Caught With Hand In Cookie Jar

That's what has happened to Dubya...and he's none too pleased about it.

Of course, coming from an administration that has wilfully abrogated its citizens' rights to reasonable privacy with broad wiretapping programs and other forms of dubious surveillance, this should come as no surprise.

Let's take a closer look at Georgie's outrage, shall we?

“For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America,” Mr. Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program “makes it harder to win this war on terror.”

Oh dear, he's all upset - look he's jabbing his finger. I hope he doesn't injure himself on the podium, or the next thing we know, we'll have a war on podiums.

Using broad government subpoenas, the program allows U.S. counterterrorism analysts to obtain financial information from a vast database maintained by a company based in Belgium. It routes about 11 million financial transactions daily among 7,800 banks and other financial institutions in 200 countries.

I see - more or less, this boils down this - if I have financial dealings that cross borders, no matter how above board they are, the United States not only has access to that data, but apparently believes it has the right to hold it against me. This is without any evidence that I am engaging in some kind of malfeasance. Like the telephone tapping business, this is a giant fishing expedition, one that violates not only the rights of US citizens, but also of non-US citizens around the world.

Meanwhile, the administration said it has informed major allies that the secret program has adequate privacy safeguards and will continue.

Since it's not secret any more, why don't you tell us what some of those safeguards are? As far as I am concerned, the fact of the program's existence is enough to suggest strongly that those "safeguards" are neither adequate nor real.

Of course, all of this bluster is followed by crap like this:

The note to readers was published the same day Rep. Peter King urged the Bush administration to prosecute the paper.

“We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous,” the New York Republican told The Associated Press.

First, I will point out that this so-called "War on Terror" has no declaration of war, no coherent enemy, and no real validity. At best, it has been a pretext for invading two sovereign nations and deposing their governments; optimistically, it is a hunt for an elusive criminal - Osama bin Laden (who bin Forgotten).

Fundamentally, George Bush got caught with his hands in the cookie jar of civil rights, and is now crying the blues because the jar got slammed shut on him.