Given all this help from the Bush camp, it's amazing to see that the Democrats stll can't seem to turn things to their advantage. But, really, who can blame them for freezing in the face of such formidable Mickey Mouse lawyering:

On the crucial issue of whether the president was required to have a FISA court approval, Gonzales said Thursday that the 1978 law created an exception for electronic surveillance "authorized by statute."

[snip]

But Turley [a George Washington University law professor --min] said that an "authorized-by-statute" exception simply meant that Congress had the authority to pass another law modifying FISA. It has not.

Turley noted that a case cited as precedent in the Justice Department paper involved the right of elementary and middle schools to search for drugs and other paraphernalia without permission.

"That is hardly a case on which to base national security policy," he said.

[emphasis mine]

Ofc, as we all know, law school does not teach you about laws. It teaches you about making shit up to suit your fancy.