Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guant�namo - New York Times

Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guant�namo - New York Times: "CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 11 � White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba"

Taking the White House’s lead, Republicans throughout the country used the arrests of terror suspects in Britain to go on the offensive against Democrats for the second day in a row.

They accused Democrats of failing to understand the nature of the terrorist threat facing the nation.

Aides to House Republican leaders said they believed that the arrests would help them make their case on other issues that will allow them to keep the focus on national security, including the call for tighter control of the border with Mexico.
Democrats promised to engage strongly in the newly energized debate on national security, saying they would not cede that ground.

They said they would argue that the White House and the Republican-led Congress had failed to provide the money necessary to protect Americans fully from the threat of terrorism and that President Bush had pursued a foreign policy, especially through the war in Iraq, that has fueled Islamic radicals and created more potential terrorists....

[bth: if torturing prisoners was productive, after five years, don't you think we'd have Osama Bin Laden's head on a pike? This agenda on wiretapping and prisoner torture is about presidential power and erosion of civil liberties by our own government - terrorism is the excuse. Torture and violation of the 4th amendment hasn't produced crap against real terrorists. Straight forward police work in Britain and Pakistan and old fashioned human intelligence produced the results. ...

we are on the verge of losing this war for the world's hearts and minds and we don't even realize it.]