When Criminals Become Desperate The lies of the Bush administration have reached an all-time high as the Republicans look to shift blame and avoid impeachment. Today, I'll briefly refute two outrageous lies that are being used to justify the Bush administration's criminal use of warrantless wiretaps. GOP Lie #1: Revealing Bush's Use of Warrantless Wiretaps Helps the Terrorists This one only appeals to people incapable of independant thought. Atrios spells it out: No one has yet managed to explain how revealing that the administration illegally spies on American citizens without obtaining warrants, instead of legally spying on people after obtaining such warrants, damages national security. Terrorists know that they could be spied on regardless of the legality of the method, so they take precautions against it. This argument finds no rational basis and its use only serves to make Republicans seem mentally challenged. GOP Lie #2: Warrantless Wiretaps Would Have Prevented 9/11 Dick Cheney has resorted to the low tactic of saying that not only are warrantless wiretaps great, but they might have prevented 9/11. This is utter, complete nonsense. The FISA Court would have readily have issued warrants to conduct wiretaps on every single member of Al Qaeda. The problem, however, was that the Bush adminisration didn't care about Al Qaeda. Dick Cheney was the head of a terrorism task force that didn't meet even once after Bush's election in 2000. This brings to mind another issue -- why has Bush escaped blame for 9/11? He was the President and his inept policies regarding terrorism led to the deaths of 3,000 people. Every single death is on his hands because he didn't do anything about terrorism. The corporate news media never questioned Bush; craven Democrats haven't either. But 3,000 people died on Bush's watch. He purposely ignored the Clinton administration's warnings that Al Qaeda would attack the United States. Let's use Cheney's disgusting, deplorable lie as an opportunity to reopen this question: why did Bush let 9/11 happen? What steps DID you take to prevent 9/11, Mr. Bush? I'm waiting for an answer since you broached the subject.