Q1: Is the Bush administration spying on CNN reporters?
A1: Looks like it's a possibility. Consider:
The journalist in question, Iranian-born Christiane Amanpour of CNN, has already had a run-in with the post-9/11 Bush security apparatus, after her early reporting on al Qaeda.
Her husband (with whom, one supposes, she shares a phone, computer, and perhaps other tempting NSA wiretap targets) is a former Clinton State Department official, and adviser to both the Wesley Clark and later the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaigns.
NBC News, whose Andrea (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) Mitchell let the story slip, is apparently pursuing the NSA/Amanpour story in earnest.
Q2: Did the Abramoff plea deal this week really get its start a couple of years ago when a guy in the State Department dumped his fiancée, a former press secretary to Tom DeLay, for a manicurist?
A2: Looks like. Lot of dating dos 'n' don'ts could be adduced from a story like this, on topics ranging from the wisdom of office romance to the safest topics for pillow talk.
Q3: Is Bush simply going to dissolve Congress and declare himself the Sun King?
A3: Difficult to say. The man who wouldn't recognize "l'etat, c'est moi" if it bit him on the derriere has been able to shuffle this far toward monarchy without bothering to have the elected members of the Legislative branch hanged--but mainly because they've allowed his Constitutional overreaches (or were unable or unwilling) to head them off.
There are glimmerings of a Congress awakening to its duty, but it's not a moment too soon. Consider:
Bush, through the Justice Department (I'm not kidding; they still call themselves that!) has declared that the so-called War on Terror gives him power to break the law with impunity--including authorizing warrantless wiretaps on American citizens--so long as he is able to justify in the name of "keeping America safe."
He's abused the "recess appointment" rule to circumvent the advise and consent function of the Senate and pack key government positions--and we're talking important positions in State, Defense, and Homeland Security, plus several regulatory agencies, too, not just ambassadorships to Mooselvania--with cronies and fixers. Some of these people hadn't even had confirmation hearings. One of these specimens is now the lead prosecutor in the Abramoff case.
Even when, with his own hand, he signs a bill into law--e.g. the anti-torture bill that Bush and Cheney lobbied so heavily against--he's indicated he believes he can exempt himself from obeying it by attaching what amounts to a sticky-note of Presidential intent, declaring himself not to be bound by the law
Q4: At this rate, by January 20, 2009, will there be anything left--besides the ZIP codes--of the country most of us grew up in?
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