Plus, even if I take your point about the army, which I don't, the army's contribution is outside the US. The issue under discussion is attacks on the US. i.e. Another "9/11."

Now, since one of the tenets of the Left is that our retreat from Iraq, which is a de facto defeat, will not encourage the terrorists and will not follow us home, your argument is baseless.

So, putting aside improved border security, halting illegal immigration and aggressive electronic surveillance, which you have said you don't want...

Which means, therefore, that the only reason Bush and Cheney could want to bypass the FISA court is that they want to spy on people who they know have nothing to do with terrorism.

Huh? That is not an argument, but an assertion. The issue is several. First, the timing involved. Sometimes even minutes are important. Secondly, there is no reason to think a FISA judge will always be available, or that he will be reasonable. Thirdly, there is the issue of limits to the warrant on subject and time.

If you want to believe that the evileee Bush and Cheney get their kicks from reading transcripts of peoples love giggles, be my guest.

As to my comment that the Left is against aggressive surveillance, that is too broad. Let us just say almost all. Can you show me who the almost is??

The issue in question can described thusly:

When the call is from a suspected terrorist outside the US to a person within the US, or vice versa, surveillance begins immediately without a warrant.  And can continue for one year.

When the persons are within the US a warrant is required prior to surveillance.

The case ACLU v. NSA was dismissed on July 6, 2007 by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate that they had been targets of the program

John Schmidt, associate attorney general of the United States in the Clinton administration, superbly explains why the NSA intercept program is legal under all authorities and precedents:

"President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant."

Obviously, you would have to be able to travel freely in the fourth dimension in order to know the answer to that.

What did you do to prevent 9-11? It happened on your watch

First, your assumpation that I am a Repub is incorrect. But thanks for the question.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office

..The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided... (out of sequene)

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, (2001) to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

Link

So here we have a Clinton holdover pointing out that there were issues on the table dating from 1998 that had not solved, and the Bush admin kept the Clinton "strategy" while starting to become more aggressive... "five fold..."

It was the Clinton plan that failed. But even with the inadequate Clinton plan, we have this showing Rice giving everyone ample warning.

At the special meeting on July 5 (2001) were the FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we thought a spectacular al Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus, the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew that the CSG believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."

Why do the armed forces lack the ability to follow Al Qaeda into Pakistan?

As you know the issue is not ability or lack of. There are two issues.

1. Pakistan is fragile at best. If we went in to any large effect we could cause the overthrow of a shaky ally.

2. Pursuing OBL into the southern mountains of Afghanistan along the Pakistan border would cause us to lose most of the technological advantages we have, and place our trips in an exposed position.

I'm also saying that bush et al have illegally wiretapped Americans and lied repeatedly to congress while trashing our Constitution and freedoms, in addition bush has not increased border security because DHS still hasn't implemented the legal checks that were mandated by studies and congress.

Further you are mistaken about dems not sending illegal aliens home, that bill was defeated by wrongwing hate radio and the republicans.

Correct what?

Hewitt is obviously agreeing with he said, and hoping that IF it happens the results will be as stated.