Quote of the Day: "We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people about this vital tool in the war on terrorism."

Those are the words of our good friend, indefatigable White House press secretary Scott McClellan, as President Bush kicks off a stretch of appearances designed to tell us - or at least those who already agree with him - why he felt the need to break the law.

It's nice that they now want to educate us about this "vital tool". They didn't seem too interested in doing so prior to the New York Times' disclosure last month that this "vital tool" existed. There must have been some reason why they were so keen on keeping it all so hush-hush for at least a year after the Times first became aware of it.


At the administration appearances, Bush and aides plan to repeat arguments they have made before: This is a limited program that kicks in only when one of the parties is beyond U.S. borders and has some kind of link to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization.


And as has been outlined and highlighted over and over again, the existing FISA law covers such scenarios as long as the government requests a warrant from the court within 72 hours after surveillance begins. Is that so difficult to understand? For those who have sipped heartily from the Bush administration's kool-aid trough, apparently it is.