Bush: More of the Er-Uh-Um-Duh-Same-o

George W. Bush is back on defense on the war -- accusing critics of giving "aid to the enemy," and giving staged speeches replete with lie upon lie and pregnant with awkward, stumbling pauses or outright stupidity whenever confronted with an unanticipated question. So what else is new?

Just this: ever more facts indicating we have criminals sitting in the White House. The Bush administration appears to have violated the National Security Act by limiting its briefings about a warrantless domestic eavesdropping program to congressional leaders, according to a memo from Congress's research arm that was released recently.

"Further, The Bush Administration rejected a Congressional initiative in 2002 that would have lowered the legal threshold for conducting surveillance of non-US persons under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from 'probable cause' that the target is a terrorist or agent of a foreign power to 'reasonable suspicion.'

Administration officials said at the time that the legislative proposal was unnecessary and possibly unconstitutional."

Steven Aftergood points out that

"in a speech this week on the NSA domestic surveillance program, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Gen. Michael V. Hayden indicated that the executive branch had unilaterally adopted a similar 'reasonable suspicion' standard.

Instead of FISA's more stringent 'probable cause" requirement, the presidentially-directed NSA surveillance operation applied to international calls that "we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates,' Gen. Hayden said on January 23.

The unexplained contradiction between the Administration's public rejection of the 'reasonable suspicion' standard for FISA, and its secret adoption of that same standard was noted yesterday by attorney and blogger Glenn Greenwald, who makes the case that the Administration's new FISA defense is factually false.

The 2002 legislative proposed, S. 2659 introduced by Rep. Michael DeWine (R-OH), "raises both significant legal and practical issues [and] the Administration at this time is not prepared to support it," said James A. Baker of the Justice Department.

Among other concerns, Mr. Baker said, "If we err in our analysis and courts were ultimately to find a 'reasonable suspicion' standard unconstitutional, we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions."

The transcript and other prepared statements from that Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Proposals to Amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" are available here.

According to William Rivers Pitt, knowing full well that they have broken the law, "Bush and the boys have taken to the road this week to defend the indefensible. To wit: spying on American citizens without a warrant is fine and dandy, because the President can do whatever he wants, because laws are meaningless in the main, because Osama may be under your bed sharpening his cutlass. The road trip started in Kansas and will wend its way hither and yon, spreading bad information and flat-out lies at every whistle-stop."

Robert Scheer of Truthdig.com adds: "Bottom line is these guys in the Bush administration are obsessed voyeurs, poking their noses into everyone's business, whether the excuse is squelching pornography or preventing terrorism. They simply do not believe civil liberties and privacy are important. It is an executive branch power trip, and completely anti-democratic."

Meanwhile, as Bush continues to claim only he and his cabal can protect us, "the Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response."

There's more: the United States was accused of "gangster tactics" yesterday, and European governments were accused of turning a blind eye to the "outsourcing of torture," as a human rights watchdog concluded that the CIA conducted illegal anti-terror activities in Europe.

Amazingly, despite all of this, despite the Abramoff scandal growing ever more tentacles, the ongoing CIA leak investigation, reports of illegal spying on peace groups, Google's courageous refusal to turn over private search records of its customers, and new administration scandals emerging daily--despite all of this, the Democrats can't seem to come up with a compelling message that resonates with Americans.

How about this for starters: The Bush White House has no credibility and a record of failure.

They have amassed an elephant-sized record of both--the Iraq War (lying us into it, failing to get us out of it), Katrina (too little, too late action on early warnings), the failure of our education system, the widening of the gap between the haves and have-nots, the healthcare crisis, job losses, corporate corruption, raiding the Social Security "lockbox", unprotected borders, a broken army, shredding the constitution and individual rights -- the list goes on and on.

Rove has stated his plans to continue to claim that only Republicans are tough enough to fight the war on terror, characterizing the Democrats as too "soft."

The Democrats need only to reframe the issue: It's not a matter of strength. It's a matter of smarts. It's not a matter of who's tougher on security. It's a matter of who's smarter on security.

The Republicans have proved by their litany of failures that they do not have the smarts to do the job. They know how to act tough, to bully other countries, to bully congress and their own citizens -- but what have they accomplished? They have not even found Osama bin Laden!

Rather, they have aided the recruitment of terrorists all over the world by arrogantly barging their way into other nations' business in their insatiable quest for oil, money and power. So far, they have weakened our country, made it more dependent than ever on ever more expensive oil, made America more vulnerable to the growing and mostly ignored real threats of Iran and Korea, and changed our image in the world from an admirable country to an abhorant one.

Real smart, huh?