Your Aunt Sadie in Paris is Safe from the Bush Administration

The Bush Administration is vigorously fighting back on the NSA eavesdropping kerfuffle, as well they should. The constant mischaracterizations by the press must be attacked, and the Vice President was in no mood to coddle reporters during his flight home from the other side of the world yesterday. Here's an exchange he had with a reporter:

Q Do you not understand, though, that some Americans are concerned to hear that their government is eavesdropping on these private conversations?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: What private conversations?

Q The private conversations between Americans and people overseas.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Which people overseas?

Q You tell me.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's important that you be clear that we're talking about individuals who are al Qaeda or have an association with al Qaeda, who we have reason to believe are part of that terrorist network. There are two requirements, and that's one of them. It's not just random conversations. If you're calling Aunt Sadie in Paris, we're probably not really interested.

This reporter clearly bought into the idea that the NSA is just randomly listening in to phone calls, and given the terrible reporting on this issue, I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, the Vice President doesn't have time to personally straighten out every bad reporter, so we'll have to hope some of them actually read something other than their own writing once in a while.