THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And the world trembles at his awesome majesty. Or something like that. Actually, he decisded that DOJ lawyers investigating his illegal wiretapping of US citizens couldn't have security clearence to do their job.

President Bush effectively blocked an internal investigation into the role played by Justice Department lawyers in approving a controversial warrantless eavesdropping program on calls between the United States and overseas, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified today.

During an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales was questioned by the panel's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), on why staffers in the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility were not allowed security clearances necessary to conduct an investigation into the eavesdropping program.

"It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access," Specter asked. "Why not OPR?"

"The president of the United States makes the decision," Gonzales answered....

...."The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons," Gonzales wrote. "Every additional security clearance that is granted for the TSP increases the risk that national security might be compromised."

But in a series of memos to Gonzales's deputy also released today, OPR chief H. Marshall Jarrett noted that "a large team of attorneys and agents" assigned to a criminal investigation of the disclosure of the NSA program were promptly granted the same clearances. He also noted that numerous other investigators and officials--including the members of a civil-liberties board--had been granted access to or briefed on the program.

If only Al Capone could have blocked the IRS lawyers from investigating his taxes, we might celebrate more than St Valentines Day.