It’s Spyapalloza 2006, as members of President George W. Bush’s administration fan out to give maximum cover to the shredding of a little thing we like to call the Fourth Amendment.

It started this weekend, as CIA identity leaker and political guru Karl Rove took to the Republican National Committee to tell Republicans to, once again, run on the war on terror. And it continued on Monday, as the former chief of the National Security Agency, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, assured America that the illicit, warantless National Security Agency spying on international phone calls of American citizens was “targeted and focused” and not a “drift net.”

Oh really? Later in a wire story — printed in today’s Review-Journal — Hayden admitted that going to a secret intelligence court after tapping somebody’s phone for 72 hours still required too much evidence to obtain a warrant. (And that court hands out warrants like big mortgage companies hand out Rolling Stones tickets, people!)

Translation: These guys are engaged in the biggest fishing expedition ever, and they don’t have anything in the way of probable cause. This makes the program all the more suspect, especially since they say they’re only tapping phones of people consider al Qaida suspects, but don’t tell us how they know those people are connected to the terrorist group.

Of course, Bush himself is leading from the front, telling another friendly crowd that Congress said it was OK for him to tap phones. (Congress said no such thing, which means he’s fibbing again.) He even sent his minions to brief Congress on the program, Bush said.

“If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?” Bush asked, to laughter.

Hmmmm, maybe because the program was secret and the briefed members of Congress couldn’t discuss it publicly? And even if they wanted to, most are total pussies unwilling to challenge an administration hell-bent on returning to the glory days of the late, unlamented (except by Ann Coulter) Joseph McCarthy?

“I’m mindful of your civil liberties, so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process,” Bush said.

Another misleading remark: Bush had only one kind of lawyer review his program: His own appointees! Folks like White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The odds that they were going to tell the president no? Zilch. And the white paper put out by the Justice Department justifying the program Jan. 19 was more of the same.

Bush is mindful of our civil liberties in the same way that most of us are mindful of the speed limit. We know it exists, we know it’s the law and we know we should follow it, but we never do. Only constitutional government isn’t threatened when we drive too fast.

Our favorite quote, however, has to be from Vice President Dick Cheney, who said that if the NSA spying program had been in place prior to Sept. 11, 2001, we may have detected the hijackings.

Memo to the veep: We did detect the hijackings. The FBI and CIA knew bits and pieces of the plot. And the much-vaunted NSA intercepted a warning that wasn’t translated until Sept. 12. If we’d had a more efficient, more coordinated government before Sept. 11, we could have prevented the attacks without threatening constitutional principles that the administration somehow seems to believe are optional.

They’re wrong. And each day that feckless Democrats allow Bush to continue to violate his oath of office without demanding an impeachment is another day they are accessories after the fact.

“If you are going to run for Congress, it is about you and your life and achievements and career. The only reason anybody knows who she [former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid Press Secretary Tessa Hafen] is, is because she works for Harry Reid. He will be an issue in the campaign but I would imagine a lot more early than late.”

— Mike Slanker, campaign consultant to U.S. Rep. Jon Porter in a Review-Journal story today announcing Hafen’s potential run for Porter’s seat.

This seems to be a double-edged sword: Run against Reid to beat Hafen and you risk angering Reid even more (and he’s already monumentally pissed at Porter). The more you bash, the more engaged he gets, the more money he helps Hafen raise. And given that Porter works for some really nasty people, too — we mean the House Republican leadership, not the insurance industry — the employer comparison is a tough sell, too.

We’re ready for the campaign to start, but apparently Hafen isn’t. She told us on Monday that she hadn’t made up her mind, but the R-J reported a potential campaign kickoff Feb. 20, which is a lot more early than late.