It's not playing well in Peoria.
Being from Chicago, I've always felt we moderate Republican Midwesterners (I was one, not anymore, nor are many Illinoisans anymore) were a good bellwether of where the country stood on various issues of the day.
This is not good for Bush, at all. It's also interesting that the Trib felt the need to publish tomorrow's editorial today, at 6pm central time. I don't think a lot of newspapers do that, publishing the next day's editorials so early the day before. They wanted to get this out there now, and first, because apparently they think this is big and important.
This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy. President Bush's assurance Thursday that the privacy of Americans was being "fiercely protected" was not at all convincing.
We need to know more about this. The government, though, didn't offer confirmation or elaboration on Thursday. Based on the newspaper's reporting, this effort appears to go far beyond any surveillance effort that would be targeted at terrorist operations....
Why would the government seek and store records of every telephone call to your doctor, your lawyer, your next door neighbor?
Tell us.
