Either that, or he’s a principle-free hack who cares nothing about his country and everything about his party staying in power.

We know this because of this story, which opens with:

WASHINGTON — CIA Director Porter Goss said Thursday that the disclosure of President Bush’s eavesdropping-without-warrants program and other once-secret projects had undermined U.S. intelligence-gathering abilities. “The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said a federal grand jury should be empaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.”

Um, Porter? What makes you think AQ doesn’t suspect we’re listening in? Isn’t it pretty much a given than communications would be intercepted in wartime? Don’t they, as a matter of course, have to assume that we might be listening, especially given the very-prosecution-friendly character of the FISA courts illegally circumvented by this Administration? How, exactly, has disclosure of this program damaged our intelligence gathering capability? We see clearly how it’s damaging to your boss, to whom you are indebted politically, and to others involved in the clearly felonious affair, of course. Maybe that’s what you meant to say.

Alas, he continues:

Goss complained that leaks to the news media about the surveillance program and activities such as reported CIA secret prisons abroad had damaged his own agency’s work.

Emphasis ours. Sweet God in Heaven, this hack is whining about the fact that people now know the CIA maintains a gulag system.

But he’s still not done.

“I also believe that there has been an erosion of the culture of secrecy and we’re trying to reinstall that,” Goss said.

An erosion? This Administration is the most secrecy-addicted one in recent memory. They want everything locked up, and everybody in the dark, so that no one can tell what laws they’re breaking. They view oversight as a problem, and behave accordingly; that’s the whole point behind the domestic spying issue — there exists a court to oversee these sorts of surveillance operations, but Bush & Co. decided not to bother with it. The culture of secrecy is the problem, Porter. And you are part of that problem.

(Thanks to Triple-F for the tip!)

And in re: more serious matters than a blowjob, too.

In January, he testified before Congress and under oath that “it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.” By that point, however, he had already approved the warrantless domestic spying plan in direct violation of US law. Q.E.D.

Russ Feingold’s letter prompted the normally lapdog Post to cover this. Let’s see if it goes anywhere. We do, however, wonder just how far these people will have to go before the media actually wakes up and realizes the degree of contempt the Administration has for the rule of law, checks and balances, and the principle on which this country was founded.

Via ThinkProgress.

From NYT via Captain Telescope:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush’s domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.

As RN put it, “it’s legal because we say so, and for reasons we can’t tell you.” Er, no.

Quiet Agent, an online job search firm, gives us this gem.

Remember how Bush said all that about reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the SOTU?

Yeah, he didn’t mean it:

Administration backs off Bush’s vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON – One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally.

Fitz thinks they’re holding back on email evidence in re: the Plame affair. Does this remind anybody else of certain gaps in certain tapes?

No, really.

In a talk at Duke Law School, Ben Ginsberg, who was Chief Counsel for both Bush campaigns, said:

Just like, really, with the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have some fundamental philosophical difficulties with the whole notion of Equal Protection.

There’s video. Via MeFi.

Ever notice that the pro-life folks also tend to go apo-goddamn-plectic when we talk about easy access to contraception? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Just go read this.

Cindy Sheehan was arrested at the Capitol yesterday despite having an invitation to the SOTU because her t-shirt had the number of Americans killed in Iraq on it.

What country is this?