WaPo stenographer Dan Eggen’s front page “story” on Bush’s illegal and unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program—Bush agrees to obey the law! Film at 11!—is the most appalling insult to what remains of the good name of American journalism since The Newspaper of Record (not!) suppressed its own scoop on the program to help Bush win the 2004 election.

And since Bush’s illegal and unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program is at the dark heart of the Republican project to replace Constitutional government with authoritarian rule—both in the fact of surveilling everyone including Aunt Molly and the theory of the “inherent authority” that purports to justify it—Eggen’s distortions and omissions have the effect of preventing the resolution of the Constitutional crisis provoked by Bush’s tyrannical seizure of power (Federalist 47).

The key facts to remember—all of which Stenographer Eggen distorts or omits—are these: Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in ACLU vs. NSA, ruled that Bush committed over thirty felonies in the course of his illegal and unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program. Under FISA, Bush should have gotten a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which very, very rarely turned requests. Instead, Bush, using sweeping claims for the power of the executive (that’s the unconstitutional part) ignored FISA and didn’t get warrants from the court (that’s the illegal part). This from the party that chanted “rule of law” in unison while impeaching Clinton over a blowjob. Beyond disgusting.

OK, now let’s look at the narrative that WaPo’s stenographer, Dan Eggen, constructed.

Secret Court to Govern Wiretapping Plan

Wrong. The Secret Court always governed the plan. That’s what Judge Taylor’s ruling—and the plain language of the law—both say. “To govern” implies the opposite—and rewrites history to omit the key fact: Bush’s lawbreaking.

But that’s only the beginning:  Read more