CIA Director-Designate Hayden: Evidence of a Feisty President Bush?

The president's nomination of Michael Hayden as CIA Director shows that he is not afraid of Senate (and major MSM) scrutiny of the NSA telephone surveillance affair. Indeed, it looks like the president is inviting a very public debate on the issue.

Hayden was director of the National Security Agency at the time the now-controversial wiretapping was going on. Do you think his confirmation hearings will be interesting? Arlen Specter, who remembered Bush's past loyalty to him for about 30 seconds, responds to the Hayden nomination in typical fashion:

[Senator Specter,] the Judiciary Committee chairman, told "FOX News Sunday"
that the Senate may use its role in the nomination process as "leverage" to
learn more about the president's decision to allow the National Security Agency
to conduct warrantless wiretaps of people in the United States who had
conversations with suspected terrorists abroad.

Bush must have known this would happen. Fox reports that Hayden is "known as someone willing to do battle in defense of the positions he holds."

Sounds good. Let's have a debate. Let's watch the Democrats, in an election year, rail against the NSA for listening to Al Qaueda phone calls to people living in America.