Bush responsible for 9/11?

So here's a recent story from CNN about my good buddy, Karl. The pertinent part reads:

Rove said the government should be free to listen if al Qaeda is calling someone within the U.S.
"Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome," he said.

Quickly, before you read on, can you name the gigantic, preposterously titanic, galaxy-sized, 25-million-light-years wide, bigger-than-anything-that-has-ever-existed-before, mind-blowingly enormous, and impossibly gargantuan deception in that statement?

The government COULD have monitored terrorist calls before 9/11, and they could have recorded the calls first and obtained the warrant later.

The fact is, Bush wasn't worried that bin Laden was determined to blow up planes in America, so he wasn't listening to any calls on the topic.

That's the central lie in the Bush/Rove defense. FISA clearly lays out that the government CAN tap such calls whenever they want.

But to provide some checks and balances (you know, that trite concept upon which our entire country is founded...), FISA demands that the government apply for a warrant from a secret court within 72 hours of the recording. The secret court has over a 98% rate of approving recordings, so it's not like you're at risk of being turned down.

Thus, FISA never, EVER impeded Bush from thwarting 9/11. Bush could have recorded al Qaeda calls anytime he wanted, then simply applied for and received the warrant.

"It's just that easy!"

That's why Bush is in such trouble; he flagrantly violated the law when there was no need to do so. He could always record calls. He simply had to tell a secret court that he was doing it. But even that was too much of an imposition on his jurisdiction.

For my money, Rove's comment really indicts Bush because it ultimately admits that Bush failed to record phone calls that could have prevented 9/11 simply because he wanted to snub his nose at the law and our country's system of checks and balances.

So Bush had the authority to record ad Qaeda calls before 9/11. Why didn't he?

If we can impeach over a blowjob, can't we impeach over violations of the law? Or how about negligence that quite possibly allowed 9/11 to occur?

(Later update: After several emails, I feel I should clarify this point: I do NOT think that 9/11 was a Bush collusion, nor do I think that he had foreknowledge of the attack.

I'm just pointing out how disingenuous it is for Rove to act like Bush COULD have prevented 9/11 if it weren't for FISA, when FISA never, ever restricted him from recording calls.

Would Gore have taken the bin Laden threat more seriously? No way to know.)