When did Congress declare war? Oh right, they didn’t.

If you disagree with the Powerline dudes then make your case on the merits (Mona did this furtively with the reference to the Youngstown case). Also, it would be useful to your argument on the legal merits to enumerate your legal credentials – if, in fact, you wish to pick a fight with the lawyers that are Powerline.

I will say again: I am not a lawyer and not qualified to judge the legal(istic) merits of the arguments for and against the President’s authorized NSA Program, but even the most rudimentary reading of the legal opionons on the NSA situation can only lead to the conclusion that there is widespread disagreement on the legality of the Program.

Can we agree on that at least?

Oh, and for the record, spying on terrorists, regardless of where they reside, seems like a really, really good idea.

To “whore” is to misuse one’s talents on behalf of another for financial remuneration (for example, if our fine host were to write a post extolling the wisdom of Howard Dean in exchange for a hefty sum of money from the D.N.C.).

What the folks at Powerline do would more accurately be describes as “slutting” for Bush. They are doing it because they like and support him, not because he’s paying them to.

Gee, ya think? They’ve always made no bones about where they stand politically – disagree with them or not, to accuse them of something so transparently obvious seems quite beside the point.

The only question I’m interested in amidst all of this legal parsing of language and intent is what does the actual public think about all of this? Here’s a new E.J. Dionne column from the WAPO that examines why the Dems are always failing at making these faux controversies stick:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301261.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

I’ve said it way too many times, but again, until the Dems start acting seriously about our national security and defense, they’ll be wandering in the political wilderness for the forseeable furture, no matter what candidates they offer up for sacrifice.

That’s not what Kerr says. Kerr has written he believes Bush is likely violating the law (FISA, but not, in Kerr’s view, the 4th Am), and that his best guess is that the SCOTUS would so hold by 8-1.

As for Powerline, well, I try to always be civil and polite, but in my very strong opinion they are not behaving like objective legal analysts; they are whoring for Bush. I could explain why I think that, and have done so elsewhere in tedious detail, but it reduces to their making claims about the law that sound all legalese-ish and compelling to laypeople, but which other lawyers recognize as crap.

A fer instance: Hinderaker’s twice dismisisng Justice Jackson’s concurrence in the Youngstown steel case as “sloppy thinking.” That is so preposterous, and even Gonzalez parses the Adminstration’s action in terms of that Opinion, as does the Congressional Research Service. But Hinderaker wants it to not be in play because it is pretty much fatal to Bush’s claims.