You know, Coz, you list "DailyKos" as if it's a monilithic voice, and then you pick and choose which blogger on Kos you link to to prove that "the left is already claiming they're listening to the phone calls, not simply data mining."

Hogwash. Don't make me post several links to columnists writing at the Daily Kos who do no such thing, who *don't* conflate data mining with "listening to phone calls."

Furthermore, this is what I personally dislike about the so-called "I"m an independent, the Dems are as bas as the Reps" crowd. You began the day trying to equate the "badness" of warrantless eavesdropping and data mining without warrants and the possible abuses therein with the "badness" of *possibly, maybe" The Left conflating/confusing/making a leap to claim that this is the same as listening to all phone calls.

The two are not the same, sorry. One is indeed worse. The gymnastics some undergo in order to make everything appear the same, Right Or Left, is troublesome.

So Daley might be dirty, huh? Huh. Yeah. Thus, obviously and QED, the ethics problems in politics right now are CLEARLY bipartisan.

Yeah. And while Kerry *did* get some purple hearts and a Silver Star, it's important that we do mention that some who never served with him claim he didn't deserve them. Just to be, you know, bipartisan and fair.

Screw being fair. The Abrahamoff scandal is a Republican problem, not a "bipartisan problem". The president's approval rating is more important than congress' approval rating in general.

And yes, given the abuses with this administration, data mining of *every single phone call made in the US* without any oversight is indeed a much bigger potential problem than someone on some Leftist blog engaging in hyperbole.

I actually agree that the faux-centrist/objective "let's hear both sides of the story" thing is bullshit. I don't think that I was equating the badness of the program with that of making it look worse than it is. My point was just that it's already bad enough, and that the loud voices on the left don't need to oversell it. And further, that overselling it can damage your credibility for those times when you're going to need it.

As for singling out a single DKos front page diarist, or whatever they call it, the point I was making, starting with the post before this one, was that I knew it was going to happen. The fully-formed and unposted thought was that, in fact, I expected either one of the main bloggers at dKos or a member of the House of Representatives to say it, although I would have put the over/under at 48 hours and gotten badly burned on the under.

Fred Kaplan had a good piece on the NSA program, too. I'll try to post something on that later.