NSA bites bullet for bush?

the former NSA head and current 2nd in command for national intel held a briefing today. he made a nice speech, and it looked surprisingly like some of the questions got asked by nonjournalists.

he insisted that domestic spying was limited to international communications that had at least one party involved with al qaeda or an affiliate.

but he sidestepped the key question posed by bruce fein the other day:

if they had the evidence, why didn't they just go to the FISA court and get a rubber stamp?

that would've prevented the whole controversy and subsequent loss of public confidence.

until now da prez had to take the heat. the white house may've ordered the briefing to divert attention into criticism of the NSA.

it's a very subtle way of passing the buck.

hayden may've made a strategic error by going along with it.