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Editorial: Bush promise rings hollow

Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.

One day after President Bush vowed to "launch a new era of cooperation" with a Democratic-controlled Congress, his administration vigorously renewed its defense of a domestic wiretap measure that would allow the agency to continue eavesdropping on Americans' communications without warrants.

In a postelection speech Wednesday, Bush mentioned the need for his administration to "work together" or "work with" the new Democratic leaders two dozen times.

But on Thursday, he urged the lame-duck Congress, still under the control of Republicans until January, to approve the National Security Agency program, which has been harshly criticized by Democrats for bypassing a special court established to approve warrants for top-secret investigations.

Instead of showing that he does, indeed, recognize that Americans overwhelmingly have called for a change of direction in Congress, Bush is violating the spirit of his own words. He is charging ahead with efforts to authorize a program that allows monitoring of Americans' communications without legal warrants or the checks and balances that assure such information is gathered legally.

The fate of this program should be tabled until the new congressional leadership takes over.

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