News Flash: President Caught in Direct Lie

George W. Bush spoke on the constitutionality of wiretaps during a speech on April 20, 2004.  The speech was intended to boost support for the Patriot Act.  The transcript is on the White House web site.

President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act
Kleinshans Music Hall
Buffalo, New York

[...] So the first thing I want you to think about is, when you hear Patriot Act, is that we changed the law and the bureaucratic mind-set to allow for the sharing of information. It's vital. And others will describe what that means.

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution. [...] 

[emphasis mine]

Recent events have shown that the President of the United States was lying to his own people.  In fact, a federal judge has resigned in protest:

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources. [...]

By the way, the polling editor at the Washington Post is annoyed by the email jams that he gets periodically, asking why the Post hasn't polled public opinion on the subject of impeachment.  He's going to learn that he should pay attention to these things.  If they had done such a poll, they might be able to see the effect of things such as this, from John Conyer's blog:

Today, I am releasing a staff report entitled, "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Coverups in the Iraq War.

Sometimes, the farther you get from power, the closer you get to the truth.  At least the WaPo is now linking to blogs.  If they actually read those links, perhaps they will get closer to the truth, or at least, get a hint of the storm before it comes.

HT: Todd Tyrtle (homepage) reminded me to check the ImpeachPAC website.  A link to the transcript of Bush's speech was sent to David Swanson by Michael Jay.