Little wonder that President Bush is defending his illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program. He has no alternative but to try to convince the public not to consider him a criminal and a threat to the Republic.

He's already essentially said the old Nixon line, "I am not a crook."

And like Nixon, he is one.

It is becoming increasingly evident not just to liberals but to honest conservatives that unless this president who thinks he's a king is called to account on this and other violations of the Constitution, those "inalienable" rights we've always claimed as a birthright will have been alienated. That means gone the modern vernacular.

Today, the Washington Times, the Fox News of the print world, weighed in with a story in its magazine that claimed the White House is gearing up for an impeachment battle, predicting that even in the current Republican House, there will be an effort to impeach Bush over the NSA spying. The same article said the White House is worried about losing in the Judiciary Committee on that count, but thinks it can manage to get a tie vote.

I find that speculation a bit unlikely at this point, but who knows? The blatant unconstitutionality of this particular presidential transgression, and the fact that he was caught red-handed and had to admit to it, makes it what George Tenet would call a "slam dunk" case.

In a way, though, it would be unfortunate, because other presidential crimes are much worse--his use of 500 "signing documents" to ignore acts of Congress (no wonder the guy never vetoes bills!), his lying to get the country into a war of agression that is bleeding the nation and its youth, his multiple war crimes and his "crime against peace," his gross negligence in not responding to the Katrina disaster or the looming global warming threat...

The list goes on and on. It would be a tragedy if this Constitutional outlaw ended up being brought up just on a charge of illegal spying by a Republican Judiciary Committee, and then battled that one charge to an almost certain win in the full House, and that was the end of it.

Better, I think, to let the charges keep growing through the 2006 campaign year, and then hit him with all of them at once.

Still, it's nice to see the president starting to squirm.

For other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .