Karl Rove attacks judge over warrantless wiretaps

See if you can spot the damned lie in the following quote from Karl Rove's defense of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping:

Rove said the government should be free to listen if al Qaeda is calling someone within the U.S.

"Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome," he said.

They could have conducted aggressive and adequate surveillance against al Qaeda before 9/11. They simply failed to do so. The Bush administration's failure to stop the 9/11 attacks had absolutely nothing to do with FISA. It had absolutely nothing to do with the controversy over warrantless wiretapping. It had to do with the president's willful decision to put the threat of terrorism on the back burner, in favor of Missile Defense.

The headline of the August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing read, "Bin Ladin determined to strike in US." The FISA court, which has approved practically every warrant request ever placed before it would have undoubtedly approved one in this case. If, that is, the Bush administration had bothered to ask for one.

Karl Rove lies as naturally as he breathes. The reason he gets away with it is because outlets like CNN, "The Most Trusted Name in News," cannot be bothered to point out the simple fact that there was absolutely nothing to stop the Bush administration from wiretapping al Qaeda before 9/11, just as there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing it today.