standing to call anyone else a liar. But, that doesn't prevent the Bush team from doing it anyway. Because everyone in the Bush administration knows that the media will dutifully report their lies:
The White House issued a statement that criticized as “highly misleading” a front-page article in The New York Times on Monday that described the legislation as having “broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.”
The White House took issue not with the article’s account of the new law’s provisions, but instead with its characterization of the measure as having “broadly” strengthened the government’s authority.
In a telephone briefing for reporters on Monday, officials said the administration had set out to resolve a “narrow” technical problem that had called into question whether intelligence officials needed to get a court warrant to intercept foreign-to-foreign communications that happened to pass through American telecommunication switches. But in fact the legislation as enacted not only provides that no warrant is needed in such a situation but also goes further, in giving the administration discretion to eavesdrop on foreign communications that might involve Americans.
The officials who participated in the briefing spoke on condition of anonymity, saying only that doing so would allow them to talk more freely.
One more time we see just how boldly the Bush administration is willing to lie. Some anonymous officials, probably including Stephen Hadley, had an a conference call to challenge the NY Times.
Eric Lichtblau, who wrote this article, basically discounts what the anonymous White House official said. When he wrote "But in fact....", Lichtblau was intimating that what he heard wasn't based on facts. In other words, the anonymous Bush sources lied and misled. You won't hear or read those actual words from any reporter -- and the Bushies know that. Instead, most of the White House press corps will dutifully report what they heard, even if they know it's a lie. That's what these reporters always do.
Think Progress has the video of Glenn Greenwald discounting the Bush administration's position:
Today on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald, who blogs at Salon.com, debunked the White House’s claim that the new FISA law requires “court approval” prior to spying on an “individual located in the United States.” In fact, as Greenwald explained, the law now allows the government to “listen to our conversations, read our e-mails, with no connection to terrorism, with no proof that anyone has ever done anything wrong” — without judicial oversight.
I'd trust Glenn Greenwald over any Bush administration official -- anonymous or not -- any day on any issue, but especially on this.
