The King Is Nekkid

While I rarely agree with him, I've always liked George Will because he is a principled conservative. When so many others on the right just ape the party line and fall in to defend Dubya and his cronies, Will does call him out when appropriate. So, in one sense, it's not surprising that Will is chastising Dubya for his domestic spying program. Will asks the question that most have but the administration has yet to answer - if FISA was not properly set up to handle warrants in these kinds of situations, why didn't they go to Congress and get the statute changed? After all, after 9/11, Congress could scarcely say no to Dubya (witness the PATRIOT ACT). Was it just arrogance? Will speculates:

Charles de Gaulle, a profound conservative, said of another such, Otto von Bismarck -- de Gaulle was thinking of Bismarck not pressing his advantage in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War -- that genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. In peace and in war, but especially in the latter, presidents have pressed their institutional advantages to expand their powers to act without Congress. This president might look for occasions to stop pressing.

Wow, a conservative lashes out at Dubya and cites the French as a positive example - that's a sign of the apocalypse, right?