And Arlen Spector is a wuss. As we've been saying, we really are in a constitutional crisis. Bush, the Decider, has decided not to faithfully execute the law, but to decide whether or not to obey it. That's not how Presidents act; that's how kings and tyrants act. So, what are the Republicans doing? Rewriting the law Bush broke so he won't break it any more. First, nobody goes to jail:

Another part of the Specter bill would grant blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized warrantless surveillance under [putative!!] presidential authority, a provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law.

So, some poor Mexican goes over the border and cuts your lawn for a pittance, saves his money, and opens a small business ten years down the line. Amnesty for him? The foundations of the Republic will crumble!

But let a Republican break the law, trash the Constitution, and violate the Fourth Amendment rights of millions, all under the putative authority of a President who would be king--No problemo! Amnesty for everybody!

Oh, but it gets worse. Much worse:

They're going to give Bush the option of obeying the law:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has proposed legislation that would give President Bush the option of seeking a warrant from a special court for an electronic surveillance program such as the one being conducted by the National Security Agency.

The option? FISA required Bush to get a warrant. Bush didn't think he could get the law changed, so He went ahead and disobeyed it. And now, the Republicans are going to "reward bad behavior" by rewriting the law the way Bush wanted it? WTF?

Sen. Arlen Specter's approach modifies his earlier position that the NSA eavesdropping program, which targets international telephone calls and e-mails in which one party is suspected of links to terrorists, must be subject to supervision by the secret court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

[Technical aside: How many times do I have to say that the phrase "international email" is nonsense? In a packet-switched network like the internet, your mail can be routed anywhere in the world before it gets to where you sent it. A loophole like this you can be sure these guys are exploiting. "International email" means all email, and you can be sure they're reading it, and what they haven't read, they've archived, so they can read it later.]

Back to the ugly spectable of Arlen Spector rolling over and whimpering because Dick "Dick" Cheney scratched his belly:

The new proposal specifies that it cannot "be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to gather foreign intelligence information or monitor the activities and communications of any person reasonably believed to be associated with a foreign enemy of the United States."

This is useless verbiage, since no law could ever be "construed" to limit any Constitutional authority a President--or, in Bush's case, a chief executive--has. That's why we have a court.

It isn't optional for Bush to obey the law. It isn't optional for Bush to obey court decisions. Bush says it is. That means He's a self-admitted tyrant. (And that's just what "The Decider" translates into, right?)

And did I mention that Arlen Spector is a wuss?

UPDATE I forgot to ask--Is any Democrat besides Russ Feingold doing anything about the slide of our country into tyranny?