“I always had a soft spot for Daschle even though he was still bringing knives long after it had become a gun fight.”
Atrios leading into a discussion on this from The Washington Post:
The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority “in the United States” in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today’s [December 23rd] Washington Post.
Daschle’s disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
Here’s the Daschle piece: Power We Didn’t Grant.