Obama: Eager to Have 'Debate' over NSA Surveillance

Now that we've found out about it, of course

The Obama administration has a familiar refrain on the surveillance of Americans' telephone records: the president and his team are eager to have the debate.

Eager, that is, only after others have brought the tactics to light and the administration has spent years employing them.

On Guantanamo and drone strikes, as well as his administration's aggressive use of leak investigations into the telephone records and e-mails of journalists, President Barack Obama and his aides often seem to cast him as a detached analyst or law professor watching policies carried out, rather than the one actually directing or responsible for them.