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The Hardball Briefing On MSNBC
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Questions still swirl about whether President Bush legally bypassed the secret
court in charge of approving domestic spying. Speaking about the NSA's (now
formerly) secret domestic surveillance this afternoon in Crawford, Texas, White
House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters, "This is a limited program. This is
not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or
what to bring to a pot luck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from
very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter
trains, weddings and churches."
Tonight on Hardball, Norah O'Donnell, MSNBC's chief Washington correspondent
who is sitting in for Chris, will talk with attorney Dick Sauber and
investigative reporter Jim Bamford about the legal questions and procedures
involved in this brewing controversy. Norah also will talk with NBC's Kelly
O'Donnell, who is with the president in Crawford, about the White House's
stalwart stance in this debate.
In case you haven't seen it yet, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a report on
Saturday about the number of requests the FISA court modified, denied, or
deferred in the last few years -- far more than ever before:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/253334_nsaspying24.html.
Norah also will discuss these questions tonight with Roger Cressey, an MSNBC
counterterrorism analyst, and James Ridgeway, Washington columnist for the
Village Voice. They'll also discuss Ridgeway's new book, "The 5 Unanswered
Questions About 9/11: What the 9/11 Commission Report Failed to Tell Us."
Switching gears, Norah will delve into the many immigration and security issues
facing Congress and the president next year with George Taplin, leader of a
Minuteman Project group in Virginia, and Leslie Sanchez, a former advisor to
President Bush.
All of that is coming at you tonight along with analysis by Slate.com's John
Dickerson and the Wall Street Journal's John Harwood. Check out Dickerson's
most recent piece on the president's candor here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2132705/.
Here are some things you might not have read yet today:
--AP watches thousands of Sunnis and Shiites marched in Baghdad in a call for
unity http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10614981/
--MSNBC crunches the holiday shopping numbers
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10606299/
--AP previews an expected igniting of the immigration debate in 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10609068/
--MSNBC's Martin Wolk profiles incoming Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the 2006
economy http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10550518/
--AP reports that Gov. Schwarzenegger's popularity is hurting in his native
Austria http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10615664/
--Hardblogger! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/
--Doonesbury http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html
Brooke Brower compiled the "Hardball Briefing" in Washington, D.C.
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