Disconsolate Democrats Robbed of Another Political Weapon?

Congressional Probe of NSA Spying Is in Doubt
White House Sways Some GOP Lawmakers

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Page A03

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week's closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. "It's been a full-court press," said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background -- as did several others for this story -- because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees' work.

Lawmakers cite senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) to illustrate the administration's success in cooling congressional zeal for an investigation. On Dec. 20, she was among two Republicans and two Democrats who signed a letter expressing "our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States Government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority." The letter urged the Senate's intelligence and judiciary committees to "jointly undertake an inquiry into the facts and law surrounding these allegations."

In an interview yesterday, Snowe said, "I'm not sure it's going to be essential or necessary" to conduct an inquiry "if we can address the legislative standpoint" that would provide oversight of the surveillance program. "We're learning a lot and we're going to learn more," she said.

She cited last week's briefings before the full House and Senate intelligence committees by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former NSA director Michael V. Hayden.

"The administration has obviously gotten the message that they need to be more forthcoming," Snowe said.

Good for Olympia Snowe! Seems she is not beyond reason, unlike her shrill Democrat colleagues. The real investigation Congress needs to pursue is who leaked the story to the New York Lies and whether or not the newspaper compromised national security.

This has never been much of a story except among the extreme radical Liberals in the Democrat Party and a few equally wrong hard-headed, unrelenting, Conservatives like George Will and Pat Buchanan.

What we are seeing is those less courageous Republican members of Congress and some Democrats members who are not quite so far gone, awakening to the mood of the public. The people of America understand and accept the minor, temporary, sacrifice of their rights as a necessity in the war against terrorists. In this the people of this nation are far ahead of the Liberal Democrats in Congress and around the nation.

Full Story: Lessening Momentum for NSA Monitoring Probe

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