By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 8, 2006
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration’s domestic eavesdropping program.

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had “serious concerns” about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush’s father, is the first Republican on either the House’s Intelligence Committee or the Senate’s to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

Something tells me we will hear more from this woman in the near future. This is a smart move for a Congresswoman from libertarian leaning New Mexico. Seems bipartisan and tough, standing up to a lame duck president before the midterm elections when all stops are out. She just maybe could catapault into national attention at a time when there’s getting to ba a vacuum/vacuous leadership in her party. Who knows? If they could talk about Condi Rice running in ’08, why not this woman? Maybe at least a VP candidate to run against a Hillary Dem ticket.

Here’s the link to the entire story:

New York Times Online

Here’s another little tease from Slate online magazine about what goes on under the Bush admin. that makes me crazy:

Knight Ridder reports that the State Department has “sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political appointees.” The changes have come during a reorganization of various offices and created something of an uproar among career bureaucrats. “The process has been gravely flawed from the outset, and smacks plainly of a political vendetta against career Foreign Service and Civil Service (personnel) by political appointees,” said a “group of employees” in a rare letter of complaint to superiors late last year.