Have you noticed how the Bush administration's ever-shifting justification for illegally spying on American citizens is starting to sound like their ever-changing justifications for invading Iraq? Apparently they govern according to the rules of Calvinball.

An editorial in today's New York Times explains why each right-wing talking point defending Bush's illegal wiretapping is wrong. For example: 

(read more after the jump...)

War changes everything. Mr. Bush says Congress gave him the authority to do anything he wanted when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan. There is simply nothing in the record to support this ridiculous argument.

The administration also says that the vote was the start of a war against terrorism and that the spying operation is what Mr. Cheney calls a "wartime measure." That just doesn't hold up. The Constitution does suggest expanded presidential powers in a time of war. But the men who wrote it had in mind wars with a beginning and an end. The war Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney keep trying to sell to Americans goes on forever and excuses everything.

Meanwhile over at Talk Left, Jeralyn Merritt uncovers clues in the failed Patriot Act II proving that Bush knew all along his surveillance program was illegal:

Why it matters now: It undermines Bush and Gonzales' claims that Bush didn't need Congress' approval or an amendment of FISA to engage in his warrantless electronic surveillance program, instituted in 2001.

In related news, after being told by the GOP to shut up or they wouldn't get dessert, House Democrats retreated to the basement to stamp their feet and hold their breath until they turned blue:

House Democrats said Bush has committed a crime in authorizing the spying and that House Republicans have abdicated their responsibilities by refusing to hold hearings.

Rep. John Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, and other Democrats met in a basement room of a House office building Friday to hear a panel of lawyers and activists discuss whether Bush had committed an impeachable offense.

To which GWU law professor and analyst Jonathan Turley added:

The NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program is "an intelligence operation in search of a legal rationale," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.

"What the president ordered in this case was a crime," added Turley, who said House Republicans are establishing a terrible precedent by not holding oversight hearings.

OK, then.