I swore - well, took an oath, anyway, because swearing is, you know, that Drill Sergeant kind of thing - that I wasn't going to write much about Mr Bush's illegal spying on Progressive and Liberal Americans (especially politicians and journalists) pretending it was all about catching Osama bin Laden instructing the Cleveland Euclid Avenue Boyz where to place the plastic explosives so as to blow up the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

But I did get a really good giggle from Jeff Sessions, the half-wit son of an apparent brother/sister mating in Alabama. Seems he felt his job as a loyal Fascist was to feed softballs to Inquisitor General Gonzalez about George Washington trying to figure out how to intercept British Army written communications during the Revolution, and Mr Lincoln not minding Union Generals tapping into telegraph lines in case they heard some goodies passing between Confederate generals. Pointy headed Sessions also mentioned Presidents Wilson and FDR, in a typically inept attempt to level the timeline and equate Mr Bush with these greats of American history. I suspect all of these great patriots are spinning in their graves today, deeply offended at being mentioned in the same metaphor with a coke addict who has failed at every legitimate enterprise he's attempted in his life.

But I'm sure the Inquisitor General appreciated the reach around.

Since they teach a slightly different version of history down in Alabama, I thought I'd mention that Washington was a general, fighting a war and not a President when he tried to intercept enemy communications - a little tactical advantage sought since before Salamis. And during the Southern Rebellion, telegraph lines existed along railway lines. They functioned a bit like party line telephones and radios: anyone on the line heard everything sent.

The gathering of intelligence is a legitimate enterprise during wartime. It is an accepted practice. Note carefully that what Messers Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt were in fact trying to accomplish was counter-intelligence, trying to determine the enemy's intents and plans. All very noteworthy.

And so it is with the supposed purpose of the NSA spying. We're trying to find out what all those guys who "hate our freedoms" are planning. But, just as the British, Confederates, Germans, Italians, and Japanese were aware, aQ is quite aware of our technological skills. They know of the super-Crays at NSA and the code breaking skills our cryptologists have. Any information of operational or tactical importance is not being sent by means the NSA can tap.

They would use either the messenger, hand to hand, delivery system or at most, one time pads. They might even have the ability to send "burst" single side band messages. They've probably established autonomous cells around the world, and give no more than political and strategic guidance, at best. It's like a franchise. But believe me, they are NOT using cell phones or sat phones. They learned 10 years ago that we were following those communications.

The point here is that all of these REAL Presidents operated prior to the FISA law. They had a far more open environment in which to cast their nets. The purpose of FISA is to prevent an administration from doing what Bu$hCo undoubtedly is doing: spying on dissenting Americans.

The Inquisitor General's response to Joe Biden, by the way, was worthy of the Senator from MBNA's intelligence quotient.

Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer.

And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true -- you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

The guy who's got two bad kidneys and allegedly hides in caves, dragging his dialysis machine along behind him, who hasn't been caught by the largest, most powerful, most technologically advanced military and intelligence machine the world has seen, is gonna forget we can tap phones if only we don't talk about it in newspapers and on TV.

^*(^&)*&&%^&% - now I went and broke an oath.